originated in Charles’s gratitude for their support. Jews, however, came under increasing
pressure in the 12th and 13th centuries, at first mainly in the north, later in every region
where the authority or even influence of the Capetian rulers of France reached. Believing
that Jews ritually murdered Christian children, Philip II Augustus expelled his Jews from
the royal domain, the Île-de-France, in 1182 but allowed them to return in 1198. From
1198 onward, they were placed under an ever-growing list of restrictions as to
occupation, residence, and social and commercial interaction with Christians. By the 13th
century, they were confined largely to the business of moneylending.
In 1240, the crown investigated the Talmud at the behest of the pope to determine,
among other things, whether it blasphemed Christianity. Two years later, twenty-four
cartloads of copies of the book were consigned by royal order to the flames. Philip IV,
believing that Jews endeavored to obtain pieces of the eucharistic host in order to
desecrate them, put further restrictions on Jewish activities. In 1306, he arrested and
seized the property of Jews all over the kingdom and then expelled them. His son Louis
X readmitted them for a term of twelve years in 1315, and thousands returned. After anti-
Jewish riots associated with a popular movement for crusade (1320) and the rumors of a
plot between Jews and lepers to poison the wells in France at the behest of the Muslim
ruler of Granada (1321), many Jews were persecuted and fled. Not until 1359 was a
reduced number of Jews allowed to return to do business and be taxed. The period of
their sojourn was marked by unceasing popular animosity and increasing acts of violence.
They were expelled definitively in 1394.
Throughout the period of their settlement in France, Jews governed themselves in
internal matters. They had courts that settled disputes over marriage, contracts, ritual law,
and so forth. Each community, if of a sufficient size, leased or owned communal sites and
buildings, such as synagogues, schools, baths, ovens, and cemeteries. In relations with
Christians, however, and in criminal matters, Jews were subject to the jurisdiction of the
king or of those lords who had dominium over them. Despite the progressively stricter
restrictions on residence, it is incorrect to speak of the ghettoization of French Jewry.
Jewish neighborhoods almost always had some Christian residents. Nonetheless, Jewish
solidarity, reinforced by Christian restrictive legislation on contacts with Christians, was
exceptionally strong. Conversion to Christianity, even in times of great violence, seems
to have been rare.
William Chester Jordan
[See also: ANTI-SEMITISM; BIBLE, JEWISH INTERPRETATION OF;
CLOTHING, JEWISH; MAIMONIDES, INFLUENCE OF; MANUSCRIPTS,
HEBREW ILLUMINATED]
Brown, Elizabeth A.R. “Philip V, Charles IV, and the Jews of France.” Speculum 66(1991):294–
329.
Chazan, Robert. Medieval Jewry in Northern France. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,
1973.
Jordan, William. The French Monarchy and the Jews from Philip Augustus to the Last Capetians.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989.
Kriegel, Maurice. Les Juifs a la fin du moyen âge dans l’Europe méditerranéenne. Paris: Hachette,
1979.
Schwarzfuchs, Simon. Les Juifs de France. Paris: Michel, 1975.
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