What was the ancestry of Machir of Narbonne?

Answer 1

For information on the Makhir of Narbonne and the Jewish exilarchs, the reader may find the following literature of singular interest:

David H. Kelley, Solomon the Exilarch (parts 1 and 2), Journal of the Foundation for Medieval Genealogy, Volume 2, Number 2, July 2006

A.J. Zuckerman, A Jewish Princedom in Feudal France, 768-900 (Columbia Univ. Press, 1965, 1972)

A.J. Zuckerman, The Nasi of Frankland in the Ninth Century and the Colaphus Judaeorum in Toulouse (1965 Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research)

Katz, The Jews in the Kingdoms of Spain and Gaul (Mediaeval Academy monograph no. 12)

G. Saige, Les Juifs du Languedoc (Paris, 1881)

To my knowledge, there exists no significant contempory (8th or 9th century) documentary evidence supporting the theory of Zuckerman, or for that matter, the subsequent assumptions of the authors of 'Holy Blood, Hold Grail' (Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln) and 'Bloodline of the Holy Grail' (Laurence Gardner), which, for the most part, are based on Zuckerman's theories, that proves the Jewish ancestry of Dux Guilhem of Toulouse (Saint Guilhem de Gellone). In fact, all the evidence (including the manual of Dux Guillem's daughter-in-law, Dhuoda) supports the Frankish origin of both the ancestors and the descendants of Dux Guilhem of Toulouse.

The Jews and Nasi of Narbonne:

Katz, p.159, (Appendix III), references Charlemagne's 768 reward to the Jews [Goths] for the part they had played in the capture of the city by the Franks in 759. He granted to them for their own use a third of the city and the right to live under a 'Jewish king,' as the Saracens lived under a Saracen king. This Saracen king was Matrand in 759. According to the 13th century Gesta Caroli Magni ad Carcassonam et Narbonam written by a William of Padua at the request of an abbot Bernard at the Abbey de la Grasse, at the moment of the seige there was a Saracen king named Matrand at Narbonne. According to Katz, there was never any Saracen king in the city. This is, of course, not necessarily true, given that the wali's or governors were referred to as 'kings' (roitelets) in all the Gesta texts of this period.

G. Saige, Les Juifs du Languedoc (Paris, 1881), p.42, errs, according to Katz, when he says that after the capture of the city, Charlemagne accorded to the Saracens dwelling in Narbonne the right to live under a Saracen king. Matrand, the Saracen king of the Gesta, was killed in battle in 759, and according to Katz, no part of the city was given to his sons or followers. However, it is likely that many of the Saracens living in Narbonne were, like Suleiman ibn Arabi, pro-Abbasid, and Charles (Charlemagne) would have been required to grant them protection as part of his alliance with the Abbasid ruler of Baghdad, Mansur. The treaty made with the city under siege in 759 under Pepin may also have been reversed before 768 and what was promised by Pepin in 759 included protection for the Saracen inhabitants and a Saracen king to rule them. This also means that between 759 and 768 (nine years later) alliances could have been made between Franks, Jews and Arabs, which in 768 under Charlemagne were reversed to exclude a ruler for the Saracen inhabitants.

In 759, according to Zuckerman, Narbonne fell to Pepin's forces through the collaboration of the local population (the town residents, which probably included Jews, Goths, Mozarabs or muslimized Christians, Muslim converts or muwallads, Arabs and Gallo-Romans). Under the Saracens the sole obligation of the Jews may have been an annual payment in return for their protection. The Goth population would have been forced to convert to Islam or face slavery or worse. It is Isaac (Issun) who leads the Jewish population at this time and he speaks on behalf of a Jew of Davidic stock from Baghdad. Isaac is therefore not himself the Jew of Davidic stock. According to Zuckerman, Count Aymeri is one of Pepin's warriors (a kinsman of his Merovingian wife Bertha and the husband of his half-sister Aldana) who in 768 is not only ceded one third of the town, but also a vast area comprising Septimania, the Toulousain and the Spanish March, which he ruled from Narbonne. This area was probably the ancient region known as the Narbonnaise. In fact, the nature of the capitulation of the inhabitants of Narbonne to Pepin in 759 mirrors exactly the terms/conditions generally offered by the Saracens to inhabitants who capitulated and handed over their cities before conquest. Only in 768 under Charlemagne were the Saracens required to give up their part of Narbonne.

In 752, the pro-Abbasid wali of Barcelona, Suleiman, had already acknowledged Pepin as his overlord, while Matrand, roitelet of Narbonne, continued to resist the Franks, perhaps due to his kinship with the governor of Andalusia, Yusuf al-Fihri. Under the Arab treaty of conquest, non-Muslim inhabitants received protection and paid a stipulated money-tax which could not be increased, and landholders could sell or bequeath the land to one another. Their land was treaty ('ahd), not kharāj (tribute) land. Zuckerman's Gesta has the inhabitants (Jews in this case) of Narbonne offering 70,000 marks silver to Charlemagne (if it was Charlemagne, then either it was c.768 when this occurred, or Charlemagne was acting on behalf of his father, King Pepin, who died in 768). The Gesta states that Charlemagne then (in 768) summonedAymeri (either from Ripurian Frankland or from a Septimanian city not in the hands of the Saracens) and probably in return for Ripurian lands (Carloman's lands), gave him vast territories throughout Septimania and the Toulousain, including Gerona and Barcelona which at the time were in the hands of rebel Arab (anti-Yusuf and Abd ar-Rahman I and quite possibly pro-Abbasid) walis who threw in their lot with the Franks against 'abd ar-Rahman (756-788). This means that, technically speaking, Theodoric's jurisdiction covered lands held by Saracen walis who were allowed to continue to local rule under Frankish hegemony. It is also possible that between 759 and 768 the Saracen population of Narbonne who supported the Franks was allowed to remain (and convert to Christianity), or to depart to the Barcelona, Gerona area under the kingship of Suleiman, while the supporters of the Saracen Wali Matrand and the Berber garrison were defeated in battle. The Gesta found at the Abbey of La Grasse relates that Charlemagne was certainly present at the siege of Narbonne and that when his horse was killed under him, a Jew dismounted and gave Charles his horse, an act of devotion that cost him his life because he was slain by the Saracens. However, this story seems to relate to the rescue of the Emperor Otto II by the Jew Kalonymus at the battle of Crottona, 13 July 982.

It is very likely that between 737 and 747 there may have been attempts by Theodoric to make an alliance with Narbonnese nobles (either Goth, Saracen or Jewish) and that between 759 and 768 there is a marriage alliance between the family of Theodoric of Narbonne and the anti-Rahman pro-Abbasid wali's of Barcelona and Gerona who may have fled south (or been allowed to escape shortly before the end of the seige in 759), and also an alliance between these latter wali's of Barcelona, such as Suleiman, and the Davidic house of 'Rabbi Machir', which may include Isaac the Jew.

The Jewish Nasi of Narbonne came from Babylonia, and may therefore have been named by the Babylonian exilarch. The office of Nasi, the Hebrew term for prince or patriarch, of Narbonne was preserved by the Jewish family of Kalonymus until the later Middle Ages. Similar officials probably existed in the larger settlements of the Jews in Gaul, Italy and Spain. The community of Jews was called Iudaei. Rabbi Machir (Rabbi at this time meant 'Mr' or 'Monsieur', not master or professor as it later came to mean) was head of the Talmudic school at Narbonne.

Did Pepin's 759 pact (this was the year he secured the city after seven years of having invested Narbonne with Frankish forces without taking the city) and Charlemagne's 768 pact therefore include a treaty with rebel Arabs, Jews, Goths, Romans, Asturians, and anyone else who was willing to side with him against the Umayyad threat? The king (exilarch of the Babylonian Jews- nesi'im) ceded to the Jews was clearly only allowed to settle in Narbonne as ruler of the Jews of the Midi - and not as ruler of the Christians. The Christians were ruled ecclesiastically by the Gallo-Roman bishops (the archbishop of Narbonne being the most important one in the Midi, with his residence at Lagrasse) and in all other affairs by Charlemagne's Frankish kinsman (his mother's cousin), Theodoric. Only Charlemagne's own noble warriors and vassals were allowed to rule (command) Christians. This is perhaps the clearest evidence that Theodoric and his descendants were not Jews, but were descended from a cadet line of the Merovingians descended from Irmina of Oeren (alleged daughter of Dagobert II) and Hugobert of Aquitaine.

According to Zuckerman, the concern of the House of Arnulf (their ancestor was Arnulf of Metz, d.643 or 647) was to control their rebellious counts in the Southland and hold the Umayyad Saracens at bay until they could drive them out of Spain and acquire the divine right to rule by succeeding to the biblical kings of Israel. Their ambition for imperial office impelled Pepin and Charlemagne into an alliance with the 'Abassid caliph: al-Mansur, 754-775, then Al-Mahdi, 775 - 785, then briefly Musa al-Hadi (b.c.768-9, caliph 785-assassinated in 786) then al-Hadi's brother, Harun al-Rashid, Persian Caliph of Baghdad, b.c. 769/70, caliph of Baghdad from 786-809) and his loyal subjects among the Jews in the Kingdom of the Franks.' But who were these Jews (for example, Isaac) who were loyal subjects of the pro-Persian Abbasid caliph al-Mansur? According to Zuckerman, in return for Pepin's promise to grant recognition to a prince of their own, the Jews surrendered besieged Narbonne to the Franks in 759. Pepin redeemed his pledge soon thereafter when he arranged with Al-Mansur, caliph of Baghdad who ruled from 754-775), that the Natronai-Makhir (Machir), a Davidic exilarch (from Baghdad, Babylonia), who may have supported the Umayyads in Syrian Damascus, was forced into exile "to the West" by a political upheaval in Baghdad (the Abbasids threw out the Umayyads in 756, though the actual take-over seems to have taken place in 751). Rabbi Machir became the first nasi (patriarch) of the Jews in southern Gaul under the Carolingians at their invitation. The Jews (of France) acclaimed him as Messiah ben Ephraim, whose advent (arrival) in 768 coincided with the end of seven hundred years of Temple ruin, corresponding to the period "prophesied" and calculated for the duration of the sway of Edom-Rome, the Fourth Kingdom and its barbarian conquerer.

According to Zuckerman, all the (Hebrew) exilarchs were descendants of Bustanai, c.610-60, descended from King David, whose wife was the Persian princess, Izdundad, daughter of King Khosroe (or Yazdegerd III). The conquering caliph at the time (who must have been of the family of al-Abba) took Izdundad's sister for his own wife. At any rate, the exilarchic family became related to the Persian military aristocracy, and in time to the ruling Abbasid dynasty.

A tradition preserved by Abraham ibn Daud in the Sefer ha-Kabbalah, and agreeing in part with the statement of his contemporary, Benjamin of Tudela, says that the favours granted by Charlemagne in 759 or 768 and confirmed in 791 (protection, an own king, and a third of the city of Narbonne and its environs) were granted not to the Jewish community, but to Rabbi Machir, whom Charlemagne summoned from Babylonia through the agency of Harun al-Rashid. This is not possible, however, because Harun al-Rashid was only born in 769 and al-Mansur was Caliph of Baghdad until 775. This Rabbi Machir was to serve as rabbi in order to instruct the Jews whom Charlemagne had permitted to settle in Narbonne. To him the emperor (note that there was only an 'emperor' Charlemagne after 800) gave numerous prerogatives, and appointed him head of the (Jewish) community. As Nasi or patriarch of Narbonne he is compared to the Babylonian exilarch, with supreme authority to render decisions concerning the Jews of Narbonne (and presumably the rest of Septimania). Like the patriarchs of Palestine, he called himself a descendant of David, a pretension followed by his successors, the Kalonymus family (Katz, p.160). In the Sefer ha-Kabbalah, there is no allusion to the role of the Jews in the capture of the city. Charlemagne is said to have given a portion of the city to Rabbi Machir as a kind of endowment or gift to recompense him for opening a school of Talmudic studies. The Jewish quarter of Narbonne was later called the 'New City' and the 'Great Jewry.' The Machir family lived in a building known as the 'cortada regis Judaeorum.' Most historians, however, accept the legend that Charlemagne commanded Kalonymus of Lucca to Mainz to found a Talmudical school for the Jews whom he brought there (around 787). However, other historians (Rieger) state that it was Charles, son of Pepin of Aquitaine, grandson of Louis the Pious, and archbishop of Mainz from 856-863 [Charles, son of Pepin of Aquitaine, brother of Pepin II of Aquitaine, who died in 856] who brought Kalonymus from Lucca to Mainz.

A document that existed at the Abbey de la Grasse from before the French Revolution showed that under Charlemagne, the 'king of the Jews' owned a section (one-third) of the city of Narbonne (and its environs), a possession which Charlemagne confirmed in 791 (after he had created the comté of Razès in 790). Why did Charlemagne find it necessary to confirm this grant in 791. Was it because he needed Jewish military assistance and resources against Hakam's invasion from Cordoba? More likely, it was because in 791 Hisham had mounted an attack against Galicia in reprisal for attacks started by the Basques and Galicians on Andalusian territory. In this they (the Basques and Galicians) were encouraged by the Franks and the preoccupation of the Muslim government with internal rebellions. These events took place during the reign of Vermuda. One of the results of Hisham's raid was, as some historians narrate, the unusual peace terms he imposed on the people of Galicia, forcing them to transport soil and stones from the walls of Narbonne to Cordoba in 793 after the defeat of Guilhem's Frankish armies at l'Archamp. Or was it perhaps because Duke Guilhem, whose father (or grandfather) had been appointed governor of Septimania, with his capital at Narbonne in 737, was appointed dux and marchio of Toulouse and Septimania in 790, and the original treaty had been with his father? In 791, according to one of Zuckerman's sources, A. Dumège, (p.63), the Jewish 'prince/king' of Narbonne sent an embassy of ten Israelites led by Isaac, one of the richest Jews of the time, to Charlemagne. These ambassadors offered him 70 marks of silver in return for the privilege of maintaining a king of their own in Narbonne permanently. Charlemagne assented and ceded to them that portion of the city where they were settled. The leading ambassador Isaac undertook the 797 mission to Baghdad. Kleinclausz points out that the Saracen emir of Cordoba, Hisham, d.796, had preached Holy War since 791, i.e. after the death of his father in 788.

We should not forget that the treaty between Pepin-le-Bref, Charlemagne and the Abbasids was made with Abu Jafar al-Mansur (754-775). His son Mohammed al-Mahdi (ruled 775-d. 785) appears to have maintained this alliance. Al-Mahdi's son, Musa al-Hadi (b.c.768-9, caliph 785, assassinated in 786), was perhaps less keen on an alliance with the Franks, which would explain why Charlemagne invaded Gerona and the March in 785, the same year al-Mahdi died.

Another confusing aside is that at the organization of the royal provostship in Languedoc in 1364, the Narbonne town councillors presented as argument in behalf of their city as capital, that in the days of Charlemagne it had been a royal city where ruled two kings, one Jewish, one Sarracen. However, after 759, (which was nine years before the start of the reign of Charlemagne), or perhaps after 768, there is no evidence of a Sarracen king in Narbonne. Only Theodoric (and after 778-81, Chorso/Torcin) and a possible Davidic exilarch from Baghdad. Had there been a Saracen king in Narbonne between 768 and 790, then a raid on Orange would have been a distinct possibility. The last of the Saracen roitelets, Matrand, supposedly died in 759, though some sources maintain that Mtrand (or members of his family) was helped to escape the city (to Barcelona) by its pro-Saracen inhabitants. It is noteworthy that in the early 13th century chanson, Aimeri de Narbonne, Charlemagne declares to his close advisor and companion, Naime of Bavaria, his intention to capture the beautiful and rich city of Narbonne (whose name he at first does not know) with its marble palaces, and Naime replies that the Saracens have created subterranean galleries or chanels so that they can escape the city during a seige and flee to the plains of Spain. Moreover, says Naime, there is a paved road that leads to Toulouse and another that leads to Orange. On hearing the name of the city, Charlemagne then declares that it was to this very city that his 'nephew' Roland came after he had conquered vast territories and taken its kings as prisoners, and that he had installed a garrison to guard it (presumably after 768). Naime replies that the Saracens were not disarmed, however, and that after Hroland had turned his back they regrouped, retook the city and improved the city's defenses. All the inhabitants who refused to become Moslems were massacred. Charlemagne then asks who holds the city now, and Naime replies that it is held by king Beaufumé, king Déramé (of 793 fame) and Dromont le Barbu together with 5 thousand armed men. Determined to take the city, Charlemagne declares that when he has done so he will place it in the hands of one of his peers who has served him well, the most deserving of his men, of good birth and wise. The first knight he asks to take the city for him is Dreux de Montdidier, who indignantly turns down the offer, as do Richard de Normandie and Hoël de Bretagne. Finally, having inspected all his knights, he thinks of Ernaut (Arnaut de Beaulande), the glorious knight, brother of Girart of Vienne, the 'gentil' comte de Beaulande (Bordeaux region) whom he summons and offers the city if he is willing to take it. Ernaut de Beaulande replies that he is old and feeble and can no longer defend himself, mount a horse or carry arms, but that he has a son who is courageous and strong, an elite warrior and robust knight who flees from no adversary, whom his brother Girard de Vienne has armed as a knight. Ernaut then goes to find his son Aimeri (Theororic/Heimrich) and tells him that if the king allows him to be raised in dignity, he will rejoice greatly and all his ligne will be honoured. Aimeri happily agrees, is given Narbonne, and manages to take it within three days! The second part of the medieval poem about Aimeri/Heimrich concerns his marriage to Hermenjart de Pavie, the pretext of numerous adventures. The son of Aimeri and Hermenjart in the chansons is the celebrated Guillaume d'Orange (dux Guilhem de Toulouse / St Guillaume de Gellone).

Clearly there is no historical accuracy in the above poem. This visit of Charlemagne's to 'Spain', i.e. Septimania, allegedly took place after the death of Hroland (Roncesvalles, 778), because Charlemagne is mourning the death of his 'nephew' (who may have been his son, offspring of an incestuous relationship with his half-sister), and prior to the taking of Narbonne by Theodoric (Aimeri), a seige which in fact took 6 years and lasted from 753 to 759.

It is noteworthy that the chansons relate that there was a paved road between Narbonne and Orange - and Toulouse. This would seem to imply that it was a wali or governor of Narbonne who held Orange at the time it was stormed by dux Guilhem.

Katz suggests (p.162) that after the capture of Narbonne, Pepin the Short discovered a large Jewish colony there. Through the agency of their chief or Nasi, a survival of the Roman period, the Jews requested not new privileges, but the confirmation of ancient rights. Pepin granted these rights to the Jews, probably shortly before his death in 768, notably that of hereditary allodial tenure. This hypothesis is strengthened by a letter of Pope Stephen III (768-772) to Bishop Aribert of Narbonne. The Pope deplores the confirmation which has been made by certain kings of the right of the Jews to possess hereditary domains. These kings are not named, but it is clear that Pope Stephen refers to Pepin the Short, Carloman, and Charlemagne. Stephen suggests that this privilege should be revoked.

Amardel states that after 782 Theodoric yielded his office as Count of Narbonne to Milo, the last of the independent Gothic chiefs of Septimania. This Milo may have been a kinsman of Borell or Bellon, who are also designated as independent Gothic chiefs of Septimania. This would certainly seem to imply that Guilhem's father, Theodoric, may have held office as Count of Narbonne from 768 to 782. This might also imply that Count Milo of Narbonne was somehow related to Theodoric. The fact that Milo was usurping church property after 782 implies that by this date the city was firmly held by the Franks, and not by Jewish exilarchs/kings (who may, nevertheless, have been promised one-third of the city by King Pepin shortly before his death in 768).

Should anyone wish to discuss these issues further, particularly those with direct access to authentic historical sources (or inspired genius after years of research), then please feel free!