WEBVTT - The King for a Day 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:04.560 Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm 0:00:04.640 --> 0:00:10.920 and Mild from Aaron Manky. Listener Discretion advised the King 0:00:10.960 --> 0:00:15.400 of Poland had been dead for eight months and six days. 0:00:16.120 --> 0:00:20.400 The death itself had been sudden. The King, Stephen Bathory, 0:00:20.760 --> 0:00:25.160 had hidden his ill health from even his closest advisers 0:00:25.200 --> 0:00:30.160 for several years before finally succumbing to his illness on 0:00:30.240 --> 0:00:35.800 December twelfth, fifteen eighty six. The country's nobles had spent 0:00:35.960 --> 0:00:40.000 the following eight months and six days doing one thing, 0:00:40.600 --> 0:00:45.920 trying to figure out who would be king next Poland. 0:00:46.200 --> 0:00:50.520 In fact, the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth, as it had been 0:00:50.600 --> 0:00:55.760 known since fifteen seventy two, was not a hereditary monarchy, 0:00:56.160 --> 0:01:00.120 but an elected one. Whenever a king died, the the 0:01:00.280 --> 0:01:04.240 entire nobility of Poland and Lithuania would come together for 0:01:04.360 --> 0:01:09.360 an elaborate process to select the next monarch. As you 0:01:09.440 --> 0:01:15.520 might expect, this led to several long protracted into regna, 0:01:15.640 --> 0:01:20.679 in which various factions fought, sometimes with weapons and armies, 0:01:21.000 --> 0:01:26.240 to have their families or interests represented on the throne. 0:01:26.280 --> 0:01:30.039 This time, after eight months and six days, there was 0:01:30.160 --> 0:01:35.880 a complete stalemate. The nobles had all exhausted every avenue 0:01:35.959 --> 0:01:39.880 they had to exert their influence, and still there was 0:01:40.000 --> 0:01:44.200 no front runner in sight. In situations like this, the 0:01:44.319 --> 0:01:48.680 law called for the selection of a rex pro tempore, 0:01:49.160 --> 0:01:53.480 a temporary king, an outsider who would then use his 0:01:53.680 --> 0:01:59.160 powerful but unbiased position to select his successor. To put 0:01:59.160 --> 0:02:03.920 it simply, they needed a tiebreaker, but no one could 0:02:04.000 --> 0:02:08.280 agree on who should fill that role. Every contender put 0:02:08.320 --> 0:02:12.160 forth was rejected by one side or the other, said 0:02:12.160 --> 0:02:15.160 to be too close to either side to choose a 0:02:15.200 --> 0:02:19.080 new king fairly, or to power hungry to give up 0:02:19.120 --> 0:02:22.960 the throne. When the time came, they bickered and shouted, 0:02:23.360 --> 0:02:26.440 each jockeying over the other to be heard. But then 0:02:26.520 --> 0:02:30.480 all of a sudden, one nobleman rose to his feet. 0:02:31.280 --> 0:02:36.440 He had an idea. Years ago, this nobleman, Nicholas Radswell, 0:02:36.520 --> 0:02:41.960 the Grand Marshal of Lithuania, had found himself stranded in Padua. 0:02:42.360 --> 0:02:45.720 He had been en route to Jerusalem for a religious 0:02:45.840 --> 0:02:51.400 pilgrimage when his entourage was robbed, leaving him with no possessions, 0:02:51.880 --> 0:02:55.880 no money, and no way home. He had begged and 0:02:56.080 --> 0:03:00.440 begged on the streets for help, spending days trying to 0:03:00.560 --> 0:03:05.000 convince passers by that yes he really was a prince, 0:03:05.360 --> 0:03:09.720 and yes he really could pay them back handsomely if 0:03:09.760 --> 0:03:14.680 they only helped him home. Finally, desperate, he appealed to 0:03:14.800 --> 0:03:21.040 the Rabbi of Padua, Samuel Judah Katznellenbogen, the leader of 0:03:21.160 --> 0:03:25.880 the Jewish people in the area. The Rabbi believed Radswell 0:03:26.160 --> 0:03:29.760 and agreed to help him get home on one condition 0:03:30.480 --> 0:03:33.520 that he find his son, Saul, whom he had sent 0:03:33.639 --> 0:03:37.080 to Poland to be educated at a yeshiva, but whom 0:03:37.080 --> 0:03:42.400 he hadn't heard from since. Now Standing before the Polish nobility, 0:03:42.880 --> 0:03:46.480 Radswell told the story of how he had scoured every 0:03:46.560 --> 0:03:51.360 yeshiva in Poland before finally finding Saul. Like he promised, 0:03:51.960 --> 0:03:56.000 he was impressed with the young man's intellect and good character, 0:03:56.480 --> 0:04:00.480 and Radswell had invited him to continue his education at 0:04:00.520 --> 0:04:04.920 his palace. In the years since Saul had become a 0:04:05.080 --> 0:04:09.920 central character at court and had garnered a reputation for 0:04:10.040 --> 0:04:17.280 his intelligence and trustworthiness, this was an obvious choice. Radswell insisted, 0:04:17.800 --> 0:04:22.479 here was a candidate everyone already knew and trusted, and who, 0:04:22.880 --> 0:04:26.479 due to his Jewish heritage, was not beholden to the 0:04:26.560 --> 0:04:32.719 politics of the powerful Polish and Lithuanian families. Saul Catznellenbogen 0:04:33.200 --> 0:04:38.520 was the perfect temporary king, and so it was decided 0:04:39.120 --> 0:04:44.000 on August eighteenth, fifteen eighty seven, for one day only 0:04:44.440 --> 0:04:50.480 a Jewish king would rule Poland, or would he. If 0:04:50.560 --> 0:04:53.720 any part of this story sounds a little fishy or 0:04:53.760 --> 0:04:57.600 too good to be true, that's because well it is. 0:04:58.320 --> 0:05:03.279 There is no historic evidence that Saul Katzenellenbogen was actually 0:05:03.360 --> 0:05:08.360 elected a temporary king, but the story of the King 0:05:08.560 --> 0:05:10.760 for a Day, as he would come to be known, 0:05:11.279 --> 0:05:16.440 has endured in Jewish folklore and family history. How did 0:05:16.520 --> 0:05:20.960 this fictional tale become so entrenched that some people still 0:05:20.960 --> 0:05:25.720 believe it actually happened. Well, As with most good legends, 0:05:26.120 --> 0:05:31.400 it begins with an actual kernel of truth. I'm Danas Schwartz, 0:05:31.600 --> 0:05:37.360 and this is noble blood, although he was not born 0:05:37.600 --> 0:05:42.640 noble and alas never even temporarily would be. Saul katzen 0:05:42.720 --> 0:05:48.760 Ellenbogen came from an illustrious lineage. His grandfather, Mayor ben 0:05:48.839 --> 0:05:54.160 Isaac katzen Ellenbogen, generally known by his Hebrew acronym Maharam 0:05:54.440 --> 0:05:58.360 of Padua, was the chief rabbi of Padua in the 0:05:58.400 --> 0:06:03.200 early to mid SIXTIETHH tenth century. He had migrated to Padua, 0:06:03.279 --> 0:06:07.200 a city in the mainland territories of the Venetian Republic, 0:06:07.680 --> 0:06:12.200 from Germany for his education, and married the daughter of 0:06:12.279 --> 0:06:15.880 the then Rabbi of Padua, before then taking up his 0:06:16.000 --> 0:06:20.520 father in law's position upon his death. The chief rabbinet 0:06:20.600 --> 0:06:24.359 of Padua was a powerful position in and of itself, 0:06:24.839 --> 0:06:28.640 not least because it also made him a rabbinic authority 0:06:29.040 --> 0:06:34.159 in nearby Venice. But the Maharam's influence was also compounded 0:06:34.560 --> 0:06:40.000 by his deep scholarly knowledge. Other rabbis regularly sought him 0:06:40.000 --> 0:06:43.960 out to weigh in on talmudic and rabbinical debates, and 0:06:44.040 --> 0:06:48.760 he wrote over ninety responsa in doing so, which continue 0:06:48.880 --> 0:06:54.600 to be influential among rabbinical scholars and historians alike. The 0:06:54.640 --> 0:07:00.719 Maharam's son, Samuel Judah or Mahashiks, followed in his father's 0:07:00.760 --> 0:07:05.360 footsteps as the chief Rabbi of Padua in fifteen sixty five. 0:07:06.000 --> 0:07:09.320 His own father's reputation had played a large role in 0:07:09.360 --> 0:07:13.720 his election, but he was also considered a distinguished scholar 0:07:13.800 --> 0:07:18.120 and leader in his community. He also gained esteem among 0:07:18.360 --> 0:07:22.040 non Jews, and this is where we see the beginnings 0:07:22.080 --> 0:07:25.120 of the story that would morph into that of the 0:07:25.560 --> 0:07:31.160 Jewish King of Poland. Unfortunately, there is little to no 0:07:31.480 --> 0:07:36.960 evidence that Mahasikh's ever actually crossed paths with the Lithuanian 0:07:37.200 --> 0:07:42.400 noble Nicholas Radswell. What is true is that Radswell undertook 0:07:42.440 --> 0:07:46.280 a rather eventful pilgrimage to the Holy Land to Syria 0:07:46.360 --> 0:07:50.920 and Egypt between fifteen eighty two and fifteen eighty four, 0:07:51.400 --> 0:07:55.320 and along the way he got himself into several situations 0:07:55.600 --> 0:07:58.760 where he ran low on funds and needed to ask 0:07:58.920 --> 0:08:03.720 for assistance from locals. We know about Radswell's travels from 0:08:03.800 --> 0:08:07.760 a sixteen oh one travelog he published in Latin, in 0:08:07.800 --> 0:08:11.120 which he described his journey and the many people he 0:08:11.240 --> 0:08:15.040 met along the way. The closest thing we have to 0:08:15.120 --> 0:08:18.680 a story resembling that of the legendary encounter with the 0:08:18.760 --> 0:08:23.400 Rabbi in Radswell's account is that he was truly robbed 0:08:23.440 --> 0:08:27.320 by bandits on his way to Venice, but in Ancona, 0:08:27.440 --> 0:08:31.400 not Padua. He was then aided by a merchant who 0:08:31.520 --> 0:08:34.560 lent him money to continue his journey, but only after 0:08:34.720 --> 0:08:40.200 proving his identity to the papal authorities nearby. The similarities 0:08:40.240 --> 0:08:43.920 in the accounts are striking the doubt about his identity 0:08:44.320 --> 0:08:48.200 alone that helped him on his way, But so are 0:08:48.280 --> 0:08:52.640 the differences. So how did we get one story from 0:08:52.760 --> 0:08:58.520 the other. The nineteenth century literary historian Gustav Karpalis asserted 0:08:58.760 --> 0:09:04.040 that the merchant in the acount was Jewish, seemingly without evidence, 0:09:04.400 --> 0:09:08.640 as Radswell never mentions the merchant's faith, and in fact 0:09:08.800 --> 0:09:14.280 recalls his name as Quintilio, a distinctly Italian Christian name. 0:09:15.040 --> 0:09:19.280 It's possible that Carpels, or one of the many people 0:09:19.360 --> 0:09:23.040 before him to tell this story both orally and in writing, 0:09:23.559 --> 0:09:27.920 conflated the merchant with one of several Jewish people whom 0:09:28.040 --> 0:09:32.400 Radswell did encounter and discussed in his account, including an 0:09:32.480 --> 0:09:37.280 interpreter who accompanied him in Jerusalem and the famed twelfth 0:09:37.320 --> 0:09:43.840 century Jewish traveler Benjamin of Tudela. There were also certainly 0:09:44.040 --> 0:09:49.200 many Jewish merchants in this period, especially in and around Venice, 0:09:49.559 --> 0:09:53.920 where the general acceptance of Jews presence and the economic 0:09:54.000 --> 0:09:59.800 role they served was tempered by strict segregation, most famously 0:10:00.280 --> 0:10:04.120 the ghetto from which the modern English word is derived. 0:10:04.880 --> 0:10:09.040 It's possible that later historians like Carpellas assumed that the 0:10:09.120 --> 0:10:13.280 merchant was Jewish because of that, or more specifically, because 0:10:13.320 --> 0:10:17.840 the merchant in the story loaned money to Radswell. Jewish 0:10:17.840 --> 0:10:21.840 people frequently worked as money lenders in medieval and early 0:10:22.040 --> 0:10:27.240 modern Europe because the Catholic Church forbade Christians from usury, 0:10:27.720 --> 0:10:32.079 that is, charging interest on alone, while Jewish law only 0:10:32.120 --> 0:10:36.640 prevented the charging of interest to other Jews. While Radswell's 0:10:36.679 --> 0:10:41.120 account made no mention of interest, one can see how 0:10:41.160 --> 0:10:44.880 the kernel of truth there A simple loan from a 0:10:44.960 --> 0:10:49.080 merchant might have morphed and taken on a new shape 0:10:49.120 --> 0:10:54.520 over time in service of a popular story or preconceived notions. 0:10:55.480 --> 0:11:00.839 So what about Saul himself, the rabbi's son. For many 0:11:00.960 --> 0:11:04.520 centuries we had very little to go on beyond folklore 0:11:04.640 --> 0:11:10.440 and rumor. Between nineteen twenty four and nineteen twenty five, however, 0:11:10.920 --> 0:11:15.679 the historian Mayor Balaban discovered a series of documents in 0:11:15.720 --> 0:11:21.199 the archives of breast listofsk that finally began to shed 0:11:21.280 --> 0:11:25.960 light on the real story of the would be Jewish king. 0:11:28.240 --> 0:11:34.160 Saul Katznelenbogen was born around fifteen forty one and traveled 0:11:34.200 --> 0:11:38.200 to Lithuania from his native Padua as a young man 0:11:38.320 --> 0:11:43.199 to study. He settled in Brest Litovsk, a city now 0:11:43.240 --> 0:11:47.120 known as Breast in modern day Belarus, and took up 0:11:47.200 --> 0:11:51.600 work as a merchant. Sometime in the mid sixteenth century. 0:11:52.200 --> 0:11:56.480 At some point he married a woman named Deborah Rievka Druker. 0:11:56.800 --> 0:12:00.800 They would go on to have thirteen children. Like his 0:12:00.960 --> 0:12:05.240 father before him, Saul seems to have enjoyed a respected 0:12:05.360 --> 0:12:11.080 reputation among Jews and non Jews alike. In fifteen seventy eight, 0:12:11.640 --> 0:12:15.720 King Stephen Bathory leased him the salt flats and the 0:12:15.800 --> 0:12:21.199 Grand Duchy of Lithuania, allowing him exclusive rights to sell salt, 0:12:21.679 --> 0:12:25.280 a highly valuable product at the time in the Duchy. 0:12:25.920 --> 0:12:29.640 Two years later, he was similarly granted a lease to 0:12:29.760 --> 0:12:35.040 the salt mine at Vielichka near Krakow in Poland. Six 0:12:35.240 --> 0:12:39.840 years later, Stephen Bathory died. We might be tempted to 0:12:39.960 --> 0:12:44.040 imagine a wealthy Jewish merchant so well liked by the 0:12:44.120 --> 0:12:47.480 king himself that the nobles couldn't have picked a better 0:12:47.600 --> 0:12:55.320 temporary king. Saul's already unlikely reign is perhaps most thoroughly debunked, however, 0:12:55.720 --> 0:12:58.720 by the fact that we already know who served as 0:12:58.800 --> 0:13:03.000 temporary king after the death of Stephen Bathory. In fact, 0:13:03.120 --> 0:13:05.800 there was a very clear system in place in the 0:13:05.920 --> 0:13:10.880 Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth for making sure the throne didn't remain 0:13:11.040 --> 0:13:15.920 empty during what were often very long into regna. Again, 0:13:16.200 --> 0:13:20.720 the legend gets some things right. The nobility of Poland 0:13:20.760 --> 0:13:23.880 and Lithuania needed to vote to elect a new king 0:13:24.080 --> 0:13:27.599 when a king died, and the interregna typically dragged on 0:13:27.800 --> 0:13:32.760 for months as opposing factions sought to position their favorite 0:13:32.840 --> 0:13:37.120 candidates on the throne. That's all true, and this disagreement 0:13:37.280 --> 0:13:41.520 could vary in intensity, but it was very much an 0:13:41.559 --> 0:13:46.360 expected part of the process as such. Ever since the 0:13:46.480 --> 0:13:50.839 Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania had 0:13:50.920 --> 0:13:55.360 merged into the Commonwealth in fifteen seventy two, it had 0:13:55.400 --> 0:14:00.240 been custom that the Archbishop of Genesno would serve as 0:14:00.360 --> 0:14:04.840 the interrex or between king In fifteen eighty six, that 0:14:05.120 --> 0:14:08.199 custom was followed, and we know for a fact that 0:14:08.280 --> 0:14:15.960 Stanislav Karnkovsky of Eunosia, the very Catholic Archbishop of Gnyezno, 0:14:16.400 --> 0:14:20.560 among other titles, served as interrects until the end of 0:14:20.640 --> 0:14:27.400 the interregnum in fifteen eighty seven. The interregnum of fifteen 0:14:27.440 --> 0:14:32.720 eighty six and eighty seven was extraordinary, but unfortunately not 0:14:33.040 --> 0:14:37.400 for electing a surprise Jewish king. It ended in the 0:14:37.440 --> 0:14:41.880 election of Sigismund the third Vasa, who succeeded to the 0:14:41.920 --> 0:14:45.200 throne with the support of the former Queen and the 0:14:45.240 --> 0:14:51.560 Interrex on August eighteenth, fifteen eighty seven. However, three days later, 0:14:51.840 --> 0:14:57.240 Sigismund's opponents contested the election and propped up Maximilian the 0:14:57.280 --> 0:15:01.960 Third of Austria as their choice. The shocking move resulted 0:15:02.080 --> 0:15:05.640 in a year long war which came to be known 0:15:05.760 --> 0:15:10.000 as the War of the Polish Succession or the Habsburg 0:15:10.160 --> 0:15:16.240 Polish War. Eventually, Sigismund won out and became the uncontested 0:15:16.400 --> 0:15:20.960 ruler of the Commonwealth. For Saul's part, it does not 0:15:21.360 --> 0:15:23.960 seem as though he played any major role in the 0:15:24.000 --> 0:15:28.240 election or the subsequent war, but he managed to remain 0:15:28.360 --> 0:15:32.080 in the very good graces of the Polish nobility, including 0:15:32.320 --> 0:15:35.880 King Sigismund. He would go on to serve as tax 0:15:35.960 --> 0:15:40.120 collector for the king. For his service, in fifteen eighty nine, 0:15:40.520 --> 0:15:44.520 he was bestowed with the title of Royal Servant which 0:15:44.600 --> 0:15:50.280 guaranteed royal protection of his possessions and landholdings. During his lifetime, 0:15:51.200 --> 0:15:56.000 Saul also unsurprisingly held a good deal of influence in 0:15:56.040 --> 0:16:00.640 the Jewish community of Lithuania. Beginning in the fifteen eighties, 0:16:00.960 --> 0:16:04.480 he served as a parnas, or lay leader in the 0:16:04.520 --> 0:16:09.280 Council of the Lands, a newly formed central institution of 0:16:09.360 --> 0:16:14.880 Jewish self government in Poland and Lithuania. Jewish communities across 0:16:14.920 --> 0:16:20.400 Europe tended to be semi autonomous, developing their own politico 0:16:20.480 --> 0:16:25.960 religious institutions that governed the community in tandem and occasionally 0:16:26.000 --> 0:16:30.760 in conflict with Christian authorities. This was as much a 0:16:30.800 --> 0:16:34.960 product of Judaism's rich legal culture as it was a 0:16:35.000 --> 0:16:39.920 product of the frequent forced segregation and restriction of Jewish 0:16:39.960 --> 0:16:44.080 communities in Europe. The Council of the Lands would govern 0:16:44.320 --> 0:16:50.160 Polish and Lithuanian Jewish life until seventeen sixty four. Saul 0:16:50.400 --> 0:16:54.280 played an important role in the Council's management of this 0:16:54.520 --> 0:16:59.360 oft intense relationship with Christian authorities. In fifteen ninety three, 0:17:00.120 --> 0:17:05.359 fight resistance from the Brest Litovs City Council, he helped 0:17:05.440 --> 0:17:08.960 to broker an agreement that granted the Council of the 0:17:09.040 --> 0:17:14.000 Lands the right to adjudicate lawsuits between Jews, a major 0:17:14.119 --> 0:17:19.800 win for community autonomy. Saul also seems to have engaged 0:17:19.880 --> 0:17:23.560 in some patronage, a testament to the success of his 0:17:23.720 --> 0:17:28.000 business ventures and his high esteem in the Commonwealth. When 0:17:28.080 --> 0:17:31.920 his wife, Deborah died, he chose to honor her by 0:17:31.960 --> 0:17:36.440 commissioning the construction of a women's gallery in the breast 0:17:36.480 --> 0:17:40.840 Litov's Synagogue, a balcony space in the synagogue where women 0:17:41.040 --> 0:17:45.960 could attend services while remaining separate from the men. In 0:17:46.000 --> 0:17:50.480 the early seventeenth century, he founded a synagogue in Lublin, 0:17:50.760 --> 0:17:54.560 a Polish city some one hundred miles southwest of Brest, 0:17:54.960 --> 0:17:58.840 where the Council of the Lands held its sessions. Both 0:17:59.040 --> 0:18:03.520 synagogues would stand until the nineteen forties, when they, like 0:18:03.680 --> 0:18:08.840 many others across Europe, were destroyed in the Holocaust. Unfortunately, 0:18:09.000 --> 0:18:12.359 we know very little about the end of Saul's life. 0:18:13.000 --> 0:18:17.160 It is generally believed that he died in Brest Litovs 0:18:17.200 --> 0:18:21.639 in sixteen seventeen at the age of about seventy five, 0:18:22.240 --> 0:18:25.879 although some scholars have argued that he died later around 0:18:25.920 --> 0:18:31.360 sixteen twenty two. His children carried on his respected legacy, 0:18:31.840 --> 0:18:36.040 in particular his son mir who became the chief Rabbi 0:18:36.160 --> 0:18:40.040 of Brest Litovs and helped found the Council of the 0:18:40.119 --> 0:18:44.359 Land of Lithuania in sixteen twenty three, which broke off 0:18:44.520 --> 0:18:47.840 from the Council of the Land Saul had helped found. 0:18:48.640 --> 0:18:53.040 At some point, whether during his lifetime or not, is unclear, 0:18:53.760 --> 0:18:58.560 Saul began to be known by the alternative name Saul Vahl, 0:18:59.119 --> 0:19:03.359 which in Juri means choice. The name would go on 0:19:03.520 --> 0:19:07.560 to be passed down to several generations of his descendants, 0:19:07.960 --> 0:19:11.280 to the point that as recently as the nineteenth century, 0:19:11.800 --> 0:19:15.960 Valls who purported to be descendant from Saul were still 0:19:16.000 --> 0:19:19.639 living in Lublin. By then, the story they told of 0:19:19.720 --> 0:19:23.439 their ancestor was not one of a wealthy merchant and 0:19:23.720 --> 0:19:30.480 leader of his community, but a king, albeit a temporary one. 0:19:30.560 --> 0:19:34.000 Dennis de Samuel wanted nothing more than to have a 0:19:34.119 --> 0:19:39.399 noble title. He had the trappings of nobility, wealth status, 0:19:39.800 --> 0:19:45.280 but unfortunately not the lineage, and this was nineteenth century London. 0:19:45.760 --> 0:19:50.840 Lineage was everything Dennis dreamed of. What true nobility could 0:19:50.840 --> 0:19:55.359 afford him, not just social privilege, but true political power, 0:19:55.960 --> 0:19:59.680 a seat in the House of lords. For most other 0:20:00.119 --> 0:20:03.760 Jewish Men in Britain, this might have seemed like a 0:20:03.800 --> 0:20:07.240 pipe drain, but he had seen it happen before. In 0:20:07.359 --> 0:20:11.880 eighteen forty seven, Anthony Nathan A Rothschild, whose family had 0:20:11.920 --> 0:20:15.919 already been named as barons in Austria, was granted a 0:20:15.960 --> 0:20:20.719 baronetcy in the United Kingdom by Queen Victoria. Dennis had 0:20:20.800 --> 0:20:26.520 worked for Anthony's father, Nathan Meyer Rothschild, some twenty years earlier, 0:20:26.840 --> 0:20:31.680 as a corresponding agent overseeing his business interests in Brazil. 0:20:32.440 --> 0:20:36.760 Upon Dennis's return to London in eighteen twenty five, he 0:20:36.840 --> 0:20:41.760 had become involved in securing large loans for the recently 0:20:41.880 --> 0:20:48.360 independent Brazilian government. In eighteen forty four, the Emperor of Brazil, 0:20:48.480 --> 0:20:51.760 dom Pedro the Second, had appointed him to the Order 0:20:51.840 --> 0:20:55.119 of the Rose for his work. As nice as a 0:20:55.240 --> 0:21:00.760 chivalric order was, however, it didn't offer Dennis the aristocratic 0:21:00.960 --> 0:21:06.960 privileges he yearned for. In the early eighteen fifties, Dennis 0:21:07.040 --> 0:21:10.359 decided to find out once and for all if he 0:21:10.520 --> 0:21:14.800 really didn't have any yikis or high born lineage that 0:21:14.920 --> 0:21:18.520 could help him get a leg up in British society. 0:21:19.119 --> 0:21:24.240 He began by commissioning Hirsh Edelman, a Russian Jewish scholar 0:21:24.560 --> 0:21:28.440 who had been researching and publishing documents of Jewish history 0:21:28.720 --> 0:21:32.440 from the Bodleian Library in Oxford, to explore his own 0:21:32.520 --> 0:21:36.840 family history. He knew his family originally hailed from Poland, 0:21:37.280 --> 0:21:41.560 and so he also contacted the Rabbi of Krotoshkind to 0:21:41.640 --> 0:21:46.520 do the same locally. The rabbi collected as much information 0:21:46.720 --> 0:21:50.080 as he could and reported back to Dennis that he 0:21:50.280 --> 0:21:54.879 had traced his lineage back to several generations of prominent 0:21:55.080 --> 0:22:02.800 Jews in Poland and Padua, Mayorkatnellenbogen, Samuel Judah Katznellenbogen, and 0:22:03.080 --> 0:22:09.600 Saul thal Katznellenbogen. Denny's spirits were surely somewhat raised by 0:22:09.640 --> 0:22:13.960 this esteemed rabbinic lineage, but it was Edelman who offered 0:22:14.000 --> 0:22:17.200 him the promise of what he had really been seeking. 0:22:17.760 --> 0:22:22.119 He had come upon an incredible document dating back to 0:22:22.160 --> 0:22:27.680 the seventeen thirties and written by Pinras katzen Ellenbogen, another 0:22:27.880 --> 0:22:33.440 descendant of sauls. In this document, Pinras related the story 0:22:33.480 --> 0:22:36.639 he said was passed on to him by his father 0:22:37.080 --> 0:22:41.760 of how their illustrious ancestor Saul Vaal had once very 0:22:41.840 --> 0:22:47.240 briefly ruled Poland and Lithuania. He had used his one 0:22:47.320 --> 0:22:53.400 day reign, Pinhas proudly reported to pass laws protecting Polish 0:22:53.440 --> 0:23:00.320 and Lithuanian Jews from discrimination and violence. Dennis was delay light. 0:23:00.760 --> 0:23:05.880 He commissioned Edelman to publish Hintras's story, along with, of course, 0:23:06.320 --> 0:23:11.240 a family history that connected Saul directly to Dennis himself. 0:23:11.840 --> 0:23:16.480 In eighteen fifty three, gadou La Chahoul or The Greatness 0:23:16.480 --> 0:23:21.720 of Saul, was published in Hebrew. Jewish community newspapers at 0:23:21.720 --> 0:23:25.560 the time indicated plans to translate the work into English, 0:23:25.960 --> 0:23:31.080 but a translation never materialized. A year later, Dennis was 0:23:31.280 --> 0:23:36.440 finally finally named a baron by the King of Portugal. 0:23:37.040 --> 0:23:40.400 It wasn't a British noble title, and he couldn't get 0:23:40.440 --> 0:23:43.919 a seat in the House of Lords, but Denis felt 0:23:43.960 --> 0:23:47.479 he had raised the profile of Jews in Britain and 0:23:47.520 --> 0:23:51.000 that was good enough for him. He did, however, apply 0:23:51.160 --> 0:23:55.439 for a royal sanction in Britain to add Deval to 0:23:55.640 --> 0:23:59.240 his name, just to make sure his yikhs was a 0:23:59.359 --> 0:24:05.560 matter of public record. Pinras's eighteenth century account of Saul 0:24:05.800 --> 0:24:09.920 king for a day val Katznellenbogen, as he had come 0:24:09.920 --> 0:24:13.880 to be known, was the first written record of Saul's 0:24:13.960 --> 0:24:19.280 extraordinary legend. The story had likely been circulating for some time. 0:24:19.760 --> 0:24:23.879 Pinhras wrote that his father had framed the story already 0:24:23.960 --> 0:24:28.960 as long standing family lore, suggesting that the legend might 0:24:29.040 --> 0:24:32.560 have been formed not long after Saul's death a little 0:24:32.560 --> 0:24:36.280 over a century earlier. It was the Gedu la Chaul, though, 0:24:36.480 --> 0:24:43.320 that really brought Saul's erroneous royal reputation into the mainstream. Newspapers, 0:24:43.640 --> 0:24:48.760 particularly Jewish newspapers in both English and Yiddish, ran with 0:24:48.880 --> 0:24:55.520 the story, which featured details that were simultaneously specific and unlikely. 0:24:56.160 --> 0:24:59.560 Saul was said to have founded a bath house in 0:24:59.680 --> 0:25:04.719 breasst Litovsk could be true, but later historians have found 0:25:04.800 --> 0:25:08.440 no evidence of that he was in fact an elector 0:25:08.520 --> 0:25:12.159 of Poland, that is, a noble eligible to vote in 0:25:12.240 --> 0:25:16.720 the royal election. No, he was not. And Saul was 0:25:16.760 --> 0:25:20.359 said to have established a banking fund that promised every 0:25:20.440 --> 0:25:25.520 male descendant fifty guilders and every female descendant one hundred 0:25:25.520 --> 0:25:30.520 guilders upon marriage. This again, historians have not found any 0:25:30.560 --> 0:25:35.800 evidence for gadou Latcho will became the definitive version of 0:25:35.840 --> 0:25:40.959 Saul's legend, but as with all legends, it continued to 0:25:41.040 --> 0:25:45.000 take on many forms even after it was put to print. 0:25:45.720 --> 0:25:48.760 One version of the legend went further, with the story, 0:25:49.200 --> 0:25:52.760 taking the story of a Jewish king to perhaps its 0:25:52.880 --> 0:25:57.840 logical conclusion, a royal marriage. That's how all fairy tales end, 0:25:57.960 --> 0:26:02.280 don't they. In this version of the story, Saul seems 0:26:02.320 --> 0:26:06.640 to have continued to enjoy elevated status as a kind 0:26:06.680 --> 0:26:11.040 of former king even after the end of his short reign. 0:26:12.359 --> 0:26:17.160 According to the story, Saul's power had irritated some members 0:26:17.200 --> 0:26:21.159 of the Jewish community, and so they reported to the nobles, 0:26:21.440 --> 0:26:24.040 who were at this time looking for a new wife 0:26:24.359 --> 0:26:28.480 for their newly widowed king, Sigismund the Third, that Saul's 0:26:28.600 --> 0:26:33.840 beautiful daughter, Hannah, who was technically a princess, was unwed. 0:26:34.480 --> 0:26:39.000 The nobles of the Commonwealth reportedly considered her an advantageous 0:26:39.040 --> 0:26:42.520 match and conspired to kidnap her in the middle of 0:26:42.600 --> 0:26:45.640 the night to marry her off to the Catholic king 0:26:45.760 --> 0:26:52.560 of Poland. One sympathetic noble, perhaps Radswell, warned Saul ahead 0:26:52.720 --> 0:26:56.280 of the planned abduction, and so in order to prevent 0:26:56.440 --> 0:27:00.399 the plot, Saul quickly married Hannah off to the sixty 0:27:00.480 --> 0:27:05.719 year old Rabbi of Brest Litovsk Zalman Shore. Seeing that 0:27:05.800 --> 0:27:09.440 their plan to take Saul down a peg had failed, 0:27:09.800 --> 0:27:13.800 those jealous members of the Jewish community continued to attempt 0:27:13.880 --> 0:27:18.440 to slander Saul to no avail. Of course, that did 0:27:18.440 --> 0:27:22.640 not happen, or if poor Hannah was indeed married off 0:27:22.680 --> 0:27:26.520 to the aging rabbi, that wasn't how it happened. But 0:27:26.680 --> 0:27:29.760 it speaks to the depth and persistence of the myth 0:27:29.840 --> 0:27:35.560 making surrounding Saul's story. Despite the lack of historical evidence 0:27:35.640 --> 0:27:39.120 for many of its claims and the bounty of historical 0:27:39.160 --> 0:27:44.280 evidence contradicting many others, the legend of Saul Vall's one 0:27:44.359 --> 0:27:49.040 day reign has endured in Jewish folklore even as modern 0:27:49.160 --> 0:27:55.080 historians and genealogists have disproven it. Even Dennis de Samuel's 0:27:55.080 --> 0:27:59.760 claim to his lineage has been debunked. What then, has 0:27:59.800 --> 0:28:04.600 made read this story so persistent. It's possible that, as 0:28:04.600 --> 0:28:07.800 it did for Dennis, the story of Saul the One 0:28:07.880 --> 0:28:13.320 Day King offered Jewish communities political leverage, a means to 0:28:13.520 --> 0:28:19.040 claim that they had ancestors as important and influential as 0:28:19.080 --> 0:28:24.400 their Christian counterparts. Some scholars have argued specifically that the 0:28:24.520 --> 0:28:28.159 legend of saul Vaal may have taken root as a 0:28:28.320 --> 0:28:34.840 response to the increased intolerance towards Polish Jews, in particular 0:28:34.920 --> 0:28:39.640 the kamel Nitsky uprisings of sixteen forty eight through fifty 0:28:39.680 --> 0:28:46.040 seven Kosak Rebellion, which saw mass atrocities committed against Jewish 0:28:46.040 --> 0:28:51.120 communities across Poland. In a time of destruction and death, 0:28:51.480 --> 0:28:55.480 it must have been deeply meaningful to not only remember 0:28:55.600 --> 0:28:59.040 a member of your community who was so devoted to 0:28:59.200 --> 0:29:03.800 building Jewish spaces and supporting Jewish life, but also perhaps 0:29:04.160 --> 0:29:08.680 to imagine that such a devoted person could become so 0:29:08.920 --> 0:29:13.280 protected and influential even as a Jew, that he got 0:29:13.320 --> 0:29:18.320 to be king, if only for one day. That's the 0:29:18.360 --> 0:29:23.000 story of the supposed king for a day, saul Vaal Katznellenbogen. 0:29:23.280 --> 0:29:26.440 But keep listening after a brief sponsor break, to hear 0:29:26.600 --> 0:29:36.480 about what he has in common with noble blood. As 0:29:36.680 --> 0:29:41.200 saul VAL's unlikely story wove its way into legend, becoming 0:29:41.240 --> 0:29:45.080 a valued part of Jewish folklore, it became a point 0:29:45.120 --> 0:29:49.440 of pride among generations of Jewish people to trace their 0:29:49.480 --> 0:29:54.920 ancestry back to the supposed Jewish king of Poland. Over time, 0:29:55.080 --> 0:29:59.200 and especially with increased access to documents on the Internet, 0:30:00.000 --> 0:30:04.720 Emily Tree did become more accurate, although of course apocryphal 0:30:04.880 --> 0:30:10.480 family connections lingered. Vall himself had thirteen children, so you 0:30:10.520 --> 0:30:14.520 can imagine how quickly his lineage expanded, even without the 0:30:14.560 --> 0:30:18.640 help of people like Dennis de Samuel. Now, hundreds of 0:30:18.720 --> 0:30:23.240 years and many generations later, Vall's list of so called 0:30:23.280 --> 0:30:27.880 heirs to the throne has grown vast. His descendants are 0:30:28.040 --> 0:30:33.560 said to include a variety of notable people, including Karl Marx, 0:30:33.880 --> 0:30:38.640 Sigmund freud In, the composer Felix Mendelssohn. But there's also 0:30:38.800 --> 0:30:44.400 a Noble Blood connection. Our esteemed research coordinator Hannat Johnston 0:30:44.760 --> 0:30:49.280 is also a direct descendant of Saul Vahl. She promises 0:30:49.360 --> 0:30:51.880 not to let her royal lineage go to her head, 0:30:52.400 --> 0:30:54.560 or maybe she will so she can end up the 0:30:54.600 --> 0:30:59.240 subject of a Noble Blood episode herself. Only time will tell. 0:31:05.560 --> 0:31:09.320 Noble Blood is a production of iHeart Radio and Grimm 0:31:09.360 --> 0:31:12.920 and Mild from Aaron Mankey. Noble Blood is hosted by 0:31:13.000 --> 0:31:16.960 me Dana Schwartz, writers for Noble Blood are Hannah Johnston, 0:31:17.160 --> 0:31:21.760 Hannah 'swick, Paul Jaffey, Natasha Laski, and me Dana Swartz. 0:31:22.400 --> 0:31:25.560 The show is edited and produced by Jesse Funk and 0:31:25.800 --> 0:31:31.400 Nomes Griffin, with supervising producer rima Il Kaali and executive 0:31:31.440 --> 0:31:35.640 producers Aaron Manke, Trevor Young, and Matt Frederick. For more 0:31:35.720 --> 0:31:41.200 podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or 0:31:41.280 --> 0:31:43.160 wherever you listen to your favorite shows.