JEWS AND THE UNIVERSITY OF MONTPELLIER JEAN ASTRUC, THE SAPORTAS, AND OTHERS By HARRY FRIEDENWALD, M.D. BALTIMORE, MARYLAND “Montpellier: This is a place well situ- ticipated actively? Inquiry into this sub- ated for commerce. It is about a parasang ject is very rewarding. (about 3 2/5 English miles) from the sea, There is a mine of information in the and men come for business there from all quarters, from Edom, Ishmael, the land of admirable history of Jean As true2 (1684- Algarve (Portugal), Lombardy, the dominion 1766), who had studied medicine in of Rome the Great, from all the land of Montpellier, where he had taken his Egypt, Palestine, Greece, France, Asia and medical degree in 1703, and had taught England. People of all nations are found a number of years and become professor there doing business through the medium of the Genoese and Pisans. In the city there in 1715; later he left to fill a profes- are scholars of great eminence.” sorial chair in Paris. It was Astruc who —Ben jamin of Tude la , first stressed the importance of the Jew- Itinerary Twelfth Century ish participation in the early years of the University. “Numerous Arabs and URING the Middle Ages Jews mingled with the native popula- Montpellier was a thriving tion and joined with them in contribut- town in commerce and in ing physicians, for they were then the learning. “The University two nations most learned especially in of Montpellier developed primarily as medicine and in the natural sciences” Da school of medicine and as a school of (p. 6) and he cites the early references law. The former, which was perhaps as (pp. 8-15). Later he declares: “We must old as Salerno, was already famous in also acknowledge that it is to them that the time of St. Bernard [1091-1153], the Faculty of Montpellier owes much The earliest statistics of the medical of its reputation which it had in its faculty date only from 1220 . and foundation, because they were during recognized by a papal bull in 1289. the tenth, eleventh and twelfth cen- After the heyday of Salerno was over, turies almost the sole depositories of Montpellier was, for a short time, the this science in Europe and it is through leading medical school. them that it was communicated from “This school was partly a Jewish cre- the Arabists to the Christian world.” ation and it is said that the earliest (p. 168) teaching was in Arabic and Hebrew; Pierre Pansier, who likewise taught at any rate Latin was used in the twelfth at Montpellier, but two centuries later century. After the thirteenth century than Astruc, and who was the author Jewish doctors were expelled, or re- of a number of historical works and mained only on sufferance.’’1 in particular of the history of ophthal- Was it only in the creation of the Uni- mology at the University of Montpel- versity of Montpellier that Jews par- lier, is the authority for the following: “There was a Jewish school of medicine Prop hatiu s Jud ae us (Jaco b b . that flourished in Lunel3 and Mont- Mah ir ibn Tibb on ) pellier in the early days.’’ He cites Ben- The earliest scholar for whom Astruc jamin of Tudela as authority that “it makes the claim, though tentative, of was Judah ibn Tibbon who taught regent of the University was Prophatius there in brilliant manner and that (Jacob ben Mahir ibn Tibbon) (1236- this school ‘inundated’ the South with 1304), the physician and the celebrated physicians. Some of them like Judah author of astronomical tables and the and his son Solomon appear to have inventor of the “Quadrant of Israel”;6 taught in the Faculty of Montpel- no medical writings are known. lier.’’ [?] “I do not find any difficulty,” says William vn, Lord of Montpellier in Astruc, “in placing Prophatius, al- 1181, decreed it to be “lawful for all though a Jew, in the ranks of physi- to open a school for teaching medicine cians and perhaps even of regents of in Montpellier. The Jewish physicians the Faculty of Montpellier” (p. 168). of Lunel profited by this freedom and Steinschneider7 denies the statement taught there and at Lunel.”4 There is that Jews were among the teachers of nothing in the statutes of the Univer- medicine in Montpellier. As already sity to indicate that it refused to accept mentioned we find Jewish scholars of Jews as students or to grant them diplo- this period teaching medicine privately mas. “In 1272 James 1 of Aragon and in southern France.8 Lord of Montpellier forbade anyone to practice medicine at Montpellier, Sa po rta Famil y whether Jew or Christian, without hav- The names of the members of the ing been passed satisfactorily by the Saporta family have a prominent place Faculty,” and this rule was renewed by in Astruc’s Mémoires, father (Louis 1), James 11 in 1281. Pansier is of the defi- son (Louis 11), grandson (Antoine), and nite opinion that licenses were thus granted to Jews. great-grandson (Jean), all physicians.9 It is well, however, to bear in mind Louis (1) came from Lerida where he that the difficulties with which Jewish had practiced for nine years; then he scholars met were neither few nor slight. resided in Arles, in Avignon, and in Steinschneider tells us that Leon Jo- Montpellier, where he took a position seph of Carcassonne, at the end of the in the teaching faculty; then we find fourteenth century, in the endeavor to him at Marseille where in 1490 he be- supply satisfactory medical works for came the city physician. He later re- Jewish physicians, “studied Latin and turned to Montpellier University (1506- attended lectures at the University; for 29). He was physician to Charles vm ten years he sought Latin copies of de who presented him with a coral dish Soto’s and Tornamira’s books, even in with arms of France, long preserved in Montpellier and Avignon after the the family. He died at the age of 106 scholars of Montpellier had placed a (Astruc, p. 217). His brother Guil- ban on those who sold these works to laume-Raimond Saporta settled in other than Christians. In 1394 he pur- Rome where he became Counsellor of chased a copy of the two, at double its the Consistory (pp. 217, 218). Louis (11) price and set himself the task of trans- studied medicine at Montpellier toward lation.”5 the end of the fifteenth century (p. 231)- The grandson, Antoine took which reason they were not admitted to his m.d . degree in 1531 and became municipal offices.” royal professor in 1540, dean in 1551, The family emigrated to the French chancellor in 1560. He wrote a work colonies of America and there are none on tumors which was published in Lyon of the name any longer in Montpellier.14 1624. He died at the age of 90 years in In the “Dictionnaire critique” of Viret >573 (P- 242)- Rem there is a note that Professor Sa- Jean was graduated in 1572, became porta was a Protestant. professor in 1577, vice-chancellor in Another contemporary note is at 1603. He died in 1605. He wrote a hand: Dr. I. Fischer, the well-known treatise on venereal lues which was pub- medical historian of Vienna, now in lished in 1620 (p. 246). Barthélémy in London, in a paper “Aus dem Tage- his “Les Médecins a Marseille avant buch des Felix Platter” (no date), tells et pendant le Moyen-Age,”10 describes us that Platter (1536-1614) lived at the Sapor ta family as “a sort of med- Montpellier as a student for about four ical dynasty; among the most cele- and a half years in the home of an brated members of the faculty of Mont- apothecary, Laurentius Catalan, a Mar- pellier.” Astruc does not indicate in rano, and that this man’s sons spent the any way that the Saportas were same time with Platter’s parents in Jewish. Basel. Familiar with the names of distin- Platter himself met a number of Mar- guished Jewish scholars, named Sapor- ranos and fell in love with a Marrano tas, of the seventeenth and eighteenth girl while there, Ihane de Sos, the centuries, it seemed worth while to daughter of Pierre Sos. The girl later search through the excellent volumes married the widower, Dr. Antoine of Baer’s documentary records11 and Saporta. Fischer expresses the suspicion here a large number, variously spelled that Saporta may also have been of Mar- were found. It was thus only after find- rano descent. ing the Saportas family frequently men- The Saporta whom both Scaliger and tioned in the records of northeastern Platter met, was Antoine. It is not with- Spain, that a footnote was discovered out interest to note that it is he who is in Kayserling’s history of the Jews of mentioned by Rabelais as one of the Navarre.12 Here we learn that Joseph group of students who in 1531 per- Scaliger (1540-1609) visited Montpel- formed the play, “The Man with a Deaf lier and recorded his meeting with M. Wife” (Rabelais, Book hi , chap. 34). Saporta thus: “M. Saporta, his father and his grandfather were Jewish and did Miche l Nost radam us not eat pork . the father treated me Next we find Nostradamus to whom most hospitably in Montpellier. He is a Astruc devotes a long chapter (pp. 311- Marrano. Those of Toulouse are 315). He was born in St. Remy in all Marranos, Jews worse than Span- Provence in 1503.