Chapter 20 - Book Production

Summary

As it is impossible to isolate the subject of the book production among the Jews of the medieval Christian world from the history and typology of the book production among the Jews in the Muslim world, the essay encompasses the subject in the entire dispersed Jewish communities in the Middle Ages. The singular circumstances of the production of books by the Jews in Hebrew script is manifested by the entirely individualist nature of the initiating the copying of books as well as the consumption of them. The fact that no communal or educational instigated the production of books or assembled them had an immense impact on the transmition of the texts. Books were produced and consumed as private enterprise, and were not selected and controlled by any intellectual establishment. Furthermore, at least half of them were produced by their owners, and not by hired professional scribes. The variety of types of script and their modes and their geo-cultural are presented, as well as the corresponding different codicological traditions. The affinities between the script and the materiality of the books to the scribal traditions of their host civilizations are discussed. Separate part is dedicate to the creative role of scribes and copyists in making the structure of the copied texts more transparent, lisible and usable