the history of literature as well as of religion. It is known that Luther had large knowledge of the Hebrew and a strong feeling for it, a quality he owed to Nicholas de Lyra and, through him, to the Jewish exegetes, although his scornful pride would never permit him to concede that "Rashi and the Tossafists made Nicholas de Lyra and Nicholas de Lyra made Luther." At the time when Rashi's influence was thus extended to Christian circles, the Jewish schools called into being by his work and his teachings fell into decay on account of the persecutions that shook French Judaism to its foundations and almost deprived it of existence. This shows how firmly intellectual activities are bound up with temporal fortunes - a truth manifested in the period of growth and maturity and illustrated afresh in the period of decadence. Even after the First Crusade, the situation of the jews of France had remained favorable. It did not perceptibly change as a result of the various local disorders marking the Second Crusade. Nevertheless, the second half of the twelfth century witnessed the uprise of accusations of ritual murder and piercings of the host. Popular hatred and mistrust were exploited by the greedy kings. Philip Augustus expelled the Jews from his domain in 1181, though he recalled them in 1198. Yet the example had been set, and the security of the Jews was done for. The lords and bishops united to persecute them, destroy their literary treasures, and paralyze their intellectual efforts. They found the right king for their purposes in St. Louis, a curious mixture of tolerance and bigotry, of charity and fanaticism. "St. Louis sought to deprive the Jews of the book which in all their trials was their supreme consolation, the refuge of their souls against outside clamor and suffering, the only safeguard of their morality, and the bond maintaining their religious oneness - the Talmud." In 1239 an apostate, Nicholas Donin, of La Rochelle, denounced the Talmud to Gregory IX. The Pope ordered the seizure of all copies, and an investigation of the book. In France the mandate was obeyed, and a disputation took place at Paris. Naturally, the Talmud was condemned, and twenty - four cartloads of Hebrew books were consigned to the flames. The <I>auto-da-fe</I> of 1242 marks the decadence of an entire literature, the ruin of brilliant schools, and the check to the movement so gloriously inaugurated by Rashi. All the living forces of French Judaism were deeply affected. But the fall was neither complete nor sudden. It was not until 1306 that the Jews were exiled from France by Philip the Fair, and a hundred thousand persons had to leave the country in which their nation had long flourished and to whose prosperity they had materially contributed.