Skip to content
Zakhor
Back to catalogue

13th–14th centuries

Affair of the lepers

1321·France

Toll
centaines

The toll is reproduced exactly as the source states it — never rounded, never added to another. Tolls overlap from one event to the next.

Chinon (160 burned), Vitry, Tours, Bourges

A rumor spread through the kingdom of France: lepers had allegedly poisoned the wells and fountains. It was soon added that they had acted on the orders of the Jews, who were themselves paid by the Muslim king of Granada — a construction that made it possible to designate both the enemy within and the enemy without.

The lepers were burned or imprisoned; Jews were arrested in several sénéchaussées. At Chinon, a pit was dug on an island in the Vienne and a pyre was lit within it; chronicles report that mothers threw their children into it before descending themselves. Vitry, Tours, and Bourges witnessed executions.

Philippe V levied a considerable fine on the survivors, then had them expelled. No inquiry ever confirmed the poisoning, and the confessions had been obtained through torture.

Period :
13th–14th centuries
Type :
Trials and executions
Region :
Western Europe
Country :
France
Sources

Continuateur de Guillaume de Nangis ; *Chronique parisienne anonyme* ; lettres royales.

At the same place16

  1. 1007-1012Persecutions under Robert the Pious; expulsion from Mainz (1012); violence in Limoges, Roueninconnu
  2. 1181Philip Augustus cancels debts owed to the Jews in exchange for a fifth paid to the treasury, prelude to the expulsion of the following yeartoll not established
  3. 1182Expulsion from the royal domaintoll not established
  4. 1239General seizure of copies of the Talmud ordered by Gregory IXtoll not established
  5. 1269Ordinance of Saint Louistoll not established
  6. 22 juillet 1306General arrest and expulsion from the kingdomtoll not established
  7. 1315Louis X recalls the Jews expelled in 1306, against heavy payment and for only twelve yearstoll not established
  8. 1322Charles IV expels the Jews from France anew, eight years after their recalltoute la communauté
  9. 17 septembre 1394Definitive expulsion from the kingdomtoll not established
  10. 1793-1794Closure of synagogues during the Terrorinconnu
  11. 17 mars 1808Legal persecutiontoll not established
  12. 3 oct. 1940Statute of the Jews of Vichy

And 4 more in the catalogue.

In the same country172

  1. 576Bishop Avitus has the synagogue destroyed; Jews must choose between baptism and exile to Marseille (Gregory of Tours)>500 baptisés de force
  2. 576-591Forced conversions and expulsions ordered by bishops Théodore, Ferréol and Sulpice; Grégoire the Great protests against forced baptismsinconnu
  3. 582Chilperic I imposes baptism on the Jews of the kingdom; the merchant Priscus, who refuses, is murderedtoll not established
  4. 1007Persecution under Robert the Piousinconnu
  5. 1010Bishop Alduin orders the community to convert or leave the town; violence in the wake of rumors about the destruction of the Holy Sepulchreinconnu
  6. Mai-juin 1096Massacre by crusaders en route to the Orient22
  7. Mai 1096First massacre of the First Crusadeinconnu
  8. 1146The crusaders of the Second Crusade attack the community, which defends itself and perishes in its houseinconnu

And 164 more in the catalogue.

Event 282 of 2483, in chronological order · 13th–14th centuries: 398 events in the catalogue