Letter: Bodl. MS heb. d 66/34

Description

Petition from Dalāl bt. Masʿūd/Seʿadya (Umm Ibrāhīm), in Bilbays, to the dignitary Abū l-Barakāt Yehuda b. Elʿazar ha-Kohen (titled "ha-Sar" and "Sofer ha-Malkhut," i.e., a government secretary/kātib). When the Frankish king Amalric captured the city of Bilbays in eastern Egypt in November 1168, he took many captives, including Jews. Some participated in finding the means to redeem themselves. This petitioner was one of them, a widow who paid the ransom fees or part of them in installments, one dinar at a time. Abū l-Barakāt had previously helped her and suggested that she leave a dinar with him until she needed it, since ransom fees weren't always paid promptly. When the time came to pay̦, the son of the widow's mother, who was a guarantor on her behalf, had been detained by the police or put under house arrest, so Dalāl asks the minister to do the favor he had promised. (Information from Goitein, Palestinian Jewry, 319–20)