Mahari Weil—Rabbi Jacob Weil מהר"י ווייל — רבי יעקב ווייל
Maharil's student; his Shechitot u-Bedikot became the Ashkenazi order of slaughter
His dates are unknown. He is known to have been rabbi at Nuremberg by 1422, then at Erfurt, and to have died before 1456—so Graetz places it. He therefore has a window here rather than dates: we shall not invent a year of death.
He was ordained by the Maharil, and it was the Maharil who placed him at Nuremberg. This matters not as biography but as structure: in fifteenth-century Ashkenaz the right to be a rabbi passed by name, from teacher to student, and here one can see how that worked.
His responsa were printed at Venice in 1549. But what became universal was not the book of answers but its appendix—the Shechitot u-Bedikot, the rules of slaughter and of examining what has been slaughtered. Seventy-one editions, commentaries, supplements: from this text the Ashkenazi slaughterer learned his craft for centuries.
On the timeline
Related
Sources
Rishonim
- Shechitot u-Bedikot — the rules of slaughter and inspection that became the Ashkenazi order
Scholarship
- Jewish Encyclopedia, "Weil, Jacob" — Nuremberg from 1422, ordination by the Maharil, death before 1456 per Graetz, seventy-one editions
Basis: documents and evidence.