Person
Rabbi Abraham ben Nathan ha-Yarhi רבי אברהם בן נתן הירחי
he set down the customs of many lands, having seen them himself
His byname is a translation: Lunel is "moon" in French, and in Hebrew the moon is yareah. He studied at Dampierre under the Ri ha-Zaken, then travelled, and in 1204 settled at Toledo.
The Manhig is doubly precious. It preserves customs we should otherwise not know—and quotations from talmudic and midrashic books wholly lost. Having learnt Arabic in Spain, he translated from it a responsum of Rav Saadya Gaon. The sources give no years of life: the window is set by his study at Dampierre and by the years of work on the book.
On the timeline
Places
Related
Sources
Rishonim
- Sefer ha-Manhig, begun at Toledo in 1204 — the customs of many lands, recorded from what he saw
Scholarship
- The Jewish Encyclopedia (1906) — the window of activity, the teacher and the byname
Basis: documents and evidence.