Makhir of Narbonne
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Makhir of Narbonne was a Babylonian-Jewish scholar who settled in Narbonne, France, at the end of the eighth century and whose descendants were for many generations the leaders of that important community.
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[edit] Writings by Abraham ibn Daud
According to a tradition preserved by Abraham ibn Daud in his Sefer ha-Qabbalah Makhir was a descendant of the house of David. Ibn Daud wrote:
- Then King Charles sent to the King of Baghdad [Caliph] requesting that he dispatch one of his Jews of the seed of royalty of the House of David. He hearkened and sent him one from there, a magnate and sage, Rabbi Makhir by name. And [Charles] settled him in Narbonne, the capital city, and planted him there, and gave him a great possession there at the time he captured it from the Ishmaelites [Arabs]. And he [Makhir] took to wife a woman from among the magnates of the town; *...* and the King made him a nobleman and designed, out of love for [Makhir], good statutes for the benefit of all the Jews dwelling in the city, as is written and sealed in a Latin charter; and the seal of the King therein [bears] his name Carolus; and it is in their possession at the present time. The Prince Makhir became chieftain there. He and his descendants were close [inter-related] with the King and all his descendants.
Although this relation between Makhir and Charlemagne is probably legendary, it is a fact that the Makhir family enjoyed for centuries many privileges and that its members bore the title of "nasi" (prince). Benjamin of Tudela, who visited Narbonne in 1165, speaks of the exalted position occupied by the descendants of Makhir, and the "Royal Letters" of 1364 [1] also record the existence of a Jewish "king" at Narbonne. The place of residence of the Makhir family at Narbonne was designated in official documents as "Cortada Regis Judæorum" [2]. Makhir is said to have founded a Talmudic school there which vied in greatness with those of Babylonia and which attracted pupils from many distant points.
[edit] The Bnei Makhir and the Carolingian dynasty
Some scholars, among them Arthur Zuckerman, maintain that Makhir was actually identical with Natronai ben Habibi, an exilarch deposed and exiled in a dispute between two branches of the family of Bostanai in the late eighth century. Natronai proposed that Makhir Natronai adopted the Frankish name of Aymery or Theodoric (and the title Count of Septimania) and married Alda or Aldana, a daughter of Charles Martel. Aldana's son by Aymery was William of Gellone, about whom there were at least six major epic poems composed before the era of the crusades, including Willehalm, by Wolfram von Eschenbach, the most famous of the mediaeval Grail chroniclers.
[edit] References
[edit] Resources
- "Machir". Jewish Encyclopedia. Funk and Wagnalls, 1901-1906; which gives the following citations:
- Zacuto, Yuhasin, ed. London, p. 84;
- Gross, in Monatsschrift, 1878, p. 250; 1881, p. 451;
- idem, Gallia Judaica, p. 404;
- Neubauer, in R. E. J. x. 100-103;
- Renan-Neubauer, Les Rabbins Français, pp. 561, 743.
[edit] Further reading
- Zuckerman, Arthur J. A Jewish Princedom in Feudal France, 768-900. New York: Columbia University Press, 1972.
