Acknowledgements
This book is based on my dissertation, which I completed in a bi-nationally supervised PhD scheme at the École Pratique des Hautes Études/PSL Research University, Paris in 2021 under the supervision of Judith Olszowy-Schlanger (Paris/Oxford) and Elisabeth Hollender of the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University (Frankfurt). Both my supervisors I would like to thank for the ways in which they supported my work. I am grateful to Daniel Stökl Ben Ezra (Paris) for his continuous interest in and enthusiasm for this project from its very inception as well as to Geoffrey Khan (Cambridge) for being part of the PhD review committee.
I thank Ben Outhwaite (Cambridge), the editor of the Cambridge Genizah Studies Series, and all the reviewers for their comments on this work as well as for their generosity in accepting it for publication. It is also my pleasant duty to express my sincere thanks again to Ben Outhwaite (Cambridge), Daniel Stökl Ben Ezra (Paris), and Avi Shmidman (Ramat Gan) for their assistance with acquiring research funds. These enabled me to view the manuscripts at Cambridge University Library, Oxford University, and the British Library in situ, as well as microfilms at the National Library of Israel, through which I could avoid mistakes in the edition. In this regard, I would also like to thank all the librarians and staff of the libraries whose manuscripts I used for this study. The images in this book are reproduced with kind permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library, the courtesy of the Bodleian Libraries of the University of Oxford, the courtesy of the Library and Information Centre of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and the courtesy of the Jewish Theological Seminary.
In many ways authoring this book rests on the generosity of scholars who were willing to share their knowledge with me. I would like to thank everyone who took the time to answer my requests and gave me advice. Here I would like to single out a few. I thank Margaret Connolly (St Andrews), who was the first scholar I approached and who kindly answered my request despite not knowing me. This gave me the courage to approach others. I am most thankful to Tahera Qutbuddin (then in Chicago, now in Oxford) for answering my queries and for putting me in touch with Bilal Orfali (Beirut), whom I thank for forwarding me the Arabic numerical work I use as comparative material in the book. I benefited from the reading advice Gregor Schoeler (Basel) gave me, which enabled me to confirm my hypothesis about the textual structure that developed into one of the main arguments put forward in this book.
My gratitude for assistance also goes out to César Merchán-Hamann (Oxford), Timo Christian (then in Frankfurt, now in Kiel), Joseph O’Hara (Oxford), and Daniel Birnstiel (Frankfurt).
As mentioned above, the work on the manuscripts treated in this book benefited from numerous grant-providing institutions. I would like to thank my French laboratory Savoirs et Pratiques du Moyen Âge à l’époque contemporaine (Saprat), and the École doctorale no. 472 of the École Pratique des Hautes Études/PSL University for supplying travel grants on numerous occasions, which gave me the opportunity to present my findings at conferences. Equally, I received financial support from the Minerva Foundation (Germany), the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture (USA), and the Université franco-allemande (France/Germany), which covered travelling expenses for research stays in Israel, Great Britain, and France.
The publication of this book in print as well as in its open access format was facilitated to a great degree by my current work engagement at the Unit for Judaic studies situated at the Ludwig Maximilians University (Germany), which provided the means for the language editing of this book. Substantial support for the publication was also granted by the Irene Bollag Herzheimer Foundation (Switzerland), to whom I am most thankful for their decision to invest in this publication enterprise.
My deepest-felt private thanks go out to a small circle of friends, Agnes, Feli, Annette, and Florian, who were there for me while I was drafting my dissertation. I am further much indebted and thankful to Dorothee Kaudewitz (Heidelberg) and Heike Westenberger-Breuer (Frankfurt), whose care and encouragement first and foremost allowed me to cope with unforeseen life events.
Working on this project taught me many lessons on numerous levels. I started this work by eagerly reading Mary and Richard Rouse’s and Ralph Hanna’s works that unfolded before me the tapestry of medieval Western book culture and history. Their work drew me in and challenged me to develop my own ideas. The findings presented in this book are the result of my attempt to holistically understand the workings of this fascinating book corpus. With the argument put forward in this book, I open up new horizons in the treatment of texts taken as material and textual artefacts. The approach applied allows me to explore and challenge the margins of book history, an endeavour by which I aim to point out this discipline’s underdeveloped aspects and potentials. Connecting different intertwined aspects I investigate the overlooked parts of literature. I cast light on new factors which connect historical, material, and literary phenomena to their contexts. As is visible from the list above, I am indebted to many people for helping me succeed in capturing this work adequately. Of course, it remains for me to state that all shortcomings of this book and the views expressed herein are my own.
Lastly, I would like to mention that the dissertation upon which this book is based was awarded the 2022 Forschungspreis of the Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft (Germany). I am honoured and humbled to have received such a prestigious accolade for this piece of work and I hope that the methodology and results put forward in this book will equally find favour in the eyes of its readers.
Munich, November 2024