You've heard of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn... but have you heard of the OTHER marriage annulment case that rocked the (Jewish) Mediterranean in the 1520s??

Yaquta, the Girl from Tripoli / הנערה מטראבאלס 🧵 The Cairo Geniza preserved a small scrap of paper with the remnants of a Hebrew testimony: "...on the night of the wedding, the elder Avraham took her out.... and married her to this Pinḥas, on the night of the wedding... and it was all against the will of her father...."

What do the western swamphen and a 12th-century Jewish bride in Old Cairo have in common?

🧵 on the words qalamūnī and būqalamūn This manuscript (1128–53 CE) is the dowry list of the richest woman in the Geniza. She has gold, amber, a Chinese pen-box, an ivory kohl container, a personal bloodletting kit, and lots of the precious fabric siqlāṭūn also worn by Chaucer's Sir Thopas (librarius.com/canttran/thopa…)