Pledging

Like all other Jews in the empire, the Jews of Regensburg were subject to the imperial chancery; they were "kammerknechte" (serfs of the royal chamber or servi camerae) of the emperor and thus belonged to his inner circle. The king or emperor offered the Jews protection, but from the 14th century he could also dispose of them at will.

In 1332, King Ludwig IV the Bavarian (died 1347) pledged the Jewish community of Regensburg to the dukes of Lower Bavaria in return for their support at the Battle of Mühldorf (28 September 1322). This gave the dukes the right to collect from the Jews the imperial tax of 200 pounds. We do not know when the king redeemed the Jews again. The pledge ended when Lower Bavaria fell to Ludwig in 1340, by which time he had already been emperor for twelve years.

Ludwig the Bavarian confirmed the Jews' legal status. Lack of funds, however, meant that he once again pledged the Judensteuer (tax on the Jews). In 1342, for example, his court master, Hartwig vom Degenberg, received a third of the tax.

Four years later, in 1346, Ludwig issued a document that was also entered in the Schwarzes Stadtbuch (Black City Book). In that document, he pledges the other two thirds of the tax (133 pounds, 80 Regensburg pfennigs) as security for a loan of 1000 guilders from the Regensburg citizens Friedrich den Mautner von purchhausen (Burghausen), Gottfried den Reichen and his cousins Rüdiger, Hermann and Matheis.