Early Middle Ages and Crusades
First accusation of ritual murder on the continent
1171·Blois
The toll is reproduced exactly as the source states it — never rounded, never added to another. Tolls overlap from one event to the next.
Jews burnt alive
A servant of the count claimed to have seen, at dusk, a Jew throw into the Loire what he took to be the body of a child. No child was missing, no body was found.
This is the first time on the continent that an accusation of ritual murder led to a collective condemnation: Thibaut V de Blois had the entire community arrested and subjected the witness to the ordeal of water, which declared him truthful. The Jews of Blois were burned alive, except for those who accepted baptism and the children, who were entrusted to Christian families. The Hebrew accounts report that the condemned sang the *Alénou* in the flames.
Rabbenou Tam made the 20th of Sivan a fast day for the communities of France, the Rhineland, and England — the first fast of its kind instituted for a persecution. It was observed in Poland until the twentieth century, by then linked to the massacres of 1648.
- Period :
- Early Middle Ages and Crusades
- Type :
- Trials and executions
- Region :
- Western Europe
- Country :
- France
Éphraïm de Bonn, *Sefer Zekhirah* ; lettres d'Orléans et de Troyes conservées dans les recueils hébraïques.