Lot 146
  • 146

Der Juden zu Franckfurt Stättigkeit und Ordnung (Legal Status of the Jews of Frankfurt and Ordinances) Frankfurt am Main: Johann Saurn: 1613

Estimate
12,000 - 14,000 USD
Log in to view results
bidding is closed

Description

44 pages (8 x 5 3/4 in.; 200 x 145 mm). Text in German. Title page with hand-colored yellow circular ring, p.13 with two woodcut illustrations, p.6 with decorative tailpiece. p.27-8 with marginal tear.  Some browning; lightly stained; manuscript initials on title-page; bookplate. Modern cloth.

Provenance

Gustav Mori-his bookplate on paste-down endpaper

Catalogue Note

An extremely rare first edition of the statutes imposed upon the Jews of Frankfurt

For as long as Jews had been present in the German city of Frankfurt, their legal status was a potent political issue that revolved around the constant tension between ecclesiastical and imperial authorities and which, on a more local level, was a frequent bone of contention in the power struggle between the patrician elements of the Frankfurt town council and the powerful merchant guilds within the city. In 1462 the Jews of Frankfort were transferred to a ghetto consisting of a specially constructed street (Judengasse), enclosed within walls and gates. At around the same time, relations between the city and its Jews were spelled out in regulations called Stättigkeiten. Among these was the requirement that Jews wear a yellow circle on their clothing whenever they left the ghetto. Jewish men were also required to wear special hats with a distinctive conical shape.  

The present lot is a rare first printing of these statutes which were published in 1613, not by the city fathers but by the guilds of Frankfurt. By publicly reinforcing all of the restrictions and prohibitions of the Stättigkeiten, the guilds used the Jews as a cudgel in their battle for power against the city council. The council itself reprinted this work the following year and the cumulative effect of the two editions was fuel to the smoldering fire just beneath the surface of Frankfurt politics. On August 5, 1614, a mob led by Vincent Fettmilch, the leader of the guild, attacked the ghetto and forced the Jews to flee from Frankfurt.  After the public insurrection was put down by the Emperor, Fettmilch was executed, an event celebrated by the Jews of Frankfurt for the next 300 years.

In Frankfurt, all homes and buildings were known by names according to their distinguishing features. This volume contains a listing of all of the names of the houses in which the Jews resided along the Judengasse. Listed here are several houses with familiar names, most notably, the house of the Red Shield, where the eponymous Rothschild family would live until they moved up the block and across the Judengasse to the famous house of the Green Shield from which they would launch an empire.