This play written in 1873 is most surprising. To deal with the anti-Semitism of the Catholic kings of Castille around 1195 is definitely strange. Especially since the young king is married to the daughter of Henry II of England.
The young king falls in love with a young Jewess against all regulations at the time that kept Jews out of the way of Christians. She seduced the young king and some will openly say that she used some black magic to do so.
The man who was the regent when the king was not of age tries to summon a parliament to discuss the situation, in the absence of the king himself, which is a serious breach of feudal right. The queen suggests in this parliament in the absence of the king that the Jewish seducer should be put to death. It is never clear whether it is out of some kind of real legal or religious right or out of the consideration the girl is Jewish.
When the king arrives he disbands the parliament, tries to make it up with the queen, but in his back the queen and the ex-regent in association with the various members of the parliament go on a mission appointed to themselves by themselves to kill the girl, which they do because they make it, if not impossible, at least difficult for the king to arrive before them or before they have executed their own illegal sentence.
And that's where the plot becomes bizarre. The king confronted to all the plotters, including the queen, decides to forgive them as for himself and to punish everyone by putting them all, him included, in the hands of God: everyone is ordered to move to the borders to fight against the Moorish Moslems. God will grant them victory and hence forgive their guilt or punish them with defeat and death.
At this moment it is absolutely clear that all feudal laws have been transgressed by everyone: the king's feudal authority has been disregarded by everyone on one hand and the crimes of the plotters both disregarding the obedience they owe to the King and killing someone who had committed no real crime since the feudal lord the king is can take any woman he wants are totally going unpunished on the other hand. What's more, since the king did not use the legal and judicial authority given to him by God as the major feudal lord, the King committed an injustice for the obvious reason that the victim of the crime was a Jewess. Christians can go around killing Jews with no real authority just because they are Jews and the Christians are afraid of their supposed magic powers.
In other words this play was fitting the German context at the time when it was written, when anti-Semitism, inherited from older and darker ages, was reappearing in the German context. But today it has totally stepped out of acceptability. The play would necessitate too much rewriting and adapting to make it acceptable to the modern context. In other words it has become a tragic farce more than a dramatic work of value.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU
