Part 5

He may have had trade and mercantile operations in view. He certainly dwells on matters of commercial interest with considerable detail. Probably he was actuated by both motives, coupled with the pious wish of making a pilgrimage to the land of his fathers.

Whatever his intentions may have been, we owe Benjamin no small debt of gratitude for handing to posterity records that form a unique contribution to our knowledge of geography and ethnology in the Middle Ages.

III. BIBLIOGRAPHY.

"The Itinerary of Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela," prepared and published by A. Asher, is the best edition of the diary of that traveller. The first volume appeared in 1840, and contained a carefully compiled Hebrew text with vowel points, together with an English translation and a bibliographical account. A second volume appeared in 1841 containing elaborate notes by Asher himself and by such eminent scholars as Zunz and Rapoport, together with a valuable essay by the former on the Geographical Literature of the Jews and on the Geography of Palestine, also an Essay by Lebrecht on the Caliphate of Bagdad.

In addition to twenty-three several reprints and translations enumerated by Asher, various others have since appeared from time to time, but all of them are based upon the two editions of the text from which he compiled his work. These were the Editio Princeps, printed by Eliezer ben Gershon at Constantinople, 1543, and the Ferrara Edition of 1556, printed by Abraham Usque, the editor of the famous "Jews" Bible in Spanish.

Asher himself more than once deplores the fact that he had not a single MS. to resort to when confronted by doubtful or divergent readings in the texts before him.

I have, however, been fortunate enough to be able to trace and examine three complete MSS. of Benjamin's Travels, as well as large fragments belonging to two other MSS., and these I have embodied in my present collation. The following is a brief description of the MSS.:--

I. BM, a MS. in the British Museum (No. 27,089). It is bound up with some of Maimonides' works, several Midrashic tracts, a commentary on the Hagadah by Joseph Gikatilia, and an extract from Abarbanel's commentary on Isaiah; it forms part of the Almanzi collection, which curiously enough was purchased by the British Museum from Asher & Co. in October, 1865, some twenty years after Asher's death.

Photographs of three pages of this MS. will be found with the Hebrew text. With regard to the date of the MS., some competent judges who have seen it assign it to the thirteenth century, and this view has some support from Professor S.D. Luzzatto, who, in Steinschneider's Hammazkir (vol. V, fo. 105, xvii) makes the following comment upon it:--

This MS. is the groundwork of the text I have adopted.

2. R, or the Roman MS., in the Casanatense library at Rome, and numbered No. 216 in the Catalogue Sacerdote. This MS. occupies the first twenty-seven leaves of Codex 3097, which contains fifteen other treatises, among them a text of Eldad Hadani, all written by the same scribe, Isaac of Pisa, in 5189 A.M., which corresponds with 1429-1430 (see Colophon at the end of the Hebrew text, page [HEBREW: ayn-nun]). Under my direction Dr. Grünhut, of Jerusalem, proceeded to Rome, and made a copy. Subsequently I obtained a collation of it made by the late Dr. Neubauer; both have been used in preparing the notes to the text. Later on, after the Hebrew text had already been printed, I visited Rome, and on examining the MS. I found that a few variants had been overlooked. I had facsimiles made of several pages, which will be found with the Hebrew text.

3. E, a MS. now in the possession of Herr Epstein of Vienna, who acquired it from Halberstamm's collection. The only reliable clue as to the date of this MS. is the license of the censor: "visto per me fra Luigi da Bologna Juglio 1599." Herr Epstein considers it to have been written at the end of the fifteenth or beginning of the sixteenth century. The MS. is on paper and in "Italian" handwriting. It contains seventy-four quarto pages of from 19-20 lines each. Speaking generally it is analogous to the edition of Ferrara, 1556, which was used by Ashor as the groundwork of his text (Asher, p. 3), but the spelling of persons and places in E often differs from that in the text of Asher.

4. O, in the Oppenheim collection of the Bodleian Library (MS. Opp. add. 8° 36; ff. 58-63; Neubauer 2425), is a fragment. Its first three leaves are continuous, beginning at p. 61 of Asher's edition and ending at p. 73. After this there is a lacuna of four leaves, and the fragment, which recommences at p. 98 of Asher's edition, is then continuous to the end of the book. The volume in which it is bound contains various other treatises written by the same scribe, and includes a fragment on Maimonides, whose death is mentioned as occurring in 1202, and also part of a controversy of Nachmanides which took place in 1263.

The MS. is in Spanish Rabbinic characters, and would appear to have been written in the fourteenth or fifteenth century. For the collation of this and the following fragment I am indebted to the kindness of my friend Mr. A. Cowley, of Oxford. Photographs of pages of both MSS. will be found with the Hebrew text.

5. B, also in the Oppenheim collection of the Bodleian Library (MS. Opp. add. 8°, 58; fol. 57; Neubauer 2580). This fragment begins at p. 50 of Asher's edition. The date of this fragment is probably much later than that of O, and may well be as late as the eighteenth century. It appears to be written in an oriental hand.

In addition to the critical text, I give a translation of the British Museum MS., and add brief notes thereto. I have purposely confined the latter to small dimensions in view of the fact that Asher's notes, the Jewish Encyclopaedia, and the works of such writers as Graetz and others, will enable the reader to acquire further information on the various incidents, personages, and places referred to by Benjamin. I would, however, especially mention a work by Mr. C. Raymond Beazley entitled "The Dawn of Modern Geography," particularly his second volume, published in 1901. The frank and friendly manner in which the writer does justice to the merits of the Jewish traveller contrasts favourably with the petty and malignant comments of certain non-Jewish commentators, of which Asher repeatedly complains.

It is not out of place to mention that soon after the publication in 1841 of the work on Benjamin by A. Asher, there appeared a review thereof in consecutive numbers of the Jewish periodical Der Orient. The articles bore the signature Sider, but the author proved to be Dr. Steinschneider. They were among the first literary contributions by which he became known. Although written sixty-five years ago his review has a freshness and a value which renders it well worth reading at the present day. The ninetieth birthday of the Nestor of Semitic literature was celebrated on March 30 of last year, and it afforded no little gratification to the writer that Dr. Steinschneider on that occasion accepted the dedication to him of this the latest contribution to the "Benjamin Literature." The savant passed away on the 23rd of January last, and I humbly dedicate my modest work to his memory.

I have the pleasure of expressing my thanks to the editors of the Jewish Quarterly Review, who have permitted me to reprint my articles; also to Dr. Berlin and other friends for their co-operation; and to the Delegates of the Oxford University Press for allowing me to make use of the map of Western Asia in the twelfth century, which was designed by Professor S. Lane-Poole.

Marcus N. Adler. May 27, 1907.

* * * * *

THE ITINERARY OF BENJAMIN OF TUDELA.

HEBREW INTRODUCTION.

This is the book of travels, which was compiled by Rabbi Benjamin, the son of Jonah, of the land of Navarre--his repose be in Paradise.

The said Rabbi Benjamin set forth from Tudela, his native city, and passed through many remote countries, as is related in his book. In every place which he entered, he made a record of all that he saw, or was told of by trustworthy persons--matters not previously heard of in the land of Sepharad. Also he mentions some of the sages and illustrious men residing in each place. He brought this book with him on his return to the country of Castile, in the year 4933 (C.E. 1173). The said Rabbi Benjamin is a wise and understanding man, learned in the Law and the Halacha, and wherever we have tested his statements we have found them accurate, true to fact and consistent; for he is a trustworthy man.

His book commences as follows:--I journeyed first from my native town to the city of Saragossa, and thence by way of the River Ebro to Tortosa. From there I went a journey of two days to the ancient city of Tarragona with its Cyclopean and Greek buildings. The like thereof is not found among any of the buildings in the country of Sepharad. It is situated by the sea, and two days' journey from the city of Barcelona, where there is a holy congregation, including sages, wise and illustrious men, such as R. Shesheth, R. Shealtiel, R. Solomon, and R. Abraham, son of Chisdai. This is a small city and beautiful, lying upon the sea-coast.

Merchants come thither from all quarters with their wares, from Greece, from Pisa, Genoa, Sicily, Alexandria in Egypt, Palestine, Africa and all its coasts. Thence it is a day and a half to Gerona, in which there is a small congregation of Jews. A three days'journey takes one to Narbonne, which is a city pre-eminent for learning; thence the Torah (Law) goes forth to all countries. Sages, and great and illustrious men abide here. At their head is R. Kalonymos, the son of the great and illustrious R. Todros of the seed of David, whose pedigree is established. He possesses hereditaments and lands given him by the ruler of the city, of which no man can forcibly dispossess him. Prominent in the community is R Abraham, head of the Academy: also R. Machir and R. Judah, and many other distinguished scholars. At the present day 300 Jews are there.

Thence it is four parasangs to the city of Beziers, where there is a congregation of learned men. At their head is R. Solomon Chalafta, R Joseph, and R. Nethanel. Thence it is two days to Har Gaash which is called Montpellier. This is a place well situated for commerce.

It is about a parasang from the sea, and men come for business there from all quarters, from Edom, Ishmael, the land of Algarve, Lombardy, the dominion of Rome the Great, from all the land of Egypt, Palestine, Greece, France, Asia and England. People of all nations are found there doing business through the medium of the Genoese and Pisans. In the city there are scholars of great eminence, at their head being R. Reuben, son of Todros, R. Nathan, son of Zechariah, and R. Samuel, their chief rabbi, also R. Solomon and R. Mordecai. They have among them houses of learning devoted to the study of the Talmud. Among the community are men both rich and charitable, who lend a helping hand to all that come to them.