medical synonym lists from medieval provence shem tov ben isaac of tortosa_sefer ha-shimmush_book 29

7/21/2019 Medical Synonym Lists From Medieval Provence Shem Tov Ben Isaac of Tortosa_Sefer Ha-Shimmush_Book 29

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Medical Synonym Listsfrom Medieval Provence:

Shem ov ben Isaac of ortosa,Sefer ha-Shimmush, Book 29


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Medical Synonym Lists

from Medieval Provence:Shem ov ben Isaac of ortosa,

Sefer ha-Shimmush, Book 29

Part 1: Edition and Commentary of List 1(Hebrew Arabic Romance/Latin)

By

Gerrit BosMartina Hussein

Guido MenschingFrank Savelsberg

LEIDEN BOSON2011


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Tis book is printed on acid-free paper.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Shem ov ben Isaac, of ortosa, 13th cent.

Medical synonym lists from medieval Provence : Shem ov ben Isaac of ortosa, Seferha-Shimmush, Book 29.p. cm. (tudes sur le judasme mdival ; t. 37)

Contains lists of terms in Hebrew, Aramaic and Provenal, with their equivalents in Arabic,Latin and Provenal transliterated into Hebrew; commentary in English.

Tese supplementary lists were appended by Shem ov ben Isaac of ortosa to his Seferha-Shimush, a translation into Hebrew of asrif li-man 'ajiza 'an al-ta'lif by Abu al-QasimKhalaf ibn 'Abbas al-Zahrawi.

Includes bibliographical references.ISBN 978-90-04-16764-3 (hard cover : alk. paper)1. Medicine, Medievalerminology. 2. Plants in the Bibleerminology. 3. Plants in

rabbinical literatureerminology. 4. Hebrew language, MedievalGlossaries, vocabularies, etc.

5. Aramaic languageGlossaries, vocabularies, etc. 6. Provenal languageGlossaries,vocabularies, etc. 7. Arabic languageransliteration into Hebrew. 8. Latin language, Medievaland modernransliteration into Hebrew. 9. Provenal languageransliteration into Hebrew.10. Shem ov ben Isaac, of ortosa. Sefer ha-Shimmush. Book 29. I. Bos, Gerrit, 1948- II. Abual-Qasim Khalaf ibn 'Abbas al-Zahrawi, d. 1013? asrif li-man 'ajiza 'an al-ta'lif. III. itle. IV.Series.

R128.S54 2010610.1'4dc22

2009032747

ISSN: 0169-815XISBN: 978 90 04 16764 3

Copyright 2011 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, Te Netherlands.Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing,IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored ina retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher.

Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NVprovided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to Te Copyright Clearance Center,222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA.Fees are subject to change.


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CONENS

Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . General Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Source Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hebrew Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1. General Overview and Preliminaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

.. Aims and Organisation o this Edition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.. ranscription System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

. Medieval Synonym Lists in Hebrew Characters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5. Shem ovs Synonym Lists in theSeer ha-Shimmush . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

.. Biographical and Historical Context .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.. Background and Motivation o theSeer ha-Shimmushand

the wo Synonym Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12. How Shem ovs Synonym Lists Were Compiled . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

.. Sources or Hebrew and Arabic. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.. Sources or Romance and Latin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22.. Creation o New erms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

. Te Vernacular Element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32.. Jewish-Romance Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32.. Te Old Occitan Language and How It Is Reflected in the

ext . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34.. Dialectal Variation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41.. Catalan, French and Latin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44.. Spelling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

. Te Edition and the Commentary... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52.. Manuscripts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52.. Notes on the Manuscript Filiation and Choice o Base

Manuscript . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60.. Norms Used in the Edition and Organisation o the

Commentary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64


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Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67Abbreviations o Frequently Cited exts and Dictionaries . . . . . . . . 67

Other exts Cited . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

-, ,

Ale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91Bet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129G i m e l . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 4 7D a l e t . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 6 7

He . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181Waw . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195Zayin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197

.Het . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209

.et . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239Yod . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249Ka . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263Lamed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285Mem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303Nun . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335S a m e k h . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 5 3A y i n . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 7 7Pe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401

.S a d e . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 2 9Qo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 447R e s h . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 7 9S h i n . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 9 5

av . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 529

Plates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 539


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ABBREVIAIONS

G A

abbr. abbreviationad loc. ad locumadd. addiditadj. adjectiveAkk. Akkadiana.o. amongst othersArab. ArabicAram. Aramaicart. articlebibl. biblicalbk. book c. century

Cat. Catalanc. conerch. chaptercol. columncorr. correctiondoc. documentationed. editor / editioneds editorse.g. exempli gratiaem. emendavit

esp. especially ./ff. and the ollowingem. eminineol. oliools oliosFr. FrenchGr. Greek Hebr. Hebrew ibid. ibidemi.e. id estimp. imperectin. innitiveIt. Italianl. line

Lat. Latinlit. literally loc. cit. loco citatomasc. masculineM. Fr. Middle FrenchM.l. Mishnaic languageM. Lat. Middle LatinMed. Lat. Medieval Latinmod. modernMod. Fr. Modern FrenchMod. Occ. Modern OccitanMS manuscript

MSS manuscriptsn. noten.d. no dateNi. Ni alno. numberO MS OxordO. Cat. Old CatalanOcc. OccitanO. Fr. Old FrenchO. Sp. Old Spanish

o.l. other languageom. omisitO. Occ. Old OccitanP MS Parisp./pp. page/pagespart. participle passivepass. passivePers. Persianplur. pluralR. Rabbirabbin. rabbinicrepr. reprintrev. revisedSept. Septuagint


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sing. singularSuppl. Supplement

s.v. sub voceSyr. Syriactrad. traditiontransl. translation

V MS VaticanVLat. Vulgar Latin

vol. volumevols volumesVulg. Vulgate

S A

Biblical SourcesAm AmosChron ChroniclesDan DanielDeut DeuteronomyEa EzraEc EcclesiastesEs EstherEx ExodusEz EzekielGen GenesisHb Habakkuk Hg Haggai

Hos HoseaIs IsaiahJer JeremiahJon JonahJl JoelJob JobJs JoshuaJu JudgesKings KingsLam Lamentations

Lev LeviticusMal MalachiMi MicahNa NahumNeh NehemiahNum NumbersOb ObadiahProv ProverbsPs PsalmsRt RuthSam SamuelSong Song o SongsZech ZechariahZp Zephania

Rabbinic Sourcesb Babylonian almudm Mishnahy Jerusalem almudGen. R. Genesis RabbahEx. R. Exodus Rabbaharg. argumarg. O. argum Onkolosos. osefa

ractates o the Mishnah and thealmud

Ab Abot

Arakh ArakhinAZ Abodah ZarahBB Baba BatraBekh BekhorotBer BerakhotBe .z Be .zahBik BikkurimBM Baba Me .ziaBQ Baba QammaDem Demai

Eduy EduyyotErub EruvinGit Gittin.Hag .Hagigah.Hal .Hallah

Hor Horayot.Hul .Hullin

Kel KelimKer KeritotKet KetubbotKil KilayimKin KinnimMaas Ma#aserotMaasrSheni Ma#aser Sheni


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Mak MakkotMakhsh Makhshirin

Me Me#

ilahMeg MegillahMen Mena .hotMid MiddotMiqw Miqwa"otMQ Mo#ed QatanNaz NazirNed NedarimNeg Nega#imNid NiddahOhol OholotOrl OrlahPar ParahPeah Pe"ahPes Pesa .himQid QiddushinRH Rosh Ha-Shanah

Sanh SanhedrinShab Shabbat

Sheb Shebu#

otShebi Shebi#itSheq SheqalimSot SotahSuk Sukkahaan a#anitam amidem emuraher erumotevul evul Yomoh ohorotUqz Uq .zinYad YadayimYeb YebamotYom YomaZab ZabimZeb Zeba .him

H A


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INRODUCION

. G O P

..Aims and Organisation o this EditionTis is the rst volume o a three volume publication dedicated to thecommented critical edition o the two synonym lists that appear inbook twenty-nine o theSeer ha-Shimmushby Shem ov ben Isaac deortosa.1 TeSeer ha-Shimmushis itsel a translation o theKitab at-ta.sr li-man #ajiza #an at-ta"l (Te Arrangement o Medical Knowledge

1 Tis publication is the result o two projects unded by the Deutsche Forschungs-gemeinschaf (DFG) rom to . We would like to express our thanks to theDFG and, in addition, to Julia Zwink, Jessica Kley, Judit Mock, Jan Tiele and RichardPraetorius, who helped us with our lexical research and various other aspects o thisedition. Several other articles have been published as part o our research on the syn-onym lists edited in this and the ollowing volumes and have been partially integratedinto this introduction, in particular (see the bibliography or a list o abbreviations):HebMedSyn, MerMed, ermMedOc, and, in addition: G. Bos/L. Ferre/G. Mensching,extos mdicos hebreos medievales con elementos romances y latinos: Edicin y anli-sis del Seer ha-Shimmush y otras listas de sinnimos, in IANUA (), pp. ; G. Bos and G. Mensching, Shem ov Ben Isaac, Glossary o Botanical erms,Nos. , inJewish Quarterly Review (), pp. ; M. Hussein, Ein Beitrag

zur Erorschung der mittelalterlichen hebrischen Fachsprache der Medizin: Die Edi-tion des . Buches des Seer ha-Shimmush des Shem ov ben Isaak von ortosa,in A. Kuyt and G. Necker (eds), Orient als Grenzbereich? Rabbinisches und auerrab-binisches Judentum, Wiesbaden (Abhandlungen r die Kunde des Morgenlandes,vol. ), pp. ; G. Bos, Medizinische Synonymliteratur in hebrischen Quellenzwischen Rezeption und Innovation: Shem ov Ben Isaac von ortosa und seine ber-setzung des Kitab al-tasri von al-Zahrawi, in D. Boschung and S. Wittekind (eds),Persistenz und Rezeption. Weiterverwendung, Wiederverwendung und Neuinterpretationantiker Werke im Mittelalter, Wiesbaden , pp. ; G. Bos, Te Creation andInnovation o Medieval Hebrew medical terminology: Shem ov Ben Isaac, Seer ha-Shimmush, in A. Akasoy and W. Raven (eds),Islamic Tought in the Middle Ages. Studies

in ext, ransmission and ranslation, in Honour o Hans Daiber, Leiden/Boston ,pp. ; G. Bos, Medical terminology in the Hebrew tradition: Shem ov BenIsaac, Seer ha-Shimmush, book , inJournal o Semitic Studies LV/ (), pp. .


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or One Who Is Not Able to Compile a Book or Himsel) by the Andalu-sian physician Abu l-Qasim

Hala ibn Abbas az-Zahraw, known in the

Western world as Abulcasis. Shem ov omitted the original Arabic, Syr-ian, Persian, and Ibero-Romance indices in his translation and substi-tuted them instead with the two lists that are at issue here. Te rstlist, which is edited in this volume, starts with the Hebrew or Aramaicterm, ollowed by the Arabic synonym, and thenin about seventy per-cent o the entriesby the vernacular term, which is usually Old Occ-itan, and/or by a Latin synonym. As will be explained in detail in sec-tion ., this list was intended to help the reader identiy and clariythe Hebrew terminology used by the author in his translation o the

Kitab at-ta.sr. Te second list, which is to be edited in volume two,starts with the Old Occitan or Latin term ollowed by its Arabic syn-onym and, in some cases, with its Hebrew or Aramaic equivalent, andwas intended to be used and consulted independently o the Seer ha-Shimmush.

Te use o Romance languages was a standard procedure in Hebrewglossaries and synonym lists o this type, as they were mainly compiledin Southern France and on the Iberian Peninsula. Te literature onthis subject has thereore usually identied these languages as Spanish,French, and sometimes Italian.2 Our work on the synonym lists by Shemov quickly showed that the Romance variety employed in this caseis Occitan, the autochthonous language o Southern France. For thisreason, a major part o the present publication will be dedicated tothis language, especially in the commentaries on the individual medico-botanical terms.

Our critical edition is based on the three manuscripts known to con-tain the synonym lists o the Seer ha-Shimmush, MSS Paris, BN hb.

, Vatican Ebr. , and Oxord, Hunt Donat .3

Apart rom creat-ing a critical edition, our main aim is to provide a commentary on theterminology ound in these lists, in particular medieval Hebrew and Occ-itan medico-botanical terminology, both o which have remained largelyunknown until now. Our edition thus makes a contribution towards anunderstanding o these terminologies. One essential task has been toclariy the meaning o the individual Hebrew and Occitan terms, whichofen has to be deduced rom the meaning o the corresponding, much

2 C. HebMedSyn, in particular pp. .3 C. . or details. In the ollowing, we shall use the abbreviations P (Paris), V

(Vatican) and O (Oxord) to reer to these manuscripts.


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more well-known Arabic and Latin terms. It should also be noted thata Hebrew medico-botanical terminology had not yet been established at

the time when Shem ov was compiling these synonym lists. Tus, as willbe shown later in this introduction, the two lists we have edited here canbe viewed as an attempt to create such a terminology. We have thereorealso tried to retrieve the sources used by the author when deciding onwhich Hebrew term to use.

As stated above, the rst volume o this publication is dedicated to therst synonym list (Hebrew-Arabic-Occitan/ Latin) contained in the Seerha-Shimmush. Te second list, which is ordered according to the Occitanor Latin terms, will be published in volume two. Tese two volumes will

then be supplemented by a third one containing indices or all o thelanguages that appear in the edition and our commentaries.

Tis introduction is intended to serve as a general introduction to allthree volumes and is structured as ollows. Section provides a brieintroduction to literature on medieval medico-botanical synonyms. Wethen ocus on the Jewish physician Shem ov ben Isaac de ortosa andhisSeer ha-Shimmush(section ), paying particular attention both tothe biographical and historical contexts in which he worked as well asto the background to and the motivation or his writing theSeer ha-Shimmush and compiling the two synonym lists. In section , we carryout a detailed examination o the lexicographic practice adopted by Shemov, addressing the issue o how his synonymies were established. Wethen provide an overview o the most important sources used by Shemov as well as the methods he employed to create his own Hebrewmedico-botanical terminology. Te last part o this section summarisesthe effects and influence o the terminology created by Shem ov. Section is dedicated to the Romance languages, with a particular ocus on

Occitan. Tis section is to some extent aimed at scholars rom outsidethe eld o Romance philology and provides some basic inormationon Occitan, a Romance language that was o great literary importancein the Middle Ages and is still spoken today as a minority languagein Southern France as well as in small areas o Italy and Spain. Teinormation provided in this section is essential or the reader to be ableto ollow the commentaries on the Romance medico-botanical terms.Since the Romance terms in our synonym lists are written in Hebrewcharacters rather than in the standard Latin alphabet, we also address

some o the problems arising rom this act which had to be taken intoconsideration when we were identiying and interpreting the Romancematerial. Section is dedicated to more technical matters. In ., we


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describe the three manuscripts rom which the text was obtained, whilein ., we describe the norms and procedures used in our edition and

commentary.

..ranscription System

In the course o the ollowing sections, the orm o the synonym lists,their origin and the lexical material used in them, which consists o agreat number o Hebrew, Arabic, Latin and Romance medico-botanicalterms, shall all be discussed extensively. We would thereore like tobegin by providing a summary o the transcription system to be used

throughout the three volumes.Our transcription o the Hebrew, Arabic, Latin and Romance terms

which are expressed using Hebrew letters in the manuscripts mostlyollow modern, well-established transliteration standards, such as thosesuggested by the Encyclopaedia Judaica (E.J.). Our decision to use a tran-scription system based on Latin characters or the Hebrew alphabet ismotivated by the act that the Latin, Romance and Arabic terminology isalso expressed in Hebrew characters in our manuscripts. Tis transcrip-tion makes the terms in these languages accessible to both scholars othe corresponding disciplines as well as to readers rom the history omedicine and other elds. It also enables the reader to ollow our argu-mentation or the interpretation o each term.

Te transliteration aims to establish, whenever possible, a one-to-onecorrespondence between Hebrew consonants and Latin based translit-eration signs, thus maintaining the ull range o interpretational contentcontained in the original Hebrew character based version. Tis meansthat our particular interpretation is not reflected in the transliteration.

For example, when a word is written with Bet, we spell it with an upper-case B, even i our interpretation implies that its phonetic value was rica-tive and not occlusive. We proceed in a similar way with the Hebrew con-sonant character Shin: even i our lexical interpretation sees it as a Sin, oras a non-palatal sibilant o Romance or Arabic, we still use an upper-caseSor the transliteration. In cases where vowel signs have been added tothe Hebrew consonant text, the vowels are transliterated using lower-casetranscription signs.


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Te ollowing table illustrates our transcription system:

Hebrew Name ranscriptionletter sign

Ale " Bet B Gimel G Gimel G Dalet D He H a"marbu.ta H Waw W

Zayin Z .Het .H .et . Yod Y Ka K Lamed L Mem M Nun N Samekh S Ayin #

Pe P .Sade .S Qo Q Resh R Shin S av

Te second variant o the letter Gimel shows a diacritic (Rae), which thescribes used to indicate a palatal pronunciation, such as [] in RomanceandArabic.InMSP,theArabica" marbu.ta (

)isrepresentedbytheletter

He with two diacritical points above the letter, which we have transcribedas.

. M S L H C

It is not our intention here to provide an exhaustive discussion othe history o medieval synonym lists.4 Broadly speaking, as MacKin-

4 Te reader is reerred to the ollowing books and articles: M. Steinschneider, ZurLiteratur der Synonyma , in J.L. Pagel, Die Chirurgie des Heinrich von Mondeville, Berlin


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ney5 points out, medical synonym lists orm part o a sub-category omedieval writings characterised by their alphabetical arrangement. Apart

rom rare cases o general medical treatises arranged in alphabeticalorder and handbooks o materia medica, the majority o such alphabeti-cally structured medical writings comprised medical glossaries and lex-icons. According to MacKinney,6

[t]hese appear under the titlesglossaria, hermeneumata, synonyma, vocab-ularia, index, expositio nominum, etc., and are usually characterized bytheid estormula; that is, each entry is ollowed byid est(or a variationthereo) and the explanatory material. Such works are clearly distinguish-able rom concordances and pharmaceutical handbooks in that their chie

purpose was philological (i.e., the clarication o word meanings) and notthe presentation o purely medical inormation.

MacKinney7 distinguishes between three different phases o evolutionwithin the Western world: ) Latin lists o Greek terms in the earlyMiddle Ages (glossaria, hermeneumata), ) Latin lists o Greek andArabic terms, due to the influence o Arabic medicine during the twelfhand thirteenth centuries, ) polylingual lexicons, in which Latin, Arabicand Greek terms were provided with equivalents in European vernacularlanguages. Te synonyma appear to be typical or the second phase;they can be distinguished rom thehermeneumataand earlyglossariain that they contain a larger proportion o non-herbals and o three-to our-line descriptions.8 Tese lists ofen accompanied Latin versionso Arabic authorities, such as the Index to the translation o Ibn SnasKitab al-Qanun attributed to Gerald o Cremona, or were o independent(Western) origin such as the amous Alphita.9

, pp. ; M. Steinschneider, Die hebrischen bersetzungen des Mittelalters und

die Juden als Dolmetscher, Berlin , repr. Graz ; L.C. MacKinney, MedievalMed-ical Dictionaries and Glossaries, in J.L. Cate and E.N. Anderson (eds), Medieval andHistoriographical Essays in Honor o James Westall Tompson , Chicago , pp. ; M. Ullmann,Die Medizin im Islam, Leiden/Kln (Handbuch der Orientalis-tik I, Ergnzungsband VI,); G. Endress, Die Entwicklung der Fachsprache and Diewissenschafliche Literatur: Medizin, both published in W. Fischer (ed.), Grundriss derArabischen Philologie, Band III:Supplement, Wiesbaden , pp. and ;B.M.GutirrezRodilla: La esorzada reelaboracin del saber. Repertorios mdicos de interslexicogrco anteriores a la imprenta, San Milln de la Cogolla .

5 Op. cit., p. ff.6 Op. cit., pp. .7

Op. cit., p. .8 MacKinney, op. cit., p. .9 MacKinney, op. cit., pp. . For the Alphita, see I. Mandrin,Griechische und

griechisch vermittelte Elemente in der Synonymenliste Alphita, Bern et al. , and the


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A similar tradition also existed in Arabic medical writing: one o theways in which the Arabs tried to solve the problems created by the

usion o Greek, Syriac, Indian, Persian, Berber, and Ibero-Romanceplant and drug names was to establish corresponding synonyms. Tus,all major pharmaceutical handbooks had special sections or chaptersdealing extensively with synonyms, such as in Ibn al-Bay.tarsKitab al-

Jami#and in theKitab al-Musta #nby Ibn Biklaris. In addition to thesynonym discussions that were integrated into such major works, theArabs also compiled stand-alone lists o synonyms compiled separately,which can be considered a special branch o lexicographical literatureand were closely related to the SyriacPussaqsmahe.10

Te Jewish synonym list tradition (including the two lists compiledby Shem ov) seems, in general, to t into the typology and chronologyoutlined above, whilst crucially anticipating (by the thirteenth centuryalready) the subsequent polylingual lexicon phase by including vernac-ular synonyms in a systematic ashion. Te practical use o these listsshould be taken into account in uture research on the history o Jew-ish synonym lists, which has yet to be carried out in a comprehensivemanner.11 During the Middle Ages, when there was no uniorm systemor identiying plants and herbs, there was a genuine risk o a doctoradministering the wrong drug to a patient. Tis risk was particularlyacute given the act that doctors requently moved to and settled in di-erent countries at this time, thus meaning they were ofen aced withan entirely different linguistic environment. Jewish doctors in particularwere aced with this problem when, in the wake o the Berber invasionso the Almohads and Almoravids in the eleventh and twelfh centuries,many o them emigrated rom Southern Spain to the Northern, Chris-tian part o Spain and to Southern France. Tey thus moved rom a soci-

ety where Jews used and understood Arabic in addition to Hebrew andRomancetoasocietywheretheirknowledgeoArabicwassoonlost.Tisshif in languages led to an urgent need or lexica or glossaries in whichtechnical-medical expressions were listed alphabetically, especially the

recent edition by A. Garca Gonzlez,Alphita. Edicin crtica y comentario, Florence .Since our work on list one published in the present volume was completed in early ,Garca Gonzlezs edition has not been quoted in our commentary. Instead, we usedthe older edition by S. Renzi (RAlph), the Spanish version contained in the Sinonima

delos nonbres delas medeinas griegos e latynos e arauigos(abbr. Sin; the critical apparatusmostly includes material rom the Latin version) and the commentary by R. Creutz (CA).10 C. M. Ullmann,Die Medizin im Islam, pp. and .11 For what ollows, c. G. Bos, Medical terminology in the Hebrew tradition.


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names o simple medicines.12 As will be shown in section , it was thesepractical aspects that ormed the driving orce or Shem ov to compile

the two synonym lists.In the eld o Jewish studies, the medical genre o synonym lists has

been sorely neglected by modern research in spite o the comprehensivebibliographical surveys carried out by Moritz Steinschneider in the nine-teenth century. Steinschneiders work highlighted the importance o thisparticular genre or deciphering individual plant names in pharmaco-logical ragments, recommending in particular the edition o the glos-sary compiled by Shem ov ben Isaak and the one extant in MS Florence,Mediceo Laurenziana Or. .13 Te only notable exceptions are a recent

concise survey o Hebrew medical glossaries in manuscripts by J.P. Roth-schild that orms an appendix to an article on the manuscript tradition othe Hebrew-Italian glossary o MaimonidesGuide o the Perplexedpre-pared by Moses o Salerno,14 and the synonym list with Catalan elementsedited by Magdalena Nom de Du (GHA). Te apparent lack o inter-est shown by Jewish studies scholars or this particular area stands instark contrast to the interest that this area has enjoyed in the elds oLatin and o Arabic studies. Te latter can boast o a recent bibliograph-ical survey by Ullmann,15 while one o its best known glossaries, namelythe one compiled by Maimonides under the title Shar.h asma"al- #uqqar,is available both in a critical edition and in French, Hebrew, and Englishtranslations.16

12 Denition by M. Steinschneider, Zur Literatur der Synonyma, p. (Englishtranslation: Bos). Some o the ollowing issues are discussed in Shem ov Ben Isaac,Glossary o Botanical erms, Nos. and in HebMedSyn .

13 C. M. Steinschneider, Donnolo. Pharmakologische Fragmente aus dem . Jahr-

hundert, inVirchows Archiv, vols and (; vol. , pp. ; vol. ,pp. ; vol. , pp. ; vol. , pp. ), vol. (), pp. ; idem,Zur Literatur der Synonyma, pp. ; idem, Glossar zu den Synonymen Cap.IX des Antidotarius, in J.L. Pagel,Chirurgie des Heinrich von Mondeville, Berlin ,pp. ; and hisDie hebrischen bersetzungen des Mittelalters und die Juden alsDolmetscher, pp. .

14 J.P. Rothschild, Remarques sur la tradition manuscrite du glossaire hbreu-italiendu Commentaire de Mose de Salerne au Guide des gars (en appendice, note sur lesglossaires medicaux hbreux; liste de manuscrits hbreux contenant des glossaires), inLexiques bilingues dans les domaines philosophique et scientique (Moyen geRenais-sance), Actes du Colloque international organis par lcole Pratique desHautes tudes

IVe Section et lInstitut Suprieur de Philosophie de lUniversit de Louvain (Paris, juin ), dits par J. Hamesse et D. Jacquart, urnhout , pp. .15 C. Ullmann,Die Medizin im Islam, pp. .16 See Me in the list o abbreviations in the bibliography or the reerence.


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In the course o our projects concerning this type o lists, we havereviewed a considerable number o lists other than those by Shem ov.17

It could be shown that most o them were composed in Southern Franceor in Catalonia. In contrast, synonym lists o possible Northern French,Spanish or Italian origin seem to be quite rare. We have also establishedan initial typology o medico-botanical synonym lists written in Hebrewcharacters:18

A. Lists without lexical material in Hebrew but written in the Hebrewalphabet, such as Latin-Arabic-Romance synonym lists.

B. Lists that contain lexical material in Hebrew, but no Hebrew lem-

mata, e.g. Arabic-Hebrew-Romance-Latin lists.C. Lists arranged according to Hebrew lemmata, with synonyms inother languages (such as Arabic, Latin and/or Romance).

We can assume that the type A lists in particular are ofen transcriptionso Arabic or Latin lists, such as the version o the Alphita that is extant inMS Parma .19 Te type B lists may, to some extent at least, have orig-inated in a similar ashion through the addition o Hebrew synonyms,whereas the type C lists have to be regarded as original compilations or

rearrangements according to the Hebrew lemmata. As ar as Shem ovslists are concerned, the rst oneedited in this volume and described insection o this introductionis a type C list. Te second one is a typeB list (Occitan-Hebrew-Arabic) and will be presented and edited in thesecond volume.

At this point, it cannot be said whether and to which degree theLatin and Arabic medical synonym tradition provided a model or Shemov or whether he even used the Alphita or similar lists in the Latintradition as a source. Some o the Latin terms and a ew o the Arabic-

Latin/Romance synonymies eatured in Shem ovs lists can also beound in the Alphita. It also seems probable (maybe even highly so) thatShem ov possessed a copy o another well-known word list, namely theArabic-Latin index o the Latin translation o the Qanunby Ibn Snacompiled by Gerald o Cremona ().20 At least as ar as theHebrew-Arabic correspondences are concerned however, it is rather theJewish rabbinic tradition (not including the Bible) that Shem ov drew

17

See HebMedSyn.18 See HebMedSyn .19 See HebMedSyn ff.20 See Sin or this index, in particular pp. .


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upon in order to establish his synonymies. We shall return to this subjectin section , which covers the production o the two synonym lists. In

this section, it should become clear that the two lists edited by us in thisand the orthcoming volume orm a quite exceptional case within thegenre o medical synonym lists: whereas most o the lists known to usrom both the Western and Jewish traditions are anonymous, Shem ov,on the other hand, is an individual author whose writings also provideus with inormation concerning the background o his lists as well as themethods he used to compile them.

. S S L S -S

..Biographical and Historical Context

Shem ov ben Isaac was born in in the Catalan city o ortosa.He traveled to the Near East or business beore, at the age o thirty,beginning to study in Barcelona at some point afer under R. Isaacben Meshullam. He subsequently spent some time in Montpellier, andwas later active as a physician and translator in Marseille.21 AlthoughMarseille had previously been an independent and sovereign city, it wasorcedtorecognisethesovereigntyoCharlesoAnjouin.Inreturn,Anjou provided the inhabitants with a constitution (Les Statuts de Mar-seille), which regarded Jews and Christians as equalcitizens.22 Anjou evenprotected and intervened on behal o the Jews when necessary, such asin , when he issued a special decree against the inquisitors who wereattempting to introduce even more stringent measures against the Jewsthan those that had been decided both at the Fourth Lateran Council in

21 On Shem ov ben Isaac, his lie and literary activity, see E. Renan, Les Rabbinsranais du commencement du quatorzime sicle, Paris , repr. Farnborough ,p. ; M. Steinschneider,Die hebrischen bersetzungen des Mittelalters und die Judenals Dolmetscher, pp. ; H. Gross,Gallia Judaica. Dictionnaire gographique de laFrance daprs les sources Rabbiniques, Paris , pp. ; S. Muntner, R. Shem ovBen Isaac o ortosa about the lie o the European Jewish doctor and his ethics, inSinaiJubilee Volume, Jerusalem , pp. ; G. Sarton,Introduction to the History oScience, vols, New York , vol. ., pp. ; J. Shatzmiller, Jews, Medicine and

Medieval Society, Berkeley/ Los Angeles / London, , pp. ; G. Bos, TeCreationand Innovation o Medieval Hebrew medical terminology, pp. .22 C. A. Crmieux, Les Juis de Marseille au Moyen Age, in Revue des tudes Juives

(), pp. and , here pp. .


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andatsubsequentCouncils.23 Te Jewish doctors in Marseille oundthemselves in a particularly privileged position, enjoying as they did spe-

cial rights both with regard to their colleagues in the rest o Provence andtheir ellow citizens. As Marseille suffered rom requent epidemics andthere were only ew Christian physicians, they were tolerated in the cityby sheer necessity and sometimes even employed by the municipality, incontrast to the Jewish doctors in the rest o Provence.24 It was in the cityo Marseille that Shem ov translated az-Zahraws Kitab at-ta.sr.25 Call-ing it Seer ha-Shimmush, Shem ov started his translation in the year and completed it at an unknown date.26 In addition to the Kitabat-ta.sr, Shem ov also translated Abu Wald Mu .hammad ibn Rushds

Middle Commentary on AristotlesDe Anima,27 Abu Bakr Mu .hammadibn Zakariyya ar-Razs medical encyclopaediaKitab al-Man.sur,28 andHippocrates Aphorisms with Palladius commentary.29

23 C. Gross,Gallia Judaica, p. .24 C. Crmieux, Les Juis de Marseille au Moyen Age, p. ; I. Alteras, Jewish

Physicians in Southern France during the th and th Centuries, inJewish QuarterlyReview (/), pp. , in particular p. .

25 Onthe Kitab at-ta.sr,seeD.JacquartandF.Micheau,La mdecinearabe et loccident

medival, Paris , pp. and passim.26 Te year is derived rom the introduction to the translation (c. Muntner, R.

Shem ov Ben Isaac o ortosa, p. , paragraph []). In the same introduction, Shemov relates an incident that occurred in Marseille in the year (c. Muntner, op. cit.,p. , paragraph []). From this, it can be concluded that Shem ov either wrote theintroduction afer compiling the lists and that the year marks its completion, orthat he completed the work at an earlier date and then subsequently revised it, insertingthe incident mentioned above in the process. Te rst assumption seems to be thato M. Steinschneider, Die hebrischen Handschrifen der K. Ho- und Staatsbibliothekin Mnchen, nd rev. enl. ed., Munich p. , no. : (). Te secondassumption seems to be that o Renan, Les Rabbins ranais du commencement du

quatorzime sicle, p. , who, however, draws on an unknown source to assert that Shemov completed the work in and then revised it in . Tis is also the opinion oSarton,Introduction to the History o Science, p. , and Shatzmiller,Jews, Medicine andMedieval Society, p. . Steinschneider,Die hebrischen bersetzungen des Mittelaltersund die Juden als Dolmetscher, p. , remarks that he completed the translation between (= Muntner, R. Shem ov Ben Isaac o ortosa, p. ).

27 C. Steinschneider,Die hebrischen bersetzungen des Mittelalters und die Judenals Dolmetscher, p. ; Averros,Middle Commentary on Aristotles De Anima. A Crit-ical Edition o the Arabic ext with English ranslation, Notes, and Introduction byAlred L. Ivry, Provo , pp. xxviiixxix, . n. .

28 C. Steinschneider, Die hebrischen bersetzungen des Mittelalters und die Juden als

Dolmetscher, pp. .29 His commentary is no longer extant in Greek, but it has recently been rediscoveredby Hinrich Biestereldt and Y. zvi Langermann, whohope to publish a preliminary studyo Palladius commentary soon, to be ollowed by a ull edition and analysis.


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..Background and Motivation o theSeer ha-Shimmushand the wo Synonym Lists

Shem ovs translation o az-Zahraws Kitab at-ta.sr is especiallyimportant, as it represents an attempt to create a new Hebrew medicalterminology based on the terminology o the Bible, Mishnah and al-mud, as well as on medieval commentaries and translations.30 In somecases, he also uses loan-translation or semantic borrowing as a methodor translating terms not attested in any Hebrew source. Shem ovs mainreason or translating theKitab at-ta.srwas to provide Jews with eas-ier access to medical knowledge, meaning they would no longer have to

depend on non-Jewish doctors.31 With regards to his method o transla-tion, he remarks that he uses names rom the Bible, rabbinic literature orRomance as ar as possible in his translation. He uses the Arabic term orany diseases, organs, drugs, wild and domestic animals, insects and ver-min whose names he is unable to obtain rom these sources, remarkingthat the lengthy period o exile suffered by the Jews has led to reducedknowledge o Hebrew within their numbers.32 In order to emphasise theintention behind his translation once more, Shem ov extols its qualities,remarkingthatitcanbeputtouseorindividualsandcrowds,orthewiseand the oolish, or kings and paupers and at any time and any place. Hegoes on to warn physicians emphatically against substituting one remedyor another similar one or buying an unamiliar remedy rom a pharma-cist, as that might lead to their receiving an entirely different remedy,whether intentionally or not.33 Shem ov adds that, in some countries,those who make mistakes regarding the names o herbs, seeds and plants

30 S. Muntner (art. medicine, in E.J. :) remarks that the translation o az-

Zahraws Kitab at-ta.srby Abraham Shem ov [sic] is o particular importance becausehe introduced a new Hebrew terminology based mainly on terms used in the almud.31 C. Steinschneider, Die hebrischen bersetzungen des Mittelalters, p. . See

paragraphs [][] o Shem ovs Introduction to the Seer ha-Shimmush, edited byMuntner in R. Shem ov Ben Isaac o ortosa, pp. ; the relevant passages are onpp. . See also the Catalan translation in E. Feliu and J. Arrizabalaga, El prlegde Semtov ben Issac, el ortos, a la seva traducci hebrea del a.srdAbu al-Zahraw,inamid (), pp. , especially pp. .

32 C. Introduction toSeer ha-Shimmush, paragraph [], see Muntner, op. cit., p. ;Feliu/ Arrizabalaga, op. cit., p. ; Steinschneider (op. cit., p. ) summarises the text asollows: Alle Krankheiten, Glieder, Mittel etc., r welche er einen Ausdruck in der Bibel,in der Sprache der Weisen oder in der Landessprache geunden, habe er danach benannt,

sonst den arabischen erminus beibehalten, da sich durch das Exil die Kenntnis der hebr.Sprache vermindert habe.

33 C. Introduction toSeer ha-Shimmush, paragraphs [], [][], see Muntner,op. cit., p. ; Feliu/Arrizabalaga, op. cit., p. .


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then also end up misleading others.34 As an example, he talks about ourdifferent species o the same plant, one o which was calledangankust

(chaste-tree, Vitex agnus castus L.) by Persian doctors,35 meaning veleaves, while Christians reerred to it aspentaphyllon(cinqueoil, Poten-tilla reptans L.),36 which also means ve leaves.37 Tis was a source oconusion or many physicians according to Shem ov. Some physiciansthought thatangankustwas a ragrant tree as large as a man (or evenlarge enough or a man to hide under) with ruits called agnus castusand thatpentaphyllon was a plant without a stem consisting o ve leavesgrowing directly rom the earth. Other physicians, however, thought thatangankustwas a plant that could be used to get rid o sexual lust38 rather

than a tree, and thatpentaphyllonwas a plant with a stem.39Another example o a possible mix-up o remedies is taken rom

Maimonides, who warns against prescribing the wrong species o blacknightshade (Solanum nigrum L.).40 Many physicians prescribe one spe-cies or internal diseases, and another, similar species, which can beeasily distinguished rom the previous one when it has been dried andits ruits become black, when it is still resh, or external diseases, as it ispoisonous. I the second species is mistaken or the rst one and its juiceis ingested, it causes severe suffocation, hiccups, and nausea accompaniedby yawning and vomiting o blood.41 Shem ov also stresses how the

34 C. Introduction to Seer ha-Shimmush, paragraph [], see Muntner, op. cit., p. ;Feliu/Arrizabalaga, op. cit., pp. .

35 C. Maimonides,Shar.h asma"al- #uqqar, Me (English translation: Rosner, abbr.M); A. Dietrich,Dioscurides riumphans (abbr. D), :. Te actual meaning o thePersian term is not ve leaves, but ve ngers (pan angust); c. VL :: quinquedigiti.

36 C. Maimonides,Shar.h asma"al-#uqqar(Me); M ; D :.37 C. Introduction to Seer ha-Shimmush, paragraph [], see Muntner, op. cit., p. ;

Feliu/Arrizabalaga, op. cit., p. .38 For the effect o thechaste treeas an antiaphrodisiac, c.Ibn al-Jazzar, On SexualDiseases: A critical edition, English translation and introduction o Bk. oZad al-musarwa-qutal- .ha .dir(Provisions or the raveller andthe Nourishment o the Settled).ranslation and study by Gerrit Bos, London , p. : Galen maintained that thewomen o the inhabitants o Athens used to spread chaste-tree and then sleep upon itduring theirhigh estivals so that the lust or coitus would leave them (= Galen, De simpl.med. temp. et ac., VI, (C.G. Khn, Claudii Galeni Opera Omnia, vols, Leipzig , repr. Hildesheim , vol. , p. ).

39 C. Introduction to Seer ha-Shimmush, paragraph [], see Muntner, op. cit., p. ;Feliu/Arrizabalaga, op. cit., p. .

40

C. Introduction toSeer ha-Shimmush, paragraph [], see Muntner, op. cit., pp.; Feliu/Arrizabalaga, op. cit., p. .41 Shem ovs quotation is taken rom Maimonides On Poisons (BMP ): o the

[substances] taken by mistake belongs the soporic type o black nightshade (Solanum


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area where a species is grown can influence how it looks by quotingMaimonides statement in theMishneh orah, Seer Zera#im, which states

that a species can take on many [different] orms depending on where itis grown and in what type o soil and that such orms o the same speciescan differ rom one another to such an extent that they can look likeentirely different species.42 Shem ov invokes Maimonides once againto remark that the opposite can also happen, namely that two differentspecies can look so similar to one another that they appear to be thesame. He also quotes rom the same source in order to provide a rangeo different examples o this, such as garden lettuce (Lactuca sativa) andwild lettuce (Lactuca scariola), chicory (Cichorium intybus) and wild

chicory (Cichorium pumilum), garden leek (Allium porrum) and eldleek (Allium ampeloprasum), garden coriander (Coriandrum sativum)and wild coriander (Smyrnium conatum Boiss.).43 Shem ov concludeshis extensive quotation rom Maimonides by exclaiming that i, in thecase o crops, the orah is very strict and makes it obligatory to knowthe different orms o plants and trees and their ruits because o theprohibition oKil"ayim(mixing together o different species), how muchmore so should this be the case or remedies when human lie is at stake.44

Shem ov then gives an example o how administering the wrong drugcan have atal consequences by relating an incident that happenedaroundthe year in Marseille, whereby two Christian doctors gave a patienta purgative o hal a drachm o white hellebore, which led to the patient

nigrum and var.), or we ofen prescribe black nightshade juice among the ingredientsto be taken or diseases o the internal organs. One o its varieties that has black seedsand that is soporic is [sometimes taken] by mistake when [the seeds] are [still] greenbeore they turn black. Upon drinking, it immediately causes severe dryness, hiccups and

vomiting o blood. Its treatment: hasten to let him vomit by means o the general emeticswhich have been described beore. Ten let him vomit or the last time by means o waterand honey. Ten let him drink a large quantity o water and honey. When he has digestedsomething o it, he should take another drink o water and honey. He should do so ora day and a night. And then he should eed himsel as usual [ . . .]. Instead o drynessShem ov has suffocation, which is similar to the variant reading in MS P (Paris, BN,hb. ): and Moses ibn ibbons Hebrew translation:(angina).

42 C. Introduction to Seer ha-Shimmush, paragraph [], see Muntner, op. cit., p.;Feliu / Arrizabalaga, op. cit., p. ; Maimonides,Mishneh orah, Seer Zera #im, HilkhotKil"ayimIII, .

43 C. Introduction to Seer ha-Shimmush, paragraphs [][], see Muntner, op. cit.,

p.; Feliu/ Arrizabalaga, op. cit., pp. ; Maimonides,Mishneh orah, Seer Zera#im,Hilkhot Kil"ayimIII, .

44 C. Introduction to Seer ha-Shimmush, paragraph [], see Muntner, op. cit., p.;Feliu/Arrizabalaga, op. cit., p. .


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dying o suffocation.45 He adds that i it is a Jewish doctor that appliesthe wrong treatment, it may not just be the lie o the patient that is

endangered, but the lives o the whole Jewish community, too.46 Jewishdoctors needed to excercise great care in their work, having to think twicebeore treating a Christian patient, a act borne out by the Seer ha-Yosher,a medical treatise composed at the end o the Middle Ages.47

o minimise the risk o conusing medicinal herbs and drugs dueto ignorance or a lack o proper terminology in the vernacular o thetime and to provide both Jewish doctors and patients with the propermedico-botanical terminology, Shem ov compiled a list o roots andherbs in the language o the Bible and o the Sages, o blessed memory,

according to the interpretation most commentators agreed upon, in thevernacular language and in Arabic, alphabetically arranged.48 Tis list,which actually consists o two separate lists o synonyms, is part o booktwenty-nine o his translation oKitab at-ta.sr. Shem ov only modiedthe rst two chapters o the ve chapters originally contained in theArabic text o book twenty-nine or his intended purpose, since, as theauthor states, the Jews would neither need nor benet rom a translationo the rst two chapters, which deal with oreign or differing names orplants in Greek, Syriac and Persian.49 In the introduction to the rst list,which is the one edited in the present volume, the author species thescope o this particular list by explaining that it not only covers roots andherbs, but also instruments, bodily parts and other items.50 With regards

45 C. Introduction to Seer ha-Shimmush, paragraph [], see Muntner, op. cit.,pp. ; Feliu/Arrizabalaga, op. cit., pp. ; Shatzmiller, Jews, Medicine andMedieval Society, p. .

46 Introduction toSeer ha-Shimmush, paragraph [], see Muntner, op. cit., p. ;Feliu/Arrizabalaga, op. cit., pp. ; translation Shatzmiller, Jews, Medicine and Me-

dieval Society, pp. ; but see as well Crmieux, Les Juis de Marseille, p. whostates that complaints were never led against the Jewish community o Marseille as awhole ollowing individual misdemeanours due both to the protection the Jews enjoyedbased on the Statuts de Marseille and to the spirit o tolerance predominant in the city.

47 C. Shatzmiller, Jews, Medicine and Medieval Society, p. ; M. Gdemann, Ge-schichte des Erziehungswesens und der Cultur der Juden in Italien whrend des Mittelalters,Vienna , repr. Amsterdam (Geschichte des Erziehungswesens und der Culturder abendlndischen Juden whrend des Mittelalters und der neueren Zeit II), p. .

48 Introduction toSeer ha-Shimmush, paragraph [], see Muntner, R. Shem ovBen Isaac o ortosa, p. :

. ; Feliu-Arrizabalaga, ibid., p. , .49 MS Paris, BN hb. , ol. a: .

50 MS Paris, BN hb. , ibid.: .


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to the second list (see vol. two, orthcoming) he remarks: I have alsocomposed an explanation o the drugs and herbs in the vernacular and

Arabic so that someone who goes on a distant journey will know theirnames in both languages. And I have arranged them alphabetically.51

. H S S L W C

..Sources or Hebrew and Arabic

Shem ov consulted the work o both Sa#adya ben Yose al-Fayyum, bet-

ter known as Sa#adya Ga"on52 (), and Abu l-Wald ibn Merwan,i.e. Jonah ibn Jana .h (died afer ), as sources or the proper Bibli-cal Hebrew synonyms or Arabic terms.53 Research has shown that IbnJana .h in turn relied heavily upon Sa#adyas biblical translations and com-mentaries or identiying botanical terms included in the Bible.54 Shemov remarks that he chose these two authors in particular because heagreed with how they identied the relevant Hebrew and Arabic termi-nology. Sa#adya Ga"ons Arabic translations and / or commentaries to theorah, Isaiah, Psalms, Proverbs, and Job ofen provided Shem ov withthe Hebrew equivalent required or a specic Arabic term.55 Te entry

51 MS Paris, BN hb. , ibid.: . Note thatthe alphabetisation is only to one letter, as was still usual in Shem ovs time.

52 For Sa#adya Ga"on, philosopher and exegete, poet and polemicist, legist and com-munal leader, see H. Malter,Saadia Gaon.His lie and works, Philadelphia . For aundamental study o the language comparisons in his linguistic works and or his Bibletranslations, which served as a source or subsequent scholars, see A. Maman,Compara-tive Semitic Philology in the Middle Ages. From Sa #adiah to Ibn Barun(tenthtwelfh C.),

abbr. MCS, esp. pp. . Te diffusion o Sa #adyas works in Provence was otherwiseascertained rom theSeer Dores resumot, which quotes rom Sa#adyas long commentaryon Genesis in Hebrew (c. Y.. Langermann, A Citation rom Saadias King Commen-tary to Genesis in Hebrew ranslation,Aleph. Historical Studies in Science & Judaism(), pp. ).

53 For Jonah ibn Jana .h, the undisputed master o Sephardic linguistics who lived inthe rst hal o the eleventh century, see the article by D. enne in E.J. :, s.v.ibn Jana .h, Jonah. For the language comparisons in his works see MCS .

54 C. LF : and E.J. :.55 Sa#adya also allegedly composed a translation o the Five Scrolls and o Ezra. O the

edition o the Five Scrolls with Sa#adyas translation by Ka .h (Jerusalem , abbr. SH),

only Esther is considered to be authentic. In our edition o Shem ovs glossary, we haveincluded the edition by Ka .h, leaving the question o its authenticity open. For Sa#adyascommentaries on and/or translations o the Bible see R and M. Polliack, TeKaraite radition o Arabic Bible ranslation. A Linguistic and Exegetical Study o Karaite


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Ale provides an example o this, where the Arabic synonym (#WSG, to be read as #awsag) is given or the Hebrew lemma(".D).

Whereas modern literature identies the Biblical Hebrew term either asthe European boxthorn, Lycium europaeum, or the buckthorn (such asRhamnus lycioides or Rhamnus palaestinus), Arabic #awsag56 is knownto have designated different kinds o lycium which were ofen conused.Although we are unable to establish the intended meaning,57 the identi-cation o both terms can be traced back to Sa#adya on Gen :, whichreads (When they came to Goren ha-Atad58). Te placename literally means boxthorns threshing floor and is translated intoArabic as (S ) by Sa#adya.

With regard to Jonah Ibn Jana .h, Shem ov certainly used the Kitab al-u.sul, a dictionary o Biblical Hebrew,59 as can be demonstrated by theentry He : Hebrew(HBNYM) as well as Arabic ("BNWS= abanus) mean ebony. Te act that the Hebrew and Arabic wordsare considered synonyms goes back to Ibn Jana .h, who explicitly reersto Rav Hai Gaon: (HBNYM is al-abanusaccording to the translation o Rav Hai Gaon; IJ ). We seehere that although Shem ov consulted Ibn Jana .h or this Biblical term,the ultimate source o the synonym is Hai Gaon.

In addition to the Kitab al-u.sul, Shem ov consulted Ibn Jana .hsKitabat-alkh.s, a book on simple drugs, measures and weights which pro-vides synonyms or the drugs in Arabic, Syriac, Hebrew, Greek, Berber,Spanish, and Latin, among others.60 Unortunately we could not consultthis text as we, conorm to the general opinion, considered the workto be lost.61 Tus we could only consult secondary sources, namely, a

ranslations o the Pentateuch rom the enth and Eleventh Centuries C.E ., Leiden/New

York/ Cologne , pp. .56 Unlike Hebrew, we transcribe Arabic terms with their vowels, as there is a standardvocalisation or Arabic botanical terminology.

57 Te Romance synonym reers to another plant o the Rhamnaceae amily.58 Te English translation is that o the Jewish Publication Society (anakh. A New

ranslation o the Holy Scriptures according to the raditional Hebrew ext. Philadel-phia/ New York/ Jerusalem ).

59 Ed. A. Neubauer (= IJ).60 See Ullmann,Die Medizin im Islam, p. ; enne (in E.J. :); AS .61 However, Fabian Ks has identied a unique copy in Istanbul, MS Aya Soya ,

ols. vv. See Fabian Ks, Die Mineralien in der arabischen Pharmakognosie. Eine

Konkordanz zur mineralischen Materia medica der klassischen arabischen Heilmit-telkunde nebst berlieerungsgeschichtlichen Studien (Akademie der Wissenschafenund der Literatur. Mainz. Verffentlichungender Orientalischen Kommission). Band , vols, Wiesbaden , vol. , p. .


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number o quotations rom the Kitab at-alkh.s made by subsequentauthors, such as al-Idrs (d. ), who was active at the court o King

Roger II o Sicily and compiled theKitab al-jami#li-siat astat an-nabatwa- .durub anwa# al-muradat(Compendium o the Properties o DiversePlants and Various Kinds o Simple Drugs).62

Tis work has survived as an incomplete manuscript in Istanbul (FatihLibrary, no. ) and as a complete manuscript in eheran (Kitabkhana-i Majlis-i Sana, ). Tese manuscripts actually represent two di-erent versions o the original text, with the Istanbul manuscript pre-serving the synonyms or the names o plants and drugs, while theeheran manuscript omits them.63 An example o a quotation rom

Ibn Jana .hsKitab at-alkh.sby al-Idrs is the entry Ale : here, twoArabic synonyms are given or Hebrew("LMWG), namely(MRG"N) and (BSD). Te word "LMWG as a biblical term indi-cates a precious wood unable to be clearly identied. In rabbinic lit-erature it is identied, amongst other things, as coral. Marjan is theArabic equivalent or "LMWGas coral, whereasbussadis the Persianterm and is ofen used as a synonym, although, strictly speaking, itreers to the root o the coral as well as to the subsoil to which it isstuck. Te identication omarjanasbussadgoes back to Ibn Jana

.hs

Kitab at-alkh.sas quoted by al-Idrs (IJS :): : (Ibn Jana .h says that themarjanis thebussad).64 Another author

whose writings served to preserve material rom Ibn Jana .hsKitab at-alkh.s is Se#adyah ibn Danan rom Granada (feenth century), whocomposed the Seer ha-Shorashim, a dictionary o Biblical Hebrew whichdraws heavily on Ibn Jana .hs work, explicitly quoting him no less than times. In entry .Het , Arabic ("ZRQ) is used as a synonymor the Hebrew lemma (.HSMLY), with the additional explana-

tion (i.e., like the sky). Te Hebrew word is an adjectivalorm derived rom Biblical Hebrew(.HSML), which means glitter-ing substance,amber. However, Arabic "azraq means blue, sky-coloured(L ). Te identication o both terms goes back to Ibn Jana .h, as canbe read in Se#adyah ibn Danan,Seer ha-Shorashim(SID ):: (.HSMLis blue light according to Abu l-Wald [ibnJana .h]).

62 Facs. ed. in vols by F. Sezgin, abbreviation SID.63 SID VIIVIII.64 C. AS .


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We only have Shem ovs general reerence to medieval commen-tators when it comes to the sources he consulted to identiy Arabic

synonyms with Rabbinic Hebrew or Aramaic terminology. Identiyingthese medieval commentators has proven to be especially problematic.One prominent medieval commentator to whom Shem ov probablyhad recourse was Sa#adya Ga"on, who was not only an important Biblecommentator and translator but also a prominent linguist, who dealtextensively with the explanation o difficult terms in the Mishnah withinthe genre known asAla.s al-Mishnah, several examples o which existin the Genizah. Tese writings consist, as Brody remarks, o a series oshort glosses in Arabic on Hebrew words and expressions, according to

the order o the Mishnaic text.65 Unortunately, these lexical explana-tions have only survived in incomplete orm and are, moreover, still inmanuscript or the most part.66 An example o a derivation that possi-bly goes back to Sa#adyasAla.s al-Mishnahis the entry Gimel :67 TeHebrew lemma (GWPNN) eatures in rabbinic literature and means) ennel, Foeniculum vulgare MILL., and ) the ruit o the sebesten-tree, Cordia Myxa L. Te Arabic synonym (SBS"N) is sibistan orsabistan, which designates the ruit o the sebesten-tree. Te identica-tion o the two terms can be ound in Sa#adya (SAM :).68

Another medieval commentator consulted by Shem ov was Mai-monides, whose commentary on the Mishnah contains a wealth o me-dico-botanical synonym terminology.69 Maimonides relied in turn onearlier sources, possibly Sa#adyas explanatory lists and certainly the

65 R. Brody,Te Geonim o Babylonia and the Shaping o Medieval Jewish Culture,NewHaven/ London , pp. . While Allony attributed these lexical explanations toSa#adya Ga"on, Abramson (Millon ha-Mishnah le-Rav Sa#adya Ga"on, inLeshonenu(), pp. ) and subsequently Maman (MCS , n. ) argued that they are not

Sa#adyas at all. According to Brody (Te Geonim o Babylonia, p. ), Allonys identica-tion was correct, as conrmed by urther manuscript discoveries in the Genizah, alongwith a comparison o citations in Se#adyahs name and interpretations contained in hisother works.

66 Tree o the ragments were published by N. Allony (SAM). A large Geonicragment covering the commentary o nearly hal the Mishnah is being prepared orpublication by the Institute or the Complete Israeli almud but has not been publishedso ar.

67 As virtually all identications eatured in Sa#adyasAla.s al-Mishnahcan also beound in Maimonides Commentary on the Mishnah, we cannot be sure whether Shemov consulted these lists directly or only indirectly via Maimonides.

68

See also Maimonides on mDemai .: :(i.e., GWPNNis a plant similar to aneth and according to others to sebesten) (MK :).69 Abbr. MK. For this commentary see I.M. a-Shma, Ha-Sirut ha-Parshanit la-

almud, nd rev. ed., vols, Jerusalem , vol. , p. ff.


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works o Ibn Jana .hs, a act which he states explicitly in the introduc-tion to his Glossary o Drug Names.70 As we have seen above, Shem

ov was amiliar with Maimonides commentary, clearly had access toit and thereore consulted it as necessary. Tere are a ew cases whereit is beyond any doubt that Shem ov derived his terminology directlyrom that o Maimonides, as he occasionally includes direct quotationsrom Maimonides commentary on the Mishnah, such as in the entryShin or (SW#) smoothing, plastering, which reads: (SW#, i.e.,"LLBYD,71 because he rubs the surace o something [to be] mendedand argum Onkelos has or (i.e., the house shall be scraped72)) . Shem ov explains this by means o a direct quote romMaimonides on the mentioned Mishnah (MK :).73

Te medieval commentary and responsa literature composed by theGeonim, i.e., the heads o the Jewish academies in Babylonia, provedto be an important source or Shem ov with regards to the remainingterms. Tese commentaries and responsa contain a wealth o botanicalmaterial and are a valuable source o inormation or technical scienticterminology in Arabic and Hebrew.74 However, with a ew exceptions,75

consulting this particular source is problematic, as some texts have beenedited without proper indices, others are still in manuscript and yetothers have to be considered as lost.76 An example o a quotation romGeonic sources is the entry Dalet , in which Aramaic(DR.SYN,cinnamon) is explained by the Arabic synonym(DR.SYNY), tobe read as dar.sn, Chinese cinnamon, Cinnamomum ceylanicum Nees.

70 MaimonidesGlossary o Drug Names(translation by Rosner, abbreviation M), p. .71 Arabic talbdmeans ) orming, pressing, elting, making ones hair stick together;

) lining, covering, mending (WKAS :).72 Lev :.73 Other examples are: Ayin ; Qo , ; Shin ; av .74 For instance, the responsa composed by Sherira and Hai Gaon contain, as S.W.

Baron (A social and religious history o the Jews, nd rev. and enl. ed., vols , andIndex, vols , New York , vol. , p. ) remarks, so many attempts atcorrect identication o names [o plants] and their relation to the previously knownspecies.

75 A major exception is theO.sar ha-Ge"onim, Tesaurus o the Gaonic Responsa andCommentaries(LO), the momumental collection o Geonic responsa and commentariesin the order o the almud tractates (to Baba Me.sia), edited by B. Lewin.

76

An example o a text still largely in manuscript is theKitab al-Haw, a dictionaryo Biblical and Rabbinic Hebrew written in Judaeo-Arabic and composed by Hai Gaon,o which substantial portions have survived in the Genizah; c. R. Brody,Te Geonim oBabylonia and the Shaping o Medieval Jewish Culture, pp. , and MCS .


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Te identication o these phytonyms goes back to a Geonic responsum(c. LO eshuvoton Shab a, p. , where it is stated that (DR.SYN)

is a sharp and dry spice hailing rom China that is called dar .sn inArabic).

In some cases, we were only able to retrieve the Geonic source indi-rectly based on it having been quoted in the Arukh, a lexicon on thealmud and Midrashim composed by Nathan ben Je .hiel o Rome andcompleted in . Most o the Arabic plant names quoted in the Arukhare derived rom Geonic sources, as Lw pointed out in his monumen-talFlora und Fauna der Juden.77 An example o such a quotation romthe Arukh is the entry or (DBDBNYW) in Dalet , whichincludes both the Arabic synonym(QR"SY",qarasiyacherries)and another Arabic term, (.HB "LMLWK). Te Hebrew termeatures in rabbinic literature and means both lumps o dripping grapesand overripe grapes moistened by their own juice. Te term is also usedin the Middle Ages to reer to the ruit cherry, Prunus cerasus. Tus,we nd both identications, grapes and cherries, in the Arukh (KA :),and also the Arabic equivalent (.HB "LMLWK),.habb al-muluk(berries o kings), which was used in Spain and the Maghreb or boththe cherry and the sebesten-tree, Cordia myxa L. (D :; M and).

Shem ov consulted the work o one nal author, an .hum ben Joseha-Yerushalmi, whose work also served to preserve material rom earliersources now lost. Tis author was active in Jerusalem in the thirteenthcentury and composed a dictionary o difficult terms occuring in Mai-monidesMishneh orahentitledKitab al-murshid.78 an .hum consulteda variety o sources in his lexicographical explanations o these terms,including a range o different Geonic authors, including both Sa#adya and

Sherira/Hai, whilst taking Nathans Arukh, Ibn Jana .hs works and Mai-monides commentary on the Mishnah as his main sources. An exam-ple o a quotation preserved only by an .hum is Gimel , where (GYHWQ) is explained using Arabic(M.Y). HebrewGYHWQusually meant belching, but Rashi provides a second explanation,

77 LF :: Die arabischen Pflanzennamen des Aruch stammen mittelbar oderunmittelbar aus gaonischen Quellen; see as well idem, entry Plants, in Jewish Ency-clopaedia, vol. , pp. .

78

TeKitab al-murshidwas edited by B. oledano, el Aviv (letters Ale-Ka), by J. Dana, MA thesis, Jerusalem (letter av), and by H. Shy, Diss., Jerusalem (letters Lamed-av). For a study o this dictionary and excerpts rom it, see B. Ananonymous summary o this work can be ound inQi.s.sur al-Ka, MS Berlin .


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namely to raise and stretch ones body upwards (c. BM , n. ).Arabic tama.t.ta (M) does, in act, mean he stretched himsel. Teidentication oGYHWQastama.t.tacan be ound in an .hum ben Joseha-Yerushalmi (B ), who remarks that (PYHQ), to yawn, isan abbreviation o (PYW HQYM, to stretch ones mouth), inthe same way that(GYHQ, to belch, properly to stretch onesel(= Arab.tama.t.ta)) is an abbreviation o (GWYW HQYM, tostretch ones body).

..Sources or Romance and Latin

Some o the sources mentioned above may also have served or nd-ing Romance and Latin synonyms. In many cases however, the Romanceand Latin words in question reer to airly common names or plants,minerals and animals; we should also keep in mind that Shem ov wasborn in Catalonia and thus a native speaker o Catalan. We may sup-pose that once Shem ov had established an Arabic equivalent to aHebrew or Aramaic term, he was usually able to translate the term intoCatalan and its sister language Occitan without any problem. Similari-ties to other authors may thereore be coincidental: on a ew occasions,namely when the synonym is identical in Italian or Latin and Occi-tan/Catalan, we nd matching material in the Arukh and Shem ovswritings, such as or(MLB") (malva, mallow; He and KA :,:). In some cases, it seems that the Arukh itsel uses Occitan orCatalan orms, which then appear in a similar or even identical ormin Shem ovs glossary, or example:(PYL .R", KA :) and(PYL .RY, He ), both corresponding to O. Occ./O. Cat. pelitre(Anacyclus Pyrethrum L.) as a synonym or Aramaic (HRZP");

( .R .WG", KA :) and ( .R .WGH, O. Occ./O. Cattartuga, Samekh ), that is tortoise, are used as an explanation orHebrew (SWLNY), which is equated with Arabic sila .hah(tortoise).79

79 In other cases, the correspondences are very vague or indirect. For example, theHebrew word in Resh ,(RGYLH), meaning portulaca, purslane, Portulaca oler-acea L., is explained in the Arukh by means o the Latin synonym (PWRQQL"),corresponding toporcacla, one o the many Vulgar Latin derivations oportulacathat

can be ound in medieval Latin medical texts (NPRA , quotesportacla, porca-cla, andporclaca; also c. Sin b with respect to the use o such orms in the Alphitamanuscripts). However, in this case, the Arukh might just have provided inspirationor Shem ov, since he used the corresponding Romance (O. Occ. or O. Cat.) variant


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Te situation is different with some highly specic synonymies, which,strikingly, cannot be ound in the Arukh but rather in Mosesibn ibbons

translations o Maimonides. Moses ben Samuel ibn ibbon was activebetween and in Naples, Marseille and later in Montpellier,where he settled at some time between and 80 and translatedMaimonidesF tadbr a.s-.si .h .hain under the titleAl Hanhagat ha-Beri"utprior to Shem ovs own translation.81 Working at the same timeas Shem ov, he also translated ar-Razs antidotarium Kitabal-aqrabadnal-kabrunder the titleAqrabadinin , MaimonidesCommentaryon Hippocrates Aphorismsin the same year or in the year , Ibn al-Jazzars medical encyclopaediaZad al-musar82 under the title.Sedat ha-

derakhimin ,83 and Ibn Snas poetical summary o the Kitab al-Qanunin ,84 entitled al-Urjuza l-.tibb.85 His translations o Mai-monides treatisesOn Poisons86 andOn Hemorrhoidsare not dated.87 Asnone o these works, with the exception o the antidotarium, is a pharma-ceutical handbook that Shem ov would have been able to consult easilyand as most o these translations were being written at the same timewhen Shem ov was translating theKitab at-ta.sr, it seems unlikely thatShem ov was actually able to draw upon Moses ibn ibbons transla-tions. A nal verdict with regard to this matter will only become possible

verdolaga. Similarly, the words("PYW= Italianapioor Latinapium, KA :; orthe omission o Latin -M, see below, section .) and ("WRPYMYN.W= Lat.auripi(g)mentum, KA :) appear as ("PY= O. Occ or O. Cat.api) and("WRPYMN.= O. Occ. or O. Cat.aurpi(g)men(t), O. Cat.orpiment) in Shem ovs syn-onym list (Ka and Samekh ). For yet another case, see Pe .

80 For Moses ibn ibbon and his translation activity, see J.. Robinson and U. Melam-med, entry Ibn ibbon (ibbonids), in E.J.2:, p. ; O. Fraisse, Mosesibn ibbons Kommentar zum Hohelied und sein poetologisch-philosophisches Programm .

Synoptische Edition, bersetzung und Analyse. Berlin/New York (Studia Judaica.Forschungen zur Wissenschaf des Judentums. Hrsg. von E.L. Ehrlich und G. Stemberger.Band XXV), pp. ; G. Bos, Medical terminology in the Hebrew tradition: Moses BenSamuel Ibn ibbon(orthcoming).

81 A critical edition o the Arabic text and Hebrew translations by G. Bos is orth-coming.

82 For this encyclopaedia, seeIbn al-Jazzar, On Sexual Diseases(ed. Bos), pp. .83 C. Steinschneider, Die hebrischen bersetzungen des Mittelalters und die Juden als

Dolmetscher, p. .84 C. Ullmann,Die Medizin im Islam, p. .85 C. Steinschneider, op. cit., p. .86

See Steinschneider, op. cit., p. . Edition by G. Bos (abbr. BMP).87 See Steinschneider, op. cit., p. . While Steinschneider rejected the ascription toMoses ibn ibbon, there is new evidence conrming his authorship; c. the orthcomingcritical edition o the Arabic text and Hebrew translations (abbr. BMH).


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once these translations have been analysed with respect to their medico-botanical terminology. Since Moses ibn ibbon was born and worked in

Southern France, he mostly used Occitan or vernacular synonyms andexplanations. One o the passages where Shem ov shares airly techni-cal vocabulary with Ibn ibbon is Gimel , where we nd the Arabicterm (S.HWG"LM#") corresponding tosa .hg al-am#a"mean-ing dysentery, attended by abrasion or excoriation o the colon (L ;SN ). Te Arabic term is accompanied by a Romance synonym spelt(PWN.S), which we identied as O. Cat.ponsdysentery. In Mai-monides On the Regimen o Health (c. BMR II, ), we nd the expression

(i.e., and in some cases it causes abrasion), which is translated

as by Moses ibn ibbon, where abrasion corre-sponds to(PWN.S). Another case is entry Lamed : Hebrew(LBYBH) means heart-shaped pastry, but is equated with Arabic(".RYH) and Romance(MNWD .S). Arabici.triyadesignated acertain ood, like threads, made o flour, noodles and eatures in Mai-monidesOn the Regimen o Health(BMR I, ) where it is translated byMoses ibn ibbon using the same Romance term(MNWD ..S).Tis Romance term represents the plural o O. Occ. menudet, meaningairly ne, airly small, but could also mean a kind o dough in certainsituations. With respect to plant names, many Occitan terms commonlyused in Shem ovs writings can be ound in the .Sedat ha-derakhim.88

Although these are again mostly common words amiliar to any Occitanspeaker, the mutual occurrence o the more technical vocabulary men-tioned above does not seem coincidental. Instead o indicating a directrelationship between the two translators, however, it seems more likelythat Shem ov and Ibn ibbon shared some common sources. Tese mayhave included existing synonym lists, such as several anonymous syn-

onym lists that we have already been able to identiy as containing OldOccitan terms.89 Although they are o a later date (ourteenth-feenth

88 Tis text is currently being edited and analysed in a project unded by the DFG runby Gerrit Bos, Guido Mensching and Julia Zwink. Te results obtained so ar show thatthe vast majority o the Arabic terminology that appears in the Zad al-musarwas notactually translated into Hebrew but rather into Romance and occasionally Latin, also seesection ..

89 Tese lists are discussed in HebMedSyn, in particular: MS Mich. Add , ols. v

r

and MS Parma Bibl. Palat. , the latter list contains both Occitan and Catalanvocabulary. See A. Neubauer, Catalogue o the Hebrew Manuscripts in the Bodleian Libraryand in the College Libraries o Oxord, Oxord , n ; I.B. De Rossi, Mss CodicesHebraici Biblioth. I.B. de-Rossiaccurate ab eodemdescripti et illustrati,vols,Parma,,


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century), it seems probable that they are copies o earlier lists. Terelationship between these lists and the works o Shem ov and Ibn

ibbon cannot be properly determined beore the lists in questionsreceive ull critical attention.

As ar as Latin terminology is concerned, Shem ov might have hadaccess to various Latin treatises and translations which were in circu-lation at the time he was writing. However, it is not possible to deter-mine which exact sources these might have been, because the Latinterminology in question was that used by the Salernitan School andelsewhere at the time. Tis kind o terminology was transmitted viaLatin synonym lists. Te most amous o these, the Alphita, may already

have existed when Shem ov was writing90 and actually existed in aHebrew version (although the known copy dates rom the ourteenthcentury).91 Although this might be coincidental, some o Shem ovsLatin terms can be ound in the Alphita, such as(BLSMY.H,balsamita, Ale ), ("QWLWS QWNSYLYS, oculus con-sulis, Ale ), (K"MYDRYWS, camedreos, Bet ), (GWRGRYSMW,gargarismum,Gimel), (BL"WS .Y", balaus-tia, Nun ).

Since the Alphita only contains a small number o Arabisms, it wasnot a valuable source o Latin-Arabic equivalences. A better candidateor this purpose was the Latin translation o Ibn SnasKitab al-Qanuntraditionally attributed to Gerard o Cremona (c. ). Tis trans-lation contains an index consisting o a glossary o mostly LatinisedArabic terms arranged alphabetically, thus providing Arabic-Latin cor-respondences. Tusnux indicais, or example, identied asnargil(Sin:; i.e., the Arabicnargl, coconut), while the same correspondencecan be ound in entry Ale ( :N"RGYL, o.l.NWZ

"YNDY"H), where the Latin term was translated into O. Occ. as *nos

n ; B. Richler,Hebrew Manuscripts in the Biblioteca Palatina in Parma. Catalogue.Palaeographical and codicological descriptions: Malachi Beit-Ari, Jerusalem , n.

90 C. Garca Gonzlez, op. cit., p. , who xes the terminus post quem at the end othe twelfh century.

91 C. HebMedSyn . Te Hebrew version o the Alphita can be ound in aourteenth century manuscript (Parma Bibl. Palat. , ols. rv; c. De Rossi, op.

cit., n , Richler, op. cit., n ; both authors had not identied this list). It cannotbe said at the moment whether it is a copy o a version that might have been availableto Shem ov. Strikingly, this version o the Alphita is also o Southern French origin andincludes many adaptations o the Latin terminology to O. Occ.


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(ornotz) india.92 A airly striking parallel between the index and theLatin translation o the Kitab al-Qanunand Shem ovs glossaries can be

ound in entry Ayin , which details the identication o Arabic (SY.RG) as a word spelt (Q"BSY"). Although the Arabic termis easy to interpret as s.tarag (peppergrass, cress, Lepidium latioliumL.), the supposed Latin correspondence is unclear; the identication oboth can, however, be ound in the index as Setaragi, i. capsia (c. Sinb).93

As or Romance, it is difficult to show that any medical writings inOccitan or Catalan served as sources or Shem ov. Te rst author whowrote medical works in Romance (Catalan) was Ramon Llull (

),94 with another series o works rom the same period, i.e., the lastquarter o the thirteenth century, being attributed to Arnau de Vilanova(). Te amous Occitan encylopedic poem Breviari dAmorbyMatre Ermengau dates rom the same period and contains, as has beenrepeatedly pointed out by P. Ricketts,95 a great deal o medico-botanicalterminology. Old Occitan medical translations and writings are mostlydocumented rom the ourteenth century onwards. Tere are some ex-ceptions, however, such as an Occitan translation o Roger o ParmasSurgeryin verse orm rom around ,96 which has some vocabularyin common with Shem ovs synonym lists, such as estula stula,suppurating wound (vv. , , among others; c. PYS .WL"in Gimel ), cranccrab, cancer (v. , c. QRNQ in .Sade ),

92 Any simple and compound terms that cannot be ound in the existing Romance orLatin sources are marked with an asterisk both here and in the commentary itsel.

93 See entries Gimel , .Het , Mem , Pe , Qo , Resh or urther examples.94 C. hisComenaments de medicina(around ), see K.-H. Rntgen, Geschichte

der technischen und naturwissenschaflichen Fachsprachen in der Romania: Iberische

Halbinsel, in G. Ernst/M.D. Glegen/C. Schmitt/W. Schweickard (eds), RomanischeSprachgeschichte. Ein internationales Handbuch zur Geschichte der romanischen Sprachen,vol. II, Berlin / New York , pp. ; L. Ciuentes i Comamala,La cincia encatal a lEdat Mitjana i el Renaixement, a. ed., revisada i ampliada, Barcelona ,pp. , .

95 P. Ricketts, Plantes et recettes mdicales dans leBreviari dAmorde Matre Ermen-gaud de Bziers,Mlanges pour Robert Laont, Montpellier, , pp. ; idem, Lelexique des plantes mdicinales en occitan mdival, M.S. Corradini Bozzi and B. Per-in (eds),Atti del convegno Il linguaggio scientico e tecnico (medico, botanico, armaceu-tico e nautico) ra Medioevo e Rinascimento, Pisa novembre , Pisa , pp. .

96

First studied by A. Tomas, La chirurgie de Roger de Parme en vers provenaux.Notice sur un ms. de la Bibliothque de Bologne,Romania (), pp. and ;A. Tomas, La versication de la chirurgie provenale de Raimon dAvignon, Romania (), pp. .


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enguentointment (v. , c."YNGN., Resh ), andcaus vivacalcium oxide which has not been in contact with water (v. ,

c. Q"LS WYW", Samekh , representing the variant calzviva). Tese do, however, represent common terms likely to have beenamiliar to Shem ov or which may have been taken rom other sources.97

With respect to Hebrew sources that contain Occitan words, Shem ovmay have been amiliar with the Hebrew translation o the MedievalLatin medical poem commonly known asMacer Floridus.98 Some termsused by Shem ov in his synomyn lists do, in act, appear there: C.() ("Y(Q) .RY.SY"H,MF)() ("YQ .RYSY"H,Yod) or Latin or Romanceictericiaicterus; (SL MWN."NW,MF )(SYLMWN."NWM, Ka ) or Latinsil montanummountain cumin;(PWDRG", MF )(PWDGR", Pe )or Romancepodagra, gout in the eet.

..Creation o New erms

Some o the terms eatured in the list compiled by Shem ov cannot beretrieved rom either biblical or rabbinic literature, nor rom the stan-dard lexica or medical and botanical literature. In such cases, it seemsthat Shem ov resorted to semantic borrowing. An example o this is(.HWG) in .Het , which means (to make a) circle in the Bible (e.g.Job :) and rabbinic literature (b.Hag b). Te Arabic synonym (DW"R) isduwar, meaning circle, and, as a medical term, vertigo, gid-diness in the head. Tis meaning also eatures in Maimonides MedicalAphorisms99 (XV, ) as (al-duwar wal-sadar, vertigo anddizziness). Similar cases can be ound, e.g. in Nun and Shin , butthese are quite rare. More requently, we nd what appear to be gen-

uine loan-translations o compound terms. An example o such a botan-ical term is (LSWN H.SPWR) in Lamed , literally meaningsparrows tongue. Arabic (LS"N"L.SPWR) is lisan al-#u.sur,with the same literal meaning, but which is used to designate the ruit

97 Such as Daude de Pradas treatise on alconry (c. A.H. Schutz, Te romance oDaude de Pradas, called Dels Auzels Cassadors, Columbus Ohio ), but also rom thetroubadour literature, in which many plant names appear.

98

Only a ragmentary copy o this translation rom the beginning o the feenthcenturystill exists, but it seems that the original (ull?) translation wasmade around .C. MF .

99 See BMMa, BMMb.


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o the ash-tree, Fraxinus excelsior L.100 Tis is the earliest record o thisHebrew term, at leastas ar as we currently know. It subsequently eatures

in the Hebrew translations o MaimonidesMedical Aphorisms(XXI, )by Zera .hyah ben Isaac ben She"altiel .Hen and Nathan ha-Me"ati, who usethe same Hebrew term (LSWN H.SPWR) or Arabiclisan al-#u.sur. Shem ov did not just use the method o loan-translation in theeld o botany and pharmaceutics101 but also in that o pathology, suchas in the ollowing case: (B#L H.SD) in Bet literally meanssomething like possessoro the side, which is similar to the literal mean-ing o the Arabic term indicated by Shem ov, (D"LGNB,

dat

al-ganb) but which is also used to designate costal pleurisy. Tis medical

meaning is conrmed by the Romance-Latin synonymplevesin non vera,which designates the same disease. Te Hebrew term neither eatures inBen Yehuda,102 nor in Even-Shoshan.103 Nathan ha-Me"ati uses this termin his Hebrew translation o MaimonidesMedical Aphorisms(VI, ),while his colleague Zera .hyah ben Isaac ben She"altiel .Hen uses the term (.HWLY H.SD, illness o the side).

Te creation o a new special ter

medical synonym lists from medieval provence shem tov ben isaac of tortosa_sefer ha-shimmush_book 29

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