Under these favorable circumstances of unrestricted tolerance, the Jewish sages of the north of France were able to follow in the path which Rashi had marked out for them. To understand and explain the Talmud in its entirety became a passion with the French Jews. Death had snatched away the commentator on the Talmud in the midst of his labors at Troyes; his pupils exerted themselves to complete whatever had been left unfinished by him. He had bequeathed to his school a spirit of indefatigable research and close inquiry, of acute dialectics, and the art of fine discrimination, and they richly increased their inheritance. The correct and precise understanding of the Talmud was so sacred a matter to the pupils of Rashi, that they did not hesitate to subject the interpretations of their master to a severe critical revision. But, on the other hand, their veneration for him was so great that they did not venture to offer their opinions independently, but attached them to the commentaries of Rashi as "Supplements" (Tossafoth). From this circumstance they were called the Tossafists. They supplied the omissions of Rashi, and also emended and expanded the explanations given by him. The chief characteristic of the method of the Tossafists is their independence of the authorities, they subjected all opinions to the scrutiny of their own reason. Their profound scholarship and great erudition comprehended the immense Talmudic literature and its maze of learned discussions and arguments with clearness and precision. Their penetrating intellect displayed remarkable ingenuity in resolving every argument and every idea into its original elements, distinguishing thoughts that appeared to be similar, and reconciling such as seemed to conflict. It is almost impossible to convey to the mind of the uninitiated any satisfactory notion of the critical acumen of the Tossafists. They solved the most difficult logical problems with the greatest ease, as if they were the simple examples set to children. The unyielding material of the Talmud became quite malleable under their hands, and they fashioned surprising Halachic (legal) shapes and substances. For the circumstances of modern times they found numerous analogies on record, which a superficial examination would never have discovered. The circle of the earliest Tossafists was composed chiefly of the relatives of Rashi, viz.: his two sons-in-law, Meïr ben Samuel of Rameru, a small town near Troyes, and Jehuda ben Nathan (Riban); later, his three grandsons, Isaac, Samuel and Jacob Tam, the sons of Meïr; and finally a German, Isaac ben Asher Halevi (Riba) of Speyer, also connected with the family of Rashi.