The Postmortem Inventory of Astrug Mosse, a Jew of Marseille (1397)

Abstract

Abstract:This brief essay offers a set of remarks on the postmortem inventory of a Jew from the city of Marseille who died in 1397. The inventory, which lists all the assets in the estate, had been compiled by the decedent's daughters and was then presented to the court in order to be registered. Like many inventories from the region, it proceeds room by room, and offers valuable glimpses of Jewish material culture as well as the folk ontology governing the classification of things. The article includes a translation of the inventory, recording strikethrough deletions and interlineations.