Pigs in the Tripartite Mahzor
Zodiac sign of Crab for month Tamuz. Tripartite Mahzor vol.1, Germany, Lake Constance, ca.1320; Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Kaufmann Collection, MS Kaufmann A384, fol.143a
Hybrid with a body of a roar, legs of a frog, and a fish as its tail.
The Tripartite Mahzor, a fourteenth-century Ashkenazi prayerbook is divided into three parts. The first part is preserved in Budapest, in the Kaufmann collection of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MS A384). It contains prayers and piyyuts for the special Shabbats, Purim, Pesah (Passover), and the Song of Songs. The second part (London, British Library Add. Ms. 22413) contains prayers and piyyuts for Shavuot, the Book of Ruth, Sukkot and the Book of Ecclesiastes. In the third volume (Oxford, Bodleian Library Ms. Michael 619) there are prayers and piyyuts for Rosh ha-Shanah and Yom Kippur. While the size of the codices is different, the size of the text areas and the style of the illuminations are the same. Therefore, the three volumes probably originally constituted a one- or two-volume codex, which began with Rosh ha-Shanah and ended with Shavuot. It may have been cut and divided into three parts some time later. None of the volumes has a colophon. The only name given is that of the scribe. He was a certain Hayyim. His name is written at the end of the commentary to Ruth (“חיים חזק”, vol.2, fol. 80v), and this word is decorated in the text in another page of the same volume (fol.103v). A certain scribe Hayyim (חיים סופר) also copied the so-called Schocken Bible (Southern Germany, c.1300; Jerusalem, Schocken Library, Ms.14840), and two close stylistic relatives of the Tripartite Mahzor: the Pentateuch of the Duke of Sussex (Southern Germany; London, British Library, Add. Ms 15282) and the Sefer Mitzvot Katan (Lake Constance Region, probably Konstanz, ca.1310; Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek Cod. Heb. 75).
External links
http://kaufmann.mtak.hu/en/ms384/ms384-143r.htm
contributor: Zsofia Buda mphbuz01@phd.ceu.hu Central European University
