Commentary," as they called it, was ever the basis for their "additions." They completed or discussed it; in each case they made it their point of departure, and his influence is apparent at every turn. The species of literature called Tossafot is not only thoroughly French in origin, but, it may said, without Rashi it would never have come into existence. The authors of the Tossafot are as much the commentators of Rashi as they are of the Talmud.[139] The Tossafot bear the same relation to his Talmudic commentary as the Gemara to the Mishnah. Like the Amoraim in regard to the Tannaim, the Tossafists set themselves the task of completing and correcting the work of the master; for, despite their veneration for Rashi, they did not by any means spare him in their love of truth. The first Tossafists, both in point of age and worth, were not only the disciples, but also, as we have seen, even the descendants of Rashi. "We drink," said R. Tam, "at the source of R. Solomon." One of the most celebrated Tossafists was a great-grandson of Rashi, Isaac ben Samuel (about 1120-1195) surnamed the Elder, son of a sister of R. Tam and grandson, on his father's side, of Simhah, of Vitry. Born without doubt at Rameru, he attended the school of his two uncles, Samuel ben Meir and Jacob Tam. When Jacob Tam left for Troyes, Isaac ben Samuel took his place. Later he founded a school at Dampierre,[140] where, it is said, he had sixty pupils, each of whom knew one of the treatises of the Talmud by heart. Through his departure, Rameru lost its importance as a centre [center sic] of study. He collected and co-ordinated various explanations growing out of Rashi's commentaries. Thus he established the foundations for the Tossafot, on every page of which his name appears. He was the teacher of the most learned Talmudists of the end of the twelfth and the beginning of the thirteenth century. His son and collaborator Elhanan, a highly esteemed rabbi, died before him, some say as a martyr. Among his disciples are said to have been Baruch ben Isaac, originally from Worms, later resident of Ratisbon, author of the <I>Sefer ha-Terumah</I> (Book of the Heave-Offering), one of the first and most influential casuistic collections (about 1200); Isaac ben Abraham, called the Younger to distinguish him from his master, whom he succeeded and who died a little before 1210; and the brother of Isaac, Samson of Sens (about 1150-1230), whose commentaries, according to the testimony of Asheri, exercised the greatest influence upon the study of the Talmud. He was one of the most illustrious representatives of the French school, and his authority was very great. His usual abiding place was Sens in Burgundy, but about 1211 he emigrated to Palestine in the company of some other scholars. He met his death at St. Jean d'Acre.