text (peshat) was opposed to the Agadic mode of explanation (the derasha). In his old age this consciousness deepened, and he told his learned grandson (Rashbam) that he meant to revise his commentaries of the Bible in the spirit of a sober and literal explanation of the text. Rashi towered above the contemporaneous Christian expositors of the Bible, who all believed that Holy Writ contained a fourfold meaning. Rashi's skill in exposition appears the more surprising as he was not acquainted with the important achievements of the Spanish school. He was acquainted only with the first part of the Hebrew grammar by Menachem ben Saruk and that by Dunash, and these he took as his guides. Chayuj's and Ibn-Janach's works, however, being written in Arabic, remained unknown to him. Therefore, his grammatical nomenclature is clumsy and frequently obscure. Nevertheless, no commentary of Holy Writ has been so popular as Rashi's, so that at one time many considered his commentary part and parcel of the text, and every one of his words was in turn commented upon and expounded. His mantle fell upon his grandsons and sons-in-law, who were his greatest disciples. For he had no sons, only three daughters, of whom the one was so deeply versed in the Talmud that during her father's illness she read to him all the questions concerning the Talmud that had been sent to him, and wrote down the answers dictated to her. His three daughters were married to men of learning, and gave birth to sons worthy of their ancestry. One of these sons-in-law, Meïr of Rameru, not far from Troyes, was the father of three distinguished sons. Through Rashi and his school, the north of France, Champagne, became the home of Talmudic lore as Babylonia had been of old. It laid down the law for the rest of Europe. The French Talmudical students were in request even in Spain, and were liberally remunerated for their instruction. The leadership, which Jewish Spain had taken from Babylonia, from Rashi's time had to be shared with France. Whilst Spain remained classic ground with respect to Hebrew poetry, linguistic attainments, exegesis and philosophy, it had to yield the palm to France in the study of the Talmud. At this time there were two men in Spain who occupied themselves exclusively with grammar and the study of the Bible, and although they did not particularly enrich these studies, yet they undoubtedly imbued them with fresh vitality. They were Moses ben Samuel Ibn-G'ikatilia, of Cordova, and Jehuda Ibn-Balam, of Toledo (about 1070 to 1100). The former, the disciple of Ibn-Janach, in his exposition of Holy Writ occupied his master's liberal point of view. Some of the Psalms were attributed by Ibn-G'ikatilia to a later period, whilst the common opinion prevailed amongst Jews as well as Christians that the whole psalter was the work of the royal bard. He did not think well of the division of verses by the Massora, and contrary to its directions, joined consecutive verses.