Bible glossaries as hidden cultural carriers
Judeo-French cultural exchange in the High Middle Ages
The academy project Bible Glossaries as Hidden Cultural Carriers: Judeo-French Cultural Exchange in the High Middle Agesbegan in January 2023. It is led by Jewish studies scholar Prof. Dr. Hanna Liss (Heidelberg College of Jewish Studies) and Romance studies scholar Dr. Stephen Dörr.
The project is scheduled to run for a total of 18 years and contributes to the Judeo-French linguistic and literary tradition, which is being examined for the first time in an interdisciplinary manner in terms of its significance for cultural studies, linguistics, and the history of theology. The aim is to edit and contextualize Hebrew-French Bible glossaries and French glosses in Hebrew script in Hebrew Bible and Talmud commentary literature (tosafot). The project work will be integrated into a digital working environment throughout in order to make the research usable beyond the project.
Multilingualism is today, as it was in medieval Europe, a sign of elite education. The Jewish diaspora in medieval northern France was fluent in Hebrew and Aramaic, as their most important sources of knowledge were written in these languages. However, Old French wastheir common language of communication with the Christian population, and a significant group of Francophone Jews was very receptive to French culture and literature. This Jewish-French literacy is documented in various texts from the 12th to 14th centuries. These include Old French glosses in Hebrew script on religiously important texts such as the Bible and the Talmud. These were collected in Hebrew-French Bible glossaries.
The glossaries are exceptional witnesses to a simultaneously developing (Jewish and Christian) French (Biblical) reading culture in Western Europe. They form fundamental texts for researching the interrelationships between Jewish intellectual history and the non-Jewish environment. Their analysis contrasts the historical portrayal of a painful antagonism between Christian and Jewish relations with the image of a culturally fruitful interdependence between French vernacular literature and Jewish intellectual society, which has only been recognized and appreciated to a limited extent until now.
By using state-of-the-art digital tools, the project will establish a solid praxeological, philological, and linguistic foundation for presenting Jewish religious education as part of the shared intellectual heritage of the French-speaking world in the Langue d'oïl region. By bringing together unique expertise from Jewish studies, Romance studies, and Middle High German philology, the project will contribute to a fundamental reassessment of Jewish culture in medieval France, according to which Jews aspired to be a powerful part of European educational culture.
Most of the glossaries are being edited and historically and philologically processed for the first time as part of the project. A total of approximately 105,000 entries are being examined.
The texts are exceptional examples of Jewish and Christian French (biblical) reading culture in Western Europe. The glossaries therefore form fundamental texts for research into the interrelationships between Jewish intellectual history and the non-Jewish environment. The historical portrayal of a painful antagonism in Christian-Jewish relations is juxtaposed with the image of a culturally fruitful interdependence that has only been recognized and appreciated to a limited extent thus far.
Using state-of-the-art digital tools, the project is establishing a solid praxeological, philological, and linguistic foundation for presenting Jewish religious education as part of the shared intellectual heritage of the French-speaking world.
BIMA 2.1
BIBLICAL MASORAH DATABASE 2.1 (developed by Clemens Liedtke, MA)
BIMA 2.1 is a collaborative, digital, and open source work environment, database, and user interface. BIMA 2.1 enables the transcription, translation, and analysis of any source text in a workspace where images and text are immediately visually linked by colored text paths drawn directly onto the surface of high-quality images of manuscript pages. BIMA 2.1 displays the manuscripts via the IIIF protocol, from where they are further processed.
research center management
- Prof. Dr. Hanna Liss(Jewish Studies)
- Dr. Stephen Dörr ( Romance Languages)
Employees
- Dr. Sabine Arndt ( postdoctoral researcher, Jewish Studies)
- Dr. Katelyn Mesler (postdoctoral researcher, Jewish Studies)
- Fabian Strobel (PhD candidate, computational linguistics, digital humanities)
- Isabelle Schmiederer (PhD candidate, Medieval German Studies)
- Regina Bacher (student assistant, Jewish Studies)
- Elina Léocadie (student assistant, Romance languages)
- Nora Nedjai (student assistant, Romance languages)
- Hannah Oberholz (student assistant, Medieval Studies)
- Luize Ottati de Lima (student assistant, Romance languages)
- Josina Reinhold (student assistant)
- Julia Schöfthaler (student assistant, Romance languages)
Members of the commission accompanying the project
- Prof. Dr. Rafael Arnold
- Prof. Cyril Aslanov
- Prof. Dr. Annette Gerok-Reiter
- Prof. Dr. Jan Gertz (Chair)
- Prof. Dr. Nikolas Jaspert (Chairman)
- Prof. Dr. Andreas Kuczera
- Professor Stefan Maul
- Professor Judith Olszowy-Schlanger
- Prof. Dr. Arwed Weidenmüller
- Prof. Dr. Raymund Wilhelm
Liss, Hanna and Dörr, Stephen, “Hebrew-French Bible Glossaries and the Question of Jewish-French Cultural Exchange in the High Middle Ages: A Reevaluation,” Corpus Masoreticum Working Papers2, 2022, 22–50 (open access)
Claudio Lagomarsini, "Talmudic glosses in Hebrew, or rather in medieval French" in: Il sole 24 ore 12.4.2024: https://amp24.ilsole24ore.com/pagina/AFeb38PD
Sabine Arndt and Stephen Dörr, “The Beginning of Wisdom by Hagin the Jew: A Lexicon Between Tradition and Innovation,” Mélanges Joëlle Ducos (forthcoming, 2025).
Stephen Dörr, “The Language of the Jews in the French Middle Ages,” in: The Values of the Vernacular: Essays in Medieval Romance Languages and Literatures in Dialogue with Simon Gaunt, ed. by Hannah Morcos, Maria Teresa Rachetta, Henry Ravenhall, Natasha Romanova, and Simone Ventura, Rome, Viella (print 2025)
Stephen Dörr, Review of Ariane Pinchon, ed., Wauchier de Denain, Li Seint Confessor, Paris (Honoré Champion) 2024 (Les classiques français du Moyen Âge, 204), Francia-Recensio 2025/1, Middle Ages – Moyen Âge (500–1500), DOI: https://doi.org/10.11588/frrec.2025.1.109368.
Stephen Dörr, Review of Peter Nahon, Les parlers français des israélites du Midi, Strasbourg 2023, RF 137 (2025) 162-166.
Stephen Dörr, Review of Franz Staller, ed., Fragment of a Hebrew-Old French Bible Glossary from the University Library of Salzburg: Critical Edition, Linguistic History Analysis, and Historical-Geographical Context (Situation of the Jewish Minority in Lorraine between 1220 and 1350), Innsbruck : Studia Verlag Innsbruck 2023, 292 p., Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie 140 (2024), 992-996.
Hanna Liss, “Early Hebrew Printing and the Quality of Reading: A Praxeological Study,” in Premodern Jewish Books, their Makers and Readers in an Era of Media Change, ed. by Katrin Kogman-Appel and Ilona Steimann, Brepols, Turnhout, 2024, 251–274.
Hanna Liss, “Between Imagination and Exegesis: The Masora Figurata Illustrations of the Two Menorot in Vatican ebr. 14,” In Images – A Journal of Jewish Art and Visual Culture16 (2023), 1–19
Hanna Liss, "'Hebraica and Gallica Veritas': The Function of the Hebrew-French Glossaries in 12th Century Jewish and Christian Exegesis," in: From Theodulf to Rashi And Beyond - Texts, Techniques, and Transfer in Western European Exegesis (800–1100), ed. by Johannes Heil and Sumi Shimahara, Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2022, 119–146.
Hanna Liss and Stephen Dörr, “Hebrew-French Bible Glossaries and the Question of Jewish-French Cultural Exchange in the High Middle Ages: A Reevaluation,” Corpus Masoreticum Working Papers 2, 2022, 22–50 (https://journals.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/index.php/cmwp/article/view/89053).
Hanna Liss, “Teaching in Tiny Letters. Eliyyah ben Berekhyah ha-Naqdan’s Way of Teaching as Displayed in MS Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana ebr. 14,” Corpus Masoreticum Working Papers 1, 2022, 1–20 (https://journals.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/index.php/cmwp/article/view/87168).
Katelyn Mesler, “Did Perets Trabot Write the Makre Dardeke? A Case Study in the Confusion of Names” (submitted to La Revue des Études Juives)
Katelyn Mesler, Introduction to “Florilegium (Cambridge, University Library, MS Ff.6.53).” Posted Oct. 2024. https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-FF-00006-00053/1
June 1, 2026, Department of Romance Languages, Heidelberg University, Ernst-Robert-Curtius Hall
7:00 p.m. sharp: Lecture by Prof. Dr. Guido Mensching and Dr. Frank Savelsberg, “Multilingual Word Lists as a Reflection of Jewish Networks: The Transmission of Avicenna’s *Canon of Medicine*, Book II, and Its Index in the Romance-speaking Mediterranean Region”
June 10, 2026, College of Jewish Studies, Room 4
4:15 p.m. – 5:45 p.m.: Seminar on Romance Philology. Texts, Traditions, and Editions:
Dr. Federico Novello (ALMA, Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities), Introduction:Text editing between method and critical responsibility
Arianna Grancini, B.A. (Master’s student, University of Milan), *Qui le cours de la lune vora sapere: a previously unpublished short treatise on astronomy from the manuscript Milano, Biblioteca Braidense, AD. XII. 53*
Dr. Stephen Dörr (Bible Glossaries, Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities), Discussion and Perspectives: Why Edit Astronomical Texts in Old French?
July 1, 2026, Department of Romance Languages, Heidelberg University, Ernst-Robert-Curtius Hall
6:00 p.m. sharp: Lecture by Prof. Dr. Maria Luisa Meneghetti, “Quo vadis ecdotica? On Some Recent Approachesto Textual Criticism (
) in the Field of Text Editing”
July 13, 2026, Department of Romance Languages, Heidelberg University, Ernst-Robert-Curtius Hall
7:00 p.m. sharp: Lecture by Dr. Emma Belkacemi-Molinier, *Modus parabolicus: Translating the Parable in the 13th-Century Bible*.
The project maintains collaborations with the following scientific individuals and institutions:
- ALMA – Networks of Knowledge in Medieval Romania (Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities)
- Corpus Masoreticum (DFG project in Heidelberg)
- Heidelberg University Library
- University Computer Center/heiCloud
- AlHaTorah
- Doctoral program at the University of Bergamo
- Manuscripta Italica Allographica (MIA) Project
- Prof. Claudio Lagomarsini (University of Siena)
(work in progress)
Address:
Prof. Dr. Hanna Liss
Heidelberg College of Jewish Studies
Landfriedstraße 12
69117 Heidelberg
Dr. Stephen Dörr
General inquiries to hadw
Web editing of this project page
- Dr. Stephen Dörr
- Prof. Dr. Hanna Liss