Joseph's two sons, Moses and David Kimchi, followed in the footsteps of their father. The first, who flourished 1170–1190, was still more mediocre than his father, and this character of insignificance is borne out by his grammatical and exegetical works. The younger brother, David Kimchi (born 1160, died about 1235), was, in truth, the teacher of the Hebrew language to the Jews and Christians of Europe; but if any value is to be set on his grammatical, lexicographical and exegetical works, we must ignore the fact that Ibn-Janach, Moses Ibn-G'ikatilia and Ibn-Ezra lived before him, for with these he cannot bear comparison. David Kimchi did not establish one original point of view. In the introduction to his grammatical work (Michlol) he is honest enough to confess that he only sought to arrange the manifold and detailed results of the labors of his predecessors. At most, it can be said in his favor that he discovered the difference between the long and the short vowels, and thereby threw light on the vowel changes, and, finally, that he preserved in Jewish circles a faint recollection of a simple, sober, literal exegesis in opposition to the extravagant, Agadic, pseudo-philosophical method of exposition.
The old community of Béziers, which had received Ibn-Ezra so honorably, was at this time, under Viscount Raymond Trencaval and his son Roger, in a still more fortunate condition than that of Narbonne. The Jews and Christians of this city did homage to the spirit of free thought. Many of the citizens were Albigenses, and renounced their allegiance to the Pope and the Catholic Church. Nevertheless, following the old custom, the bishop, on Palm Sunday, incited the parishioners against the Jews as murderers of God, and the people, armed with stones, attacked the Jewish houses. But as the Jews, who lived together in one quarter, surrounded by a wall, always took precautions to defend themselves, there was usually a number of broken heads. The chiefs of the Jewish community now moved to abolish this custom, more discreditable to Christianity than to Judaism, and received the consent of the viscount. Bishop William, who was ashamed of so brutal a practice, also agreed that it should be discontinued. On May 2d, 1160, an agreement was concluded according to which every priest who stirred up the people against the Jews should be excommunicated. The Jews in return pledged themselves to pay four pounds of silver every year on Palm Sunday. The assassination of Raymond Trencaval by several conspirators in church on Sunday (5th Oct., 1167), involved the Jews of Béziers in trouble, probably on account of their known attachment to the viscount. Certain citizens preferred accusations against them, and the directors of the congregation were arrested. Not long after, terrible retribution overtook the murderers of the viscount and the accusers of the Jews. Roger procured auxiliary troops from Alfonso, the king of Aragon. These troops suddenly fell upon the citizens, put the men to death, and hanged the ringleaders. Roger spared the Jews on account of their faithful adherence to his father, and besides them only the women and children (Feb. 1170). The viscount Roger, who favored the Albigenses, had Jewish sheriffs, Moses de Cavarite and Nathan. Through this partiality towards the heretics and the Jews, he provoked the anger of the clergy and the Pope, and in consequence suffered a tragic end.
An important Provençal congregation existed in the flourishing commercial city Montpellier, which was the capital of southern France; it had very rich members whose beneficence was much extolled. Like their co-religionists in Béziers, they had a predilection for learning, fostered by the existence of a medical academy in the town and the prevailing freedom of education. The lords of this city were by no means so friendly to the Jews as their neighbors of Béziers. William VIII and his son expressly enjoined in their wills that no Jew should be admitted to the office of sheriff (1178–1201), although the latter owed a Jew, Bonet, a large sum of money. It is not known who was then at the head of the congregation of Montpellier, which produced no men of celebrity, although it possessed learned Talmudists in such plentiful abundance, that people compared its rabbinical school with the Synhedrion of the Temple-Mount (Har).
What is now the little town of Lünel, not far from Montpellier, was, under the lords De Gaucelin, an important city, and the Jewish congregation, consisting of nearly three hundred members, was considered, together with Narbonne, the most important outpost of Jewish Provence. Its Talmudical school, which rivaled that in Narbonne, educated numerous foreign students, who, if needy, were provided with all necessaries by the congregation. At the head of the congregation stood a man who was extravagantly praised by his contemporaries, Meshullam ben Jacob (died 1170), a scholar and wealthy man, whose opinion was held to be decisive in all matters of learning and law. To win his approval was an incentive to an author. "His soul adhered to the religion of his God; wisdom was his inheritance. He illumined our darkness, and showed us the right path." Thus, and still more extravagantly does an independent contemporary describe him. Meshullam encouraged learned men to turn their attention to various branches, especially to translating Arabic works of Jewish authors into Hebrew. He was the first to awaken, among the Jews of Provence, a taste for learning. He occupied the same influential position in southern France that Chasdaï Ibn-Shaprut had occupied in Spain. Meshullam had five learned sons, who illustrated within a small circle the two currents which were to meet in the next generation in keen conflict. One of the sons, Aaron, who flourished from 1170 to 1210, although conversant with the Talmud, had a special predilection for viewing Judaism from its philosophical side; two others, Jacob and Asher, on the other hand, paid homage to that teaching which abhorred the light of reason. Jacob, although rich, led an ascetic life, drank no wine, and on that account received the name of Nazarite. He is described as the first promoter of the new Kabbala. His brother, Asher of Lünel, lived, if possible, a life even more austere, and although equally affluent, he fasted much, and ate no meat.
On the whole, the scientific tendency prevailed in the community of Lünel. It was represented by two men, who have made themselves famous in the history of Jewish literature, viz., the founder of the family of Tibbon, and Jonathan of Lünel. The latter was an important Talmudical authority, who wrote a commentary on Alfassi's Talmudical work. He was none the less fond of science, and was one of the first who insisted that it should take a high place in Jewish studies. Judah ben Saul Ibn-Tibbon (born about 1120, died about 1190) originally came from Granada, and had emigrated to southern France on account of the persecution of the Jews by the Almohades. In Lünel he pursued the profession of physician, and in that capacity made himself so popular, that his services were sought by princes, knights, and bishops, and he was even sent for from across the sea. He knew Arabic thoroughly, and he studied Hebrew with enthusiasm. His learning, however, made him a pedant, he carefully measured every step, and cogitated deeply whether he should take it or abandon it. At regular intervals he examined his important collection of books, which he kept in most perfect order, and was unhappy if he noticed any confusion in them. He set great value upon elegant handwriting and other unessential matters. Ibn-Tibbon was thus, as it were, created for translating. At the instigation of friends, particularly Meshullam of Lünel – with whom, as with Serachya of Gerona and Abraham ben David, he lived on friendly terms – he translated in succession from Arabic into Hebrew, Bachya's "Duties of the Heart," Ibn-Gebirol's "Ethics" and "Necklace of Pearls," Jehuda Halevi's religious philosophical work, Ibn-Janach's important grammatical and lexicographical work, and, lastly, Saadiah's "Religious Philosophy" (1161-1186). His translations, however, show his pedantic character; they are absolutely literal and clumsy; they slavishly follow the Arabic original, and do violence to the Hebrew language. Jehuda Ibn-Tibbon, who knew perfectly well that a conscientious translator must thoroughly understand both languages, as well as the subject-matter of the work, pleaded as an excuse for the stiffness of his translation, the poverty of the Hebrew language.
The second Tibbonid, Samuel, son of Judah (1160–1239), formed a strong contrast to the character of his father; though more gifted than the latter, he was thoughtless, prodigal, and of phlegmatic nonchalance. His father had spent the utmost care on his education, had himself instructed him, and put him under highly-salaried masters. Thus Samuel Ibn-Tibbon studied medicine, the Arabic language, the Talmud, and other cognate departments of knowledge. His fond father also provided him at an early age with a wife, and tried to subject his son to his guardianship and to the rule of his pedantic nature. The latter revolted against his father's despotic rule, cast his exhortations and teachings to the winds, and having asserted his independence, became estranged from his father. He made foolhardy business speculations instead of applying himself to his profession, losing all his money, so that he was finally obliged to appeal to his father for means to keep himself and his family from starvation. His father thought that he was ruined, but Samuel quietly finished his education, and ultimately excelled his father both in skill of translating and in philosophical grasp. He rendered into Hebrew not only works of Jewish authors, but also some of the works of Aristotle; he also wrote a philosophical exposition of Ecclesiastes and a treatise on portions of Genesis. Generally speaking, the chief claim of the Tibbonides to distinction rests on their skill as translators, as that of the Kimchis on their grammatical acumen.
Not far from Lünel, in Posquières, there existed at that time a congregation of forty members. Here was born one of the greatest Talmudists, Abraham ben David (about 1125, died 1198), son-in-law of Abraham ben Isaac of Narbonne. Having been educated under excellent teachers, and being very rich, Abraham (Rabed II) supported a college of his own, which attracted many students from far and near. He provided for the material as well as the intellectual needs of his disciples. Whilst still a youth, he composed Talmudical works of great importance, and at the instigation of Meshullam ben Jacob he wrote a commentary on a part of the Mishna. By nature inconsiderate, and having little respect for the rules of courtesy, he treated those whose writings he refuted in a contemptuous manner. He was a dangerous antagonist. Of the sciences he had no knowledge, nor did he seem capable of grasping the higher conception of Judaism; he even boasted of his ignorance of such things; it was quite sufficient in his eyes for one to be thoroughly conversant with the Talmud. Abraham ben David and Serachya Halevi were the profoundest Talmudists since the death of Tam.
Bourg de St. Gilles, the second capital of Duke Raymond V of Toulouse, had a congregation of a hundred members. This congregation, as well as the others under Count Raymond, whom the troubadours called the Good Duke, lived under most happy conditions, and were promoted to offices of state. Abba-Mari ben Isaac, of St. Gilles, better known through his learned son, was the sheriff of the town. This son, Isaac ben Abba-Mari, who was probably a pupil of Tam, had acquired, from the celebrated master of Rameru, a thorough rather than an ingenious method of studying the Talmud. In his seventeenth year he composed, at the instance of his father, a compendium of certain ritual laws, and later in life summed up all the results of his investigations in the Talmud in a work, entitled "Ittur," upon the rabbinical civil laws and rites.
Raymond VI of Toulouse favored the Jews even more than his father, and promoted them to offices (1192–1222). On this account, and for other like sins, he was virulently persecuted by Pope Innocent III, and ultimately had to take a solemn oath that he would deprive the Jews of their offices, and that he would never appoint any Jews, nor favor them in any way.
Beaucaire (Belcaire), which belonged to the county of Toulouse, also had a large congregation, at the head of which stood Kalonymos, "the Prince." In the flourishing commercial town of Marseilles, which at that time formed an independent state, there lived three hundred Jewish families belonging to two congregations. The minor congregation, the members of which dwelt near the harbor, and probably carried on navigation, or at least engaged in foreign business, had at their head a noble man, Jacob Perpignano (died 1170). The larger congregation had a Talmudical college, over which Simon ben Anatolio presided. In Marseilles also, the Jews were admitted to offices.
The beginning of the last two decades of the twelfth century constituted the boundary line between fortune and misfortune for the Jews of northern France, who were partly subject to the king and partly to the more or less dependent barons. As long as the friendly king, Louis VII, lived, they continued in their happy condition, and were protected from the malevolent attacks of the clergy. Louis would not enforce the resolution of the Lateran Council, that no Jew should keep any Christian nurses or domestics. He asked the Pope, at the request of the Jews, whether this resolution must be strictly construed, and whether the Jews might be allowed to build synagogues. In spite of the papal decision, he exercised so little energy in enforcing this canonical law, that even his son Philip Augustus, in whose favor he abdicated (1169) on account of feebleness, did not feel bound by it. When the Archbishop of Sens insisted on its enforcement, and endeavored to bring into effect several other decisions of the Church, which encroached on the prerogatives of the crown, the young king sent him into banishment. By and by, however, other considerations, not different influences, gained the ascendancy over the not very noble nature of Philip Augustus, at that time only twenty-five years old, prompting him to change his mind about the Jews, and transforming him into one of the greatest Jew-hating kings in history.
Although lord of the whole of France, and feudal suzerain of the mighty king of England, the French king at that time had little land of his own. The small tract of land, Isle de France, with a few scattered provinces, constituted his only inheritance, and the rest of the land was under the dominion of powerful barons. The policy of Philip Augustus aimed at enriching the French crown by the acquisition of landed estates, and by transforming the ostensible vassalage of the barons into a reality. To accomplish this he needed money, above all things, in order to raise troops and to support them. The wealth of the French Jews appeared to him a ready resource, and prompted him to devise a scheme to appropriate it. He had no need for lengthy consideration, for he had only to give ear to the prejudice that prevailed against them, in order to obtain the right to plunder and oppress them. Although the Jews of France were not the only persons who practised usury – for Christians also, in spite of canonical prohibitions, took exorbitant interest – and although it was perhaps only the rich Jews of that country that were usurers, Philip Augustus nevertheless made the Jews one and all responsible for the impoverishment of reckless debtors; and although personally he did not believe that monstrous lie which somehow arose in the twelfth century – whence and on what ground we know not – that the Jews slaughtered Christian children on the Passover festival, and drank their blood, he nevertheless acted as if they were incarnate murderers, so as to have a convenient pretext for exacting and extorting money from them. Even before the death of the old king, Philip Augustus caused all the Jews living on his estates to be seized whilst they were praying in their synagogues, and cast into prison (19th January, 1180). He calculated that the Jews would offer a large ransom for their liberation. When they had collected fifteen hundred marks of silver they were set at liberty. This extortion was only a prelude to further demands. Before the end of the year 1180, the king declared all claims of Jews against Christians to be null and void; but, nevertheless, took care to appropriate a fifth part of the debts of the Christians to the exchequer. A hermit of Vincennes encouraged him, by explaining to him that it was godly work to rob the Jews of their wealth. Philip Augustus was not yet satisfied that he had made the rich Jews beggars, and shortly afterwards published an edict commanding all the Jews in his province to leave it between April and St. John's Day (1181). They were allowed to sell their movable property. Their fields, vineyards, barns and wine-presses, which must have yielded a fine revenue, escheated to the king, and the deserted synagogues were used as churches. That it is untrue that the Jews of France were hated by the people on account of their usury, alleged child-slaying, and other crimes, is proved most decisively by the circumstance that counts, barons, and even bishops strenuously endeavored to turn the king from his purpose, and to induce him to repeal the edict of banishment against the Jews. All their efforts, however, were in vain; young Philip Augustus, who had much of Louis XIV in him, was, in spite of his youth, so obstinate that (as his biographer says) a rock could be shaken more easily than his resolution. And so the Jews of Paris and its environs once more had to take the wanderer's staff, and leave the places where they had lived for many centuries. The offer that they might retain possession of their property if they would submit to baptism, they held as opposed to their profession of faith in the unity of God. Only a few went over to Christianity.
Fortunately for the Jews, the hereditary estate of the king, as mentioned above, was at that time not very large, and the vassals were still independent enough to refuse obedience to the order to expel all Jews from their provinces. They dwelt in the greatest part of France, and even those who had been driven out of the territory of Philip Augustus were allowed to settle among them. The Talmudical College of Paris was closed, but those in the Champagne, where the Tossafists pursued their work, still flourished. The small town of Rameru continued to be the center of study. Here Isaac ben Samuel, of Dampierre (Ri), a great-grandson of Rashi, held his school. He was the chief authority after the death of his uncle Tam. Learned and acute, like his ancestors, Isaac occupied himself with completing Rashi's commentary, with collecting and arranging his notes on the whole Talmud, and supplementing the questions on knotty Talmudic points presented to the Tossafists, and their decisions. It required a profound knowledge of the enormous material of the Talmud to undertake this work, to adjust the most irreconcilable opinions, to discover an inconsistency here, and explain one away there. The story is told that in the college of Isaac the Elder there were sixty learned members, all of whom not only were proficient in the whole of the Talmud, but each one of whom knew by heart and could explain in a masterly manner one of its sixty treatises. Isaac's first collection of the glosses was called "the old Tossafoth." In consequence of the hostile spirit which began to prevail in northern France, through the persecution of Philip Augustus, Isaac's son, named Elchanan, who, although young, had gained renown among the Tossafists, fell a martyr to his religion, in the lifetime of his father (1184).
Some years later (1191) Philip Augustus sent fresh victims to the martyr's grave. In the little town of Bray (on the Seine, north of Sens), which belonged to the county of Champagne, a Christian subject of the king murdered a Jew. The relatives of the murdered man appealed to the countess, and obtained her permission, through rich presents of money, to hang the murderer. By design or accident, the execution took place on the Purim festival, and this circumstance reminded the people of Haman's gallows, and perhaps of something else. As soon as the king had received news of the execution of his subject, in a distorted report, moreover, saying that the Jews had bound the hands of the murderer, crowned him with a crown of thorns, and dragged him through the streets, he hastened to Bray with a force of men, and surrounding the houses of the Jews with guards, offered them the alternative between death and conversion. The congregation did not hesitate a moment, its members bravely determined to kill one another rather than die by the hand of the executioner. Philip caused nearly one hundred to be burnt, and spared only the children under thirteen years. A few days later the king, with blood-imbrued hands, was consecrated as champion of the Cross, and sailed to Syria, to the crusade. The so-called Holy War improved him but little.
All efforts to dislodge that really great hero, Saladin, from Jerusalem and the district belonging to it, had hitherto proved fruitless. Richard the Lion-hearted was compelled to patch up a truce discreditable to the Christians, and the only favor that he obtained was that Christian pilgrims were to be allowed to visit at any time the Church of the Sepulchre in Jerusalem.
A new crusade had to be preached; the dying embers of fanaticism once more had to be rekindled, and naturally the Jews again were the first to suffer. Pope Innocent III, the most thoughtless and arbitrary of all princes of the Church, took the cause in hand with frantic energy. He commissioned a preacher, Fulko de Neuilly, who had till then lived a reckless, sinful life, to preach the crusade in towns and villages; and this agent, a second Rudolph, used the unpopularity of the Jews and the prospect of plundering them as convenient means for enlisting soldiers for the armies of the Cross. He preached that Christian debtors, having taken the Cross, were absolved from their debts to their Jewish creditors. Many barons of northern France inspired, or pretending to be inspired by Fulko's fanatical harangues, enrolled themselves as crusaders. Now that their hatred of the Jews was once more inflamed, they drove them out of their provinces; for, having been impoverished by the canceling of their debts, the Jews had nothing left which the barons could extort from them.
Contrary to all expectations, Philip Augustus, the arch-enemy of the Jews, received the exiles in his own territory, and allowed those who had formerly been expelled by him to return again to their hearths (July, 1198). This inconsistent and tolerant action of the king, who had been hitherto invariably severe, occasioned much surprise. It seems that Philip Augustus had taken this step for the purpose of mortifying the clergy and Pope Innocent III, because they had declared against his second marriage, he having divorced his first wife without the sanction of the Pope.
At first glance it appears as if the French king and the barons were filled with solicitude for the Jews, as if the latter were so dear to them that they could not exist without them. They looked jealously at one another if Jews emigrated from one province to another; they reclaimed them, and entered into compacts whereby any Jews who had changed their places of abode were to be delivered over to their original lord; and they went so far as to place the Jews under oath not to pass beyond their borders. But behind this apparent solicitude there lurked the most contemptible greed for money. The Jews of northern France were considered by the kings and barons as convenient sources whence to obtain gold. As early as the year 1198, Philip Augustus entered into an agreement with Thibaut of Champagne, that neither should detain any Jews who had emigrated from the territory of the one, and settled in that of the other, but that the Jews should be sent back to the province whence they had come. Philip Augustus, however, like most of the kings of France, was not a man of his word; he refused to give up the Jews who had, on account of excessive oppression, moved to Francia from Champagne, which was thickly populated with Jews.
Thus, from the time of Philip Augustus, the Jews of northern France lost one of the most precious privileges of mankind, freedom of motion. Whilst formerly they were able to move about at will from place to place, they were now compelled to remain in their native place like serfs. If they ventured to move from it, the lord of the land seized their real property, and confiscated it. At first the Jews did not know what to make of this state of affairs, and the rabbinical authority of the time, Isaac of Dampierre, decided that no Jew should buy property that had been confiscated; and if he did buy such property, he was to return it to its original owner. Gradually this robbery became law. Not only freedom of motion, but even the right to possess property was denied them. "The property of the Jews belongs to the baron" was the leading principle of the legislation of northern France concerning the Jews. The king and the barons, indeed, allowed the Jews to take a high rate of interest (two deniers a week on a livre), because it served their purposes. The bonds had to be drawn up by a notary, sealed with the public seal, and witnessed by two notables. In this manner the lord of the province could obtain information of all money transactions. On every settled account the lord levied a large tax (cens). The Jews of northern France were valued only for their possessions; they were treated as revenue-producing bondmen. A nobleman sold to the Duchess of Champagne all his "chattels and Jews." The Jews were thus secure from expulsion and persecution, because they were needed, but they suffered from innumerable annoyances, and their moral sense was thereby blunted. They were restricted to the business of money getting, and they acquired as much as possible in order to be able to satisfy their tormentors. The clergy did not fail to add fuel to the fire of hatred against the Jews, and shut them out of the Christian world like lepers. Bishop Odo, of Paris, who issued canonical constitutions (1197), forbade Christians to buy meat of Jews, to hold discussions with them, and generally to have any intercourse with them. Those who disobeyed were subject to the sentence of excommunication. If the Jews of northern France had not then been possessed of a burning passion for the study of the Talmud, they would certainly have become as degenerate as their enemies pictured, and wished them to be. The Talmud alone saved them from brutalized selfishness and moral decay.
After the death of Isaac, the compiler of the Tossafoth (about 1200), the study of the Talmud in northern France was furthered by three men of his school: Judah Sir Leon ben Isaac, the Pious (ha-Chasid), in Paris (born 1166, died 1224), Samson ben Abraham in Sens (died before 1226), and the latter's brother, Isaac the Younger (Rizba), in Dampierre. All three expounded the Talmud in their schools in the usual manner, decided religious questions that were submitted to them, and wrote Tossafoth, those of Samson existing in a separate form under the name of Sens Tossafoth.
These three rabbis of northern France did not lead the way to new developments in any branch of learning. They had no taste for science or poetry, and they studied Holy Writ, only in the light of the Agadic method of exposition. They were not destitute of acuteness, but they wanted breadth of view. Samson was so incapable of doing justice to the sincerity of religious feeling in the Karaites, who, if possible, were over-scrupulous in the discharge of their religious duties, that he not only held it illegal to intermarry with them, but wished them to be regarded as idolaters, whose wine a Rabbanite might not drink. Judah Sir Leon wrote a book in which he endeavors to hold up the higher ideals towards which the truly pious should strive. This work is, indeed, instinct with religious feeling, and of singularly pure morality; but it is also full of perverted ideas of the world, and of crass superstition. It mirrors faithfully the spirit of that time: that religious scrupulousness which fearfully considers at every step whether it does not commit or occasion a sin; that gloomy disposition which detects in every natural impulse the incitement of Satan; that paltry spirit which treats every trifling occurrence as full of significance. Side by side with sentences of which philosophers need not be ashamed, in this "Book of the Pious," there occur absurdities which could have been produced only by the decline in all conditions of life, which the Jews had experienced since the reign of Philip Augustus.
Judah Sir Leon, the Pious, became the master of many pupils, who afterwards acquired renown: Solomon of Montpellier, Moses of Coucy, Isaac of Vienna, and others became rabbis, and promoters of the study of the Talmud in Spain, France, and Germany. All were guided by his spirit, beheld Judaism only as through a thick layer of fog, and were opponents of free investigation. The disciples of his school later on arrayed themselves against the Spanish exponents of a higher conception of Judaism.
In England, and in those French provinces which at that time belonged to England (Normandy, Bretagne, Anjou, Touraine, Maine, Guienne, Poitou and Gascony), the Jews lived under Henry II, for a long time, in undisturbed and happy quiet. They inhabited the large towns, and in London many of them attained to such wealth that their houses had the appearance of royal palaces. The summons to the first and second crusades found no response among the stolid islanders, and in consequence no martyrs were found among the Jews of England at that time. Many Englishmen had conceived such a predilection for Judaism that they entered into the covenant. There existed a congregation which consisted entirely of proselytes. Their communal and intellectual life was like that of France, which at that time stood in close connection with England. In London, Jacob of Orleans, a pupil of Tam, a famous Tossafist, founded his school. Benjamin of Canterbury was likewise a disciple of the teacher of Rameru. The knightly son of Henry, Richard the Lion-hearted, was equally averse to persecution, and the Jewish community of England might have developed peacefully under him, had not the fanaticism kindled by Thomas à Becket included them among its victims. At Richard's coronation (3d September, 1189), the first persecution broke out against the Jews, culminating a century later in their general expulsion. Richard's coronation ceremony was the first scene of a bloody drama for the Jews.