Chasidei Ashkenaz: The Rhineland Pietistic Movement

🏰 Following the harrowing events of the Crusades, rebounding Rhineland Jewish communities nurtured a small but influential pietistic movement that created a unique ethical and mystical literature.

This is not the famed Parma manuscript of Sefer Chasidim, since its holding institution does not permit reproduction (you can see it digitized here.) This manuscript is Municipal Library of Nimes, France Ms. Séguier 26, likely the earliest manuscript of Sefer Chasidim, dating as early as the thirteenth century. It belongs to the “Bologna group” of manus…