The Krautheim register dates the massacre of יהודים YEHUDIM to ט״ז באב ה׳נ״ח 16th 𝑜𝑓 Av, AM 5058. It includes Eliakim and Hannah, Eleazar’s three daughters, and households linked by marriage and lineage.1

The wider chronology follows the spread of attacks by Christian mobs and the host-desecration accusations used to justify them. The local register preserves the people murdered; it does not identify every attacker or establish that Rintfleisch personally led this attack.2

What does the complete
memorial register preserve?

The complete surviving applicable register is presented from Siegmund Salfeld’s 1898 edition of the Nürnberger Memorbuch. Each עברית IVRIT passage is followed by a TJD English translation checked against the facsimile and Salfeld’s German rendering. This is a normalized reading transcription: printed wrapping, pointing and note numbers are omitted; abbreviation punctuation is normalized. Names, order, unnamed relatives and textual gaps are retained. Brackets in the original reproduce editorial restorations; English explanatory brackets are TJD’s. Medieval vernacular names sometimes admit more than one reading. R. preserves an honorific without assuming rabbinic ordination; Mistress renders the respectful title for women.

ᴏʀɪɢɪɴᴀʟ:

הרוגי קרוטהיים י״ו באב נח לפרט:

ר׳ אליקים בר אלעזר וזוגתו מרת חנה בת ר׳ יוסף הכהן. ר׳ אלעזר ובנותיו מרת ריכנצה הבחורה ומרת יכנט וברונא. ור׳ שמואל בר אליעזר וזוגתו מרת בילא ובתו מרת גוטרט ובעלה ר׳ אפרים בר שמשון הלוי ובניו. ר׳ שמואל בר גרשם וזוגתו מרת מינא ובתו ושא ובנו יצחק. ר׳ מנחם בר מרדכי וחמיו ר׳ נתן בר משה הזקן ובנו שניאור:3

ᴛʀᴀɴꜱʟᴀᴛɪᴏɴ:

Those killed at Krautheim, 16 Av, [50]58 in the abbreviated reckoning:

R. Eliakim son of Eleazar and his wife Mistress Hannah, daughter of R. Joseph the priest. R. Eleazar and his daughters Mistress Richenza, the young woman, Mistress Jachent, and Bruna. R. Samuel son of Eliezer, his wife Mistress Bela, his daughter Mistress Gotrat and her husband R. Ephraim son of Samson the Levite, and his children. R. Samuel son of Gershom, his wife Mistress Minna, his daughter Susa [name reading uncertain] and his son Isaac. R. Menahem son of Mordecai and his father-in-law R. Nathan son of Moses the elder and his son Shneur.4

What does the list establish?

Richenza, Jachent and Bruna are named as Eleazar’s daughters. Their names make the loss more specific than the shortened formula three daughters in Sontheim’s notice. The state-archive study places this community at Krautheim on the Jagst and identifies its destruction in the 1298 persecutions.5

Salfeld identifies a distinction in communal authority and a patronymic variant:

ᴏʀɪɢɪɴᴀʟ:

R. Eljakim ist im Sontheimer Memorbuch als Rabbiner (הר״ר) verewigt, sein Vater ist dort Elieser genannt. Neben ihm werden nur noch seine Frau und R. Elieser mit seinen drei Töchtern erwähnt.6

ᴛʀᴀɴꜱʟᴀᴛɪᴏɴ:

R. Eliakim is commemorated as a rabbi (הר״ר) in the Sontheim memorial book; his father is there called Eliezer. Apart from him, only his wife and R. Eliezer with his three daughters are mentioned.7

The Nuremberg entry prints Eleazar where Sontheim has Eliezer; the translation does not silently harmonize the names. The final household names Menahem’s father-in-law Nathan. The number of Ephraim’s children is also textually uncertain; no exact total is derived here.8

How is this dated?

The Nuremberg memorial book's Krautheim heading gives ט״ז באב ה׳נ״ח 16th 𝑜𝑓 Av, AM 5058. Salfeld's German edition renders this as 26 July 1298, using the Julian calendar then used in Europe. The same day is 2 August when the Gregorian calendar is projected backward, so the two dates do not conflict.910

Turnau also lists Krautheim on 26 July, but cites Lotter's chronology rather than another primary witness. The exact day therefore rests on the near-contemporary Jewish memorial entry as edited by Salfeld. This review checked the published edition and the calendar conversion, not the manuscript itself.111213

Guided reflections

  • What is gained by preserving the three daughters’ names alongside Sontheim’s shorter notice?
  • Why should the Eleazar/Eliezer difference remain visible when the two witnesses are compared?

Footnotes

  1. Salfeld, Das Martyrologium des Nürnberger Memorbuches, Hebrew p. 53; German p. 207 ↩
  2. Lotter, Rintfleisch-Verfolgung, 1298, ↩
  3. Salfeld, Das Martyrologium des Nürnberger Memorbuches, Hebrew p. 53; German p. 207 ↩
  4. Salfeld, Das Martyrologium des Nürnberger Memorbuches, Hebrew p. 53; German p. 207; TJD translation ↩
  5. Hundsnurscher, Krautheim, ↩
  6. Salfeld, Das Martyrologium des Nürnberger Memorbuches, German p. 207 ↩
  7. Salfeld, Das Martyrologium des Nürnberger Memorbuches, German p. 207; TJD translation ↩
  8. Salfeld, Das Martyrologium des Nürnberger Memorbuches, Hebrew p. 53, notes 4–8 ↩
  9. Salfeld, Das Martyrologium des Nürnberger Memorbuches, Hebrew p. 53; German p. 207 ↩
  10. Hebcal date converter, conversion of 16 Av 5058 ↩
  11. Turnau, Politische Motive, p. 21, note 19 ↩
  12. Lotter, Rintfleisch-Verfolgung, 1298, context ↩
  13. Lotter, Die Judenverfolgung, pp. 42 and 43 ↩

Works cited

  1. Salfeld, Siegmund. Das Martyrologium des Nürnberger Memorbuches. Quellen zur Geschichte der Juden in Deutschland, vol. 3, Berlin, 1898. Rockenhausen entry, pp. 144–145; Pforzheim entry and date analysis, pp. 128–130; Munich entry, p. 21; Nuremberg entry and victim list, pp. 170–180; Rothenburg entry and victim list, pp. 185–190; Weissensee entry and victim list, pp. 215–217; place lists, pp. 231–235; related elegy, pp. 332–334. https://sammlungen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/freimann/content/titleinfo/535. Accessed 2026 Aug. 27.
  2. Lotter, Friedrich. Rintfleisch-Verfolgung, 1298. Historisches Lexikon Bayerns, published 26 Oct. 2009. https://www.historisches-lexikon-bayerns.de/Lexikon/Rintfleisch-Verfolgung%2C_1298. Accessed 2026 Aug. 21.
  3. Hundsnurscher, Franz, and Gerhard Taddey. Krautheim. Die jüdischen Gemeinden in Baden. Denkmale, Geschichte, Schicksale. Stuttgart, 1968. Reproduced by Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg, LEO-BW. https://www.leo-bw.de/themenmodul/juedisches-leben-im-suedwesten/orte/baden/krautheim. Accessed 2026 Sep. 7.
  4. Hebrew Date Converter. Used only to check arithmetic between proleptic Gregorian dates and the fixed Hebrew calendar; it does not establish the historical event date or the calendar convention used by a source. Hebcal. https://www.hebcal.com/converter. Accessed 2026 Sept. 21.
  5. Turnau, Volker. Politische Motive bei Judenverfolgungen im Reich während der zweiten Hälfte des 13. und zu Beginn des 14. Jahrhunderts. Dissertation, Universität Trier, 2013. https://ubt.opus.hbz-nrw.de/files/580/judenverfolgungen.pdf. Accessed 2026 Sept. 26.
  6. Lotter, Friedrich. Die Judenverfolgung des „König Rintfleisch“ in Franken um 1298: Die endgültige Wende in den christlich-jüdischen Beziehungen im Deutschen Reich des Mittelalters. Zeitschrift für historische Forschung 15, no. 4 (1988): 385–422. https://www.jstor.org/stable/43567821. User-supplied scan inspected 2026 Sept. 7.