The book contains an edition of the piyyut corpus of the 11th Century Italian payyetan R. Yehiel bar Avraham, known especially by virtue of his son, R. Natan, author of the Arukh . Among his piyyutim we find many selihot , but also piyyutim belonging to the qerova and yotzer types. The piyyutim are accompanied by an apparatus of variant readings, a commentary, and a scientific introduction, in which R. Yehiel’s corpus is illuminated from different perspectives, with special stress on characteristic collocations and expressions peculiar to him.

The selihot of Germany and France reflect to a significant degree the spirit of their age, constituting an authentic expression of the feelings of the communities that lived under Christian domination. In the Middle Ages, they were not recited according to a fixed sequence, and payyetanim could therefore compose many new selihot , thereby adding to the corpus that was at the disposal of the precentor. Only a few selihot were incorporated and subsequently printed as part of the known liturgical rites (the rites of Poland and Lithuania). The present collection contains more than 350 piyyutim , which have been gathered by Daniel Goldschmidt from German and French manuscripts. His grandson, Avraham Fraenkel, has appended a short commentary to them. The work also contains an appendix explaining the manner in which the piyyutim have been attributed to their authors.

This title contains various articles about prayer and liturgy written orginially by Dr Daniel Goldschmidt.