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.
