Despite the harshness of the times, the Baalei Tosofos were able to continue the tradition of Torah scholarship that had reached its apex with Rashi, an effort that required not only brilliance and diligence, but money to fund the yeshivos as well. The Rashbam, another of Rashi’s grandsons, was able to support his yeshiva thanks to his flourishing sheep and goat business. Rabbeinu Tam was also well off, due to his vineyards. In addition, he loaned out money—a fact that saved his life during the Second Crusade (1147-49). On Shavuos of 4907 (1147), a Crusader mob entered the town where he was living, Ramerupt, and tried to kill him. A nobleman who had borrowed considerable amounts of money from Rabbeinu Tam, but who was grateful for the many times that Rabbeinu Tam extended the loans or waived the interest, managed to extricate him from the angry crowd and bring him to safety.
Rabbeinu Tam and his family sought shelter in the hometown of his grandfather, Troyes. Many other French talmidei chachamim fled across the Channel to England, which was something of a French colony at the time, due to the Norman Conquest of the previous century. Less than forty years later, other members of French Jewry would also be searching for new homes.
The First Expulsion
The last decades of the twelfth century were difficult ones for France’s Jews. Not only did Christian clergymen rouse the mobs with their anti-Jewish rhetoric, but the blood libel arrived on French shores, an import from England. The first incident occurred in Blois in 1171, when the Jewish community, which consisted of about 40 souls, was accused of murdering a Christian child to use his blood to bake matzos. Thirty-one members of the kehillah were burned at the stake on the 20th of Sivan. According to a Jewish eyewitness, the martyrs perished singing the hymn Aleinu.
The situation further deteriorated during the reign of King Philip Augustus—the first Frankish king to call himself the King of France—because of two factors: He had been raised to hate Jews and he was in dire need of money to finance his wars. In 1180, just four months after he was crowned king, he imprisoned all the Jews living in his royal domain—at the time this was primarily the area around Paris—and demanded a ransom for their release. A year later he annulled all loans that Jews had made to Christians, although he did force the Christians to pay him 20 percent of the money they owed the Jewish lenders. The next year he confiscated all Jewish property and expelled the Jews from his lands.
Most of these Jews moved to nearby provinces, so when the king decided to readmit them in 1198, they didn’t have far to travel. Of course, their return came with conditions. They had to pay another ransom and agree to pay heavy taxes directly to the royal treasury.
Things went from bad to worse during the thirteenth century, when the persecutions began to spread throughout France. After the Lateran Council of 1215, Jews had to wear a badge on their outer garments to distinguish them from non-Jews. Expulsions became popular, with the Jews being expelled from Brittany in 1240, and after 1289 from Anjou, Maine, Gascony, and Nevers. Perhaps the most traumatic event occurred in 1242 when the Talmud was put on trial in Paris. Not surprisingly, the Church found it “guilty” and 24 cartloads of seforim were burned.
The End of Medieval French Jewry
The situation didn’t improve in the next century. Although King Philip IV had allowed Jews back into Paris, in 1306 he had cash flow problems. He therefore devised a secret plot to solve the problem. On July 22, the day after Tisha B’Av, some 100,000 Jews were arrested and thrown into prison. They were informed that they were going to be expelled and could leave with only the clothes on their backs and a small sum of money. The king had confiscated the rest of their possessions. In addition, any money owed to them by Christians would be payable to the king.
