For if his works had spent their impulse, his personality, on the other hand, became more and more popular. Legends sprang up ascribing to him the attributes of a saint and universal scholar, almost a magician.[152] He was venerated as the father of rabbinical literature. In certain German communities, he, together with a few other rabbis, is mentioned in the prayer recited in commemoration of the dead, and his name is followed by the formula, "who enlightened the eyes of the Captivity by his commentaries." Rashi's commentaries not only exercised profound influence upon the literary movement of the Jews, but also wove a strain into the destinies of the Jews of France and Germany. During this entire period of terror, the true middle ages of the Jews, for whom the horrors of the First Crusade, like a "disastrous twilight," did not draw to an end until the bright dawn of the French Revolution, the thing that sustained and animated them, that enabled them to bear pillage and exploitation, martyrdom and exile, was their unremitting study of the Bible and the Talmud. And how could they have become so passionately devoted to the reading of the two books, if Rashi had not given them the key, if he had not thus converted the books into a safeguard for the Jews, a lamp in the midst of darkness, a bright hope against alien persecutions? Rashi's prestige then became so great that the principal Jewish communities claimed him as their own,[153] and high-standing families alleged that they were connected with him. It is known that the celebrated mystic Eleazar of Worms (1160-1230) is a descendant of his. A certain Solomon Simhah, of Troyes, in 1297 wrote a casuistic, ethical work in which he claims to belong to the fourth generation descended from Rashi beginning with Rashi's sons-in-law. The family of the French rabbi may be traced down to the thirteenth century. At that time mention is made of a Samuel ben Jacob, of Troyes, who lived in the south of France. And it is also from Rashi that the family Luria, or Loria, pretends to be descended, although the titles for its claim are not incontestably authentic. The name of Loria comes, not, as has been said, from the river Loire, but from a little city of Italy, and the family itself may have originated in Alsace. Its head, Solomon, son of Samuel Spira (about 1375), traced his connection with Rashi through his mother, a daughter of Mattathias Treves, one of the last French rabbis. The daughter of Solomon, Miriam (this name seems to have been frequent in Rashi's family), was, it appears, a scholar. It is certain that the family has produced illustrious offspring, among them Yosselmann of Rosheim (about 1554), the famous rabbi and defender of the Jews of the Empire; Elijah Loanz (about 1564-1616), wandering rabbi, Kabbalist, and commentator; Solomon Luria[154] (died in 1573 at Lublin), likewise a Kabbalist and Talmudist, but of the highest rank, on account of his bold thinking and sense of