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 Umayyad Saracens at bay, granted wide-ranging powers in return for the surrender of Moorish Narbonne to him in 759.
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.
[5] 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.
This William was subject of at least six major epic poems composed before the era of the Crusades, including Willehalm by Wolfram von Eschenbach, (who also, in another work, was a chronicler of the search of the Grail).
However, this underlying chain of identifications has been shown to be flawed,[6] a negative opinion shared by other scholars,[7] while the broader suggestions of a Jewish principality in Southern France have likewise been disputed.