Saturday, April 2, 2016
Genealogical Clues: A Brief, Imperfect Overview
Friday, April 1, 2016
Who Wrote The New Testament and Why?
Monday, March 14, 2016
Makhir of Narbonne: Unraveling the Mystery
The history behind the immigration of a Davidic prince from Bagdad to southwestern France has fascinated historians for centuries, particularly those interested in the Holy Grail mystery.
Luckily, the mystery surrounding the identity of the "Makhir of Narbonne" may not be impenetrable.
Saturday, March 12, 2016
Sefer Ha-Kabbalah Glosses over the real identity of the Davidic Prince of Septimania - "Makhir of Narbonne"
synonyms: | conceal, cover up, hide, disguise, mask, veil; shrug off, brush aside, play down, minimize, understate, make light of; informalbrush under the carpet "he tried to gloss over his problems" http://nltaylor.net/pdfs/a_Makhir.pdf |
Friday, March 11, 2016
Thursday, March 10, 2016
Muslim troops leaving Narbonne to Pepin le Bref in 759
Pepin of Landen
Wednesday, March 9, 2016
Messiah of Septimania
Septimania
It is only in the time of Wamba and Julian of Toledo, however, that a large Jewish population becomes evident in Septimania: Julian referred to it as a "brothel of blaspheming Jews."
Source: p.228, Thompson, E. A. (1969). The Goths in Spain. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Gilbert of Narbonne
Gilbert of Narbonne was a Goth count of Narbonne who governed until about 750. His successor was Miló.
Milo of Narbonne
Miló of Narbonne was the Count of Narbonne, who was ruling in 752, successor probably of Gilbert. It seems that he was in favour of the Franks, but, as there was a Muslim garrison in Narbonne, he didn't follow Ansemund, Count of Nimes in his allegiance to the Frankish Kingdom. The Goth counts and the Franks started to besiege Narbonne. Miló left the city toward Trausse, near Caunes, awaiting the result of the struggle. The Muslim troop resisted for about seven years. Narbonne capitulated in 759 and then the Franks granted the county to Miló. He was last known to have lived in 782.
"Isaac the Jew", Charlemagne's Diplomat
http://www.geni.com/people/Isaac-the-Jew-Charlemagne-s-Diplomat/6000000014633081117
In as far back as 797 AD, Charlemagne, the founder of the Carolingian empire who was later crowned Holy Roman Emperor, sent a man named Isaac the Jew to the Baghdad caliph Harun al-Rashid. In 802, Isaac returned to Charlemagne’s court with an elephant as a gift to the king from the sultan.
In the "Gesta Karoli Magni ad Carcassonam et Narbonam" ('Deeds of Charlemagne at Carcassonne andNarbonne'), which, in recounting the story of the conquest of Narbonne in epic style, tells of the Jews of Narbonne requesting (through their interlocutor, one "Isaac the Jew") that Charlemagne confirm the status of their existing leader, [Makhir] a king of the house of David (it says nothing of him being imported at the time). The Jewish episode is only a sidelight in this Christian text, which was obviously written to showcase the foundation by Charlemagne of the important monastery of La Grasse, near Narbonne.
- Charlemagne (on Geni)
- Caliph Hārūn ar-Rashīd (on Geni)
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Jews were numerous in France under Charlemagne, their position being regulated by law. Exchanges with the Orient strongly declined with the advent of the Saracen in the Mediterranean sea (Southern Italy), while oriental products such as gold, silk, black pepper or papyrus almost disappeared under the Carolingians. The only real link between the Orient and Occident was insured by the Radhanites Jewish traders.
A formula for the Jewish oath was fixed by Charlemagne. They were allowed to enter into lawsuits with Christians, and in their relations with the latter were restrained only from making them work on Sunday. They were not allowed to trade in currency, wine, or grain. Of more importance is the fact that they were tried by the emperor himself, to whom they belonged. They engaged in export trade, an instance of this being found in the Jew whom Charlemagne employed to go to Palestine and bring back precious merchandise. Furthermore, when the Normans disembarked on the coast of Narbonnese Gaul they were taken for Jewish merchants. They boast, says one authority, of buying whatever they please from bishops and abbots.
Isaac the Jew, who was sent by Charlemagne in 797 with two ambassadors (Lantfroi and Sigismond) to Harun al-Rashid, the fifth Abbasid Caliph, was probably one of these merchants. It is a curious fact that among the numerous provincial councils which met during Charlemagne's reign not one concerned itself with the Jews, although these had increased in number. In the same spirit as in the above-mentioned legends he is represented as asking the Baghdad calif for a rabbi to instruct the Jews whom he had allowed to settle at Narbonne (see History of the Jews in Babylonia). Louis le Débonnaire (814–833), faithful to the principles of his father, granted strict protection to the Jews, to whom he gave special attention in their position as merchants.
Abul-Abbas, also Abul Abaz or Abulabaz, was an Asian elephant given to Emperor Charlemagne by the caliph of Baghdad, Harun al-Rashid, in 797. The elephant's name and events from his life in the Carolingian Empire are recorded in the annales regni francorum (Royal Frankish Annals), and Einhard's Vita Karoli Magni also mentions the elephant. However, no references of the gift have been found in Abbasid records, nor any mentions of interactions with Charlemagne, possibly because Rashid regarded the Frank as a minor ruler.
Abul-Abbas was brought from Baghdad which was then a part of the Abbasid empire by a Frankish Jew named Isaac, who along with two other emissaries, Lanterfrid and Sigimund, was sent to the caliph on Charlemagne's orders. Being the only surviving member of the group of three, Isaac was sent back with the elephant. The two began the trek back by following the Egyptian coast into Ifriqiya (modern Algeria and Tunisia), ruled by Ibrahim ibn al-Aghlab who had bought the land from al-Rashid for 40,000 dinars annually. Possibly with the help of Ibrahim, Isaac set sail with Abul-Abbas from the city of Kairouan and traveled the remaining miles to Europe via the Mediterranean Sea. They landed in Genoa in October 801. The two spent the winter in Vercelli, and in the spring they started the march over the Alps to the Emperor's residence in Aachen, arriving on 1 July, 802. Abul-Abbas was exhibited on various occasions when the court was assembled, and was eventually housed in Augsburg in what is now southern Bavaria.
In 810, when he was in his forties, Abul-Abbas died of pneumonia, probably after swimming in the Rhine. The elephants' bones were conserved at Lippenham[citation needed] until the 18th century.
Primary sources:
Graboïs, "La dynastie des 'rois juifs'," presents a stemma, p. 52. While Graboïs, "La dynastie des 'rois juifs'," 50-52, accepts Zuckerman's dating of the narrative gloss as late twelfth-century,
Cohen, "TheNasi of Narbonne," 53-56, suggests that it was forged when the extant copy was made in Provence in the fifteenth century.
Graboïs, "La dynastie des 'rois juifs'," p. 52 n. 23; Zuckerman, Princedom, 170-71.
Cohen, "The Nasi of Narbonne," 50; Gesta Karoli Magni ad Carcassonam et Narbonam, ed. Friedrich Edward Schneegans (Halle, 1898), 176-80.
^ Annales regni francorum 802:117 "venit Isaac cum elefanto et ceteris muniberus, quae a rege Persarum missa sunt, et Aquisgrani omnia imperatori detulit; nomen elefanti erat Abul Abaz". Harun al Rashid is referred to as either the king of the Persians (ibid 801:116 "rex Persarum") or of the Saracenes (ibid 810:113 "ubi dum aliquot dies moraretur, elefant ille, quem ei Aaron rex Sarracenorum miserat, subita morte periit"
1 Einhard p.70. Einhard refers to the elephant as the only one Harun al Rashid had ("quem tunc solem habetat"), which is regarded an invention. Thorpe, Lewis (1969). Two lives of Charlemagne (7 ed.). Penguin Classics,. p. 184. ISBN 0-14-044213-8.
2 Sherman, Dennis; Salisbury, Joyce. The West in the World, Volume I: To 1715. 1 (3 ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill. p. 220. ISBN 0-07-331669-5. OCLC 177823124.
3 a b Kistler, John M.; Lair, Richard (2006). War elephants. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 187–188. ISBN 0-275-98761-2. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Y0sqI1fxfnMC.
4 Sypeck, Jeff. (2006). Becoming Charlemagne. HarperCollins Publishers. ISBN 0-06-079706-1
5 Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores rerum Germanicarum in usum scholarum separatim editi 6: Annales regni Francorum inde ab a. 741 usque ad a. 829, qui dicuntur Annales Laurissenses maiores et Einhardi. Edited by Friedrich Kurze. Hannover 1895, p. 116 (digital version).
6 Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores rerum Germanicarum in usum scholarum separatim editi 6: Annales regni Francorum inde ab a. 741 usque ad a. 829, qui dicuntur Annales Laurissenses maiores et Einhardi. Edited by Friedrich Kurze. Hannover 1895, p. 117 (digital version).
7 Moshe Gil. CUP Archive, 1992 .A History of Palestine, 634-1099, Volume 1. ISBN 0521404371, 9780521404372. http://books.google.fr/books?id=tSM4AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA286
Makhir of Narbonne Wiki
According to a tradition preserved by Abraham ibn Daud in his Sefer ha-Qabbalah, written about 1161, 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.
Whatever Makhir's Babylon origins claimed by his descendants, the relation between Makhir and Charlemagne is legendary, the more famous king substituting for his father Pepin, king of the Franks, who in order to enlist the Jews of Narbonne in his efforts to keep the Ummayad Saracens at bay, granted wide-ranging powers in return for the surrender of Moorish Narbonne to him in 759. The monkish Annals of Aniane and the Chronicle of Moissacboth attribute this action to the Gothic leaders of Narbonne, rising up and massacring the Saracen garrison. Pepin with his sons Carloman and Charles redeemed this pledge in 768, granting to Makhir and his heirs extensive lands, an act that called forth an unavailing protest from Pope Stephen III.[1] In 791 Charlemagne confirmed the status of the Jewish Principate and made the title of Nasipermanent.[2]
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 [3] also record the existence of a rex Iudaeorum at Narbonne. The place of residence of the Makhir family at Narbonne was designated in official documents as "Cortada Regis Judæorum".[4]Makhir is said to have founded a Talmudicschool there which vied in greatness with those of Babylonia and which attracted pupils from many distant points.
Bnei Makhir and Carolingian dynasty
Makhir of Narbonne
Makhir of Narbonne was a Babylonian-Jewish scholar, perhaps the Exilarch of the Jews of Babylon, certainly the leader of the Jewish community of Narbonne in southern Gaul at the end of the eighth century. His descendants were for many generations the nasi or leaders of that important community.
Writings by Abraham ibn DaudEdit
According to a tradition preserved by Abraham ibn Daud in his Sefer ha-Qabbalah, written about 1161, 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.
Whatever Makhir's Babylon origins claimed by his descendants, the relation between Makhir and Charlemagne is legendary, the more famous king substituting for his father Pepin, king of the Franks, who in order to enlist the Jews of Narbonne in his efforts to keep the Ummayad Saracens at bay, granted wide-ranging powers in return for the surrender of Moorish Narbonne to him in 759. The monkish Annals of Aniane and the Chronicle of Moissacboth attribute this action to the Gothic leaders of Narbonne, rising up and massacring the Saracen garrison. Pepin with his sons Carloman and Charles redeemed this pledge in 768, granting to Makhir and his heirs extensive lands, an act that called forth an unavailing protest from Pope Stephen III.[1] In 791 Charlemagne confirmed the status of the Jewish Principate and made the title of Nasipermanent.[2]
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 [3] also record the existence of a rex Iudaeorum at Narbonne. The place of residence of the Makhir family at Narbonne was designated in official documents as "Cortada Regis Judæorum".[4]Makhir is said to have founded a Talmudicschool there which vied in greatness with those of Babylonia and which attracted pupils from many distant points.
Bnei Makhir and Carolingian dynastyEdit
Arthur Zuckerman maintains that Makhir was actually identical with Natronai ben Habibi, an exilarch deposed and exiled in a dispute between two branches of the family of Bostanaiin the late eighth century.[5] Zuckerman further proposed that Makhir(/Natronai) is to be identified with a Maghario, Count of Narbonne, and in turn with an Aymeri de Narbonne, whom heroic poetry marries to Alda or Aldana, daughter of Charles Martel, and makes father of William of Gellone. This William was subject of at least six major epic poems composed before the era of the Crusades, including Willehalm by Wolfram von Eschenbach, the most famous of the medieval Grail chroniclers. His historical counterpart, William I, Count of Toulouse led Frankish forces at the fall of Barcelona in 803. The account of the campaign in Ermold Niger's Latin poem dates the events according to the Jewish calendar and portrays William as an observant Jew.[2] Count William was son of a Frankish Count of Septimania named Theoderic, leading Zuckerman to conclude that Theoderic was none other than Makhir, and that the well-documented descendants of Theoderic embodied a dynasty of Franco-Judeic kings of Narbonne, representing the union of the lineage of the exilarchs with that of Martel's Carolingians. David de Pravieux branch: Some of Theoderic's descendants are most likely from the Bondesen-David family tree (Canada) that goes back, in direct patrilineal lineage, to Julien David. He was Seigneur de Pravieux and born (abt. 1195) in the Forez region in France.[6]However, this underlying chain of identifications has been shown to be flawed,[7] a negative opinion shared by other scholars,[8] while the broader suggestions of a Jewish principality in Southern France have likewise been refuted.[9]