In order to establish a starting point for this survey of recent developments, it will perhaps be helpful to summarize what was covered in the volume that I published some seven years ago and that was based on research done until the early 1990s. In that attempt to provide a fresh scientific overview of Jewish liturgical history, three chapters were devoted to what may with some degree of justification be called the Jewish medieval period in that it comes between the Talmudic age and the past three centuries of modernity. In covering the millennium that ranged from the seventh to the seventeenth century, the volume dealt with a number of central topics. Firstly, it traced the process by which there emerged a formal, authoritative liturgy that was committed to writing and attempted to explain such a development by reference to the influences of political centralization, the challenges of other religious groups, and the standardization of Jewish religious law. It was argued that the emergence of the synagogue at the centre of Jewish religious life and the adoption of the codex for transmitting rabbinic traditions played central roles in the developments of the Geonic age. The next chapter moved on to what are often referred to as the ‘high middle ages’ and traced the manner in which the Babylonian rite had a major influence on the prayer-books of later communities while that of the Palestinian homeland left only remnants of its traditions. As the newer centres became stronger and more independent, they opted for their own liturgical expression and there emerged a host of textual variations between and within the oriental and occidental communities.