Evidence from the University of Paris shows that medical students in that highly institutionalized setting took notes in a wide variety of formats, one of which was loose sheets, sometimes two to three folios kept as flyleaves in manuscripts; that is likely what we are seeing here as well.16 They also took notes in the margins of their texts, again seen here. What we do not find in this manuscript, however, are the sorts of study aids that Paris medical students added to their textbooks: titles given in running heads, marks for chapters and subdivisions, quick reference signs, or schematic diagrams of a work’s contents for help in memorization.
Traces of face-to-face encounters do appear in these pages, as when the student reports that “I heard [it] from the Efod” or “from the mouth of the Efod” or “as the Efod taught me about the doubt which I asked him” or “this too I heard from him.”17 Sometimes a source is only cryptically indicated, as in the case of an otherwise unidentified maestre Bonjudas18 who has provided mathematical techniques to find the square of a number that is a multiple of one hundred, the square of a number that is between one and one hundred, and a rule regarding the ratio of a number to its square.19
The same Bonjudas is also the source of two separate groups of brief astronomical answers. One covers the following subjects: why we see the moon as full one or two days before it is actually full; why we don’t see it at all at the time of the conjunction; a question about the term for the ecliptic; and why up to four hours can elapse between the true and the median conjunction.20 The student has appended to these passages an extract from the letter Duran wrote to Shealtiel Gracian on just this topic of the difference between the true and median conjunctions. Maestre Bonjudas himself is cited with no comment beyond his name, suggesting perhaps that he was so well known to our student that no more need be said; perhaps he, too, was part of the study group. Later comments are headed by even less easily identifiable acronyms.21
In this particular class, Duran was instructing students on such matters as the multiplication of spherical fractions; checking work by “casting out nines”; using astronomical tables and their canons for calculating the position of the sun and moon; taking account of error in observations using an astrolabe, a quadrant, or a saphea; gelosia (lattice) multiplication; and other highly practical astronomical techniques.22 Given what we know about the practical needs of astrologer-astronomers, it is thus likely that the students were acquiring the skills necessary to practice astrology either as an independent activity or, presumably, as a supplement to medicine. The material is highly pragmatic in purpose, and indeed reflects a relatively “low” register of scientific activity. All the more fascinating, then, since this level of activity and learning does not usually leave traces in the written record.
Although the language of the notes is Hebrew, there is no other overt sign of the Jewishness of either teacher or pupils. Only once does a “religious” reference appear, when the note taker mentions giving thanks to “the Creator of the universe,” and even there he is quoting from his source.23 Names of Jewish astronomers and mathematicians are given in their Catalan form next to citations of Ptolemy and al-Battani, and much of the extracted scientific material appears without reference to the nature or background of its source. This is Jewish science, then, only in the banal sense that it is being done by Jews. And yet the fact that they write their mathematics in Hebrew rather than in the vernacular of their everyday lives should not be dismissed. In itself it constitutes a sign, unspoken and perhaps even to some extent unconscious, of Jewish identity.
MS PARMA BIBLIOTECA PALATINA 2290
A second source is a collection of Profayt Duran’s writings put together by another student, in this case one whose name we know: Meir Crescas.24 Crescas’s interests seem to have pointed him to material quite different from that just discussed: specifically, the numerological legacy of Abraham ibn Ezra. The compilation includes an eight-line poem by ibn Ezra built around the first ten numbers; according to Crescas, the poem was customarily recited in Barcelona at the afternoon service of Yom Kippur. It is accompanied by Duran’s explanation of the poem’s meaning, an explanation said here to have been written at the request of the two sons of Benveniste (ben Lavi). Crescas follows this with letters by Duran sent in response to two queries: one about the mystical and numerical qualities of the number seven (discussed in detail in Chapter 6 below) and the other, which I touch on in Chapter 4, about prophecy, prompted by a confusing phrase in the magical text Sefer ha-Tamar (“Book of the Date-Palm”). Another riddle poem by Abraham ibn Ezra, this time about the metaphysical significance of the Hebrew letters appearing in the divine names, is likewise explicated by Duran. There are also two explanations of opaque comments by ibn Ezra on passages in the Pentateuch and an additional comment, not by Duran, again relating to the significance of the number seven in the Hebrew Bible. Finally, there appears Duran’s lengthy eulogy for Abraham ben Isaac of Girona, dated to the end of 1393.
Meir Crescas’s notes differ in style from the informal, hurried, and economical notes of our first, anonymous student. In this case, he has made a clear attempt at uniformity and legibility, possibly so that others might ultimately read what he has written. It is also conceivable that he copied the material within a relatively contained period of time, perhaps from an earlier notebook collection. Nevertheless, these notes, too, represent the record of a study group.
Crescas writes: “Said the scribe [that is, Meir Crescas himself]: I did not think it proper to copy more from his explanation of this section from the notebook of one of the companions, as we hear the words of the sage [only] sometimes and rarely. And this [passage] indeed, with difficulty and with great labor [is still] ambiguous, since in what remains I am not certain it agrees with the opinion of the sage and it was not clear to me that it comes from his mouth. And I shall pass to what I have attained from him regarding the section ‘Speak to the priests’ [Lev. 22:26–23:44], along with the rest of the faithful companions.”25
These lines, like the class notes of our first student, evoke a scene of several adult disciples studying together, sometimes with and sometimes without their master, each perhaps with a notebook that may be shared with other members of the group. Something similar may have taken place among the circle of students led by the Provençal astronomer and philosopher Levi ben Gerson in the mid-fourteenth century, whose “school” has been described by Ruth Glasner.26 They too termed their master moreinu or ḥakham, and they too appear to have considered themselves a group of companions (ḥaverim), with Levi ben Gerson himself referred to as he-ari she-ba-ḥavurah, “the lion in the company.”27 The main difference is that here Profayt Duran does appear to have attended the class in person on at least some occasions, while there the students gathered as a group but without the teacher’s presence. Another example may be that of Abraham Rimoch who explains in the introduction to his commentary on Psalms that he has “settled down with [his] few disciples who have stayed with [him].”28
In these student groups we might be glimpsing a model for the “circles” of scholars whose importance in the development of philosophical thought in the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries has been stressed by Dov Schwartz.29 The existence of such study circles and groups of individuals separated in space but in contact on topics of mutual interest illustrates how scattered members of the Jewish elites—a very small subset of an already small and marginal group—could and did maintain a sense of cultural identity and cohesion.
As for when this manuscript might have been written, Crescas refers consistently to Duran as maestre Profayt Duran ha-Levi or maestre Profayt ha-Levi, that is, by his preconversion name. Still, it is in the 1393 eulogy, the last text of the set copied here, that Duran announces his new Hebrew name as “Efod.” The manuscript was clearly completed after that year, and thus at minimum a year or two after Duran’s conversion. Moreover,
