[Dashiell Harrison]

I'm doing some research for a piece of fiction I'm writing and I was wondering if anyone could help me out. I know that Jews served in civic militias in a number of medieval and early modern cities in the Holy Roman Empire. Does anyone know of any instances of sieges between 1400 and 1550 or so where Jewish militiamen are mentioned as taking part in defense of a city?

It looks like they might have been involved in the 1492 siege of Brunswick, but I can't find any more information about that event. Anyone know where I might be able to find an account of the siege that is available in English?

Thanks!

[Jean Henri Chandler]

The policies varied widely from town to town in Central Europe in the High to Late Medieval period, and it changed over time, but very generally followed one of three patterns:

1) In most cities Jews were either banned from the militia or not required to be in it
2) in some cities Jewish people were assigned to defend their own quarter but were segregated from the other militia
3) in a few cities Jewish residents were part of the regular militia.

A good example of #3 was in Frankfurt Am Main up until 1349 pogroms associated with the Black Death. After that the circumstances of the Jewish community were diminished but some remained in the militia until the 1460's.

This book mentions Jewish militia fighters within Cologne, Speyer, Dortmund and Nuremberg, as well as in Spain.

Sometimes in one town where you had several distinct municipalities (as was typical) Jewish people might be allowed in the militia in one but banned from another. A lot of times when you read of expulsions of Jews from a town, they were actually just relocating to another municipality, like from the Old Town to the New Town.

Things seemed to get worse for Jewish people in Western and Central Europe generally in the Early Modern period.

But by contrast, as the result of their strict religious tolerance laws, Jewish people were part of the militia in several towns in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 16th and 17th Centuries.

https://kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/slutsk/slutsk_militias.html

There also appear to be several Jewish fencing or grappling masters associated with the famous Gesellschaft Liechtenauer incidentally, such as Ott Jud, Jud Leow, and the brothers Andres and Jacob Liegniczer.

Hope that helps,

Jean

[Dashiell Harrison]

Thanks, Jean.

There was another Jewish fencing master, Joseph von Wurzburg in the 14th century court of the Bisoph of Speyer.

I'm desperately curious to know more about the lives of these men, where they learned their skills, how they employed them, and what their relationships with their Christian colleagues were like, but I guess, like so many other questions about historical fencing masters, we will probably never know.

PS
I happen to be a big fan of your scholarship on the military activities of guilds and burghers. I hope you keep putting stuff out.

[Jean Henri Chandler]

[Dashiell Harrison]

Here's the link to Joseph 'Schirmer' von Wurzburg's Wiktenauer page. https://wiktenauer.com/wiki/Joseph_Schirmer_von_W%C3%BCrzburg

Unfortunately the only record of him that it mentions is his charter from Archbishop Adolf von Nassau-Wiesbaden-Idstein dated to 1385.

The Jewish community in Wurzburg suffered a Judenschlact in 1349, but seems to have been reconstituted by 1377. Presumably Joseph was born sometime in that window, although I suppose the name 'von Wurzburg' doesn't necessarily mean he was actually born in the city. The Jewish Virtual Library contains a short history of the Jewish community in what appears to be every major German city, although they just have bibliographies without footnotes. https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/wuerzburg.

It certainly seems plausible to me that large numbers of 14th and 15th century Jews would have preferred to carry arms rather than throw themselves on the mercy of town councils given the state-sanctioned persecution they faced, but who knows. We don't know anything about how Joseph von Wurzburg learned his skills, but Lew and Andreas seem to have studied under a Christian master, which indicates an interesting relationship.

That's an interesting theory about Talhoffer, I hadn't heard that. Was he thought to have been involved in more murders besides that of Wilhelm von Villenbach?

[Jean Henri Chandler]

One thing i recall from Tlusty about German Jewish burghers, a lot of them seemed to be named after their house, like Jacob from the house of the rose, Johannes from the house of the wolf and so on.

As for Talhoffer, all I know really is what Jens has dug up and posted on his blog, I think I linked it upthread. Talhoffer worked as muscle for Nuremberg for a while after they "gave him a horse' as the euphemism went. He was involved in that one incident for which he was captured by the brother of the guy who was killed (from one of the noble families) wrote that letter in which he blamed the murder on his fellow outlaws as a way of getting himself out of trouble. Some other nobles vouched for him apparently, a couple.

Their orders were not to kill the guy anyway but to capture him and bring him back to Nuremberg. He was a 'robber knight' who had captured a caravan from Venice, and ransomed some Nuremberg merchants. They put a bounty on his head.

After that was all over I think Talhoffer got a job working for a Duke or something I can't remember.

[Pedro Paulo Gaião]

Jewish participation in feudal or militia services were extensively known in Medieval Period, but regulations, obligations, and bans were applied in different places. I'm not sure if there was ever a medieval council forbidding Jewry service or possession of arms: but in Germany, although they were obliged to serve in the city militia during siege action, such duty was to be perfomed UNARMED (considering Chandler's statesment, I believe such service was only applied in the places were jews indeed were allowed to serve in the militia).

Ian Heath in his Armies of Feudal Europe 1066 - 1300 tells us:

[Pedro Paulo Gaião]

[Jean Henri Chandler]

[Pedro Paulo Gaião]

[Jean Henri Chandler]

A lot to unpack here.

Who had precisely what rights in a given city varied hugely by region (Burghers in France or England for example had much fewer rights than in Central Europe, Flanders, or Italy) a great deal from town to town and also on the basis of what kind of town law they were chartered under. Some towns were dominated by the Patriciate (rich merchants, basically) while others were dominated by the craft artisans guilds, and many were in between. Most were actually in between in some degree though by the 15th Century the majority of towns under German town law had substantial rights for their artisans.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_town_law

One of the most 'generous' charters (in terms of town autonomy) was Lubeck Law. There is a partial list on the wiki of towns under that particular 'rule'.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%BCbeck_law

The rights don't extend to everyone. In a patrician town citizens might be just 1-2% of the population. Even in the most republican guild town, the citizenry, down to half and quarter citizens (and including journeymen but not apprentices), probably represented no more than 40 or 50% of the town population. A lot of the rest were servants, visitors, people associated with outside polities (Priests Friars, Monks, Nuns, foreign merchants, visiting gentry or nobles, travelers and pilgrims etc. etc.) children and so on. For Jewish people as we discussed above it varied widely from town to town but they were often restricted. Servants could only carry arms if their masters wanted them to and the town law permitted it which was not always the case (there were usually special rules on armed retainers and limiting the number per household for example). The point was to retain citizen control of the town and prevent the takeover by Condotierre etc. as happened so often in Italy.


Incidentally, I'm not sure Geneva was particularly unusual in this sense. There were hundreds of towns that were republics of one type or the other. The archetypes of the two more extreme types of town governments within the Swiss Confederation could be broken down to Bern (patrician town) and Zurich (became a guild run town after a craft artisan revolt in the 14th Century).

It's very dangerous to make broad generalizations about the medieval world, like you can't lump all of Northern Europe together - England for example was a strong monarchy (unlike the later medieval Holy Roman Empire). But in Central Europe and a lot of, but by no means all of, Northern Europe, many of the towns were republics and the citizens had rights and were allowed to carry sidearms.

Machiavelli is a well known source, this is his commentary on medieval cities in the region of Germany (HRE / Central Europe)

“The cities of Germany are absolutely free, have little surrounding country, and obey the emperor when they choose, and they do not fear him or any other potentate that they have about them. They are fortified in such a manner that every one thinks that to reduce them would be tedious and difficult, for they have all the necessary moats and bastions, sufficient artillery, and always keep food, drink, and fuel for one year in the public storehouses. Beyond which, to keep the lower classes satisfied, and without loss to the commonwealth, they have always enough means to give them work for one year in these employments which form the nerve and life of the town, and in the industries by which the lower classes live. Military exercises are still held in high reputation, and many regulations are in force for maintaining them.”

Anneus Sylvio Piccolomoni, later Pope Pius II, noted similarly in 1444:

"“…not only every noble, but even every burgher in the Guilds has an armoury in his house so as to appear equipped at every alarm. The skill of the citizens in the use of weapons is extraordinary.”"

Not all towns conferred such rights to all or most of their citizens, there were exceptions - Nuremberg for example banned some artisans from carrying arms after a failed guild revolt in the 14th Century.

This is a useful source on the military organization of Central European towns which is easily accessible and reasonably concise:

http://deremilitari.org/2014/03/towns-and-def...l-germany/

Secondary and tertiary histories routinely confuse merchants or patricians with nobles. However in the towns themselves they made a sharp distinction and burghers often looked down on nobles. Even when they themselves sometimes owned noble titles which were useful when dealing in princely courts, they often would not refer to themselves by their titles at least within the town, as it would open them to ridicule.

Like I said, all of this is a big can of worms. I can answer specific questions but it would be a bit absurd to delve into the whole thing here, you could write an encyclopedia.

Tlusty is the single best source I know though she pretty much deals with Augsburg and a couple of smaller towns like Nordlingen, and only for the 16th and 17th Centuries. But she will give you a much better understanding of this context.

For a broader overview on the 'German' towns the 19th Century historian Johannes Jannsen is pretty good and you can find his work for free online.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Janssen

J

[Jean Henri Chandler]

[Jean Henri Chandler]

I should also point out, relative to the 'germanness' of this whole issue, Italy had armed citizens for a long time too, this only ended when the Signori started taking over as Dukes etc. in the 15th Century, leaving only Venice as a Republic.

Many West Slavic polities also shared this custom though, (what are today Polish, Czech, Slovak etc.) and Baltic ( Latvian, Lithuanian, Estonian) cities were under German town law regardless of the actual ethnicity of the population, as were Flemish towns (Bruges, Ghent, Lille, Ypres etc.) and also some of the Dalmatian towns in what is now Croatia.

I believe things in Spain changed in the later 14th Century but I think, not certain, that Barcelona had a similar rules at least for a time.

[Christian Henry Tobler]

This is excellent stuff Jean, thanks for posting all of it! (And I am reminded that I am overdue to get Tlusty's book...remedying that today!)

What information do you have to support that the Lignitzer brothers were Jewish? I haven't seen that before.

Keep up the good work!

Christian

[Jean Henri Chandler]

[Christian Henry Tobler]

Thanks, Jean. I had hoped there might be other evidence for the brothers. I personally doubt that Andres Juden is Lignitzer. In that reference in Hs. 3227a, he's listed in the section on 'works of other masters'; the text makes no attempt to connect him or the others with Liechtenauer. So, I think it belongs in the same dept. as early speculation that the "John of Swabia" that Fiore cites is Liechtenauer: possible, but unlikely.

Cheers,

Christian

[Jean Henri Chandler]

Everyone has their opinions on these things, but per the original discussion, "Andres Jud" falling under "other masters" implies that we do indeed have another Jewish fencing master.

Whether or not that refers to Andres Liegnizer, or if Jacob or Andres were Jewish, or even if they were from Liegnitz, is certainly an interesting question but I'll have to leave it to other researchers for the time being. Too many other things on my plate right now to really dig into it let alone debate the point.

J