אליש3

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1307 April 20, Koblenz text no. 2
The Jews of Koblenz are accepted into the civic community of the town.
Transmission: Koblenz, Stadtarchiv, Best. 623, no. 46 (orig., with seal). – Editions: Liebe, “Zust.nde”, no. 11, p. 372; B.r, Urkunden und Akten, no. 3, pp. 138–39.
Universis presentes litteras inspecturis vel audi­turis nos . . milites . . scabinia totaque universitas opidi Confluentini cupimus fore notum et subscriptam noscere veritatem.

5 Quod quia . . magistratus et universitas Judeorum in Confluencia se salvo jure domini nostri archiepiscopi Trevirensis unanimiter et bona voluntate obligarunt ad redditus viginti marcarum denariorum usualium in Confluencia
10 nobis seu nostro nuncio ad hoc deputato singu­lis annis in festo nativitatis domini de cimiterio eorundem assignandos, prout in litteris ipsorum super hoc confectis plenius continetur,
nos tamen non solum propter hoc sed magis ob

15 reverenciam et honorem domini nostri predicti eosdem in nostram concivilitatem cum omni jure recipimus per presentes, ita quod eosdem causab concivilitatis ad exacciones nobiscum per­solvendas nullatenus coarcemus preter ad assi­
20 siam, quam de jure una nobiscum de rebus ven­ditis et emptis persolvere debebunt, in premissis omnibus et singulis jure domini nostri predicti ipsi semper salvo.
In cuius rei testimonium et perpetuam firmita­

25 tem sigillum nostrum commune duximus pre-senti apponendum. Actum et datum feria quinta post dominicam Jubilate anno domini MCCC septimo
a scabini] scobini B.r. – b causa] tam B.r.
Questions

.ן ןם םם םם םם םבעיר
A Hebrew note scribbled on the verso of the charter reads:
To all who will see or hear the present charter, we, the knights, jurors and the whole community of the town of Koblenz wish to make known and to know that the following is true:
Since the council and the community of the Jews in Koblenz have – notwithstanding the rights of our lord the Archbishop of Trier – unanimously and in good faith bound themselves to a payment of 20 marks of pennies as they are current in Koblenz, to be given to us or to the deputy entrusted by us, each year on the feast day of the Birth of our Lord, assigned on their cemetery, according to how it is more fully explaied in their charter concerning this matter,
we on our part – not only on behalf of this but rather for the reverence and honour of our aforesaid lord – receive them in our joint citizenship and all the rights [which it implies] by the present [charter], in such a way that we will by no means coerce them to pay taxes jointly with us due to their joint citizenship, apart from the assises, which by right they must pay together with us on goods sold and bought; always saving the right of our aforesaid lord himself in all and every details of what has been said. 
In testimony and towards perpetual firmness of this [agreement] we have had our common seal appended to the present [charter]. Done and given on the Thursday following the Jubilate Sunday, in the year of the Lord 1307. 
1)  Collect information on the historical setting. Who was the Archbishop of Trier in 1307? What was 
the role of the Christian citizens in this situation? 
2)  Whose interests are involved? What kinds of interest? 
3)  What information on the use of charters/deeds can you gather as you go along? 
4)  Make sure you have read the text carefully, and write down any questions that might remain. 

Secondary reading that may be helpful

Alfred Haverkamp, “Jews and Urban Life: Bonds and Relationships”, in Christoph Cluse (ed.), The Jews of Europe in the Middle Ages (Tenth to Fifteenth Centuries): Proceedings of the International Symposium held at Speyer, 20–25 October 2002, Cultural Encounters in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, 4 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2004), pp. 55–69. 


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1312 July 25, Worms

Compromise between Bishop Emmerich of Worms and the Cathedral chapter, on the one hand, and the Jewish community of Worms, on the other, concerning the procedures of election and confirmation of the parnassim.
Transmission: Darmstadt, Hessisches Staatsarchiv, A 2, no. 255/674 (Vidimus of 23 December 1363, parchment, with seal pending); copies ibid., C 1 A Nr. 156, fols 92–94 (15th cent.), and E 5 B Nr. 1/2 (18th cent., excerpt); another copy issued by the cathedral chapter on 26 April 1591 and kept in Vienna was published in Wolf, ‘Zur Geschichte’. – Editions: G[erson] Wolf, ‘Zur Geschichte der Juden in Worms und des deutschen St.dtewesens’, Monatsschrift f.r Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums, 10 (1861), 410–415, app. I; Heinrich Boos (ed.), Urkundenbuch der Stadt Worms, vol. ii, (Berlin, 1890), no. 74, pp. 45–47 (adopted here). – Regest: J. Friedrich Battenberg, Quellen zur Geschichte der Juden im Hessischen Staatsarchiv Darmstadt 1080–1650, Quellen zur Geschichte der Juden in hessischen Archiven, 2
5
10
15
20
25
30
(Wiesbaden, 1995), no. 31, p. 11.

Wir Emmerich von gotis gnaden bischof z. Wormsze und Jacob der dechan und daz capitel gemeinlich dez selben stiftes z. Wormsze veriehen und t.n kunt allen den, die diesen brief ansehent oder gehorent lesen, daz ein zweiunge ist gewesen zwieschen uns und unsers stiftes wegen von einre siten und zwieschen dem rade der Juden und der Jutscheyt z. Wormsze ander site ume bisch.fe und ratlude under den Juden z. setzen.
Dez han wir mit reht behalten, daz wir der bischof und unser nachkomen .merme sollen seczen Juden bisch.fe und ratlude under den Juden; dar wieder wollten sich die Juden seczen; dez arbeit sich der rat von Wormsze und die sehtzehen daz wir und die Juden ieweder site mit einre rehten wilk.r einmudec­lich gegangen sin an funf erber man an her Jacob den senger unsers vorgenanten stiftes, an hern Gerhart den Camerer, an hern Johan den Camerer von Wormsze, ritter, an Heylman Holtmunden und an Heinrich z.r Ecken, burger von Wormsze, welichen bescheit und satzunge sie uns yetweder site geben oder mehten, daz wir und die vorgenanten Juden den bescheid und die saczunge .merme stede sollten halten.
N. han wir Jacob der senger, Gerhart und Johan die Camerer, Heylman Holtmunt und Heinrich z.r Ecken die vorgenanten durch bede willen unsers vorgenanten herren dez bischofes dez dechans und dez capitels dez stiftes von Wormsze und auch der Juden von Wormsze uns dirre sachen underwonden und anegenomen und sin dar uber gesessen und eynmudeclich uber komen ungezweit und han diese saczung und ordenunge gemaht und gesprochen, die
We, Emmerich, by God’s grace bishop of Worms, and James the Dean and the whole chapter of the same cathedral church of Worms declare and pro­claim to all who see this charter or hear it read out, that there was a rift between us, on behalf of our church, on the one hand, and the council of the Jews and the Jewish community of Worms, on the other, about how to appoint bishops and councilmen among the Jews.
On this issue, we maintained by right that we and our successors should always to appoint the Jews’ Bishop and the councilmen among the Jews. The Jews wanted to oppose this. In this situation, the council of Worms and the Sixteen offered that both sides, we and the Jews, should rightfully choose to agree on five honourable men, that is, on Sir James the Cantor of the said cathedral, on Sir Gerhard the Chamberlain, on Sir John the Chamberlain of Worms, knight, on Heylman Holtmund and on Henry zur Ecken, citizen(s) of Worms; whatever decisions they should hand down or make for both sides, that we and the aforesaid Jews should henceforth always keep that decision and statute.
Now we, Sir James the Cantor, Gerhart and John the Chamberlains, Heylman Holtmund and Henry zur Ecken, the aforesaid [men], according to the pleas of our aforesaid lord the Bishop, of the Dean and Chapter of Worms cathedral as well as of the Jews of Worms, have undertaken to address this issue and have sat over it and have agreed unanimously, without any division, and have made and proclaimed this statute and ordinance, which either side shall

man ietweder site ewiclich und unzirbr.chenlich stede halten sol alz her nach geschrieben ist.  keep forever and without infringment, according to the following: 
35  [I] Von ersten daz der Juden ratlude mit dem Juden bischofe alle wege zwelif sollen sin und niht me, und die zwelif sollen under in nach Jutschem reht rihten alz ez von alter her komen ist. Under den zwelif  [I] First, that the number of Jewish councilmen, including the Jews’ Bishop, shall always be twelve and no more, and these twelve shall judge among them according to Jewish law, as is the custom of old. Of 
40  Juden sol unser herre der bischofe von Wormsze, wer danne bischof ist, eynen benennen z. eyme Juden bischofe, der sal sin lebtage Juden bischof heiszen; doch sol dez Juden bischofes ampt under in zwelifen ume gen je zu dem mande alz ir gewonheid biz her gewesen ist, ume daz, daz sie die baz gerihten mogen.  the twelve Jews our lord the Bishop of Worms, who­ever is bishop at the time, shall appoint one to be the Jews’ Bishop, ho shall be called Jews’ Bishop for life. However, the office of the Jews’ Bishop shall rotate among them on a monthly basis as it was their custom until now, in order that they may judge the better. 
45  Und swanne der Juden bischof gestirbit, den unser herre der bischof von Wormsze geseczit hat, sweli­chen danne unser herre der bischof von Wormsze, der danne ist, under den zweilif rat luden under den  And when the Jews’ Bishop dies whom our Lord the Bishop of Worms has appointed: the one that our lord the Bishop, whoever it may then be, will appoint from among the twelve councillors of the Jews to 
50  Juden benennet z. eyme Juden bischof, der sal geben unserm herren dem bischofe von Wormsze, der danne  become the [new] Jews’ Bishop, he shall give to our lord the Bishop of Worms, whoever it may then be, 
55  ist bischof z. Wormsze, zwenzig phunt Wormszer phenninge, und der Jude, den er under den zwelif ratluden under den Juden z. eyme Juden bischof benennet hat, sol aber sin lebtag Juden bischof heiszen und sin als vorgeschrieben ist.  twenty pounds of pennies current in Worms. And the Jew whom he has appointed from among the twelve Jewish councilmen to be the Jews’ Bishop, shall again be called, and be, the Jews’ Bishop for life. 
60  [II] Wir funf man han auch gemachit und geseczit, swanne einre under den vorgenanten zwelif Juden, die in der Juden rat sint, abe get, so sollen die andern eylif noch der meisten menige einen andern unbe­sprochen Juden, der niht ein besprohen man sie der Jutscheit und niht ein krieheim sie nach ein drifzan  [III] The five of us have also decided and decreed that when one of the aforesaid twelve Jews who are on the Jews’ council should die, then the other eleven shall propose, according to majority vote, another un­blemished Jew who was neither convicted according to Jewish law nor be one of the Krieheim nor a 
65  oder ein walich a, benennen z. eyme ratman | unserm herren dem bischofe von Wormsze, der danne ist, in dem virteil jars nach der zyt so gener abe gangen ist; und den Juden sal unser herre der bischof von Wormsze, der danne ist, in der Juden rat seczen und  Drifzan or a Walich, to become a councilman, to our lord the Bishop of Worms, whoever it may then be, within a quarter year after the date when the other one died. And our lord the Bishop of Worms, whoever it may then be, shall set this Jew in the 
sal in bestedigen z. hant, so er benennet wirt, und der sol swern z. hant so in unser herre der bischof  council of the Jews and confirm him as soon as he is named. And as soon as our lord the Bishop has con­
70  bestediget den gew.nlichen eit, den ein Juden ratman swern sol, und dar z. sol er auch swern alle die  firmed him, he shall swear the customary oath to be sworn by a Jewish coucilman, and he shall at once 
artikel, die in diesem briefe beschrieben sint unzurb­rochenlich stede z. halten und z. hant; von dem rat  also swear to keep all the articles written in the present charter steadfastly without infringement. For 
75  man ist der Juden rat schuldig unserm herren dem bischofe von Wormsze sehezig phunt heller unverzo­genlich z. geben z. der selben zyt so er in den rat geseczit wirt.  this councillor the Jewish council is obliged to give to our Lord the Bishop of Worms sixty pounds heller without delay when he is placed on the council. 
80  [III] Wir sprechen auch, daz die Juden ratlude ume dez benennen alz vorgeschriben ist der meisten menige under in volgen sollen und anders ume kein sache me, sie wollens danne gern t.n.  [III] We also declare that the Jews‘ councilmen shall follow the majority vote among them in the naming procedure but not in dealing with other issues, except when they want to. 

[IV] Wir sin auch uber komen und han geseczet, wer ez, daz die ratlude under den Juden vorseszen ein  [IV] We have also agreed and decreed that in case the councilmen among the Jews should delay for a 
85  virteil iars so ein rat ampt under in ledig werde und keynen benenten z. eyme ratman, alz vorgeschrieben ist, so mag unser herre ein bischof von Wormsze einen andern unbesprochen Juden in den rat seczen, der niht sie ein krieheim oder ein drifzan oder ein  quarter year after a council seat among them became vacant and not propose a councilman according to what was said above, our lord a bishop of Worms can then place another unblemished Jew in the council, as long as he is not a krieheim or a drifzan or a walich, 
walich, ane aller hande wieder rede der Juden, und  without any contradiction by the Jews, and [that Jew] 
der sal in dem rade siczen in allem dem rehte, alz  shall sit on the council with the same rights as the 
90  ander der Juden ratlude siczent glicher wise alz obe sie in benant hetden, und ist doch der rat under den  other Jewish councilmen, just as if they had proposed him, and still the council of the Jews is obliged to pay 
100  Juden schuldig unserm herren dem bischof von Wormsze von dem, den er in den rat seczet, sehczig phunt heller zu geben, alz vorgeschrieben ist. Und werez, daz den selben oder die, die unser herre der  to the Bishop of Worms the sixty pounds heller aforesaid, for him whom he had placed on the council. And in case he or they whom our lord the Bishop placed on the council is challenged legally 
bischof also in den rat seczet, deheinreley ansprach an ginge ume die insaczunge, den oder die sol der Juden rat vor antworten mit dez Juden radis koste und  regarding his appointment, then the Jews’ council shall warrant for him or them, at the Jewish council’s expense and labour. 
arbeit. 
105  [V] Wir sprechen auch und sin eynmuticlich uber komen, werez daz dehein Judenrat ampt oder Juden bistom ledig worden in der zyt, so niht bischofes were z. Wormsze, daz der Juden ratlude nach der meisten  We also declare and have agreed unanimously, that in case that any seat on the Jews‘ council or a Jewish episcopacy should became vacant during the time when no bishop is in office in Worms, that the 
110 115  menige alz vorgeschrieben ist einen unbesprochen Juden z. eyme ratman benennen sollen dem capitel dez stiftes von Wormsze oder den die daz capitel under in geseczit hat dez bistomes g.t in z. nemen und z. sammen, und sal auch daz capitel nach der meisten menige under in oder gene die uber des bistomes g.t geseczet sint den juden, der in benennet wirt und geantworte z. eyme ratman, in den rat seczen, und sollen in bestedigen glicherwise alz ob ein bischof z. Wormsze danne were und sollen der Juden  Jewish councillers by majority vote shall propose an unblemished Jew to become councilman to the chapter of the cathedral of Worms or to those whom the chapter have elected among them to collect the bishopric’s goods and income, and the chapter by majority vote, or those who are in charge of the bishopric’s goods, shall place the Jew who is proposed to them and sent as a councilman, onto the council, and shall confirm them in the same manner as if a bishop was holding office in Worms, and the Jews’s 
120  ratlude dem capitel oder genen, die uber dez bistomes g.t geseczit sint, von dem ratman der bestedigit wirt sehczig phunt heller geben eime kunftigen herren eime bischofe z. Wormsze z. behalten, also daz daz  councilmen shall give to the chapter or to those who are put in charge of the bishopric’s goods, the sixty pounds heller on behalf of the councilman thus confirmed. It is reserved for a future Bishop of 
125  capitel oder gene die uber dez bistomes g.t geseczit sint sollen den Juden rat und genen der ein ratman wirt der Juden sicher machen e sie daz gelt geben, daz sie von eime kunftigen herren eime bischof von Wormsze ume die sache dehein ansprach niemer gehaben, ane alle geverde.  Worms, as the chapter or those in charge of the bishopric’s goods shall give warranty to the Jewish council and to him who becomes a Jewish councilman before [the latter] pay the money, so that they may not be challenged on this issue by the future lord Bishop of Worms, with no guile. 
130  [VI] Wir die vorgenanten funf man sin auch einmu­ticlich uber komen und seczen, wer ez, daz der zwelif  [VI] The aforementioned five of us have also un­animously agreed and ordained that in case one or 
ratlude under den Juden einre oder me von der stat  more of the twelve councilmen among the Jews 
furen z. Wormsze und anderswo wonten ein iar oder  should leave the city of Worms and live elsewhere for 
zwei iar oder dr. iar, dar ume sal doch ir rat ampt niht ledig sin obe sie in den drin iarn her wieder z.  one or two or three years, their seat on the council shall still not be [considered] vacant, as long as they 

145  Wormsze ziehen und sedelhaft werden, sint | sie aber me danne dr. us, daz sie niht seshaft sin z. Wormsze, so sint die ratampt ledig z. allen dem reht, als ob sie tod wern.  return to Worms and settle here within three years; however, should they be absent and not settled in Worms for more than three, their office shall be vacant as if they had died. 
150  [VII] Wir sprechen auch uff daz daz diese saczunge und ordenunge iemer stede und veste belibe unzir­br.chenlich, daz alle briefe und saczunge, die ge­machit sin oder noch m.hten werden gemachiht, die diese saczunge und ordenunge getreden mohten, daz die sollent tod sin und kein maht haben n. oder  [VII] We also declare that in order for this decree to be forever steadfast and unbroken, that all charters and ordinances which are made or might in future be made and which might infringe this decree and ordinance, shall be void and have no force whatso­ever, now or in the future. 
155  hernach. 
160 165 170 175  [VIII] Wir die vorgenanten funf man sprechen auch und sin eymuticlich uber komen ume daz, daz diese saczunge und ordenunge beide von unserm herren dem bischofe von Wormsze und sinen nachkomen und dem capitel dez vorgenanten stiftis und auch von den Juden ewiclich gancze und unzirbrochen gehal­ten werde; wer ez daz dirre brief gebrochen worde von unserm herren dem bischofe und sime stifte oder von den Juden an keynen sinen stucken, daz die burger und die stat von Wormsze wieder den die diz brechen sollen sin und genen die den brif stede halten beholfen sollent sin mit kreften und mit mehten, mit guten truwen, und sol daz der stat und den burgern an deheinre irme eyde niht schaden, und sal unser herre der bischof Emerich sin insigel und der stifte irs capitels insigel und die stat der stede insigel an diesen brief henken z. unsern insigeln und sal auch der Juden rat von Wormsze sich verbinden und behesemen und besigeln mit ir schrift under diesem gegenwortigen briefe alle die artikel die vorge­schrieben sint umerme stede z. halten.   The aforesaid five of us also declare and have agreed unanimously in order that this decree and ordinance shall forever be kept both by our lord the Bishop of Worms and his successors and the chapter of the aforesaid cathedral and also by the Jews, wholly and without infringement: In case this charter is broken by our lord the Bishop and his chapter or by the Jews in any of its stipulations, then the citizens and the city of Worms shall proceed against the one who break this, and help those who keep [the stipulations] of this charter steadfastly, according to their possibilities and forces, in good faith, and this shall not harm the city and the citizens in terms of their oath, and our lord the Bishop Emerich shall append his seal and the cathedral chapter shall append theirs, and the city the city’s seal to this charter next to our own seals, and the Jews’ council of Worms shall oblige themselves and sign and seal with their writing below the present charter that they will forever keep all the above articles steadfastly. 
180  Wir Emerich der bischof von Wormsze henken unser insigel an diesen brief z. eyme urkunde und z. eyme gezugnisze. Wir Jakob der dechan und daz capitel gemeinlich dez stiftes von Wormsze henken unsers capitel insigel an diesen brief z. eyme ewigen urkunde aller dirre vorworte.  We, Emmerich, Bishop of Worms append our seal to this charter for a confirmation and a witness. We, James the Dean and all the chapter of the cathedral church of Worms append our chapter’s seal to this charter for an everlasting confirmation of all what was said before. 
185  Wir der rat und die burger gemeinlich von Wormsze durch betde willen unsers vorgenanten herren dez bischofes und dez capitels und der Juden von Wormsze henken unser stede insigel an diesen brief z. eynre gezugnisse.  We, the council and community of citizens of Worms, according to the pleas of our aforementioned lord Bishp and the chapter and the Jews of Worms, append our city’s seal to this charter for a witness. 
190  Und wir Jacob der senger, Gerhart der Camerer und Johan der Camerer, Heylman Holtmund und Hein­rich z.r Ecken die vorgenanten, von (!) wir diese saczunge und ordenunge gemahiht han und gesezyt, henken auch unser insigel an diesen brief.  And we, James the Cantor, Gerhard the Chamberlain and John the Chamberlain, Heylman Holtmund and Henry zur Ecken, the aforementioned men who made and passed this decree and ordinance, also append our seal(s) to this charter. 

Der ist geben an sante Jacobis tage da man zalt von Which was given on on the feast of Saint James in the
195 Cristis geburte druzehen hundert iar und dar nach in year of Christ thirteen-hundred and after that in the dem zweliften iar. twelfth year.
Dar nach warn geschriben wir Kinen in Aberhein-Below this were written four lines in Hebrew.
scheinc.
Notes:

a. krieheim ... drifzan ... walich] The meaning of these names is not quite clear. ‘drifzan’ is probably derived from ‘Trevisan’, referring to the members of the renowned French rabbinic Family (Tr.ves, named after Troyes, not Trier); ‘walich’ generally means ‘Welsh’, i.e., ‘from a Romance-language country’ but may also be a family name; for ‘krieheim’, no convincing explanation has yet been advanced.
= ‘seal’; hear meaning ‘to sign’, which was the usual way of ם ם
a loan verb from Hebrew,behesemen] b.
confirming a deed among Jews; on this linguistic particularity cf. Simon Neuberg, ‘Noch einmal die “Bney-Hes”: “(be)hesemen”,’ Jiddistik Mitteilungen, 29 (2003), 10–13.
c. Aberheinschein] possibly a corrupt spelling of ‘Abrahamite’, i.e., Hebrew; see Wolf, ‘Zur Geschichte’,
p. 415: ‘Darnach waren geschrieben vier Linien in hebr.isch’.
Further reading:

•
Gerold B.nnen, ‘Worms: The Jews between the City, the Bishops, and the Crown‘, in Christoph Cluse (ed.), The Jews of Europe in the Middle Ages (Tenth to Fifteenth Centuries): Proceedings of the International Symposium held at Speyer, 20–25 October 2002, Cultural Encounters in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, 4 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2004), pp. 449–458. 

•
Alfred Haverkamp, ‘Jews and Urban Life: Bonds and Relationships’, in Cluse (ed.), The Jews of Europe, pp. 55–69.

•
Shlomo Eidelberg, R. Juspa, Shammash of Warmaisa (Worms): Jewish Life in 17th Century Worms (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1991), pp. 20–21 (and the Hebrew source cited there). 

Questions:


•
What was the issue? What were the interests involved in this settlement?

•
How would you describe the relationship between the Jewish community, the Christian bishop, and the city council in Worms?

•
What can we say concerning the formalities of the settlement?


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Jews and Urban Life: Bonds and Relationships
ALFRED HAVERKAMP (TRIER)
Two Vignettes from Different Periods and Areas
I
n July 1441—one year after the violent overthrow of the existing Signore and the resulting plundering of Spoleto—the aged Jew Elias, son of Angelellus1 (evi­dently from Rome), and his sons2presented a request written in Latin to the priori of Spoleto. They first reminded the Council that Elias had lived honourably (honeste) with his family in Spoleto for a long period—documented since the turn of the fif­teenth century—and had been treated kindly by all citizens (a cunctis civibus benigne pertractatus). During the plundering of Spoleto, Elias had been robbed of his letter of safe conduct (condotta) contracted with the city.3 He had also lost all his other property and had fallen into deep poverty (maxima paupertate constitutus) ‘in his pitiable old age’. Elias’s sons and grandchildren—primarily his son Angelellus, who had moved to Trevi in the meantime—begged, in agreement with Elias, to be able to return to Spoleto, to their ‘own home city, where they were born and had grown up’ (ad dictam civitatem ipsorum propriam patriam, in qua nati sunt et adulti extiterunt). They wished to live permanently in their home city and operate their money and
1 On Elias and his family, see Toaff, ed., Jews in Umbria, i (1993), nos 258 (1376), 611 (1399), 666 (1406), 722 (1416), 725 (1416), 730 (1416), similarly, nos 735 (1416), 783 (1425), 798 (1427) and 826 (1431); vol. ii (1994), nos 996 (1441) and 1125 (1449).
2 Among these was evidently Deodato, son of Elia, banker in Spoleto: ibid., vol. i (1993), no. 809 (1429); cf. no. 828 (1431), vol. ii (1994), no. 1014 (1442), along with Deodato we read the name Isacco, son of Lazzaro (the latter also in no. 1032 from 1443, where a Jewish physi­cian Matassia, also a moneylender, is named).
3 The condotta is properly defined here: capitula et pacta prestandi et banchum prestandi et retinendi: Toaff, ed., Jews in Umbria, ii (1994), no. 995 (1441).

Map 1: Jewish settlements in late medieval Umbria
(after Toaff, Il vino e la carne).

banking business4 ‘with the good will and the love of all the citizens of Spoleto’ (cum benevolentia et amore omnium civium Spoletanorum).5 The Great Council recom­mended that this wish be approved by the new governor (gubernator) and the priori of the city. Incidentally, one of the long-term council members was a baptized Jew, son of a Jewish physician in Spoleto.6
This story preserved in notarial documents is only one of many confirmations of the emotional bonds of Jews with their respective home cities and also with the Christians living there, among whom, however, some had been responsible for rob­bing Elias and other Jews as well.7
Despite this disaster, Spoleto, the centre of the duchy of the same name, remained for Elias and his family their patria. Jews had lived there probably only since the beginning of the fourteenth century. Among the first settlers were some Jews from Rome who received licenses for their banking business in 1342.8 They were legally treated like the Christian citizens (cives) and accorded the same ‘privileges, liberties, and immunities of the citizenship’ (privilegiis, libertatibus et immunitatibus civili­tatis).9 Citizen-like legal status existed in other cities in Umbria too (it was much more pronounced in Perugia10) and was the rule for the Jews in most of the cities of upper and central Italy. In the sources, this status is sometimes scaled into various categories.11
4 Ibid., vol. i (1993), nos 723 (1416) and 724 (1416).
5 Ibid., vol. ii (1994), no. 995 (1441).
6 Ibid. vol. i (1993), no. 721 (1416): Master Battista, son of the doctor Vitale, converted in

1394 (no. 560); cf. nos 561 (1394), 562 (1394), 569 (1394), 579 (1395: conflict between the converted Jew and his brother, a physician in Trevi), 726 (1416). A daughter of the same phy­sician converted in 1394 (no. 734 from 1416), afterwards, another sister (no. 775 from 1424).
7 Cf. ibid., vol. ii (1994), no. 985 (1441), concerning Ventura, son of Sabato.
8 Ibid., vol. i (1993), no. 152 (1342).
9 Ibid., no. 152 (1342), corresponding to no. 539 (1393): Judei ... ut veri et originarii cives
dicte civitatis, tam in judicio quam extra.
10 On civic status in Perugia, see ibid., no. 210 (1361) as well as nos 227 (1367), 240 (1371), 259 (1376), 284 (1379); cf. as well nos 597 (1397: habitatores) and 649 (1402); on Assisi, no. 297 (1381); cf. nos 308 (1382), 310 (1382), 641 (1401), 765 (1421); on Amelia, no. 567 (1394); on Spoleto no. 616 (1399). See also Simonsohn, ‘La condizione giuridica’ (1996), p. 109 (ius civilitatis) and 110 (on the status as servi camere in Mantua and in southern Italy).
11 Toaff, ‘Judei cives?’ (2000). For Jews in Rome, the city statutes stated in 1310: Judei sint et esse intelligantur cives Romani: Toaff, ‘Ebrei a Roma’ (1996), p. 138, note 31; cf. p. 140: During the rebellion of Cola di Rienzo against the coalition of nobility under the leadership of the Colonna, a Jew rang ‘the bells of Sant’Angelo in Pescheria to call together his followers’.
Other than in Perugia,12 the Jewish community in Spoleto was only poorly devel­oped. Thus, their sinagoga hebreorum, first documented in 1461,13 was in the private hands of a leading Jewish family.14 The Jewish cemetery in Spoleto as well is doc­umented only late and quite sporadically—again, in contrast to Perugia, where the cemetery served as a burial place for the Jews in the Perugian territory.15 The few Jew­ish homes in Spoleto were evidently concentrated in a quarter, the Vaita Petrenga16 near the city centre, but they were by no means isolated. In Perugia, the Jews lived scattered in several city quarters.17 An attempt to ban the Spoleto Jews, according to canonical law, from living ‘among the Christian citizens’, and to settle them separa­tim from the Christians ‘in a corner of the city’ (in angulo civitatis) (namely, in the Strada dei Felici) was apparently undertaken for the first time in 1493. This attempt failed, just as did the objective of banning the Jews from the banking business.18 Nor did the Christian community in Spoleto during Elias’s lifetime attempt to enforce the wearing of distinguishing badges, which was demanded in Perugia in 1432 in strongly anti-Jewish language.19 An ordinance to this effect was eventually issued in Spoleto in 1451 following—as was often the case—a sermon by a Franciscan, but its enforcement, here as elsewhere, is open to some doubt.20
12 Cf. Toaff, ed., Jews in Umbria, i (1993), p. xvi.
13 Ibid., vol. ii (1994), no. 1327 (1461), p. 714.
14 Ibid., vol. iii (1994), no. 2301 (1516) in sinagoga hebreorum, sita in civitate Spoleti in

domo heredum Bonajuti Jsaac hebrei, juxta viam; cf. nos 2312 (1518) and 2346 (1523).
15 Ibid., vol. ii (1994), no. 1327 (1461).
16 Cf. ibid., no. 1110 (1449), no. 961 (1439), vol. i (1993), no. 784 (1425), 820 (1430); on Master Ventura from Perugia, son of Sabato of Spoleto, see no. 835 (1431); vol. ii (1994), nos 957 (1439), 985 (1441), 1073 (1445), 1074 (1446), 1086. Ventura was related to the Elias fam­ily: no. 1125 (1449); in 1430 he bought a house in Spoleto in Vaita Petrenga: ibid., vol. i (1993), no. 820 (1430); cf. nos 826 (1431), 835 (1431).
17 Toaff, Ebrei a Perugia (1975); Toaff, Vino (1989)
18 Toaff, ed., Jews in Umbria, iii (1994), no. 2009 (1493) and 2010 (1493).
19 Ibid., vol. i (1993), nos 840–1 (1432). Cf. the strict regulations for Todi, vol. ii (1994), no. 910 (1436). However, no. 935 (1438) shows that the badge was not worn because the Jews were exempted from this in their condotte. See also no. 1007 (1442) for Norcia.
20 Ibid., no. 1151 (1451); cf. for Assisi nos 1169 (1453: the same Friar Cherubino from Spoleto), 1217 (1456), 1220 (1456) and 1223 (1456), for Foligno no. 1222 (1456: wearing of badges mandatory within the city, laid out in the condotta); for Trevi no. 1388 (1464: de facto exception from the obligation); for Terni no. 1666 (1474: exception in the condotta); further nos 1680 (Assisi, 1475), 1751 (Norica, 1478), 1754 (Amelia 1478) and vol. iii (1994), no. 1885 (Citt. di Castello, 1485: exception).
Elias himself and his family were engaged in moneylending as well as in trade and business, as were other Jews in Spoleto,21 in Umbria, and beyond in central and upper Italy at the time.22 In particular, it appears that Elias traded in high-quality cloth. Besides, he and his family also engaged in crafts. Correspondingly, Elias and his sons named as their activities in Spoleto not only the banking business but also the ars tegnendi, that is, the art of dyeing high-quality cloth.23
After Spoleto and Perugia, our second vignette takes us into another bishop’s city, this time to the archiepiscoal see of Mainz. A Jewish community had existed there almost 350 years before the events described in Spoleto, around 1100.
Even at that time, the Jews of Mainz fostered close contacts with their fellow Jews in the neighbouring cathedral cities to the south, Worms and Speyer. As is well known, the triad of the Shum communities grew out of this relationship, one which corresponded to the similarly close contacts among the three Christian civic com­munities.24 In his so-called ‘chronicle’ of the pogrom at the time of the First Crusade, a Jewish author in Mainz expressed his grief about the disaster visited upon his home community in 1096, using a verse from the biblical Lamentations over the destruction of Jerusalem: ‘Gone from Zion are all that were her glory—namely Mainz’; and in another place: ‘Alas the strong rod is broken, the lordly staff, the saintly congregation valued as gold, the community of Mainz.’ Furthermore, the chronicler closely links the burning of the Mainz synagogue during the persecution of 1096 with the destruc­tion of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 CE. Just as the Jewish community of Mainz was considered a ‘daughter of Zion’, its synagogue embodied the Temple at Jerusalem.
In the same Hebrew chronicle, the author interprets the Jewry in this, by Chris­tian standards, holy city of Mainz as ‘the holy community in Magenza, the shield and buckler for all communities’, and as ‘our mother city, the place of our fathers, that ancient community, the greatly exalted among all the communities of the realm’. Thus, the holy Jewish community in Mainz took pre-eminence in age. Within the Empire’s Jewry, it had the closest immediacy to the salvation accorded by Jerusalem. This position formed the foundation of its protective function for all the Jewish com­munities. It was the origin, the ‘mother city’ of Jewish settlement in the Empire and, as the ‘place of our fathers’, 5t was also the foremost bearer of continuity. The self-esteem expressed in such a manner by the Jews of Mainz was in no way unique. Other leading Jewish communities in the Christian West as well based their position on the legendary origins of their founding fathers, who had been among those expelled from Jerusalem and Eretz Israel following the destruction of the Temple.
21 Vol. Toaff, Vino (1989), p. 242 with note 4.
22 Ibid., esp. 241 ff.; cf. Luzzati, ‘Banchi e insediamenti ebraichi’ (1996).
23 Cf. for Perugia Toaff, ed., Jews in Umbria, ii (1994), no. 938 (1438).
24 Cf. the article by Rainer Barzen in this volume and his forthcoming Trier dissertation;

further Kreutz, ‘Worms and Speyer’ (2000).
Map 2: Jewish settlements at the time of the First Crusade.
Israel Yuval was the first to point out that this estimation of the Mainz Jewish community shows parallels in the self-image of the city’s Christian community, and perhaps even converged with it. The parallels show up in the correspondence between Moguntina aurea on the Mainz city seal, first documented in the first half of the twelfth century, and the epithet ‘valued as gold, the community of Mainz’, in the con­temporary Hebrew chronicle. The claim of being a ‘holy city’, which coincided with the claim of the Jewish community, was made by numerous cathedral cities (but also by many others), and made manifest in manifold ways, always drawing on the models of Rome and Jerusalem. Jerusalem was therefore the highest common factor between Jews and Christians but also the centre of their opposing self-images.
The two vignettes seen from very different viewpoints, times, and places signal the wide spectrum of our topic—the relationships of Jews with each other through family and community as well as to their origin, and the relationships between Jews and Christians in their shared home city. We will approach this topic somewhat more systematically in a second step.
The History of Settlement: The Role of the Cathedral Cities
According to the current state of research, we may assume that during the Middle Ages, at least up to the fifteenth century, the great majority of Jews lived in towns, that is, in relatively large, densely settled localities which played a certain central role and which displayed a sophisticated level of communication among the inhabitants. This means that only a few Jews yet had their lives centered in a villages or an even smaller settlement. Within the German territories, the latter settlement pattern devel­oped furthest in Franconia and northern Swabia since the thirteenth century. In Eng­land and in most regions of France, such attempts were expressly prohibited towards the end of the thirteenth century, that is, in the last decades before the expulsions.
The geographical scope of my topic is determined by Catholic Christianity. Thus it extends from the north of the Iberian Peninsula in the west to Lithuania, Poland, and Hungary and a more or less broad strip of land east of the Adriatic in the east. In the north-south direction, Sicily and lower Italy extend beyond my thematic boundaries because of their deep roots in Muslim and/or Byzantine-Orthodox cultures, which of course had an influence on the history of the Jews living there. Hence the Patrimo­nium Petri, which we touched upon with Spoleto and Perugia, forms the southernmost region. We will not consider the lands of the North—Sweden, Norway, and Denmark and further areas north of the Baltic—because, as far as we know, no Jews settled in these regions during the Middle Ages.
I hope it is quite clear from the introductory vignettes why this presentation is based on the history of Jewish settlement and the resulting geographical anchoring of Jews among the Christian majority population. In fact, that rooting was the factor with the greatest long-term consequence for Jewish existence. In general, the condit­ions of the respective region and place decided where they would initially settle. On the one hand, there had to be a scope for preserving the Jewish ritual community, and that scope might be determined by attitudes among Christians, defined or influenced by Christian religion. On the other hand, a need for the economic or specific occupat­ional services offered by the Jews had to exist. Bound up with these was the Jewish minority’s need for protection and their resulting ties to the respective rulers. The wide bandwidth of manifestations of Jewish settlement ensued from the varied inter­action of these factors.
Among the aspects concerning settlement history is the question (which cannot be answered in greater detail here) of why the Jews did not settle in certain regions dur­ing this particular period. This applies, for example, to Flanders, a highly urbanized region which had been greatly expanding economically since the twelfth century, for the adjacent coastal region east of Flanders, and for the Scandinavian countries. The question also arises considering the long absence of the Jews in the large urban centres of upper and central Italy or concerning some cities where Jews are docum­ented only for a brief period or not at all during the Middle Ages. Examples include the large city of Metz, where the Jewish settlement was abandoned after the pogrom of 1096, and Besan.on, where Jews evidently lived only for a brief period at the end of the fourteenth century.25 Both these episcopal sees venerated St. Stephen as their cathedral’s patron saint. The city seal of Metz portrays the stoning of the ‘first Chris­tian martyr’ by the Jews, an event represented and celebrated liturgically then and now on 26 December. It is still open to examination whether, and if so, under what special circumstances a real causality existed between a fervent cult of Saint Stephen and anti-Jewish sentiment in cities characterized by such cult. In fact the broad topic of liturgy, its signs, symbols, and gestures (including processions) are still by no means well researched, though they must have been of great consequence for the posi­tion of the Jews in Christian surroundings. The problems concerning expulsions are equally pertinent, though they can only be mentioned here.26
As the introductory scenes point out, the role of Jewish settlements in the cathedral cities deserves special attention. In other respects as well, including the economic, these regional centres of Christianity normally possessed an outstanding urban qual­ity over long periods. In many older areas of Latin Christendom, these cities were the homes of the largest Jewish settlements and communities, as illustrated on Map 3 for the regnum Teutonicum and the period around 1200. The map extends west beyond the Romance-German language boundary and the border of the Empire into the French area, with its particular concentration of Jewish settlement in Champagne. Here too, the cathedral cities had an almost unchallenged dominance in the Jewish network of settlements.
Thus, Christianity and Judaism had their oldest and, for a long period, their larg­est centres in the same places. Jews and Christians lived at very close quarters and knew a great deal about each other. They also had similar structures serving the same functions. For the Christians in the cathedral cities, the cathedral church and square (in other urban centres, the respective main churches and churchyards) served as the focal point of religious and public life in general. For it was these churches and their nearest surroundings that also served as seats of judgment and as places of communal assembly and decision. In like manner, perhaps more strongly so, the synagogues and their courtyards served Jewish communal life.
25 Holtmann, Juden in der Grafschaft Burgund (2003), pp. 104–8.
26 Burgard, Haverkamp and Mentgen, eds, Judenvertreibungen (1999).

Map 3: Jewish settlements around 1200.
Within the cathedral cities, which thus became significant places of encounter for Jews and Christians, the bishops with their entourage and the large numbers of ecclesiastical institutions concentrated in such cities had great importance not only for Christians but also for the Jews. To what extent and how long the Jews were per­sonally tied to the bishops as a result, depended on the range of the respective bish­op’s rights of lordship and other positions of power. In this regard, there were great differences within the Latin-Christian diaspora. We need only recall their different manifestations under the three regna of the Empire: the Roman-German Empire, the regnum Burgundie and the regnum Italicum. Even within the individual kingdoms, considerable differences existed. The same applies to France and can be observed even within a single region such as Champagne, with Rheims and Ch.lons on the one hand and the episcopal see of Troyes, ruled by a count, on the other. From the thir­teenth century, English observers often pointed out the stark differences between the English and German episcopacies, which also had an effect on the diverse positions of bishops within their cathedral cities. In the Roman-German regnum, profound dif­ferences existed between the bishops in the older regions in the West as far as the Elbe, Saale, and Bohemian Forest, still influenced by the Ottonian/Salian system of exerting royal authority through imperial churches, and those beyond this border in the so-called lands of new settlement.
The bishops in these eastern territories obtained only a weak secular position in relation to the secular princes, a factor decisive for the Jews even in the cathe­dral cities of these regions. Yet even here no unilateral dependence on the secular princes was the result. Again, it was rather the Christian communities that frequently became the most important point of reference in the everyday lives of the Jews from the late thirteenth century, as might be demonstratred concerning the Margraviate of Brandenburg.
In most of the cathedral cities in western and southern Germany, the function of the bishops as determining rulers was closely linked to the Crown. This created rami­fications into the late Middle Ages. However, both bishops and kings had been weak­ened by the generally increasing leverage of the civic communities since the twelfth century, a tendency which began much earlier in Imperial Italy. On the whole, then, the Jews found themselves in a trilateral relationship with the bishops, kings, and ever more intensively with the civic communities. Still, the legal positions of the bishops remained of great consequence for the Jews even in a large city like Cologne or in a middle-sized one such as Worms.
The Jews themselves were interested in maintaining a set of protective ties to the rulers who affected them in various ways. Even the itinerant kings of the Holy Roman Empire, who seldom remained in one residence, kept their importance as guarantors of the Jews’ legal position. The bishops as well as other princes and powerful nobility were necessary for Jewish business activities, especially for moneylending. Close collaboration frequently resulted from these, and some Jews became entangled in territorial politics since the end of the thirteenth century. The civic communities were of fundamental significance for Jewish life in the towns and cities. At the same time, the communes and in particular their leading circles were closely connected with the political powers beyond the city walls and were mostly very unstable in their structure. In Worms, this complex interplay of greatly different, if not opposing interests was a main reason why the city’s Jews were never expelled.
The earliest Jewish cemeteries were located in the immediate surroundings of cathedral cities. These burial places are also the most revealing indicator of a Jewish community’s supra-local significance. The cemeteries determined to a great extent the network of Jewish regional organization. The resting places of the dead most firmly withstood the changes in the course of time. As places of remembrance they were the strongest element of continuity for Jewish existence: a ‘stabilitas loci’, as it were, of the dead that tied the living to the local generations of the faithful. It was near these cemeteries that Jews preferred to resettle even after dreadful catastrophes, as after the pogroms at the time of the Black Death.
Jewish Quarters and Other Neighbourhoods
The centres of the living and of their everyday connections are best approached by looking at the settings of their lives, their living quarters. Broadly speaking, two types can be distinguished, although flux existed between them. In the Latin-Roman diaspora, the Jews normally lived together, usually in the immediate vicinity of their synagogues. The other Jewish communal institutions were also located here, such as the communal hall (domus communitatis), in the German-speaking area often called ‘house of dancing’ or ‘of entertainment’ (Tanzhaus, Spielhaus). There might be a hospice and, if the existing water supply met the requirements, a mikveh. Such Jewish courts, lanes, or even quarters did not necessarily exclude Christian neighbours. As a rule, they offered the Jews better protection, strengthened during times of danger from anti-Jewish sentiment and pogroms by means of ‘enclosures’, sometimes built at the request of the Jews. Except for this specific need for protection, the larger Jewish quarters resembled the urban Christian parishes in many respects.
The second type, the distribution of Jewish homes throughout the town, was prob­ably limited (in those areas considered here) to the settlements of Jews, primarily in a number of larger cities in upper and central Italy, that began late, i.e., not until well into the thirteenth century. In many cases, these cities had already reached a peak in the number of inhabitants by the second half of the thirteenth century, and space opened up with the heavy population losses from the mid-fourteenth century. As far as I know, the question remains open as to what extent living dispersed offered the Jews greater opportunities for a wider range of occupations or, vice versa, whether the occupational diversification among the Jews promoted these living conditions.
In any case, living scattered bound the Jews less to one another, it interfered with their communal life. Lesser communal cohesion could be substituted by placing greater value on the Jewish family and by more fully developing its potential. Living closer to Christians also favoured individual willingness to maintain closer contacts with Christian neighbours. Such living conditions presupposed effective protection guarantees for the Jews on the part of the Christian commune or signoria or at least relations so good that the Jews were able to feel secure.
North of the Alps, this type of Jewish settlement in the town or city was extremely rare. I know of only one example: Salzburg, tellingly after the severe pogrom of 1404.27 Concentrated living conditions in lanes or quarters were rather the norm in the northern regions. This form was fostered by the fact that, in most cases, the Jewish settlement came before the growth peak of the respective urban centres.
Other than in central and upper Italy, the Jews had made their homes in many towns or cities in southern France significantly before the thrust of urbanization in the High Middle Ages. Some of these Jewish settlements may even date back into antiquity. In northern France (Zarfat) too, Jewish settlements arose before the tenth
.century. In the regnum Teutonicum, the decisive Jewish settlements, which were init­ially concentrated in the cities within the Roman limes, primarily on the west side of the Rhine, also date from the tenth century. In England, Jewish settlement certainly did not occur until the twelfth century. This rather late arrival of the Jews, together with the strong influence of royal administration, caused the centres of Jewish settle­ment to be established on the periphery of urban areas in some of the larger English towns and cities. In contrast, Jewish settlement in the north of the Iberian Peninsula, especially in the Kingdom of Navarre—as Juan Carrasco has recently pointed out—had come about since the eleventh century in close connection with colonization and intensified territorial development. The most likely analogue is with the Jewish settlement that was part of the so-called German ‘Ostsiedlung’. In the areas of Eastern Europe the Jews, along with Christians, were most often among the earliest inhabitants of the newly developing towns. Correspondingly, their homes were centrally located. Locations both separate and peripheral were extremely rare for medieval Jewish quarters, at least until the second half of the fifteenth century. Only then did this change in central Europe, and only in a few places. In many cases, as in Frankfurt am Main in 1462, such separation was a substitute for expulsion. In upper and central Italy such isolated Jewish settlement concentrations were usually established only after interim expulsions on the occasion of readmittance, despite earlier attempts such as the Spoleto case of 1493 mentioned above. Thus in Perugia in 1587, almost two decades after the expulsion of the Jews by Pope Pius V, a very small group of Jews from the Roman ghetto arrived, bought back the cemetery, and were settled in streets on the edge of the city.28 Thus until the end of the medieval period, Jews either lived scattered throughout the town or city in the neighbourhood of Christians, or concen­trated in lanes or quarters. To conclude, we may say that Jewish existence played an essential role in medieval urban life. The spectrum of its history has many shadings, ranging from the great­est proximity between Christians and Jews, with demonstrations of mutual honesty, goodwill, even love—amor, as Elias of Spoleto expressed it in 1441—, to isolation,
27 Haverkamp, ‘Jewish Quarters’ (1995), p. 21.
28 Toaff, Jews in Umbria, i (1993), p. xxxvii, with reference to Ariodante Fabretti, Sulla condizione degli ebrei Perugia dal XIII al XVII secolo (Turin, 1891), pp. 81 ff.
coldness, and contempt, and even to the extremes of inhuman crimes committed on the Jews by Christians.
My necessarily fragmentary comments on the bonds and relationships of Jews in medieval towns and cities within the Latin-Christian diaspora were prompted by the search for the patria of the Jews, the ‘place of our Fathers’. The two quite different vignettes from far removed times and places give us perhaps an idea of the dimen­sions of such emotions experienced by the Jews and their resulting religious attitudes. And I was able only to hint at the manifold ties between the Jewish and Christian communities. An additional approach, one on firmer ground and rather better borne out by the sources, would be, I think, to investigate the various topographical settings and the resulting social (which also means, economic) and political ties of the Jews. I hope to have indicated that this approach opens insights into the basic substance of Jewish existence amidst the Christian world and into the complexity of the ties so vital to the Jewish minority.
trans.: F.S.K.
FURTHER READING
Burgard, Haverkamp and Mentgen, eds, Judenvertreibungen (1999). – Cluse, Haverkamp and Yuval, eds, J.dische Gemeinden (2003). – Haverkamp, ‘“Concivilitas“’ (1996). – Haverkamp, ‘Jewish Quarters’ (1995). – Haverkamp, Gemeinden (2002). – Haverkamp, ed., Geschichte der Juden im Mittelalter (2002). – Simonsohn, ‘La condizione giuridica’ (1996). – Toaff, ‘Gli ebrei a Roma’ (1996). – Toaff, Vino (1989) = Love, Work and Death (1996). – Toaff, ed., The Jews in Umbria, 3 vols (1993–1994). – Yuval, ‘Heilige St.dte—Heilige Gemeinden’ (1996).
RESUMEN
En julio de 1441, un a.o despu.s de que la ciudad de Spoleto fuera saqueada, el anciano jud.o El.as, junto con sus hijos, present. una petici.n a los priores del concejo urbano. Los jud.os expresaban el ferviente deseo de ser permitidos retornar a Spoleto, « su propia patria, en donde hab.an nacido y crecido », con objeto de conducir sus negocios con la « benevolencia y amor de todos los ciudadanos de Spoleto ». Esta narraci.n es una de las muchas piezas de evidencia de la conexi.n enf.tica de los jud.os con sus respectivas villas de acogida, y con los cristianos que viv.an all..
En una « cr.nica » sobre las persecuciones de la primera Cruzada, un autor jud.o de Magun­cia expresaba su lamentaci.n por la cat.strofe que hab.a acaecido a su propia comunidad local en 1096. Con un vers.culo tomado del libro b.blico de Lamentaciones, alude a la destrucci.n de Jerusal.n: « Se han ido de Si.n todos los que fueron su gloria – es decir, Maguncia », y en otro pasaje dice: « He aqu. que la fuerte verga se ha roto, la vara del Se.or, la santa congrega­ci.n valiosa como el oro, la comunidad de Maguncia ». El incendio de la sinagoga de Magun­cia se asocia aqu. a la destrucci.n del Segundo Templo. La « santa comunidad de Maguncia » est. estrechamente ligada a Jerusal.n en t.rminos de historia de la salvaci.n. Ha sido Israel Yuval el primero en mostrar que la imagen propia de la comunidad de Mainz tiene paralelos en la imagen que de s. misma tiene la comunidad cristiana de esta ciudad. La inscripci.n en su sello (siglo XII), MOGUNTIA AUREA, corresponde a la imagen « valiosa como el oro » en la cr.nica hebrea coet.nea.
Podemos asumir que la gran mayor.a de jud.os vivieron, durante el periodo medieval, al menos hasta el siglo XV, en villas y ciudades, es decir, asentamientos relativamente grandes y densos, manteniendo comunicaciones intensas con el resto de la poblaci.n. La instalaci.n en este espacio va a ser uno de los factores m.s persistentes en la configuraci.n de su propia existencia. Su situaci.n concreta est. condicionada usualmente por el estado de la regi.n o lugar en donde se asientan en un primer momento.
En general, el papel de los asentamientos jud.os en las ciudades catedralicias merece una atenci.n especial. Estos centros religiosos cristianos ten.an, tambi.n en muchos otros aspectos, inmejorables cualidades urbanas. En muchas de las regiones tradicionales de la Cristiandad occidental, esas ciudades eran el hogar de los mayores asentamientos y comu­nidades jud.as. As., cristianismo y juda.smo tuvieron sus m.s antiguos, y durante mucho tiempo mayores, centros en los mismos lugares. Los obispos y sus familiae as. como muchas de las congregaciones religiosas ten.an una gran importancia no s.lo para los cristianos sino tambi.n para los jud.os. La extensi.n y persistencia de los lazos se.oriales entre jud.os y obispos depend.an de la variedad de los derechos se.oriales y de otras posiciones de autoridad que los prelados pose.an. A este respecto, existi. una gran variedad dentro de la di.spora occidental.
Junto a las ciudades catedralicias encontramos los cementerios jud.os m.s tempranos. Son el s.mbolo m.s caracter.stico de la importancia supra-local de las comunidades jud.as. Estos lugares tienen una influencia de largo alcance en las redes regionales de organizaci.n jud.a. Eran sitios de perseverancia ah. donde todo cambia. En la di.spora latina, el tipo de asenta­miento jud.o concentrado alrededor de la sinagoga es el m.s com.n. Encontramos aqu. otras instituciones comunales: La domus comunitatis (Tanzhaus, Spielhaus), a menudo un « hospi­tal » y un miqv.. Tales barrios, adarves o calles de los jud.os inclu.an con frecuencia algunos vecinos cristianos.
El segundo tipo, el de dispersi.n de hogares jud.as en la ciudad, se restringe a asentamien­tos que se desarrollan tard.amente, no antes del siglo XIII, como en varias grandes ciudades del Centro y Norte de Italia. Un an.lisis comparativo puede mostrar la relaci.n entre el periodo de asentamiento jud.o y su situaci.n en la topograf.a urbana.
La historia de los jud.os durante el periodo medieval fue un factor significativo en la vida urbana. La variedad de relaciones entre jud.os y cristianos en este contexto muestra una amplia variedad, desde la estrecha proximidad y mutuo respeto, benevolencia, incluso amor, como El.as de Spoleto se.ala en 1441, hasta la separaci.n, la distancia y la aversi.n desembocando en cr.menes perpetrados contra los jud.os.


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Worms: The Jews between the City, the Bishops, and the Crown
GEROLD B.NNEN (WORMS)
1 Topography and Institutions
D
uring the entire Middle Ages and into the Modern Era, Jewish settlement in Worms existed on the northern periphery of the walled city, with the houses built against the inside of the city wall not far from docks and port facilities on a branch of the Rhine (cf. Map 24). In the early Middle Ages Frisians had settled here, on a spot somewhat removed from the Christian city centre sourrounding the cathedral. The focal point of Jewish communal life consisted of the synagogue (first built in 1034, remodelled in the style of the Worms cathedral workshop in 1174/75), the mikveh from 1185/86, and the women’s synagogue from 1212/13, all impressive testimony to the close symbiosis of Christians and Jews in Worms during the flower­ing of the city around 1200. Up to the end of the medieval period, further communal facilities were added. The cemetery was located outside the southwestern portion of the city wall (the earliest datable gravestone is from 1076/7) and has remained there to the present day (cf. fig. 21). The layout of this settlement saw no essential changes into the Modern Era. For the defence of the city, in which the Jews played a direct part, their contribution at this highly vulnerable position was always of great significance for the city—be it by active participation in warding off external enemies or by pay­ment of large sums of money. Sources from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries document both forms of contribution. Thus, the city had a vital interest in a produc­tive and well-functioning Jewish community.
Opinions have differed as to how close or enclosed the Jews used to live in their quarter. The general opinion of previous research—that Jewish settlement was lim­ited rather early—proves to be untenable on closer inspection. At least up to the time of the 1349 catastrophe, Jewish settlement, or house and property ownership by Jews, can be shown to have existed beyond the Jewish quarter, around St Martin’s church and Martin’s Gate. The available sources would suggest a date no earlier than around 1470 to 1480 for the closing of the Jewish quarter or for a restriction of Jewish settle­ment to this area—then, however, most definitely (see below). Around 1500, in a city of probably altogether about 7,000 inhabitants, more or less exactly 250 Jews lived in the Jewish quarter, an area discernible in its original form even today, now that it is characterized by structures of the Early Modern period. The quarter pertained to St. Rupert’s parish, which was assigned to the collegiate church of St. Paul’s.
2 The Flowering of the Community in the High Middle Ages
The first indications of the existence of Jewish settlement in Worms come from trade documents dating from c. 1000 and thus coincide with the term of office of the eminent bishop Burchard (1000–25). The earliest dedication of a synagogue in 1034 implies that some communal organization must have existed from the early-eleventh century, at the latest. Within a very brief period (until the mid-to the second half of the eleventh century), a major centre of scholarship arose in Worms which exercised great influ­ence. Within two or three generations after the founding of the synagogue, Worms had become an exceedingly attractive community for well-known rabbis and scholars from elsewhere. One of the preconditions for the rapid intellectual flowering was the overall dynamism of a rapid urbanization process, one in which the Jews played no small role. What was more, the Jewish community in Worms was part of a wider-ranging cultural network reaching beyond the language border well into France and with most intensive contacts among the Jewish communities on the Rhine and further west. It goes without saying that these contacts and ties were not without consequence for the economic activities and cultural horizon of the Christian inhabitants as well. Of special signifi­cance is the earliest charter referring to a Jewish community in Worms, the much-dis­cussed, programmatically formulated privilege issued in 1074 by King Henry IV for ‘the Jews and other people of Worms’ (iudei et coeteri Uvormatienses). It is the very first such charter granted to a civic community by a German ruler, and it contains a significant economic boon—exemption from tolls at royal levying places, especially those along the course of the Rhine. As long-distance traders, the Jews together with the Christians contributed significantly to the political and economic support of the king and were responsible for its positive effects in economy and trade.
From this time on, we can observe the formation of a self-assured Christian oligar­chy, recruited principally from the families of the ministeriales, attaining more and more civic functions and gaining significance for the Jewish community’s network of contacts. In the course of the twelfth century this group profited considerably from the vacuum created by the de facto absence of a ruling bishop between 1074 and 1125, and gained more and more power and influence. At the end of the twelfth century, it appeared on the stage with a civic council and with its own municipal seal.
In external relations, the crown gained utmost importance for the Jewish commu­nity in Worms. The absence of a ruling bishop over a period of about 50 years during the time of the so-called Investiture Controversy was enough to produce very close ties between the Salian rulers, whose interest in the city was both fiscal and economical as well as political and strategic, and ‘their’ Jews of Worms. As is well known, this close relationship found expression in the key charter issued by Henry IV in 1090. Let us recall just a few of the numerous conditions in this document for the iudei de Wormacia, which firmly placed the Jews under the power of the king: permission to change money, guarantee of property rights (plots of land, vineyards, gardens, and heathen slaves are mentioned), confirmation of ownership for their houses at the city wall, prohibition against forced baptism, and certain legal requirements influenced
Map 24: Late medieval Worms.

by Jewish law. Unfortunately, there is no clear information on the important question of communal structure. A leader of the community can be ascertained, he is named here as ‘their bishop’ (episcopus eorum). From the Hebrew sources relating to the crusader persecutions of May 1096, it seems that a council-like committee, the ‘Heads of the Community’ of Worms, represented the Jewry. The election of officials within the community, as mentioned in the charter, corresponded to traditional procedure. Conflicts among its members were to be resolved by the Jews themselves according to Jewish law. The existence of a community, as a body politic rooted in religion, is thus documented from the eleventh century. In view of the relatively large number of Jewish inhabitants and their economic power in the city, we may be certain that this associa­tion favoured by the ruler served as a model for the association of Christian inhabitants still caught up in the beginning phase of its formation, especially around 1100.
As bright as the situation for the Jews at the time the charter was issued may appear, theoretically and legally, so abrupt was the catastrophe that befell them in 1096. The crusader pogrom had a particularly severe impact on the Worms Jewry, as Michael Toch recently emphasized. He considers rabbinical teaching in Worms and elsewhere to have been ‘fatally wounded’ and believes that the intellectual creativity in Worms and Mainz was dramatically interrupted. Nor could the reasonably swift economic recovery in the course of the early-twelfth century gloss over the profound impact of the severe pogrom which had raged unhindered by any proper authority. The consequences are also manifest in the self-awareness and enduring memory of the community.
In the course of the twelfth century, a highly important period for Worms and one by and large free of anti-Jewish violence, this considerable economic flowering found its expression in the above-mentioned reconstruction of the Jewish quarter, largely completed between 1174 and 1213. Shortly after his ascension to the imperial throne in 1157, the Staufer Frederick I Barbarossa, who frequently resided in Worms, had reaffirmed the statutes of Henry IV for the city’s Jews without alteration. There can be little doubt that close relations existed between the Jewish community and the imperial rule so conspicuously manifested in Worms. Legally reassured of its autonomy, the Jewish community experienced, in economic terms above all, its great resurgence. At the same time the Christian civic community fully emerged, its lead­ers asserting and exercising independent rule in and over the city by c. 1200, a fact of prime importance for the further course of Jewish life. Up to the beginning of the thirteenth century, the constitution developed in close accord among kings, strong, long-ruling bishops, and a dynamic oligarchy of ministeriales with influential fami­lies at their head. It was into this symbiosis that the Jewish community found itself integrated around 1200.
It is characteristic of the structure of relationships maintained by the Worms com­munity that it was integrated into regional networks, most notably among the so-called Shum communities. Close economic dealings, family ties, intellectual exchange, con­sultation on legal questions and religious matters—all these elements are features of the development of the communities in the three Jewish centres since the ascendance of the Speyer Jewry (largely spared in 1096). On the level of the cities, such forms of cooperation, which certainly can be called federations by the time, found expression in a remarkable agreement between Worms and Speyer in 1209 and later, from 1254 on, culminated in the network of the ‘Rhenish League’ based in the northern Upper Rhine, with antecedents reaching back to the 1220s.
3 The Development up to the Catastrophe of 1349
For the most part, we have no non-Hebrew sources to document the development of the Jewish community in the thirteenth century, a period so important for the growth of urban centres. Apart from the ties among the Jews from different towns, similar to the Christian ‘civic leagues’, there are only isolated reports that do not add up to a whole. All the same, we find a source of civic provenance from 1255 naming the probiores et meliores Judei in Wormatia, apparently a sort of leading committee or council in the Jewish community. From around this time, the decline of royal power became noticeable. After the end of the Staufer period, its actual influence on the history of the community receded more and more behind that of local and regional authorities. Since the second third of the thirteenth century, the latent conflict between the quar­relling civic representatives (council and guilds) and the clergy, lead by bishops of varying strength, became decisive for the Jewish community, financially quite strong according to a tax list of 1241. Thus around 1260, Jewish destiny in Worms depended on the local authorities. The documents show a series of regular as well as occasional payments by the Jews to the civic coffers.
Among the few legal sources pertaining to the workings of the Jewish community, there is a key text from around 1300–3 which has attracted the attention of numer­ous scholars. The text deals with how Jews could become citizens in Worms. As, for example, in Speyer (where, into the early fifteenth century, we can observe a fairly similar development in relations between Jews and Christians), Jews in Worms enjoyed a legal status that came close to that of a Christian citizen, with a more or less identical catalogue of rights and duties. While the civic council examined Christian applicants for burgher status, the Jewish ‘bishop’ and Jewish council decided in the case of a Jew. Only those Jews could obtain citizenship who had first been accepted into the Jewish community ‘as a burgher according to their customs’. This acceptance then required the city to accord burgher status as well. For both Christians and Jews, the bishop of Worms was equally important: Before him, they had to give the obliga­tory oath of citizenship, demanding loyalty and obedience towards ‘the Bishop, the Council and the City commonweal’. Probably written down between 1300 and 1305, this civic legal text illustrates that the Jews enjoyed a favourable legal position. The right of accepting Jews as citizens was expressly granted to Worms and Speyer in 1315 by the crown.
The various legal claims on the Jews and their own claims to an autonomous com­munity administration received a lasting balance in 1312, by an agreement between the bishop, the Cathedral chapter, and the Jewish community concerning the election and confirmation of the ‘bishop of the Jews’ and the Jewish council of twelve men. Only a few years earlier, internal civic strife had been settled and a new method of electing the city council established (by expanding the council’s recruiting base) fol­lowing negotiations between the bishop and chapter and the city. Now disputes arose with ‘the council of the Jews’ and ‘the Jewish community at Worms’. Hereupon a commission of five good men (the cathedral chanter, two knights and two burghers) decreed that the ‘Bishop of the Jews’ was to be appointed from among the Jewish councillors by the bishop. Members of the Jewish council and the ‘Bishop of the Jews’ were required to make a payment and take an oath to the prelate on the occasion of their instalment to office. According to this document, the council’s tasks consisted in adjudicating ‘according to Jewish law’ as was customary, that is, in regulating internal community affairs and wielding internal judicial authority. Significantly, the agreement involved the civic council and community as guarantors for the keeping of its provisions—in an effort to gain broad insurances.
If we summarize the forces exerting a direct influence on the legal aspects and external relations relevant for the Jewish community during the later Middle Ages, we may emphasize the following four factors:
1.
The Crown: This factor, traditionally very significant for Worms, was of par­ticular weight before 1348/49 when, as in Speyer, the rights over the Jews were transferred to the city. But it continued to be of consequence in the fifteenth century because of Worms’s role as an imperial city, a role it emphasized to counterbalance the authority of the bishop.

2.
The Bishop and clergy (collegiate foundations): The bishops remained mas­ters of the city during the entire Middle Ages with varying possibilities of enforcing their legal authority; the clergy were able to retain their broad range of privileges. Apart from various levies (as in connection with burials on the Jewish cemetery), the bishop retained the right to confirm and invest the members of the Jewish council, a right associated with considerable levies. Thus he retained extensive and continuous entitlements to so many vital interests in the Jewish community, all underscored and secured by sworn obligations.

3.
Since the time of Barbarossa, the civic corporation and city council increas­ingly appeared as decisive factors for the Jews. In this respect, the charter issued by Emperor Charles IV in January 1348, in which all rights to the Jews were turned over to the city council, attained great significance. After the resettlement beginning in 1353, the Jews were once and for all under the protection and authority of the coun­cil, a highly ambivalent position, as was to be seen often enough in the future. We may add to these factors the repercussions on the Jews of Worms’s involvement in numerous city leagues of the thirteenth and especially the fourteenth century, and the regional network of relationships among the leading burgher families.

4.
The Counts of the Palatine, with their political and territorial power of disposal, increasingly intervened in the political structure of the city from the fourteenth cen­tury. In addition, certain other regional groups and powers were a factor at times.


4 Continuity and Crises: Jewish Worms in the Late Middle Ages
The events of 1 March 1349 mark a turning point whose significance can hardly be overestimated. The extremely severe pogrom at the time of the ‘Black Death’, about which we have few details in Worms, and the short-term yet momentous break in the Jewish existence in Worms was accompanied by a fundamental change in legal circumstances. Yet while the city was now owner and sovereign of the Jews, it never really achieved a monopoly on their control. Four years after the persecution, and fol­lowing considerable problems resulting from the expulsion, Worms, too, readmitted Jews—in a markedly emphatic agreement among all civic powers and ‘under certain conditions’. The Jews were able to take possession of their properties and commu­nity facilities again or rebuild them. A Hebrew document shows that in 1377 about 180 to 200 Jews again lived in the city. In this parchment, all 36 married men of the community take upon them with their signatures a forced contribution to (as it says) ‘their masters’ the mayor and council. The development after 1350 was marked by two only seemingly contradictory lines of development. On the one hand, a decline in the legal status of the Jews became manifest (admittance contracts were valid for some years only and stipulated higher taxes), and the claims to ‘lordship’ made by the city council intensified, sometimes in response to internal civic strife. On the other hand, there were strong elements of a continuity in basic conditions. In situations where its legitimacy was assaulted (for example, shortly after 1400), the city council, with a new kind of intensity, underscored and demonstrated its authority as master of the Jews, both legally and physically. This reaction was also meant as a signal to the repeated demands of guild representatives to participate in civic rule. Continuity is also apparent in two extant charters, of 1439 and 1446, recording agreements reached with the bishop concerning the instalment and the swearing in of the Jewish council at the bishop’s court. These documents reiterated the above-mentioned conditions of 1312, which were to remain legally binding until around 1500.
A positive and, in the end, decisive factor for the lasting existence of a community proved to be the relatively high degree of insurance enjoyed by the Jews in Worms. It was acquired through a complex network of legal and personal ties to the city, to the episcopal powers, and to the crown, all bound up with the Jews’ economic value. The crown in particular, of enormous importance for the city and its legal status, had vital interests in the Jews. Hence we may even speak of a mutual blockade of forces potentially hostile to the Jews. (The fateful events of 1349 are, of course, an excep­tion.) Circumstantial elements (which have hardly been examined for Worms) such as the internal civic conflicts and changes in the constitution due to the rise of the guilds and their participation in civic government, were overruled in their impact on Jewish community development by a pattern of long-term factors. Herein Worms dif­fers from other comparable towns and cities where, admittedly, the internal conflicts over the city’s constitution were fought with much greater severity. As far as we know today, the Jewish community—called judischeit in the sources—suffered hardly any direct involvement in these conflicts, which in Worms were only lesser conflicts any­way. Under such conditions, a fairly large and wealthy Jewry with a constitution of its own was able to prevail between the fronts battling over dominance in the city into the Modern Era. In Worms as elsewhere, the fate of the Jewish community can be viewed more or less as a sensor of the local balance of powers. The impact of changes in that balance on the Jews for better or for worse is visible everywhere.
The fact that, after about 1400, there were no more important internal civic con­flicts over the constitution proved favourable to the Jewish community. The regula­tions of 1392 governing the civic constitution remained essentially valid up to around 1500, when conditions once again changed drastically. From about 1400, the fate of the Jewish community in Worms increasingly diverged from those of the communi­ties in Mainz and Speyer, while numerous parallels could be noted before. Severe consequences were brought about by the expulsions of Jews from the neighbouring territories (such as the Palatinate) and from the cities in the region. They have to be seen before a background of extreme economic hardship. The expulsions from Speyer (1435) and Mainz (1438) had the most serious effects. The earlier network of Jewish communities ceased to exist, the Jews of Worms found themselves more and more isolated.
Beginning in the fifteenth century, only temporary residence permits, theoretically subjected to termination, were negotiated with the Jewish community, which contin­ued to act as a collective body. Thus, around November 1464, the Jews’ contract was extended on proviso and by two more years beginning Palm Sunday 1465. The city council decided to ‘allow our Jewish community ... on payment of levies and a hearth tax ... to sit and live among us and behinde us.’ The levies, the hearth tax above all, were imposed on the community as a whole, which was then responsible for their col­lection from the individual members and for their proper payment to the authorities. According to a tax list of c. 1470, the house tax levied on 33 houses and 40 households made up the bulk of the city’s income from the Jewish community. The communitas also paid the shares due for its personnel (two rabbis, a shammash, a cantor).
Let us return to the question as to how much the Jewish quarter was closed off. While Jewish property and settlement outside the quarter did exist before 1349, there are clear signs of concentration and of a tendency towards closure around 1470 to 1480. It is perhaps not coincidental that only a few years earlier (1462) a separate Jewish quarter had been established in Frankfurt am Main, a city with close ties to Worms. The development after c. 1470 can be observed in sources relating to a dispute between the Jewish community and the parish priest of St. Rupert’s over the payment of the tithe for houses in the Jewish quarter. The sources not only offer important information on how each side viewed its position in the city but also on the constellation of ruling powers. Out of its own interests (as opposed to clerical demands) the city, or at least the council, patently sided with the Jews and defended their judicial claim against the episcopal court. Around 1500, the enclosure of the Jewish settlement within the boundaries of the Jewish quarter came to a definite end, as we see in the numerous sources from the years shortly before 1500. Documents in the municipal archives demonstrate that before about 1470 Christians most certainly did live in the Jewish quarter. The widespread opinion that such a thing did not exist in Worms—or for that matter, in other cities—is no longer tenable.
In 1505, new Jewry-Regulations, the details of which were obviously negotiated with the community, were put into force, albeit for a brief period. The circumstances surrounding this contract demonstrate to what extent the civic representatives regarded the position of the Jews as a touchstone of their own authority, to be defended with all judicial means. With this step the council usurped for some years the right to appoint members to the Jewish council and thus laid claim to the incomes associated with this procedure. The measure coincided with reforms regarding the city’s constitution and the election of council members, a process disputed for centuries, and with an imperial privilege extending the council’s authority. The measure had, however, no lasting effect. Even after 1526, when the balance of powers was again reordered, the Jews remained in a constantly endangered position between all the institutions and groups involved in civic rule. Nevertheless they managed to maintain the continuity of their community—right up to the brutal end of its long tradition during the Nazi dictatorship.
trans.: F. S. K.
FURTHER READING
B.cher, ‘Die alte Synagoge’ (1961). – B.nnen, ‘Stadtverfassung und Stadtgemeinde’ (2002).

–
B.nnen, ‘J.dische Gemeinde und christliche Stadtgemeinde’ (2003) [with sources].

–
Friedrichs, ‘Anti-Jewish-Politics in Early Modern Germany’ (1990). – Germania Judaica, i (1934), pp. 437–74; ii, pt 2 (1968), pp. 919–27; iii, pt 2 (1995), pp. 1671–97. – Kisch, ‘Rechtsstellung der Wormser Juden’ (1934). – Mentgen, ‘Die Juden des Mittelrhein-Mosel-Gebietes’ (1995), esp. pp. 66–9 [on the events in Worms 1096]. – Reuter, ‘Bischof, Stadt und Judengemeinde’ (1983) [with maps of Jewish quarter]. – Reuter, Warmaisa (21987). – Schiffmann, ‘Die Urkunden f.r die Juden’ (1930). – Toch, Juden im mittelalterlichen Reich (1998, ²2003). – Ziwes, Juden im mittleren Rheingebiet (1994).


RESUMEN
El desarrollo de la comunidad jud.a de Worms, conocida desde comienzos del siglo XI, y durante la Alta Edad Media uno de los centros m.s importantes de la erudici.n jud.a y de la historia jud.a del Juda.smo asquenaz., ser. considerado preferentemente bajo el aspecto de la organizaci.n comunitaria y de las complejas relaciones con el mundo circundante, y por ello sobre el fondo de la interacci.n de la historia de las comunidades jud.as con la historia social y constitucional de la ciudad episcopal e imperial.
Tras un resumen de algunos puntos sobre Topograf.a y Asentamiento Urbano, concreta­mente de la infraestructura comunitaria que se formara sobre todo en el siglo XII (paralela a la Worms cristiana, cfr. construcci.n de la catedral) se tratar. en tres pasos temporales el desarrollo de las comunidades en el .mbito de ciudad y concejo urbano, obispo y clero, reino y condado palatino como factor de poder territorial entre principios del siglo XI y fines del siglo XV (comienzos y auge hasta aprox. 1200; tendencias del desarrollo hasta la ruptura causada por los alborotos de 1349; empeoramiento del contexto legal y realidad pol.tica hasta aprox. 1500). Se incluye una mirada comparativa hacia Espira, donde pueden constatarse desarrollos similares en el status legal y en la red de relaciones de la comunidad.
Se discuten sobre todo las funciones internas y externas de la comunidad que se presenta a partir del siglo XI corporativamente, el tema del desarrollo del status legal de los jud.os de Worms entre los siglos XIII y XIV, la problem.tica de la clausura de la calle de los jud.os a finales del siglo XV, as. como la cuesti.n sobre las causas del alto grado de continuidad y esta­bilidad de los asentamientos jud.os hasta la .poca moderna en comparaci.n con las ciudades y territorios vecinos.