Legal document: Bodl. MS heb. a 3/7

Description

Legal document. Record of release. In the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. Location: Fustat. Dated: 1125 CE. This document describes release from a partnership in glasswork, explaining that Shemarya ha-Kohen (also known as Abū al-Wafā b. Menashshe ha-Kohen) demanded 9 and 1/6 dinars of his erstwhile partners Yiṣḥaq b. Yehuda and Yiṣḥaq's son Abū al-Karam. Yiṣḥaq gave Shemarya a settlement, andShemariah released him and his son from the partnership. The settlement of the partnership is effected through arbitration (“bederekh peshara”) by a number of “Elders of equity and propriety”. Per Goitein, Jewish courts of the Geniza period generally first sought settlements outside the court. Court decisions themselves not only required the attention of a higher court, such decisions also required an oath (a troublesome process for the court and the community). But a settlement through arbitration did not even require a qinyan. The judges in this case, Avraham b. Shemaʿya and Yiṣḥaq b. Shemuel ha-Sefaradi, are the two “permanent judges” of Fusṭāṭ of the period. (Information from Lieberman, "A Partnership Culture", 12-14)