Place · Central Europe
Speyer
Ancient names: Noviomagus, Nemetae
A Rhineland city whose eleventh-century charter for an entire Jewish community illustrates local protection; in 1096 its bishop shielded nearly all the Jews.
49.3173°N 8.4367°E · representative coordinate · Pleiades 109224 ↗
Statements linked to this place
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An eleventh-century charter for an entire community that illustrates the point is the one issued in 1084 by Bishop Rüdiger of Speyer (surnamed Huozmann). Wishing to turn the village into a city and enrich it with Jews, he settled them outside the other burghers' quarter and ringed them with a wall against the rabble. He gave them free exchange of gold and silver, trade, church land for a cemetery, and a Jewish leader to settle disputes, with appeal to the bishop. He declared the status more generous than any Jews held in the German kingdom.
The protection promised by local charters was fragile, since it hinged on the goodwill and strength of the authorities who had issued them, as the First Crusade would show. The Jews' legal status stayed ambiguous and set them apart from everyone: they were not treated like townspeople, yet they were not foreigners either.
As Speyer's charter shows, Jews generally had the right to judge their own internal affairs. Like everyone, they were ultimately subject to royal power, and they found a basis for this in the Talmudic principle dina de-malkhuta dina, 'the law of the kingdom is law'. Even so, as a tight group set apart from Christian society, they had wide room to run their own affairs by Jewish law, guided by rabbinic and lay leaders who were more intertwined in Ashkenaz than elsewhere.
Community: Jews of Speyer
An eleventh-century charter for an entire community that illustrates the point is the one issued in 1084 by Bishop Rüdiger of Speyer (surnamed Huozmann). Wishing to turn the village into a city and enrich it with Jews, he settled them outside the other burghers' quarter and ringed them with a wall against the rabble. He gave them free exchange of gold and silver, trade, church land for a cemetery, and a Jewish leader to settle disputes, with appeal to the bishop. He declared the status more generous than any Jews held in the German kingdom.
The protection promised by local charters was fragile, since it hinged on the goodwill and strength of the authorities who had issued them, as the First Crusade would show. The Jews' legal status stayed ambiguous and set them apart from everyone: they were not treated like townspeople, yet they were not foreigners either.
As Speyer's charter shows, Jews generally had the right to judge their own internal affairs. Like everyone, they were ultimately subject to royal power, and they found a basis for this in the Talmudic principle dina de-malkhuta dina, 'the law of the kingdom is law'. Even so, as a tight group set apart from Christian society, they had wide room to run their own affairs by Jewish law, guided by rabbinic and lay leaders who were more intertwined in Ashkenaz than elsewhere.