After the death of Charlemagne, the ensuing fragmentation of his empire
underscored the importance of the protection that Jews received from a noble
benefactor, despite the growing influence of archbishops. Often archbishops
and other ranking clergy were concurrently counts and barons for whom eco-
nomic and other temporal concerns superseded theological ones. The latter
coincided with a backlash against Charlemagne’s policy of Jewish toleration,
spurred, among other things, by the conversion of Bodo the priest to Judaism.
During the 820s, Archbishop Agobard of Lyon, advocating that “true
Christians separate themselves from the company of infidels,” embarked on a
campaign to curtail the right of Jews to reside in France. This effort culmi-
nated when he tried to convert Jewish children en masse to Christianity.
Though this effort failed when Louis the Pious, the heir of Charlemagne, inter-
vened, it reflected the discontent with the expansion of privileges of the Jews
by royal and noble benefactors. Agobard’s successor and protégé, Amulo, con-
tinued the efforts of his mentor, albeit in muted form. While reiterating Louis
the Pious’s prohibition on violence against Jews, Amulo encouraged bishops to
missionize intensely and to deliver sermons in synagogues.
Conditions for Jews remained relatively stable throughout the eleventh cen-
tury, despite occasional setbacks. In 1007, rumors of anti-Christian acts in the
Muslim world prompted anti-Jewish riots and forced conversion in the empire.
At the request of Jacob ben Yekutiel, a leading Jew, the pope intervened. In
1012, Emperor Henry II expelled the Jews from Mayence after a local priest
converted to Judaism. Within a year, though, he invited them back for trade
reasons. The upshot is that temporal interests generally trumped theological
aims during the first several centuries of Jewish life in Christian Europe.
Emblematic of this stability was the charter that Bishop Rudiger of Speyer
gave to the Jews of Speyer in 1084. This charter, one of the oldest extant,
resulted from an attempt by the bishop to attract Jews to Speyer after a fire
had displaced them from Mayence. The charter contained the basic contrac-
tual elements embedded in subsequent Christians charters: the sovereign’s
protection in exchange for Jews paying an annual tax.
The language of this remarkable document underlines the bishop’s
practical and economic rather than theological aims: “When I wished to
make a city out of the village of Speyer, I ... decided that the glory of our
town would be augmented a thousandfold if I were to bring Jews.” The
bishop then delineated what would become a template for Jewish privi-
leges and obligations in Christian Europe for the next seven or eight
centuries. In exchange for an annual payment of three and a half pounds in
Speyer currency, Jews were granted the right to live in a Jewish quarter
protected by a wall, the obligation to police the Jewish quarter, land for
burial (given in perpetuity), the right to quarter Jews from other commu-
nities, the right to employ Christians as wet nurses and servants, and the
right to slaughter kosher meat and even sell meat to Christians. Most
76 The Jews of medieval Christendom