A Jewish Princedom in Feudal France, 768–900 is a book about Frankish medieval history by Arthur J. Zuckerman (published 1972 by Columbia University Press).
According to Zuckerman's thesis presented in the book, a vassal Jewish princedom was established in Narbonne (Septimania) by the Carolingian king Pepin as a reward for Jewish cooperation in the Frankish conquest of the city in 759 CE from Muslim Al-Andalus. The dynasty of Jewish rulers was later also confirmed by Pepin's son Charlemagne and endowed with significant lands and privileges. He views later counts and dukes of Toulouse (Aquitaine) and Barcelona (Hispanic Marches) under the Carolingians as scions of these Jewish rulers. The first ruler was Makhir of Narbonne, a likely descendant of the Babylonian exilarch Bostanai, of the 7th century CE.
Zuckerman argues that the Princedom played an important role as a buffer zone in the border area between the Muslim caliphate south of the Pyrenees and the Christian Frankish Empire in the north. Its counts played influential roles in the imperial military campaigns in the Hispanic Marches, Aquitaine, and at the Carolingian court in Aachen.
Zuckerman's thesis has been contested by several scholars and criticized for its conjecture and lack of reliable evidence, particularly when identifying presumably Christian Carolingian nobles with Jewish members of the House of Exilarchs.
Source analysis
Methodology Zuckerman analyzed monastery records, Carolingian archives, Jewish medieval texts from Europe and Babylonia, Muslim sources, Chanson de geste (heroic songs) and other primary documents. This involved attempting to recover what he considered to be the original history from challenging sources like monastery records, some of which he views as manipulated, re-edited and even intentionally forged in later centuries to legalise the confiscation of Jewish property,Zuckerman, Princedom. pp. 167–168. as well as from fictional sources like Chanson de geste, which represented the contributions of many authors in multiple literary layers over several centuries around their original historical narrative. Zuckerman used a holistic, multicultural approach to sources originally in Hebrew, Aramaic, Latin, Greek and Arabic with attention to Jewish, Christian and Muslim practice and international political alliances in Europe, the Orient and North Africa in medieval times. His reexamination of the source material resulted in a novel interpretation of Septimanian history and engendered much scholarly debate.
Onomastic evidence A key part of the analysis consisted of correlating Jewish naming conventions from different cultural backgrounds. It is well known that the exilarchs of Baghdad frequently had at least two names – a familiar Persian or Aramaic name and a formal Hebrew-biblical name.Zuckerman, Princedom. pp. 82. The geographical and cultural mobility of Jews in post-Exilic period led to such widespread practice of combining traditional Jewish names with kinnui'im (secular nicknames). Zuckerman argues that as result, a Jew who received a traditional Hebrew name at birth can have further Arabic or Aramaic name equivalents if he lives in that cultural area, only to add a Latin, Greek or Frank name if moving to Europe later on. Against this practice it is for example argued that Makhir of Narbonne, the most multicultural personality of the dynasty, had Hebrew, Aramaic and Frank names even combined with a further nickname based on Chanson de geste.Zuckerman, Princedom. pp. 372–373. A similar approach is applied if relevant for those who Zuckerman considers to be his later descendants.
Makhiri dynasty, according to Zuckerman The Carolingians and the Davidic line The Carolingians were sensitive to accusations of the usurpation of the crown through conquest from the Merovingians. Succession to the biblical David would be a claim of divine sanction to rule as it would legitimise their royal power. It is documented that Charlemagne occasionally called himself by the name of David. However Charlemagne's own thinking of being the successor for biblical kings of the Jewish people required a governance over the Jews and at least nominal control over Jerusalem. Creating a vassal Jewish princedom, intermarrying with its Davidic line and building a strategic alliance with the Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdad who ruled over the land of Israel provided Charlemagne a symbolic hold in Jerusalem which fulfilled both preconditions. However, ideas such as these were in tension with the views of the Church and Pope Leo III and developed in later decades into fierce opposition and conflicts.Zuckerman, Princedom. pp. 32–35. (also citing P. Munz)
From Babylonia to Frankia – Makhir of Narbonne Zuckerman names the exilarch family he views as ruling southern Francia the Makhiri Dynasty, named for its first ruler, Makhir of Narbonne (born in Babylonia, died 6. July, 793 in Pannonia). He sees references to the Hebrew name מכיר (Machir), the Aramaic name Natronai b. Habibai, the Arabic name Al-Makhiri, the Frankish name Theodoric, and the protagonist of the Chanson de geste called Aymeri de Narbonne, as all referring to the same man, a nasi from Baghdad who was appointed by Pepin the Short in 768 a count in the Princedom of the Jews in Septimania.
Makhir was a Babylonian exilarch and rabbinic scholar also known in Babylonia by his Aramaic name Natronai b. Habibai, a scion of the "pure Jewish line" of the exilarch Bostanai (and his wife Adoa). During the years of 763–766 CE his exilarch succession was challenged by Zakkai b. Ahunai, known also as Baboi, of the Persian line. As a result, "the exilarch Natronai went to the West" – or according to variant readings to Tsarfat (France) or Sfarad (Spain). Zuckerman suggests that from the standpoint of Baghdad, this would be consistent with Narbonne, which around these years transited from Spanish to French rule.Zuckerman, Princedom. pp. 79–80. The exilarch succession politics was interdependent with the upheaval in the Umayyad Caliphate and is paralleled with Pepin's three years diplomatic mission to Baghdad, which returned in 768 back to Marseilles and established coalition between the Carolingians and Caliph Al-Mansur against the rebellious Emirate of Córdoba. In the same year, Makhir was invited by the Carolingians to become the first nasi (exilarch) appointed as ruler in Narbonne. The year 768 was significant as it was the year the King Messiah ben Ephraim was expected according to some Jewish Kabbalistic interpretations, as it coincided with the end of seven hundred years of the Second Temple destruction.Zuckerman, Princedom. pp. 102–111.
Rise to power, life, sources
For their cooperation in ending the seven-year-long siege of Narbonne in 759 CE, Pepin the Short promised the local Jews formal recognition and a prince (nasi) of their own.
This was implemented 9 years later in 768 when Makhir of the Davidic lineage was received from Baghdad by Pepin and his son Charlemagne. Zuckerman argues that he was accepted into the Frankish nobility under the name Theodoric, identifying him with the documented Frankish count of that name. Theodoric was granted by the Carolingian broad authority over Jews and Christians, extensive hereditary territories and "a great possession", including former church property lost decades before to the Umayyad Caliphate. Makhir became by an act of commendation a vassal of the Carolingian who in turn received overlordship of the Jews as evidence of entering legitimate biblical succession. Theoderic (alias Makhir, according to Zuckerman) received a Carolingian princess as his wife – apparently Alda, the daughter of Charles Martel and sister of Pepin. A Hebrew description of Makhir's installation was documented by Abraham ibn Daud, author of Sefer Seder HaQabbalah (Book of the Order of Tradition) – especially in the Addendum to Sefer HaQabbalah (composed before 1165, during the life of the then-young nasi Kalonymos b. Todros, a supposed descendant of Makhir). It refers consistently to Makhir and his descendants as a dynasty of nesi'im princes whose power and position in Narbonne were virtually identical with that of the exilarchs (k'mo rashe galuyot) in Babylonia.Zuckerman, Princedom. pp. 58–60, 89-90. (citing A. ibn Daud, Sefer HaQabbalah) A fragment of a legal document from 791 that names Maghario Count of Narbonne is interpreted by Zuckerman as using a Romanized form of Makhir, making it the only non-Hebrew document specifically mentioning him.Zuckerman, Princedom. pp. 180. (from Johannis Mabillon, De re diplomatica)
As Zuckerman relates, this assignment of "a great possession" was immediately sharply protested by Pope Stephen III, to no avail, in a papal epistle dated 768 complaining bitterly about gift of money and cession of territory to the Narbonne Jewry.Zuckerman, Princedom. pp. 72–73. Zuckerman finds what he considers to be a corresponding claim of a great endowment in favor of a Jewish scion of royal lineage from Baghdad in the Gesta Karoli Magni ad Carcassonam et Narbonam.Zuckerman, Princedom. pp. 61. A Jewish principate in Septimania would have represented a significant theological challenge to the church during its whole existence and Zuckerman sees its aftertaste as still perceptible even in the 12th century after the Princedom lost most of its real power from the Carolingian era. In a caustic remark during a theological messianic dispute (before 1143) about Genesis 49:10. Peter the Venerable of Cluny demanded from the Jews to produce an example of a king of the House of Judah and rejects their claim of a Jewish King in Narbonne because he did not fulfill his theological expectation of ruling over the Holy Land: "As for me, I will not accept that king (as something worthy of ridicule) whom some of you claim to have in Narbonne, the city in Gaul, others in Rouen. I will not accept a Jew as a King of the Jews except one residing in and ruling the Kingdom of the Jews (namely, Palestine)". This document mentioning a Jewish king in Narbonne is older than any of the Hebrew sources or chanson de geste and is viewed as independent of all of them.Zuckerman, Princedom. pp. 96. (Citing L. Loeb, Polemiste chretiens et juifs)
In 1829 Dumège reported the presence of a now-lost manuscript from archives the Abbey Lagrasse near Narbonne relating a similar narrative of a king of the Jews, descendant of the prophet Daniel (also descendant of Davidic line according to rabbinic tradition) who ruled in Narbonne during the reign of Charlemagne. This document also mentioned that in 791 the Jewish king send an embassy of ten Jews led by Isaac to Charlemagne, paying a large sum for him to grant them a permanent king of their own in Narbonne. This Charlemagne accepted and ceded to them the part of Narbonne where they settled.Zuckerman, Princedom. pp. 63, 138–139. (citing A. Dumège)
Count Theodoric (identical to Makhir according to Zuckerman) participated successfully in multiple military campaigns to secure the southwestern border of the Frankish empire. The most important was conquering the Hispanic Marches on both sides of the Pyrenees in 791. In the same year Charlemagne's privilegium confirmed in an impressive council the Jewish exilarchate as a permanent institution regulating and defining the power status in Septimania and March of Spain, mainly half of Narbonne and half of the King's income in the County and beyond. Zuckerman sees the possessions of the Nasi of Narbonne and the holdings of the Jews are shown to remain largely intact until the eleventh century.Zuckerman, Princedom. pp. 175–178, 373.