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JewishHistoryעברית

Expulsion of the Jews from Provence

Date
1498 – 1501
Location
ProvenceFrance
Then part of
Kingdom of France
Perpetrators
  • King of France (State)
Killed (estimate)
No reliable estimate
Expelled (estimate)
No reliable estimate
Category
Expulsion
Confidence
DisputedThe Jewish Encyclopedia dates the edict to 1498, two years after the accusation of 1496, and says it was not enforced until 1501. The Musée d'art et d'histoire du Judaïsme names both 1498, after the incorporation of Provence in 1481, and 1501 as the last of the royal expulsions. The year of the order and the year it was carried out are not the same in these accounts.

Summary

The Jewish Encyclopedia states that in 1496 the Jews of Provence were accused of being enemies of Christianity and of usury, plunder and other crimes, and that they were expelled two years later, although the edict of banishment was not enforced until 1501. It states that some took refuge in the Comtat Venaissin, others in the Levant, chiefly at Salonica, where a community made up of Provençal Jews was founded, and many went to Italy. The Musée d'art et d'histoire du Judaïsme states that each extension of the royal domain was followed by an expulsion, ending with Provence in 1501, and also that after Provence was incorporated into the kingdom of France in 1481 its Jewish population was expelled in 1498. Neither page names the king who issued the edict, and neither gives a count of those who left.

Sources

  1. Richard Gottheil and S. Kahn, Provence. Jewish Encyclopedia (1906)
  2. 2. Jews in France in the Middle Ages. Musée d'art et d'histoire du Judaïsme

Jewish population (estimates)

  • Worldwide: 800,000 – 1,300,000[13]c. 1490DellaPergola's Fundamentals Table 2 gives 1.3 million in 1490. Botticini and Eckstein Table 9 give about 0.8–1 million for the late fifteenth century; their Chosen Few summary puts world Jewry below one million on the eve of the 1492–97 Iberian expulsions.
  • Kingdom of France: 75,000 – 150,000[32]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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  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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  48. Norway. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
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  50. Greece. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
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  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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  64. All-Union 1959 census — ethnic composition of the USSR. Demoscope Weekly (РГАЭ РФ fond 1562)
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