This late thirteenth-century Hebrew volume, known as the Northern French Hebrew Miscellany (Falter Facsimile Editions; British Library 11639), is among the most beautiful extant illuminated Hebrew manuscripts copied by a man noted in the colophon as Benjamin the Scribe. As in many medieval Hebrew liturgical compendia, this collection includes numerous Jewish calendric computations as well as a complex diagram of the signs of the zodiac.
Guided by the zodiac, a Christian calendar written in Hebrew, one of the earliest such calendar known to date, was inserted towards the end of the manuscript (fol. 542v). Each of the four corners of this page provides instructions for calculating the equinox or solstice times, standard components of Jewish calendars that in most Hebrew manuscripts are not linked to the Christian calendar. The inner triangle records the annual ecclesiastic calendar, detailing its four 13-week periods, reflecting its four-part economic division of the year. The concentric circles that surround the triangle outlined the different saints' days celebrated by the Christians. These are evidence of the intimate acquaintance medieval Jews had with the Christian ritual cycle and with the importance of this knowledge that provided guidelines for business and social relations.
