The Jews of Stühlingen

4-6

Ralph

December 22, 2016

¶ 1 Leave a comment on paragraph 1 0 But Jews were not only living and doing business in the town of Stühlingen itself; in 1611 a resident of the village of Horheim was thrown into prison and fined 3 fl. for a deal he made with the Jew Moses (Mausch) (O1) of Ofteringen. It does not appear that Mausch had been afoul of the law (O1450) Life in the Stühlingen lands carried on: a cow was bought for 7 fl., a horse for 24 fl.; Daniel Hoz, the innkeeper in Mauchen, paid back a loan of 44 fl. to Mausch of Ofteringen in installments. But loans went both ways: a mortgage on Raphael’s (Phohl) house was passed from one mortgager to another in 1612 [R1455].

¶ 2 Leave a comment on paragraph 2 0 In 1613 Judah (Leman) was fined more than 1 fl. for having his laundry washed in his house [R1475]; it appears that laundry had to be washed at the river. A protocol entry from December 16, 1613 reveals an interesting fact: “The Jews were fined for cheating on their protection taxes” [R1477]. This, to the researcher, is quite unexpected, for nothing was previously known about Stühlingen letters of protection prior to 1615.

¶ 3 Leave a comment on paragraph 3 0 This lack of documention of protection letters does not imply that the Jews had not paid for the privilege of living in Stühlingen prior to 1615. Among the documents in the Schleitheim archives one finds a 1610 promissory note to Count Maximilian von Pappenheim (etc.), certified with the great seal of Stühlingen, in which the Jews named Phal (B1.2), Marum (Z16), Phrom (B1.3), Meyerle (C2.1), and Leman (R1) acknowledge a residual debt of 1000 fl. to the house of Pappenheim, to be repaid in annual installments at Easter time. It is likely that this promissory note was in fact the precursor of the 1615 letter of protection, although it contained none of the usual restrictions and obligations.28

¶ 4 Leave a comment on paragraph 4 0 Early proceedings from both Stühlingen and Tiengen suggest that Jews lived not only in little towns but also in surrounding villages. In the sixteenth-century, branches of the extended Weil/Weyl family were scattered among villages on the southeastern slope of the Black Forest. Subsequently, they migrated towards larger villages and small towns.

¶ 5 Leave a comment on paragraph 5 0  

28Samuel Pletscher Collection, 1610.