ר׳ מאיר בן ברוך מרוטנבורג

ר׳ מאיר בן ברוך מרוטנבורג (c.1215–1293), the Maharam of Rothenburg, was the leading German Tosafist, halakhic respondent and communal authority of the later thirteenth century. Born in Worms to the scholar ר׳ ברוך, he studied in German academies and in France under figures including ר׳ יחיאל מפריז, and witnessed the public burning of the Talmud in Paris in 1242, which inspired his elegy שאלי שרופה באש. He established a major academy at Rothenburg ob der Tauber and answered questions from communities across Europe. His pupils, including ר׳ אשר בן יחיאל and ר׳ מרדכי בן הלל, transmitted his rulings into the central codes of Ashkenaz. Attempting to leave the empire with his family amid intensified royal exploitation in 1286, he was arrested in Lombardy and handed to Emperor Rudolf I. He continued teaching and answering questions while imprisoned, first at Wasserburg and then Ensisheim, where he died. His body was released only in 1307, when Alexander ben Salomon Wimpfen paid for its burial in Worms.