Mainz (Mayence) had an ancient Jewish community, assumed to date back to the time when Jews followed the Roman legions to the Rhine in the first centuries of the common era. Legend reports that Charlemagne called R. Kalonymus of Lucca as rabbi to the congregation of Mayence, but documentary evidence of the existence of Jews in Mayence does not antedate the first half of the tenth century, when Archbishop Frederick (937-954) made an unsuccessful attempt to restrict Jewish commercial activity. In 1012 the peace of the Jews of Mayence was disturbed by a religious persecution instigated by Henry II., and which led to apostasy or banishment. After a few months, however, the exiles returned to the city, and most of the converts to Judaism. In the following period of peace the intellectual life of the Jews of Mayence flourished as never before, under various members of the Kalonymus family and under other Talmudic authorities, including in particular R. Gershom ben Judah. In more modern times, that is, closer to the period of this ceremony, the Hessian government, in 1830, undertook to regulate the affairs of the Jewish community. The internal development of the community proceeded slowly. In 1836 instruction in the Jewish religion was made obligatory in the high schools. In 1853 R. Joseph Aub was called to the rabbinate, with R. Benedict Cahn as assistant rabbi and teacher of religion; and in the same year the new synagogue was dedicated. The reforms introduced in this synagogue caused a number of the Orthodox members of the community to form a separate congregation—the Religionsgesellschaft, which built its own synagogue and organized a school. It continued to participate in all the affairs of the community, and as few of the members of this separate congregation left it when the law of 1878 was promulgated, a large part of the communal taxes is remitted to it annually for its religious expenses. Mayence is the birthplace of Michael Creizenach, Isaac Bernays, Joseph Derenbourg, Ludwig Bamberger, and other notable men.