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JewishHistoryעברית

Expulsion of the Jews from the French royal domain

Date
April 1182 – June 1182
Location
Royal domain of FranceFrance
Then part of
Kingdom of France
Perpetrators
  • Philip II Augustus (State)
Killed (estimate)
No reliable estimate
Expelled (estimate)
No reliable estimate
Category
Expulsion
Confidence
High

Summary

In April 1182 Philip Augustus ordered the Jews of his kingdom to leave by the feast of St John the Baptist (24 June). They might sell movable goods; houses, fields, vineyards and presses reverted to the crown. Synagogues were converted into churches. The edict covered the royal domain, not the whole of what is now France. The king recalled the Jews in 1198. The Musée d'art et d'histoire du Judaïsme describes this as the first expulsion of Jews by a European sovereign, beginning a cycle of exile and return that ended with the banishment of 1394.

Sources

  1. France (section "Expulsion from France, 1182"). Jewish Encyclopedia (1906)
  2. Rigord (in Jacob R. Marcus, The Jew in the Medieval World), RIGORD, The Expulsion of the Jews from France (1182). Council of Centers on Jewish-Christian Relations
  3. 2. Jews in France in the Middle Ages. Musée d'art et d'histoire du Judaïsme

Jewish population (estimates)

  • Worldwide: 1,000,000 – 1,500,000[5]c. 1170Between the 12th and 17th centuries DellaPergola judges world Jewry never much below one million nor above 1.5 million. The late-12th-century point is processed from Benjamin of Tudela.
  • Kingdom of France: 75,000 – 150,000[33]c. 1306Mechoulan, following William Chester Jordan, reports estimates of 45,000–140,000 Jews in the royal domain plus about 30,000 under other lords, yielding roughly 100,000 affected by Philip IV's 1306 expulsion, with Jordan suggesting a more plausible upper figure as high as 150,000. The edict covered the king's lands (about three-fifths of present-day France), not every lordship later called France.

Sources for population estimates

  1. Sergio DellaPergola, World Jewish Population, 2024. American Jewish Year Book 2024, via Berman Jewish DataBank (2025)
  2. Sergio DellaPergola, Notes toward a Demographic History of the Jews. Genealogy 8(1) (2024)
  3. Jewish Population of Europe in 1933. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  4. Jewish Population of the World. American Jewish Year Book 1948–1949, via Berman Jewish Policy Archive (1949)
  5. Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein, Voluntary Conversions and Diaspora: A Human Capital Interpretation of Jewish History. American Economic Association annual meeting paper (2007)
  6. Jews in the USSR (1926–1959). Demographic Changes. JewishGen Belarus SIG (table compiled from the 1939 All-Union census)
  7. Mandate for Palestine. Report of the Mandatory to the League of Nations (Palestine Administration, 1922). United Nations UNISPAL (British mandatory report) (1922)
  8. José Hinojosa Montalvo, La sociedad y la economía de los judíos en Castilla y la Corona de Aragón durante la Baja Edad Media. Espacio, Tiempo y Forma, Serie III, Historia Medieval (1993)
  9. The Contagion of Violence. 1391 and the Jews of the Spanish Kingdoms. Palgrave / Springer chapter (preview) (2021)
  10. Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein, Religious Norms, Human Capital, and Money Lending in Jewish European History. Handbook chapter PDF via zvi-eckstein.com
  11. Sergio DellaPergola, Some Fundamentals of Jewish Demographic History. Berman Jewish Policy Archive (PDF) (2001)
  12. Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein, THE CHOSEN FEW: HOW EDUCATION SHAPED JEWISH HISTORY, 70–1492 (book summary). Bar-Ilan University Economics seminar PDF (Princeton University Press forthcoming summary)
  13. Joseph Jacobs, Statistics. Jewish Encyclopedia (1906)
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  19. Игорь Виленский, Оценка сокращения численности еврейского населения Российской Империи и СССР (1897–1926). Еврейская Старина (2024)
  20. Sergio DellaPergola, World Jewish Population, 2024. American Jewish Year Book 2024, via Berman Jewish DataBank / Israel CBS host (2025)
  21. Sergio DellaPergola, Demographic Trends in Israel and Palestine: Prospects and Policy Implications. American Jewish Year Book 2003, via Berman Jewish DataBank (2003)
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  23. US Jewish Population Pocket Demographics 2.0. Berman Jewish DataBank / Jewish Federations of North America (2018)
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  29. Robin R. Mundill, The Jews under Edward I (PhD thesis). University of St Andrews
  30. Stéphane Mechoulan, The Expulsion of the Jews from France in 1306: a modern fiscal analysis. University of Toronto Department of Economics working paper (2004)
  31. Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein, Appendix A: Sources and Methodology for Section 2 (Jewish and total population in Germany-Austria and Poland-Lithuania). Authors' appendix PDF (citing Weinryb, Stampfer, Kupovetsky, Guggenheim, Toch, Battenberg, Israel) (2018)
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  34. Esther Meir-Glitzenstein, The Farhud. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
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  46. France. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  47. Belgium. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  48. Norway. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  49. Denmark. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  50. Greece. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  51. Lithuania. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
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  53. Statistics of Jews (World and US Jewish Population). American Jewish Year Book 1946–1947, via Berman Jewish DataBank (1947)
  54. Jacqueline Shields, Jewish Refugees from Arab Countries. Jewish Virtual Library
  55. Lebanon Virtual Jewish History Tour. Jewish Virtual Library
  56. Jewish Populations in the Arab World. Jewish Virtual Library (citing Sergio DellaPergola, World Jewish Population, 2021 / AJYB 2023)
  57. Algeria (Vital Statistics). Jewish Encyclopedia (1906)
  58. Archives juives n°45/2 — Les Juifs d'Algérie. Archives Juives / Les Belles Lettres (2012)
  59. EHRI Country Report — Tunisia. European Holocaust Research Infrastructure
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  62. Sara Koplik, The Demise of the Jewish Community in Afghanistan, 1933–1952. SOAS University of London (PhD thesis abstract / deposit page) (2001)
  63. Argentina Virtual Jewish History Tour. Jewish Virtual Library
  64. All-Union 1959 census — ethnic composition of the USSR. Demoscope Weekly (РГАЭ РФ fond 1562)
  65. All-Union 1959 census — ethnic composition of the Uzbek SSR. Demoscope Weekly (РГАЭ РФ fond 1562)