Introductory study with the hoarding of silver in the burgher milieu, contribute to interdisciplinary collabo- ration between history and numismatics and help to evaluate more comprehensively the 29 role of silver in the economy of the Czech lands in the Middle Ages." Statuta Iudeorum and the legal status of the Jewish population The support from the side of the sovereign that we encounter in the first written privileges ensured the Jews a firm legal position from the beginning.3° Besides their own customary religious law (halakha), the Jews, their internal administration and their relation to the rest of the population, conformed to the sovereign’s regulations. The sovereign’s protec- tion was conditio sine qua non for the survival of Jews in Christian society. The first le- gislative act that ensured the protection of Jews on Bohemian territory was the statutes of Duke Soběslav II from between the years 1174 and 1178 (Nr. 38). However, these statutes merely included the Jews within a protected group of population of the duchy. Although they were primarily intended for German settlers living in the Prague suburbium at the church of St Peter at the Riverside (na Poříčí), we learn from them about the existence of the customary domestic right of Bohemians, from which the Germans were exempted by the duke. The same provisions as for the German settlers should be applied to the Jews, as well as to “Romans" (people who came to the Czech lands from southern Europe). The earliest summary of legal regulations exclusively concerning the Jewish popula- tion are the so-called Fridericiana, the provisions issued for the Austrian lands in 1244 by Duke Frederick II the Quarrelsome (Nr. 47). Altogether in the 33 paragraphs of these statutes, we find measures for the protection of the safety of persons and property, guaran- tees for respecting Jewish religious customs, regulations of trade and pledges of property and rules for contacts between Jews and Christians. The sovereign appears here as the main defender of the Jews. These statutes assured basic legal rights for Jewish popula- tions in the Austrian lands. Undoubtedly, Fridericiana inspired similar acts for Jews issued shortly after that by other European sovereigns: in Hungary (1251, 1256 by Béla IV),“ in Bohemia and Moravia (1262 and 1268 by Přemysl Otakar II) and in Poland (1265 and 1299 by Boleslaus the Pious).32 29) Cf. MUSÍLEK 2012, pp. 117-119. 30) On the ideological anchoring of the legal position of Jews in medieval Christian society, see RUBESOVA 2011, pp. 69-76. 31) FROHMOVIZKOMOROCZY/PUSZTAI/STRBIK 1999, p. 3. 32) ZAREMSKA 2005, pp. 46-81; BALABAN 1931, p. 5. XLV