“It’s not a right - it’s a privilege!”  

I cannot tell you how many times I heard this common classroom rejoinder to a fellow student’s request to leave the room… And I cannot tell you how many times I, as a classroom teacher, had to resist firing off this glib comeback when confronted with a similar request.

However glib it might be, this rejoinder highlights the important difference between rights and privileges. The former belongs to us. The latter is gifted to us. And just as a privilege can be gifted, it can also be summarily UNgifted.

Medieval European legal history is rife with privilegia. The privilegium (that’s the singular form of privilegia) is a special document outlining the legal rights and exemptions granted by rulers to specific individuals, institutions, or communities. This concept emerged from Roman law, which referred to private laws affecting specific individuals. It should not surprise anyone to point out that these “rights” were not permanent. 

During the Early Middle Ages (~500-1000 CE), privilegia were primarily granted to religious institutions, particularly monasteries and churches. These early documents often exempted religious houses from certain taxes, granted them judicial autonomy, or protected their property rights. The Donation of Pepin in 756 CE ceded territories to the Papacy, and represents one of the most consequential privilegia of this period.

The practice reached its apex during the High Middle Ages (~1000-1300 CE). Cities, guilds, universities, and merchants began receiving privilegia alongside religious institutions. These documents allowed people in power to establish new towns and encourage urban development, regulate trade and commerce, and grant self-governing rights to communities.

We closely examine one of these city-improving, trade-regulating and self-governance granting privilegia in World Religions.

It is reproduced below.

In the name of the Holy and Indivisible Trinity, I, Rudiger, surnamed Huozmann, Bishop of Speyer.

When I made the village of Speyer into a town, thought I would increase the honor I was bestowing on the place if I brought in the Jews.

Therefore I placed them outside the town and some way off from the houses of the rest of the citizens, and, lest they should be too easily disturbed by the insolence of the citizens, I surrounded them with a wall. Now the place of their habitation which I acquired justly (for in the first place I obtained the hill partly with money and partly by exchange, while I received the valley by way of gift from some heirs) that place, I say, I transferred to them on condition that they pay annually three and a half pounds of the money of Speyer for the use of the brethren.

I have granted also to them within the district where they dwell, and from that district outside the town as far as the harbor, and within the harbor itself, full power to change gold and silver, and to buy and sell what they please.

And I have also given them license to do this throughout the state.

Besides this I have given them land of the church for a cemetery with rights of inheritance. This also I have added that if any Jew should at any time stay with them he shall pay no [market tax].

Then also just as the judge of the city hears cases between citizens, so the chief rabbi shall hear cases which arise between the Jews or against them. But if by chance he is unable to decide any of them they shall go to the bishop or his chamberlain.

They shall maintain watches, guards, and fortifications about their district, the guards in common with our vassals.They may lawfully employ nurses and servants from among our people.

Slaughtered meat which they may not eat according to their law they may lawfully sell to Christians, and Christians may lawfully buy it.

Finally, to round out these concessions, I have granted that they may enjoy the same privileges as the Jews in any other city of Germany.

Lest any of my successors diminish this gift and concession, or constrain them to pay greater taxes, alleging that they have usurped these privileges, and have no episcopal warrant for them, I have left this charter as a suitable testimony of the said grant.

And that this may never be forgotten, I have signed it, and confirmed it with my seal as may be seen below.

Given on September 15th, 1084.

After reading this privilegium, I pose the ultimate question: Was this good for the Jews?  The discussion that follows is usually quite spirited.

In the late 11th century, Speyer was emerging as an important urban centre in the Holy Roman Empire. Bishop Rudiger understood the economic benefit derived from a Jewish presence, and he also understood that many European cities were becoming increasingly hostile to Jewish populations.

It is not an understatement to say that this charter charts new ground in the relationship between official Christendom and the Jewish community. Its language is respectful and practical. And besides all the pro-commerce provisions, the document explicitly acknowledges the Jews' right to practice their religion freely.  For a bishop, this is a remarkable stance. Even more remarkable is its legal framework.  Bishop Rudiger establishes clear penalties for those who would harm the Jewish community and created specific mechanisms for legal enforcement.

This privilegium would also serve as a model for other German cities and framed later medieval Jewish charters, specifically Emperor Henry IV, who, ON THIS DAY in 1090, renewed the pledges granted six years earlier by Bishop Rudiger to Rabbi Judah ben Kalonymus, the poet David ben Meshullam, and Rabbi Moses ben Yekuthiel. He extended similar protections to Jews in other imperial cities. This created a precedent for imperial protection of Jewish communities that would last, albeit imperfectly, for centuries.

Today, the Jewish community does not rely on privilegia handed down by bishops, emperors or presidents. (And the privilegia, as good as they were for the Jews at the time, did not ultimately protect them when Crusader mobs descended on the Rhine Valley in 1096…) Our rights, as citizens of a free and democratic Canada, are outlined in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. And beyond our Charter, there are universally recognized human rights, codified in documents like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. These rights are considered inherent to all humans, regardless of citizenship status.

Nevertheless, the privilegium of Bishop Rudiger of Speyer represents an important counterpoint to narratives that portray medieval Christian-Jewish relations as uniformly hostile. It reminds us that history is complex, and that efforts to protect minority rights have deep historical roots… and that, most of all, we cannot take our rights for granted.

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