ר׳ חייא אלדאודי

ר׳ חייא אלדאודי (conventionally c. 1085–1154) was a medieval Hebrew liturgical poet associated with Iberia. Very little secure biographical evidence survives. The firmest literary evidence is a seliḥah whose acrostic or signature names חייא and adds the byname אלדאודי. Older bibliographical scholarship also reports numerous seliḥot signed חייא in the maḥzorim of Tlemcen, Oran, Avignon and the Sephardic rite, while explicitly warning that they cannot all confidently be assigned to this poet. Two seliḥot attributed to him were printed by ר׳ שמואל דוד לוצאטו in בתולת בת יהודה, although ר׳ שמואל דוד initially confused their author with another figure called ר׳ חייא המערבי. The standard reference tradition states that ר׳ חייא died in Castile in 1154. Later Al‑Daudi family histories place that death in León and identify him as a descendant of the Babylonian exilarch חזקיה and ultimately of דוד המלך. Those genealogical claims are important evidence for the family’s remembered identity, but surviving accessible sources do not establish the complete lineage contemporaneously. Likewise, modern popular accounts that make him a royal adviser, military participant, mathematician or holder of a Portuguese title lack adequate documentation and are not treated here as facts. His recoverable historical importance rests principally on the liturgical poems transmitted under his name and on the medieval byname preserved within one of them.