List or table: T-S K15.102

List or table T-S K15.102

Metadata

Shelfmark
T-S K15.102
Primary Language
Judaeo-Arabic

What's in the PGP

  • Image
  • 1 Translation

Description

Large, calligraphic alms list. Dating: first half of the twelfth century. According to Goitein, written for the purpose of allocating communal assistance. Cohen: "What kind of assistance was meant cannot be determined (cash?), but Goitein suggests that the numbers squeezed in between the lines represent the number of persons in each household (there are about eighty-five households) and that the entries bearing no numbers consist of households with only one person. In most of the alms lists recording the ration of loaves of bread distributed Tuesday and Friday the numbers occur next to the names of the recipients. On the reverse side, room was left for the Rum, but instead, there is a telling note: "The Rum cannot be counted." The list is headed by a ben tovim, a man from a good family.... To counteract embarrassment, this "man from a good family" was listed anonymously, though in first position on the list, a position of prestige, just before the relatives of two other persons of stature. The persons of stature are called "the head," perhaps a government clerk or a physician, so called because they often headed hospital departments. Later in the list we come upon an unusual entry, the "concealed" glassmaker, zajjaj mastur, nestled among a (poorly paid) parchment maker, a mason (another low-paid wage-eamer), and an immigrant woman (a widow, apparently) from Acre who was living in the home of one of the prominent merchants of Fustat, al-Lebdī. This glassmaker, a representative of the "working poor" and ashamed to appear on an alms list, had himself listed (or was listed by the charity overseers) both anonymously and as mastur, indicating that he normally did not seek charity. Note should be taken in this list of the many menial occupations, including a teacher, several synagogue beadles, and several kashrut supervisors. Hovering just above the "poverty line," they frequently needed supplementation from the community chest. Plenty of widows and orphans crop up here, as well as a couple of divorcees. Other "weak" persons are the ill or afflicted." (Information from Cohen, Voice of the Poor, 149)

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Additional metadata

Provenance
Geniza
Collection
Cambridge University Library, Taylor-Schechter
Historical shelfmarks
TS K, 15, fol. 102; TS Box K, 15, fol. 102; TS K, 15, f. 102; TS Box K, 15, f. 102
Input date
In PGP since 2017
Image
Transcription
Translation

T-S K15.102 1r

°
1r
Mark R. Cohen, The Voice of the Poor in the Middle Ages (Princeton University Press, 2005).

recto, right [Col. 1]

  1. In (your) n(ame) O Me(rciful)
  2. man from a good family someone’s acquaintance 3 Umm Salāma 3  4  5
  3. the father-in-law of “the head” 5 the sister of “the head” 4
  4. Maʿarrī 5 the Levite from the Ḥijāz 1
  5. the house of Musallam from Hebron 3 the daughter of Shalom 2
  6. b. al-Mawwaz 1 the daughter of al-Māʿūnī
  7. the beadle of al-Maḥalla 4 the daughter of Nafīʿ
  8. the house of Jāzifīnī 4 the house of Faraḥ 4
  9.  Ibrahīm from Hebron 5 Umm Fuhayd 3
  10. ʿImrān 5 the man with fainting spells 5
  11. Umm Hilāla the house of Abū ʿImrān 5
  12. the house of the money assayer 4 the sister of Surūr 2
  13. Umm Fuḍayl Fuhayd the stricken man 5
  14. the afflicted person 3 another afflicted person
  15. the old person bint ʿAnaynāt 3
  16. b. Bishrān 3 Yehudah
  17. the house of Nafīʿ the mother-in-law of Shemuʾel 2
  18. Abū Hilāl 3 Abū Hilāl the deaf man
  19. b[int al-]fuqqāʿī 3 the mother of the house of Daniʾel 4
  20. Yosef the stricken man 2 the house of al-Jady 2

recto, left [Col. II]

  1. the wife of the man from Tripoli the man from Caesarea
  2. the mother of the orphan errand boys 6 a supervisor from Andalusia 4
  3. Isḥaq the supervisor 3 the supervisor from the Ḥijāz
  4. Sulaymān the supervisor 2 someone’s acquaintance
  5. the divorcée of Abū Saʿīd the orphans of b. Shekhanya 2
  6. the wife of Abū Yaʿqūb Wahīb 3
  7. the man from Bānyās 3 the brothers of Khilāfa 5
  8. the daughter of the worker/dealer in lead 2 a woman from Hebron 3
  9. the son of the woman from Palestine 4 an ailing man from Hebron
  10. the parchment maker 4 the “concealed” glassmaker 4
  11. the Kohen the mason 4 the woman from Acre living in the courtyard house of //al-Lebdī//
  12. the house of Barukh 4 the mother of his people 5
  13. the acquaintance of the house of the elder Abu’l-Bayān 5
  14. an old person from Jerusalem another woman from Jerusalem
  15. the wife of the tanner 2 the orphans of the beadle 4
  16. the house of Salāma 3 son of the man from Qalahā 3
  17. the tall woman the mother in law of Yosef b. al-Munajjim
  18. Umm Yosef b. al-Munajjim 3 Umm Jāliya 2
  19. the divorcée of the producer/seller of fine things 3 Sulaymān the blind man 2
  20. b. al-Nāqid the blind man 4 Sabīʿ the blind man 2

T-S K15.102 1v

°
1v

verso

  1. the sister of Iṣḥaq the wife of Musāfir
  2. Umm Hilāla the orphans of Simḥa 4
  3. b. Simḥa 2 the person with ophthalmia
  4. Shimon 3 a stricken man from Alexandria
  5. Abū Saʿīd the teacher 3 Umm Maʿālī
  6. b. […] 3 the woman from Aleppo and her children
  7. The Rum cannot be counted
  8. the beadles of the synagogues the orphans in the house of the cantor
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  • T-S K15.102: Provided by Cambridge University Library. Zooming image © Cambridge University Library, All rights reserved. This image may be used in accord with fair use and fair dealing provisions, including teaching and research. If you wish to reproduce it within publications or on the public web, please contact genizah@lib.cam.ac.uk.
Cambridge University Library, Taylor-Schechter, T-S K15.102. Available online through the Princeton Geniza Project at https://geniza.princeton.edu/documents/8520/ (accessed August 7, 2026).