Synagogue below Prague Castle, Prague

ОБЗОР

История Synagogue below Prague Castle, Prague

Jewish merchants are recorded at Prague's markets in the tenth century, and by the end of the eleventh century the city had a settled community. The German Wikipedia, citing the Chronica Boemorum, says Jewish settlements are first mentioned in 1091, one below Prague Castle and one in the village of Vyšehrad. The Encyclopaedia Judaica calls these the first two Jewish districts of Prague: one in the suburb of the castle, the Suburbium Pragense, and the other near the second castle, the Vicus Wissegradensis. The synagogue of this entry belonged to the settlement below the castle on the left bank of the Vltava. The Encyclopaedia Judaica states that during the siege of Prague Castle in 1142 "the oldest synagogue in Prague and the Jewish quarter below the castle were burned down". That single sentence, repeated by later popular histories, is nearly all that is known. The archaeologist Jarmila Čiháková-Draganová notes that the synagogue is only vaguely mentioned in written sources, the one cited being the chronicle of the anonymous monk of Sázava, a continuator of Cosmas. After the fire the Jews of Prague lived on the right bank of the river, in the area that became the Jewish Town, where the Altschul and later the Old-New Synagogue were built. No image, plan, excavated remains or precise location of the first synagogue are known.

МЕСТО

Where it stood

Historic: Prague castle suburb (Suburbium Pragense) on the left bank of the Vltava, exact site unknown. Today: Malá Strana, Prague 1; pin on Malostranské náměstí (approximate, district only).

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Еврейская община

The earliest written trace of Jews in Prague is the report of the traveller Ibrahim ibn Yaqub, usually dated to about 965, which mentions Jewish merchants at the Prague markets. English Wikipedia and Aish.com, a popular history, both say that a Jewish community was fully established in Prague by the end of the eleventh century. The German Wikipedia dates the first mention of Jewish settlements below the castle and at Vyšehrad to 1091 from the Chronica Boemorum, and says part of the Jewish population fled to Poland and Hungary in 1098. In 1096 the community suffered during the First Crusade: the Encyclopaedia Judaica says the crusaders murdered many Prague Jews, looted their property and forced many to be baptised, and English Wikipedia names the crusader leader Volkmar. The size of the community, its leaders, its rabbis and the names of any members who used the synagogue below the castle are unknown. Whether the settlement below the castle was the home of the long-distance merchants of the Vyšehrad period is itself uncertain, as Čiháková-Draganová points out.

Архитектура и дизайн

Nothing is known about the building's form. No chronicle describes it, no drawing or plan survives, and no archaeological find has been identified as its remains in the sources read. Its date of construction, builder, materials, size and seating capacity are unknown, and it is not even certain whether it was a separate building or a room in a house. In 1992 Čiháková-Draganová described the early medieval suburb in which some scholars place it as the area between the church of St Thomas and today's Maltézské náměstí, below the castle in Malá Strana, but she treats the presence of Jewish merchants there as uncertain and does not locate the synagogue. No source says what it was built of, or why the fire destroyed it together with the quarter. The style field is therefore given as unknown. The Jewish Museum in Prague describes the Old-New Synagogue on the right bank, in use for almost 750 years, as the oldest monument of the Jewish Town; nothing of the earlier building below the castle is known to survive.

Жизнь в синагоге

No source read describes worship, study or communal life in this synagogue. The names of its rabbis, cantors or lay leaders are unknown, and no inscription, manuscript or document can be tied to it. What can be said is limited to the general setting. The settlement below the castle lay in the busy trading suburb at the foot of the seat of the Přemyslid dukes, and the Jews of Prague in this period are described above all as merchants. The synagogue would have served the families of this settlement for prayer and probably also as a meeting place, but this is an inference from the role of synagogues in general, not something any source states for this building. The Jews of the Vyšehrad settlement may have had their own place of worship; the sources read do not say. The Encyclopaedia Judaica's description of this building as the oldest synagogue in Prague implies that it was older than any synagogue on the right bank, but no date of foundation is given.

Разрушение

The synagogue burned in 1142 during the siege of Prague Castle, together with the Jewish quarter below the castle, according to the Encyclopaedia Judaica; Aish.com also says that the community was attacked during the siege and that the oldest synagogue and parts of the Jewish quarter were destroyed by fire. Neither says who set the fire or whether it was deliberate. The siege followed a revolt of the Moravian Přemyslid princes against Duke Vladislaus II. English Wikipedia's articles say that Conrad II of Znojmo, with his cousins of Brno and Olomouc, defeated the duke at Vysoká on 22 April 1142 and marched on Prague Castle, which was defended by the duke's brother Děpolt until Vladislaus returned with an army of King Conrad III of Germany, and the siege failed. The Wikipedia article on St George's Basilica instead says that Conrad III besieged the castle and that the church and convent of St George were badly damaged by fire. The sources therefore disagree about the besiegers, and none names who burned the synagogue.

Судьба общины

The Jewish settlement below the castle did not recover after 1142. The Encyclopaedia Judaica says that the Jews then moved to the right bank of the Vltava, to the area that was to become the Jewish quarter, where they founded the Altschul. Aish.com puts it more strongly, saying that after the siege the Jews had to live on the right bank, in the area that eventually became the Josefov ghetto. The Jewish Museum in Prague, in a regional guide, says that Prague Jews settled in the area of today's Josefov from the second half of the twelfth century. The first known privilege for the Jews of Bohemia was issued by Duke Soběslav II in 1174 to 1178. Whether anyone was killed in the 1142 fire, and how many families lived below the castle, is unknown. The later history of the community that moved across the river belongs to the right-bank synagogues and is not told in this entry.

Место сегодня

The site of the synagogue is unknown. The early medieval castle suburb lay in what is now Malá Strana, Prague 1, and Čiháková-Draganová places that suburb between the church of St Thomas and Maltézské náměstí; the area is now densely built up with houses, palaces and churches of later centuries. No marker, surviving fragment or excavated remains of the synagogue are recorded in the sources read. The map pin for this entry sits on Malostranské náměstí, the square at the centre of that area, and marks only the general district, not the building. Further evidence would most likely come from the archaeological literature on early medieval Malá Strana or from a reading of the Sázava monk's chronicle in the Fontes rerum Bohemicarum, neither of which was read in full here.

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