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The Pastoureaux of 1320

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

Malcolm Barber
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Extract

The rising in France in 1320 known as the Pastoureaux, or Shepherds' Crusade, receives little attention in most histories, and it is, indeed, a relatively small-scale event for which there are limited sources. Nevertheless, it has wider implications than have been generally recognised. The purpbse of this paper is therefore two fold: to describe these events through khe available sources and to offer some ideas concerning their historical! importance.

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Articles
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The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 32 , Issue 2 , April 1981 , pp. 143 - 166
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1981

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References

1 For previous accounts see Devic, C. and Vaissete, J., Histoire générate de Languedoc, ed. Molinier, A., Toulouse 1885, ix. 402–6Google Scholar; Lehugeur, P., Histoire de Philippe It Long, roi de France (1316–22), Paris 1897, 416–22Google Scholar; Alphandery, P. and Dupront, A., La Chrétienté et l'idée de croisade, Paris 1959, ii, 257–64Google Scholar; Cohn, N., The Pursuit of the Millenium, rev. ed., London 1970, 102–4Google Scholar. I have Deen unable to obtain Vidal, J.-M., ‘L’Émeute des Pastoureaux en 1320’ in Annales de Saint-Louis des François, iii (1899)Google Scholar.

2 Jean de Saint-Victor, Prima Vita Joannis XXII, in E. Baluze, Vitae Paparum Avenionensium, ed. G. Mollat, Paris 1914, i.128–30; Chronique latine de Guillaume de Nangis de 1113 a 1300 avec Us continuations de cette chronique de 1300 a 1368, ii, ed. Geraud, H., Société de I’histoire de France, Paris 1843, 25–8Google Scholar; Chronique parisienne anonyme de 1316 a 1339 précédée d’additions à la chronique fran¸aise dite de Guillaume de Nangis (1206–1316), in Mémoires de la Société de I'Histoire de Paris et de l’lle-de-France, xi (1884), Paris 1885, 46–8Google Scholar.

3 Bernard Gui, Tertia Vita Joannis XXII (excerpta ex chronicis quat nuncupantur Flores chronicorum seu Cathologus Pontificum Romanorum), in Baluze, op. cit., i. 161–3; Amalric Auger, Septima Vita joannis XXII (excerpta ex chronicis quae dicuntur Aetui Bomanorum Pontificum), in Baluze op.cir., i, 191–3.

4 Chronographia Regum Francorum, i, ed. Moranville, H., Société de I’histoire de France, Paris 1891, 250–2Google Scholar; Usque, Samuel, Consolation for the Tribulations of Israel, trans. M. A. Cohen, Philadelphia 1965, 186–90Google Scholar.

5 Le Registre de I’inquiiitim de Jacques Foumier, 1318–25, ed. J. Duvcrnoy, Toulouse 1965, i. 177–90. I have been unable to obtain an analysis of this by Vidal, J.-M., Déposition du juif Baruc devanl I’inquisition de Pamiers, Rome 1898Google Scholar. See also Grayzel, S., ‘The Confession of a Medieval Jewish Convert’, in Historia Judaica, xvii (1955), 89–120Google Scholar, which is particularly concerned with the validity of forced conversion.

6 Coulon, A., ed., Jean XXII (1316–34). Lettres secrètes et curiales relatives à la France, 2 vols., Paris 1906Google Scholar.

7 Bibliothèque Nationale, Collection Doat, cii. 266–79, for Lézat; Compayré, C., Etudes historiques et documents inédits sur I’Albigeois, le Castrais et I’ancien diocese de Lavaur, Albi 1841, 252–5, for AlbiGoogle Scholar.

8 Viard, J., ed., Les Joumaux du trésor de Charles IV le Bel, (Collection de documents inédits), Paris 1917, nos. 36, 1047, 1048, 3667, 3668, 4953, 5155, 9615Google Scholar.

9 E. Boutaric, ed., Actes du parlement de Paris, ii, 1199–1328, Inventaires et documents, Paris 1867, nos. 6220, 6782, 6835, 6856, 6857, 6904.

10 In an account by Samuel Usque, a Portuguese Jew whose Consolation for the Tribulations of Israel was published about 1553, the inspiration is a dove which alights on the shoulders and head of a 17-year-old Spanish boy. He apparently believed that he had been visited by the Holy Ghost. Miracles followed: a beautiful maiden appeared and made him ‘a shepherd on earth’, whose task was to fight the Moors, and then an account of these experiences, mysteriously written on his arm, confirmed these events. Another man at the same time claimed that the boy had discovered a cross on his shoulder. The public reaction was to treat the boy as a saint and a large crowd gathered ready to fight the Moors. However, when a Jew made a scornful remark about the miracle, the wrath of the mob was turned away from Granada and directed against the Jews. Usque's account of the Pastoureaux is interesting and detailed, but of very limited value, for three reasons: (i) its late date; (ii) the probability that his chief source was written no earlier than the late fifteenth century (see appendix B, pp. 269–84); and (iii) the purpose of the writer, which was to convey to his people the message;that the Jews had been punished by God for their apostasy, but that now that era was ending and the millenium was at hand (see pp. 19–28). He therefore ‘uncritically accepted any source that furthered his thesis’ (Cohen, p. 19).

11 Walsingham says that some came from England and other parts of the world, Walsingham, Thomas, Quondam monachi S. Albani Historia Anglicana, ed. Riley, T. H., Rolls Series, xxviii. 1, London 1863, 157Google Scholar. Usque, op. cit., 186—7, describes only the Spanish and south French manifestations.

12 The Châtelet, situated on the right bank next to the Ile-de-la-Cite, was originally built to defend Paris in the ninth century, but with the growth of the city became obsolete for this function and, instead, became the seat of the prévôté of Paris: see Hillairet, J., Évocation du vieux Paris, i, Moyen age et renaissance, Paris 1951, 157–60Google Scholar.

13 The Field of St Germain was probably to the south-west of the walls of Philip ii's era. Beyond the Porte St Germain. See also the maps at the end of H. Géraud, Paris sous Philippe-le-Bel (Collection de documents inédits sur I’histoire de France), Paris 1837.

14 Anonymum S. Martialis Chronicon ab anno M°CC°VH° ad M°CCC°XX°, in Chroniques de Saint-Martial de Limoges, ed. H. Duplès-Agier, Paris 1874, 147.

15 Boutaric, Actes, no. 6220, p. 338; no. 6835, P. 458; no. 6856, pp. 460–1; no. 6857, p. 461.

16 Ex Historia Satirica Region, Regnonm et Summorum Pontificum ab anonymo auctore ante annum M.CCC.XXVIII, scripta, in RHG, xxii, 15.

17 Cuulon, Jean XXII, ii. no. 1104, pp. 936–8, letter to the archbishop of Narbonne. See also no. 1 io’,, p. 938, no. 1107, p. 939, no. 1111, p. 941, no. 1113, p. 942, no. 1114, pp. O42–4, no. 11 15, pp. 944–5, no. 1116, pp. 945–6. Other recipients were the archbishops of Toulouse and Aries, the sénéchaux of Beaucairc and Toulouse, and Gaucelin, cardinaldeacon, the papal legate. For the papal view see also Tabacco, G., La Casa di Francia nelt’azione politica di Papa Giovanni XXII, Rome 1953, 238–9Google Scholar.

18 B.N., Coll. Doat, lii. 67–9.

19 Some must have been captured and held for trial, for proceedings were taken against ‘those calling themselves Pastoureaux’ in Toulouse by an order ol April 1322, Boutaric, Actes, no. 67H2, p. 444.

20 See J. Mirety Sans, ‘Le Massacre des juifs de Montclus en 1320. Episode de l’entree des Pastoureaux dans l’Aragon, in Revue des Études Juives, liii (1907). 255–66. for an account of this, including large extracts from the documents. Usque (Consolation, 187) claims that the Jews of Tudela were massacred by a mob of 30,000. He describes similar massacres at Lerida and Jaca before the son of the king of Aragon cleansed the region of ‘their venom’ (p. 118). Usque has details, such as the repression of the Pastoureaux by the son of the king of Aragon, which accord with contemporary sources, but the chronology and the geography are often confused.

21 See, for instance, the bull of Nicolas 111, 7 May 1278, B.N., Coll. Doat, xxxvii. 191–2. and Pales-Gobilliard, A., ‘L’Inquisition et les juifs: le cas de Jacques Fournier’, in Cahiers de Fanjeaux, xii (1977), 97–114Google Scholar, in which she analyses the issues raised by this deposition, concerning the jurisdiction of the Inquisition over Jews.

22 The consuls and inhabitants of Grenade were later accused of complicity with the Pastoureaux, and on 22 September 1322, the sénéchal of Toulouse was ordered to take proceedings against them, Boutaric, Actes, no. 6904, p. 473.

23 Usque (Consolation, 187) speaks of 10 wagon-loads of Pastoureaux who had been captured, but he has them released by monks who rise at midnight for this task. The release of the shepherds is seen as a miracle, which inflamed the mob to attack and kill 200 Jews. Apart from Baruch's deposition, no contemporary source mentions the captured Pastoureaux in the wagons, which, together with certain other details (see above note so), does suggest that Usque's source must ultimately have had some connection with a lost contemporary account. There is another sixteenth-century account by Solomon ibn Verga, Sefer Shevet Yehudah, which, like Usque, is too late in date to be of more than limited value in this context, see Grayzel, ‘Medieval Jewish Convert’, 97.

24 B.N., Call. boat, c:ix. 73.

25 Compayré, Études historiques, no. lxx. 251–8. In 1397 Cathar heretics had been able to enter Albi at night without apparent difficulty, so it is possible that there was some truth in the consuls’ assertion that the city was not secure: Davis, G. W., The Inquisition at Albi, 1299–1300, New York 1948, 166Google Scholar.

26 Boutaric, Actes., no. 6835, p. 458, no. 6856, pp. 460–1, no. 6857, p. 461, no. 6220, p. 338.

27 Viard, Lei Joumaux du trésor du Charles IV, no. 36, 10–11.

28 Ibid., no. 9615, p. 1543.

29 Ibid., nos. 3667, 3668, pp. 633–4.

30 Ibid., no. 4953, p. 822, no. 5155, p. 857.

31 Ibid., nos. 1047, 1048, pp. 206–7.

32 See Dobson, R. B., The Jews of Medieval York and the Massacre of March, 1190, York 1974, esp. 26–8Google Scholar; Josephus, The Jewish War, trans. G. A. Williamson, London 1959, 385–90.

33 Cf. the mass suicides of the Jews of the Rhineland during the First Crusade: The Jews and the Crusaders. The Hebrew Chroniclers of the First and Second Crusades, trans, and ed. J. Eidelberg, Madison, Wisconsin 1977, especially the chronicle of Solomon bar Simson, 23, 31–6, 51–5, 57–8, 60.

34 E Chronid Rotomagensis Continuatione, in RHG, xxiii, 349.

35 See Dobson, op. cit., 25.

36 Pedantically, it could also be described as ‘about the end’ of the previous year, but this seems an unlikely approach for a chronicler about to describe events extending into the summer and autumn.

37 See Alphandéry and Dupront, La Chrétienté, ii esp. 71, 119. The celestial letters of 1095, 1199 and i2is may be seen as the equivalent to the vision of angels of 1320, while the children who took to the roads in 1212 abandoned their flocks and forsook their parents without permission just like the youth of 1320. Mass following for charismatic and often heretical leaders may also be related to this, for, among their traits, the Pastoureaux exhibit definite anti-clerical tendencies.

38 See Stengers, J., Les juifs dans les Payi-Bas au moyen âge, Brussels 1950, 15–17Google Scholar, 102–8, for an account of the 1309 ‘crusade’ together with detailed source references, and Rohricht, R., ‘Etudes sur les derniers temps du royaume de Jerusalem’, in Rexrue de I’Orient Latin, i (1881). 650–1Google Scholar. The Chronique Parisienne has a brief account mentioning that they came to Paris, but placing the events in 1308. Ptolemy of Lucca, Secunda Vita dementis V (excerpta ex Historia ecclesiastica), in Baluze, Vitae Paparum, i. 34, claims diat 30,000 of them reached Avignon in August 1309, but the Hospitallers did not want them, ‘saying that they had sufficient people’. Bernard Gui, Tertia Vita, 67, and Amalric Auger, Septima Vita, 98, (Baluze, op. cit.) mention that diere was talk of preparations for a general passage in 1309, but bad weather stopped the project at Brindisi. This may have combined with the crisis in wheat supplies of the same year, which began in south and west Germany and spread to the rest of Western Europe, to provoke popular disturbances. On this see G. Duby, Rural Economy and Country Life in the Medieval West, trans. C. Postan, London 1968, 295.

39 See Alphandéry and Dupront, op. cit., 257–8. The Children's Crusade was also at least partly the consequence of the failure of the upper classes to liberate the Holy Land, although the economic, social and political context of this failure is different (p. 120).

40 Walter of Hemingborough, Chronicon, De Gtitis Re gum Angliae, ed. H. C. Hamilton, London 1868, ii. 292. See Hefele, C.-J., Histoire des concilcs, trans, and ed. Leclercq, H., Paris 1915, viGoogle Scholar (2). 658–9.

41 Cont. Nangis, i. 396.

42 Ptolemy of Lucca, Seainda Vita, 50.

43 Bernard Gui, Tertia Vita, 75.

44 Amalric Auger, Septima Vita, 103–4.

45 Cont. Nangis, i. 4 2 7 - 8 ; Chronique Parisienne, 85–6. See Taylor, C. H., ‘French assemblies and subsidy in 1321’ in Speculum, xliii (1968), 220–44Google Scholar; Lehugeur, Philippe le Long, 194–8; and Boislisle, A. de, ‘Project de croisade du premier due de Bourbon (1316–33)’, in Annuaire-Bulletin de la Société de I’Histoire de France, ix (1872), 230–2Google Scholar, for the background to these projects.

46 Chronique Parisienne, 26.

47 Ibid., 29–30.

48 Ibid., 47.

49 Huillard-Bréholles, J. A., Titres de lamaison ducale de Bourbon, Paris 1867, i, no. 1509, p. 259Google Scholar.

50 H. Finite, Acta Aragonensia, Berlin and Leipzig 1908, i, no. 145, pp. 223–4.

51 Coulon, Jean XXII, i, no. 51s, pp. 433–4.

52 Ibid., no. 513, pp. 435–6.

53 Ibid., no. 505, p. 425.

54 Ibid., no. 515, pp. 438–40.

55 Chronique Parisienne, 43; P. Guérin,: Recueil des documents concemant le Poitou contentus dans Its registres de la chancellerie de France, ii (Archives Historiques de Poitou, xin), Poitiers 1883, no. ccxxvi, 67–8, convocation of the knight Guy de Baucay. Other letters were addressed to the duke of Burgundy, Charles of Valois, Charles, count of La Marche, the count of Evreux, Louis of Clermont and 30 other persons.

56 Guérin, op. cit., no. ccxxvn, pp. 68–9. On these assemblies, see Taylor, C. H., ‘The composition of baronial assemblies in France, 1315–20’ in Speculum, xxix (1954), 448—50Google Scholar.

57 Coulon, Jean XXII, ii, no. 1262. p. 12.

58 See Taylor, ‘French assemblies’, 223, for a discussion of Philip's reticence on the subject of the crusade of France in 1321.

59 Coulon, op. cit., ii, no. 1848, p. 405. The pope had already been reluctant to proceed with crusade plans in 1319–20, for in an undated letter between 21 September 1319 and 4 September 1320 he had put up a series of difficulties probably intended to frustrate Philip's continued financial demands, Ibid., ii, no. 1227, pp. 1018–20.

60 See Strayer, J. R., ‘France: The Holy Land, the Chosen People and the Most Christian King’, in Medieval Statecraft and the Perspectives of History: Essays by Joseph R. Strayer, ed. Benton, J. F. and Bisson, T. H., Princeton, N. J. 1971, 300–14Google Scholar.

61 See Chambers, E. K., The Medieval Stage, ii, Oxford 1903, 41–9Google Scholar, and Young, K., The Drama of the Medieval Church, ii, Oxford 1933, 3–28Google Scholar.

62 Cant. Nangis, i. 422.

63 For a discussion of the issues involved see Hilton, R. H., ‘Y-eût-il une crise générate de la féodalité?’ in Annales E.-s.-c, vi (1951), 23–30Google Scholar. The Chronique Parisienne, 28, is one of many accounts which described shortages during this time. In 1317 the price of wheat in Paris was so astronomical that ‘le menu peuple were badly burdened and oppressed’.

64 Cant. Nangis, 1. 419–20.

65 See Lucas, H. S., ‘The great European famine of 1315, 1316 and 1317’ in Speculum, v (1930), 376Google Scholar, who describes the crisis at its most intense in the winter of 1315–16, but shows prices returning to normal by the summer of 1318.

66 Ordonnances des roys de France de la troisieme race, ed. E. de Lauriere, Paris 1723, i. 595–7. See Chazan, R., Medieval Jewry in Northern France. A Political and Social History, Baltimore and London 1973, chaps v and viGoogle Scholar.

67 See Emery, R. W., The Jews of Perpignan in the Thirteenth Century, New York 1959, esp. 40, 62, 98, 106–7Google Scholar, et passim. In a wider but less detailed survey, Nahon, G., ‘Condition fiscale et economique des juifs’, in Cahiers de Fanjeaux, xii (1977), 51–84Google Scholar, argues that the economic position of the Jews in Languedoc had suffered a crucial decline by the early fourteenth century and that this led directly to the expulsion of 1306. It seems unlikely, therefore, that the Jews who returned in 1315 would have been able to establish themselves as large-scale financiers; they must have relied on small loans and pawnbroking for a living. See also Hilton, ‘Y-eût-t-il une crise?’, on the position of peasantry in primitive agricultural societies, in particular their exploitation by usurers.

68 Ordonnances, i. 646–7.

69 For those of Languedoc, see Saige, G., Les Juifs du Languedoc antérieurement au XIV siècle, Paris 1881, pièces justificatives, no. LVII, pp. 330–1Google Scholar.

70 See Emery, op. cit., 82–4, on the impact of the involvement of the Majorcan crown upon debtors of the Jews in Perpignan.

71 Boutaric, Actes, no. 5713, p. 274.

72 Saige, op. cit., no. LIX, pp. 333–4. The ability of the consuls to co-operate with Aymery de Cros, sénéchal of Carcassonne, against the Pastoureaux, may be related to this concession. Moreover, Narbonne was one of those towns whose economy was not sufficiently active to concentrate Jewish economic activity into money-lending.

73 For his fall, see Favier, J., Un Canseiller de Philippe le Bel: Enguerrand de Marigny, Paris 1963, 191–220Google Scholar.