13th–14th centuries
Jews burned alive (elegy of Troyes)
1288·Troyes
The toll is reproduced exactly as the source states it — never rounded, never added to another. Tolls overlap from one event to the next.
On the eve of Passover, a body was placed in the home of a prominent member of the community of Troyes. An accusation of ritual murder followed, with the support of the city's preaching friars; the accused refused to recant and were burned, among them men, women, and children of one family.
Three Hebrew elegies composed on the spot have been preserved: they name the victims one by one and describe the pyre. It is through them that the affair is known, the comital archives being silent.
Troyes was the city of Rachi and one of the centers of study in northern France. What took place there, six years before the expulsion from the kingdom, marks the end of that primacy.
- Period :
- 13th–14th centuries
- Type :
- Massacre
- Region :
- Western Europe
- Country :
- France
Élégies hébraïques de Troyes ; archives de Champagne.