13th–14th centuries
Ritual murder accusation, Jews tortured and burned
1247·Valréas
The toll is reproduced exactly as the source states it — never rounded, never added to another. Tolls overlap from one event to the next.
The body of a young girl was found in a ditch near Valréas shortly before Easter. The Jews of the small Comtat town were arrested, subjected to torture, and burned after confessions were extracted from them.
The communities of the Comtat appealed to the Pope. Innocent IV, who was then residing in Lyon, responded with two bulls: one reminds the prelates of the protection owed to Jews, the other, addressed to the prelates of Germany, declares in plain terms that the accusation of ritual murder is a fabrication designed to seize their property, and forbids any action to be taken on it.
Valréas is one of the rare cases where one can see the complete mechanism: the rumor, the torture, the confession, the pyre — and then the authority condemning the procedure once the condemned are dead.
- Period :
- 13th–14th centuries
- Type :
- Massacre
- Region :
- Western Europe
- Country :
- France
Bulles d'Innocent IV (1247) ; archives du comtat Venaissin.