This manuscript preserves a model bill of manumission—a legal document used to free an enslaved person. It comes from the Siddur of R. Natan of Sijilmasa, a medieval work that included legal instructions and model documents alongside prayers. The text cites R. Hayya Gaon, head of the Babylonian academy at Pumbedita in the early eleventh century.

The person addressed in the document held the rabbinic status of an eved kenaʿani, conventionally translated as a “Canaanite slave.” The term did not mean that the person came from ancient Canaan. It was a legal category for a non-Jew enslaved by a Jew. A male slave who accepted this status underwent circumcision and ritual immersion and assumed some, but not all, Jewish religious obligations. He remained enslaved and could not marry a free Jewish woman. He thus occupied an intermediate position: incorporated into Jewish religious life, but neither free nor yet a full member of the Jewish community.

Medieval Jewish law did recognize the enslaved person’s assent at the beginning of this process, although it did so within the coercive structure of slavery. Maimonides rules that when a newly purchased slave did not wish to undergo circumcision and accept the commandments required of slaves, the owner had to allow him up to twelve months to reconsider. If he continued to refuse, the owner could not impose this Jewish status upon him but had to sell him to a non-Jew. Maimonides also records the possibility of a prior agreement allowing the slave to remain non-Jewish. This was a meaningful legal limit on forced conversion, but it was not free religious choice in the modern sense: the person remained enslaved, and refusal could result in being sold to another owner.

Manumission completed the religious transition begun by circumcision and immersion. The deed therefore did more than release the enslaved person from an owner. It transformed him from an eved kenaʿani into a free Jew. The text announces: “You are now a free man, and you have permission to enter the congregation of Israel, to marry a Jewish woman, and to conduct business like other free people.” Freedom meant control over his labor, full membership in the Jewish community, the right to establish a legally recognized Jewish family, and protection against later claims by the former owner or his heirs. His children, too, would be free.

The document therefore reveals a difficult conjunction of slavery, conversion, and Jewish belonging. An enslaved person’s entry into Judaism began while he was still the property of another human being; only release completed that process. The same document that ended his enslavement also recognized him as a full Jew.

This manuscript is a formulary rather than the record of a particular manumission. Names, dates, and places appear as placeholders to be filled in when needed. The surviving leaves were separated after their discovery in the Cairo Genizah and cataloged under several shelfmarks. Scholars have since recognized that they belong to a single manuscript.