was probably because the school was held in or adjoined the synagogue. Funding The income of the society was derived from several sources: (a) one-sixth of the Monday and Thursday contributions in the synagogues and other places of worship; (b) donations at circumcisions from guests invited to the feast; (c) donations at weddings from the groom and the bride and from invited guests; (d) one-tenth of the collections in the charity-box known as the mattan ba-setar. Samuel de Medina (1505–89) ruled that in case of a legacy left by will to a Talmud Torah and guaranteed by the testator's brother, the latter was not held liable if the property had been consumed owing to the prolonged illness of the deceased (Responsa, Ḥoshen Mishpaṭ, No. 357). A legacy for the support of a yeshivah and Talmud Torah in a certain town, if accompanied by a provision that it may be managed "as the son of the testator may see fit," may be transferred, it was declared, to a yeshivah elsewhere (ib. Oraḥ Ḥayyim, i., No. 60; see also "Paḥad Yiẓḥaḳ," s.v., p. 43a). Administration The election of officers was made by ballot: three gabba'im, three vice-gabba'im, and a treasurer. Only learned and honorable men over 36 years of age were eligible for election. The taḳḳanot regulating these sources of the Talmud Torah's income were in existence in the time of Moses Isserles. Yoel Sirkis, rabbi of Cracow in 1638, endorsed these regulations and added many others, all of which were confirmed at a general assembly of seventy representatives of the congregations on the 25th of Ṭebet, 5398 (1638; F. H. Wetstein, "Ḳadmoniyyot," document No. 1, Cracow, 1892). Solomon b. Abraham ha-Kohen (sixteenth century) decided that it requires the unanimous consent of the eight trustees of a Talmud Torah to engage teachers where a resolution has been passed that "no trustee or trustees shall engage the service of a Melamed without the consent of the whole" (Responsa, ii., No. 89, ed. Venice, 1592). As a specimen of the medieval organization of these schools that of the Cracow schools may be selected. From the congregational record (pinḳes) of Cracow in 1551 it appears that the Talmud Torah society controlled both private and public schools. It passed the following taḳḳanot, or Jewish legal writs: (1) The members shall have general supervision over the teachers and shall visit the Talmud Torah every week to see