According to a tradition preserved by Abraham ibn Daud in his Sefer ha-Qabbalah, written about 1161, Makhir was a descendant of the house of David. Ibn Daud wrote: Whatever Makhir's Babylon origins claimed by his descendants, the relation between Makhir and Charlemagne is legendary, the more famous king substituting for his father Pepin, king of the Franks, who in order to enlist the Jews of Narbonne in his efforts to keep the Ummayad Saracens at bay, granted wide-ranging powers in return for the surrender of Moorish Narbonne to him in 759. The Annals of Aniane and the Chronicle of Moissac both attribute this action to the Gothic leaders of Narbonne, rising up and massacring the Saracen garrison. Pepin with his sons Carloman and Charles redeemed this pledge in 768, granting to Makhir and his heirs extensive lands, an act that called forth an unavailing protest from Pope Stephen III. In 791 Charlemagne confirmed the status of the Jewish Principate and made the title of Nasi permanent. The Makhir family enjoyed for centuries many privileges and that its members bore the title of "nasi". Benjamin of Tudela, who visited Narbonne in 1165, speaks of the exalted position occupied by the descendants of Makhir, and the "Royal Letters" of 1364 also record the existence of a rex Iudaeorum at Narbonne. The place of residence of the Makhir family at Narbonne was designated in official documents as "Cortada Regis Judæorum". Makhir is said to have founded a Talmudic school there which vied in greatness with those of Babylonia and which attracted pupils from many distant points.
Arthur Zuckerman maintains that Makhir was actually identical with Natronai ben Habibi, an exilarch deposed and exiled in a dispute between two branches of the family of Bostanai in the late eighth century. Zuckerman further identified Makhir with a Maghario, Count of Narbonne, and in turn with an Aymeri de Narbonne, who lived in the 12th century but whom heroic poetry makes father ofWilliam of Gellone. This William was subject of at least six major epic poems composed before the era of the Crusades, including Willehalm by Wolfram von Eschenbach,. The historical William, i. e. William I, Count of Toulouse led Frankish forces at the fall of Barcelona in 803. The account of the campaign in Ermold Niger's Latin poem dates the events, as Zuckerman says, according to the Jewish calendar and portrays William, again according to Zuckerman's interpretation, as an observant Jew. Count William was actually the son of the Frankish Count Theoderic and in 806 became a monks. In another identification, Zuckerman concludes that Theoderic was none other than Makhir, and that the well-documented descendants of Theoderic embodied a dynasty of Franco-Judeic kings of Narbonne, representing the union of the lineage of the exilarchs with Carolingians. However it is now well documented that his supposed Davidic blood was wrong
Ancestors of Makhir of Narbonne
Scholars agree that nasi Makhir of Narbonne was the descendant of nasi Bustanai. However there are different theories about the exact succession as there are four nearly contemporary Jewish princes, who bore the name Makhir. Zuckerman argues in Jewish Princedom that Makhir ben Habibai is Theodoric of Narbonne, scion of Bustanai and his wife Adoa, who herself was from maternal site a descendant from a nasi family. He further suggests that Natronai ben Habibai is Makhir's Aramaic name. Bryant-Abraham in "De Domo et Familia David" articles identify Makhir ben Yehuda Zakai as Theodoric of Narbonne, scion of Bustanai and his wife Izdadwar. And the other Makhir's were suggested by some scholars. Judith, the wife of Nehemia, was either the daughter of Shahriya or of Ahunai.
However, this underlying chain of identifications has been shown to be flawed, a negative opinion shared by other scholars, while the broader suggestions of a Jewish principality in Southern France have likewise been disputed.
