13th–14th centuries
Forced conversions in the kingdom of Naples
1290·Naples
The toll is reproduced exactly as the source states it — never rounded, never added to another. Tolls overlap from one event to the next.
most communities in the South disappear
The forced conversions ordered in the Kingdom of Naples caused most of the communities of southern Italy to disappear — communities that counted among the oldest in Europe: Bari, Otranto, Taranto, and Trani had Talmudic schools whose reputation had reached as far as the Rhineland.
The converts, known as neofiti, remained under surveillance for generations and were suspected of judaizing; their descendants were still subject to inquisitorial trials in the sixteenth century. The Judaism of the Mezzogiorno, which had given the Ashkenazi world the proverb "from Bari comes the Law," never recovered.
- Period :
- 13th–14th centuries
- Type :
- Forced conversion
- Region :
- Western Europe
- Country :
- Italie
Archives angevines de Naples ; Chronique d'Ahimaaz ben Paltiel ; procès napolitains des neofiti.