He neither breaks the ground nor gleans the harvest: he is the
sower who casts the seed upon a field ready to receive it and
make it grow.

It is, therefore, of some avail for us to devote several pages to
the history of the Jews of Northern France in the eleventh
century, especially in regard to their intellectual state and
more especially in regard to their rabbinical culture. If
another reason were needed to justify this preamble, I might
invoke a principle long ago formulated and put to the test by
criticism, namely, that environment is an essential factor in the
make-up of a writer, and an intellectual work is always
determined, conditioned by existing circumstances. The principle
applies to Rashi, of whom one may say, of whom in fact Zunz has
said, he is the representative par excellence of his time
and of his circle.

* * * * *

In the great migratory movement beginning at the dawn of the
Christian era, which scattered the Jews to the four corners of
the globe, and which was accentuated and precipitated by the
misfortunes that broke over the population of Palestine, France,
or, more exactly, Gaul, was colonized by numbers of Jews. If we
believe in the right of the first occupant, we ought to consider
the French Jews more French than many Frenchmen. Conversions
must at first have been numerous, and the number of apostates
kept pace with the progress of Christianity.

In the south of France, there were Jewish communities before the