Takkanot (Regulations)

These ordinances have been decreed by us on Thursday, the twenty-first of Tammuz, corresponding to the twenty-first of June, of the year 5314 (1554) here at Ferrara.

1. Printers shall not be permitted to print any hitherto unpublished book except with permission of three duly ordained Rabbis, and the consent of the heads of one of the communities nearest the place of printing, if the city in which the book is printed is a small one. If it is a large city, the agreement of the heads of that Community shall suffice, provided the consent of three ordained Rabbis is obtained as said above. The names of the Rabbis and the heads of the Communities sponsoring the book shall be printed at the beginning of the volume. Otherwise no one shall be permitted to buy the book under penalty of a fine of twenty-five scuti [scudi]. The fine shall be given to the charity fund of the city of the transgressor.¹
2. If any person compel his neighbor to defend a litigation before a secular court without the permission of his community or the rabbi of his city, he may not thereafter bring the matter before the Jewish courts, and no Rabbi or Community shall issue a summons to compel the defendant to appear before them.
3. No person shall render a decision in any litigation, even without referring specifically to the parties concerned, unless asked to give his decision by both parties or the judges chosen by them or an arbitrator.
4. No Rabbi shall issue any order or decree to any inhabitant of a city which has another Rabbi unless the local Rabbi agrees or declares in the presence of witnesses or in writing his unwillingness to interfere in the litigation. In a city where there is a Rabbi appointed by the Community or by the Heads of the Community, no other Rabbi even of the same city may issue any order. If any order is issued contrary to this ordinance, it shall be void. If, however, one of the members of the community has a litigation against the Rabbi of the Community, other Rabbis may issue such decrees as they think proper in the case.
5. In view of the fact that there are some who transgress the ordinance of R. Gershom against renting houses of Gentiles from which previous Jewish tenants have been expelled, because they assume that after the original owner of the house has sold it to another, the prohibition no longer holds, therefore do we decree, that even though the original Gentile owner sells the house, the rights of the original Jewish tenant do not disappear, and that he who rents the house in such a case transgresses the herem of R. Gershom and our own herem. [The ordinance regarding lending money at interest in places where another Jew has had sole rights, will be found below.]
6. Some persons have accepted the decision of the authority who permits a man whose wife has not given birth to both a son and a daughter within ten years after their marriage to marry a second wife without the consent of the first, in spite of the ordinance of R. Gershom against bigamy. We, therefore, ordain, that if there is either a son or a daughter born to a man, he may not marry a second wife except with the consent of the wife and one of her relatives.
7. We have further decreed that if anyone gives Kiddushin to [betroths] a woman without the presence of ten people unless it be with the consent of her father and mother if they are alive, or her two nearest relatives if she has no father, both he and the witnesses to the marriages shall be excommunicated.

[Addendum] We have further decreed that no one shall be permitted to lend any money at interest in cities where contracts have been made with another Jew giving him the sole right to lend money at interest. The Jews of Rome and Bologna are not included under this section of the ordinance, since there is no contract made with the masters of those cities.