Persecution by registry

The Bavarian edict on Jews established a register, the Matrikel, in which each locality was assigned a fixed number of Jewish families. A place became available only upon the death or departure of a registered holder: a son could therefore neither marry nor establish a household as long as his father lived and occupied the line. The measure was not an expulsion, and this is what made it enduring — it organized the demographic sterility of a population through the mere keeping of a ledger. For half a century, Bavaria saw its younger sons leave for free cities, for America, or into marriages celebrated without civil recognition, whose children were born outside civil registry. The register was not abolished until the eve of German emancipation.