Early Middle Ages and Crusades
Philip Augustus burns down the community
1192·Bray-sur-Seine
The toll is reproduced exactly as the source states it — never rounded, never added to another. Tolls overlap from one event to the next.
A Christian had killed a Jew from Bray-sur-Seine. The community obtained from the lady of the place — the Countess of Champagne, according to the accounts — that he be handed over to them, and had him publicly executed, on the day of Pourim, in the manner of a condemned man.
Philippe Auguste saw in this a justice rendered without him and upon a Christian. He marched on the city, had the community rounded up and consigned them to the stake; only the youngest were spared. Bray did not belong to the royal domain: the king overstepped his rights, and no authority held it against him.
The episode is recounted from both sides — by the king's chronicler, who approves of it, and by the Hebrew collections, which inscribe the community in their lists of martyrs.
- Period :
- Early Middle Ages and Crusades
- Type :
- Massacre
- Region :
- Western Europe
- Country :
- France
Rigord, *Gesta Philippi Augusti* ; Éphraïm de Bonn, *Sefer Zekhirah* ; *Memorbuch* de Nuremberg.