How long this custom of women praying in the vernacular lasted, we have no means of ascertaining. Probably was already extinct about the end of the fifteenth century. For R. Solomon Portaleone, who lived in the sixteenth century, already regrets the abolition of “this beautiful and worthy custom.” “When they prayed in the vernacular,” he says, “they understood what they were saying, whilst now they only gabble off their prayers.” As a sort of compromise we may regard the various “Supplications”;(265) they form a kind of additional prayers supplementary to the ordinary liturgy, and are written in German. Chiefly composed by women, they specially answer the needs of the sex on various occasions. These prayers deserve a full description by themselves, into which I cannot enter here; I should like only to mention that in one of these collections in the British Museum, a special supplication is added for servant‐maids, and if I am not quite mistaken, also one for their mistresses. It is also worth noticing that the manuals on the “Three Women’s Commandments” (mostly composed in German, sometimes also in rhymes), contained much more than their titles would suggest. They rather served as headings to groups of laws, arranged under each commandment. Thus the first (about certain laws in Lev. xii. and xv.) becomes the motto for purity in body and soul; the second (the consecration of the first cake of the dough) includes all matters relating to charity, in which women were even reminded to encourage their newly married husbands not to withhold from the poor the tithes of the bridal dowry, as well as of their future yearly income; whilst the third (the lighting of the Sabbath lamp) becomes the symbol for spiritual light and sweetness in every relation of human life.