Legal document: ENA NS 13.34
Legal document ENA NS 13.34Tags
Description
Legal document. Partnership agreement. Location: Bilbays. Dated: January 1209. This document is a partnership agreement in a perfume- and dye-manufacturing shop. The partners, Faḍā’il b. Abū al-Ḥasan and Manṣūr b. Abū Sa‘īd, contribute a total of 700 dirhams (200 and 500 dirhams respectively). The document doesn't use the formal terms shirka or mu‘āmala to describe their relationship, but the parties attest to "having partnered" in the shop. Both partners seem to work in the operation, profits and losses are generally to be split equally, and weekly maintenance is specified for each party. Manṣūr seems to be the senior partner; he brings more assets to the partnership, and the facility itself may belong to him, as he is allocated 4 dirhams of rent for the shop each month. However, income from the sale of scent sachets was allocated to Faḍā’il, who may have produced these alone without Manṣūr's assistance. Written and signed by Yehuda b. Tuvyahu he-Ḥaver ha-Kohen, Meshullam b. Mevorakh and Berakhot b. Elazar ha-Ḥazzan. (Information from Lieberman, "A Partnership Culture", 73-74) The verso is a bifolium of a bible.
Edition: Goitein, S. D.
Translation: Ackerman-Lieberman, Phillip (in English)
ENA NS 13.34 1
Transcription
S. D. Goitein, unpublished editions.- שהדותא דא דהות באנפנא אנן שהדי דחתמות
- ידנא לתתא כן הוה למא כאן יום אלתנין אלעשרין
- מן חדש טבת שנת אתקכ לשטרות בעיר בלביס
- הסמוכה לארץ גשן מותבה חצר אלינא אלשיך פצאיל
- בן אלשיך אבו אלחסן הזקן נע ואלשיך מנצור בן אלשיך
- אבו סעיד הזקן סט וקאלו לנא אקנו מנא ואשהדו עלינא
- ואכתבו ואכתמו בגמיע אלאלפאט אלמחכמה
- ואלמעאני אלמאכדה ובכל לישאני דזכואתא אן
- קד אשתרכנא פי צמאן שברא אלנכלה אלעטר
- ואלצבג ואכרגנא ראסמאל סבע מאיה דרהמא
- לל[ש]יך פצאיל דנן מאיתין דרהם וללשיך מנצור
- דנן כמס מאיה דרהם ואכלטנא אלגמיע ותקרר
- ביננ[א אל]רבח ואלוציעה באלסויה ולפצאיל פי כל גמעה
- ד[.] שריכה מנצור דגאגה ונצף ויבה קמח וארבעה
- דראהם כרא אלדכאן כל שהר וגמיע אלבראני ואלבראני
- אלפכאר ללשיך פצאיל כאצה ואקנינא מן אלשיך
- פצאיל ואלשיך מנצור הנזכרים לעיל בקניין גמור
- חמור בכלי הכשר לקנות בו מעכשיו בבטול
- כל מודעים(!) ותנאין על כל מה דכתיב ומפרש
- לעילא וכתבנא תרי נוסחי והכל שריר
- ובריר וקיים יהודה הכהן ביר טוביהו החבר זל
- משולם בר מבורך נע ברכות בר אלעזר החזן סט
Translation
Phillip Ackerman-Lieberman, "A Partnership Culture: Jewish Economic and Social Life Seen Through the Legal Documents of the Cairo Geniza" (PhD diss., Princeton University, 2007).Recto
- This testimony was before us—we, the witnesses, whose signature
- appears below. Thus: on Monday, the twentieth
- of the month of Ṭevet of the year 1520 (of the Era) of Documents, in the town of Bilbays,
- situated adjacent to the Land of Goshen, the Elder Faḍā’il
- b. the Elder Abū al-Ḥasan the Elder, (who) r(ests in) E(den), and the Elder Manṣūr b. the Elder
- Abū Sa‘īd the Elder (may his) e(nd be) g(ood), came before us, and said to us, “Perform a qinyan with us, and testify concerning us,
- write and sign using all the appropriate legal formulae
- and the expressions of certainty, and all the language of claims, that
- the two of us have collaborated in responsibility for “Two spans of a date palm”—the perfume
- and the dye. We brought out the capital of seven hundred dirhams—
- from this [E]lder Faḍā’il two hundred dirhams, and from this Elder Manṣūr
- five hundred dirhams, and we commingled the total. We established
- amongst oursel[ves that the] profit and the loss would be (distributed) equally, and Faḍā’il would be entitled every Friday
- … his partner Manṣūr a chicken and a half-waiba of flour—and four
- dirhams of rent for the shop each month. Every “freshening vessel”
- of the clay-worker will be allocated to the Elder Faḍā’il. We performed the qinyan with the aforementioned Elder
- Faḍā’il and the Elder Manṣūr, a complete
- and weighty qinyan, with an item suitable for doing so, effective immediately, nullifying
- all secret dispositions and conditions concerning all that which has been written and specified
- above. We wrote two copies. Everything is proper
- and clear and enduring. Judah ha-Kohen b. Tobijah the Ḥaver (may his) m(emory be) f(or a blessing)
- Meshullam b. Mevorakh (who) r(ests in) E(den) Berakhot b. Eleazar the Ḥazzan (may his) e(nd be) g(ood)
ENA NS 13.34 2
