Mende

Capital of the ancient county of Gévaudan; now chief town in the department of Lozère, France. In the twelfth century a Jewish community existed here, having a synagogue, whose ruins still (1904) remain. In 1307 a contention arose between Philip the Fair, King of France, and the Bishop of Mende on the question of the possessions of the Jews who had been expelled in the preceding year. In April, 1310, an arrangement between the king and the bishop was made by virtue of which Philip abandoned to the latter one-third of the confiscated goods of the Jews, as well as a house at Mende which had belonged to a Jew named Ferrier.

Other parts also of Gévaudan were inhabited by Jews in the Middle Ages, as Marvejols or Marvėge (), where Jacob ha-Levi, the mystic, lived about 1203; Villefort (), where the site of the old Jewish cemetery is still known ("Mémoires de la Société Royale des Antiquaires de France," viii. 334); and others. Even in their names several villages indicate the former residence of Jews there, as Salmon, formerly Salomon; Mont-David, Booz, Ruth, and Obed (ib. p. 320).

Bibliography:

  * Saige, Les Juifs du Languedoc, pp. 14, 101, 324;
  * Depping, Les Juifs dans le Moyen Age, p. 133;
  * Bédarride, Les Juifs en France, en Italie, et en Espagne, p. 227;
  * F. André, Notice sur les Juifs en Gévaudan, in Bulletin de la Société Historique de Lozère, 1872, historical part, pp. 85-91;
  * Gross, Gallia Judaica, p. 364.



D. S. K.