Cologne Jews' privilege

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The Jews' privilege in Cologne Cathedral

The Cologne Jewish privilege is a privilege carved into a stone slab for the Jewish population of the Archdiocese of Cologne from 1266, which is located in Cologne Cathedral . As a source it documents the granting of rights to Jews by Archbishop Engelbert II. Von Falkenburg . While documents were usually made out on parchment at that time, the form of the publicly issued stone document is rather a rarity. The cemetery and funeral law, customs regulations and the money-lending monopoly were regulated. The Jewish privilege is thus an important source for Jewish history in Cologne and for the relationship between Christians and Jews during this period.

Installation site

The head-high stone tablet is now in Cologne Cathedral on a wall of the northern ambulatory, near the entrance to the Sacrament Chapel. It is believed that this is at least the third site inside the cathedral. Due to the importance of the tablet and its state of preservation, it can be assumed that it was placed inside the church from the beginning. A reliable localization of the first installation in 1266, 18 years after the laying of the foundation stone of today's cathedral, has not yet been successful. Considerations are based on an attachment or walling in on the northern extension of the future sacristy, which was already built at that time . An installation in an inner or outer wall of the treasury at that time could not be ruled out. Until 1867, it is documented that it was installed in a room of the old cathedral sacristy. From 1870 the Jewish privilege was in the hall of the south tower. In 1981 the board moved to its current location.

background

The Archdiocese of Cologne was a center of Judaism in Germany until the end of the Middle Ages, with branches of Jewish communities in most of the cities, with a membership of up to 3,000 people. The city of Cologne was the center of Rhenish and Westphalian Jewish life, with its own religious school of high standing and extensive international trade relations. Jews in the Rhineland lived in the field of tension between a tolerant and privileged attitude in view of their religion, which is related to Christianity, and the growing rejection of their “blindness” to the “true religion” of Christianity, which later culminated in the persecution of Jews at the time of the Black Death . The toleration of Jewish life and economic activities by Jews also led to efforts to flee the latter for tax purposes, which, among other things, was the subject of most Jewish privileges.

content

The Cologne Jewish privilege is not an extract, but a complete copy of a certificate. The existence of a parchment setting cannot be ruled out, but the completeness of the stone document was established in a diplomatic investigation. The document does not contain any time limit on its regulations, which provides a possible explanation of its stone base material as a permanent form of representation. Unique in this form, the document from 1266 is, in terms of content, one of the eleven letters of protection of the archdiocese between 1252 and 1372.

The Jewish privilege of 1266 is written in Latin . In terms of content, it refers to an “unfavorable legal situation” and “various injustices” to which the Cologne Jews were exposed. To this end, three legal circles should now be given freedom rights:

Cemetery and funeral law

Engelbert II assured the Jews the right “however their lives were wiped out and wherever they were brought from” to bury their dead in their own cemetery outside the Cologne city walls. This was the Judenbüchel from the middle of the 12th century as the oldest Jewish cemetery in Cologne. It was near Bonner Strasse next to a courtyard of the St. Severin Abbey. Between 1922 and 1936 this cemetery was closed for the construction of a freight yard and the wholesale market hall. Some of the oldest tombstones from there are now kept in the lapidarium of the Jewish cemetery in Cologne-Bocklemünd . The Jewish privilege precluded the levying of a funeral duty for the burials of foreign Jews in this cemetery. It also did not allow the funerals of Jews who were excluded from the Jewish community, thereby strengthening the autonomy of the Jewish community.

Customs regulations

The Jewish privilege assured Jewish trade that it would not be burdened more heavily than Christian merchants.

Monopoly on money lending

With the Jewish privilege, the archbishop issued a ban on the settlement of “Kawertschen” and other Christians , who lent interest-bearing loans, in the city, thus securing a far-reaching monopoly for Jewish moneylenders . As with the customs regulations, this was done against the background that wealthy members of Cologne's Jewish community were among the most important financiers of the archbishopric. “Kawertschen”, Christian moneylenders from Lombardy and France , were hardly active in the Rhineland in the middle of the 13th century, but the regulation in the Jewish privilege indicates that the appearance of these competitors was at least expected. The Archbishop thus promoted extensive Jewish economic activity, not least in order to be able to use the financial strength of Jewish business people in his favor.

literature

  • Bernd Wacker, Rolf Lauer (eds.): The Cologne Cathedral and "the Jews": Symposium of the Karl Rahner Academy Cologne in cooperation with the Cologne Cathedral Building Administration from November 18th to 19th, 2006 . (= Kölner Domblatt Volume 73) Verlag Kölner Dom, Cologne 2008, ISBN 978-3-922442-65-3 .
  • Wolfgang Müller: Document inscriptions of the German Middle Ages . Kallmünz 1975 (Munich Historical Studies. Department of Historical Auxiliary Sciences, edited by Peter Acht , 13), pp. 87–89, no. 31.

Web links

Commons : Jewish privilege (Cologne Cathedral)  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Joachim Oepen: The Jewish privilege in Cologne Cathedral . In: Bernd Wacker, Rolf Lauer (eds.): The Cologne Cathedral and "the Jews": Symposium of the Karl Rahner Academy Cologne in cooperation with the Cologne Cathedral Building Administration from November 18-19, 2006 . Kölner Domblatt; Yearbook of the Central Cathedral Building Association. tape 73 . Verl. Kölner Dom, Cologne 2008, ISBN 978-3-922442-65-3 , p. 68-75 .
  2. ↑ Oepen, pp. 78-80.
  3. ↑ Oepen, pp. 76-77.
  4. ↑ Oepen, p. 92.
  5. ↑ Dietmar, Trier: With the subway to Roman times. 2006, p. 235.
  6. ↑ a b Oepen, pp. 82-83.
  7. ↑ derogatory term for medieval moneylenders and moneychangers, originally in the Provençal town of Cahors lived
  8. ↑ Alfred Heit, On the History of the Jews in Germany in the Late Middle Ages and Early Modern Times , 1981, p. 132.
  9. ↑ Oepen, pp. 85-86.