Volume 26, Issue 2

Scientific research into the early modern development of Jewish Society within a Christian environment has increased considerably in recent years. On the occasion of the Sixteenth World Congress of Jewish Studies in 2013 five young scholars, led by Friedrich Battenberg, presented at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem – in addition to these important lectures – a panel under the heading of »Christian Politics towards Jews in the Region of Frankfurt and Mainz in Early Modern Times«. After a comprehensive introduction the following contribution contains printed versions of two of these lectures (Hausmann and Behr). Verena Kasper-Marienberg changed her subject, because she had to publish her Jerusalem lecture on »Criminal History and Jewish Daily Life« elsewhere. Gabriela Schlick-Bamberger, who spoke in Jerusalem on »Jewish brokers at the Frankfurt exchange«, will publish her contribution as part of her dissertation. Andreas Goeller’s lecture about »Social and Economic Aspects in Jewish Life in Early Modern Germany« will be published in a later number of this journal. Thorsten Burger, who could not participate in the Jerusalem Congress, completed the collection presented here with his relevant contribution on the legislation applied to Jewish affairs by the Frankfurt authorities. The following introduction, as well as the four essays, permit short but profound glimpses into Jewish life conditions in Early Modern Germany.

The Stättigkeit of Frankfurt as an element of standardization of the conditions of the Jewish community in the years 1462 to 1614: Frankfurt am Main had had one of the oldest, largest and most important Jewish settlements within the Holy Roman Empire. In the imperial city the term Stättigkeit was used from the Middle Ages onwards to denote the right of residence and to describe the special status of the Jews within Frankfurt society. Stättigkeit referred to political, legal, commercial and social aspects concerning Jewish residents in Frankfurt as well as to foreign Jews who stayed in the city temporarily or were passing through. The essay describes the development and content of the regulations in the Stättigkeit from 1462 – when the Jews of Frankfurt were ordered to move into the Ghetto – up until the Fettmilch uprising in 1614. The author shows that the residence code gave the Jews a high degree of freedom to act as well as a stable legal framework. However, the Stättigkeit also imposed restrictions on their daily life, for instance regarding questions of trade.

Weekly markets and cattle markets, as well as local and international fairs, were important places of encounter for Jews and Christians in the early modern period. Weekly grocery markets in particular have drawn only little attention in terms of being »Jewish spaces«, but Jewish men and women were an integral part of them just like Christian men and women were. As both customers and vendors, Jews shaped the customs, times, supply and kinds of offered groceries at these markets. The weekly grocery market of Frankfurt am Main can serve as an example for examining the social interactions as well as the spatial dynamics that could develop in such a closely regulated, hierarchically structured and religiously shaped market space.

On 12 November 1671 the Prince-elector Johann Philipp of Schönborn decided to reduce the Jewish population of Mainz to ten households, who henceforth should live together in a segregated and enclosed lane, i. e. a ghetto. Historians have struggled to understand the reason for Schönborn’s »anti-Jewish policy«, since during the Middle Ages, Jews were allowed to live next to their Christian neighbours and to own real estate anywhere across the city. According to Siegmund Salfeld, this measure was an act of pure discrimination and Johann Philipp – well known for his tolerance and therefore called the »German Solomon« – was simply an »enemy of the Jews«. However, such historiographical characterizations do not account for the complicated motives for the ghettoization . Indeed, in the territories of the Holy Roman Empire Jews generally were not the target, but rather functioned as an object or instrument of sovereign policy. Even the expulsion of the Jewish population from Vienna ordered by Emperor Leopold I in 1670 cannot be considered a result of his personal hostility against Jews. Rather, this fatal treatment of the Jewish inhabitants and the subsequent development of the Leopoldstadt , are best explained as a consequence of political pressure resulting from the complaints of citizens, as well as from the Emperor’s urban planning which was informed by mercantilist ideas. As this reconstruction demonstrates, research and interpretation of the imperial princes’ »Jewish policy« has to consider and integrate aspects of public, social and economic policy. The ambiguous historiographic term »Jewish policy« can therefore not be used in any historical context, because two preconditions are required for this: 1) a (proto-)modern territorial state based on effective administration and aiming at the common good , 2) a partially estate-based society defining the Jews as a specific religious, legal, or sociocultural group.

In the years 1781/1783 Christian Dohm published his book On the Civil Improvement of the Jews . France abolished the body tax for Jews in 1784 and granted them full civil rights in 1791. Against this emancipatory trend there appeared in 1801 a book by Christian Jacob Gottlieb Klüber: Discussion of the Questions: 1) May a Ruler forbid Foreign Jews with a Writ of Protection from Engaging in Trade within his Realm? 2) Can these Jews obtain a Trade Concession, if they Pay Leibzoll? Totally oblivious of the debate on the emancipation of the Jews, the author advised territorial rulers to institutionalize the body tax in consultation with the neighbouring nobility. The author must have been driven by motives more complex than a mere dislike of Jews. Klüber’s advice to institutionalize the »Leibzoll« must be seen as an attempt to strengthen the imperial knights against the more powerful German princes.