Conflagrations and Crimes in the Late Middle Ages: Some Attestations from Halakhic Literature* Simcha Emanuel Fires have always been one of the greatest dangers posed to European city-dwellers. The domestic use of open flames, crowded wooden houses, and the lack of proper means to fight fires created a situation in which a moment of negligence could easily lead to an unstoppable conflagration and heavy damage. City-dwellers tried as best they could to prevent fires. They were very severe with residents who did not vigilantly guard fires in their homes, and even more so with one who committed arson on the home of an enemy, something that could easily bring destruction on the entire city. However, these efforts were only partially successful, and massive conflagrations con- sumed many cities in Europe time and again.1 The purpose of this article is not to investigate medieval conflagrations, nor is it to cover our knowledge of their impact on Jewish communities; other historians, * The first version of this article was printed in Hebrew in: Asufah Le-Yosef. Studies in Jewish History Presented to Joseph Hacker, ed. by Y. BEN-NAEH et al., Jerusalem 2014, pp. 157-69. I thank Merkaz Shazar Publishers for permission to publish an updated version of the article. The update was made in the framework of the "Responsa and Archival Records of Medieval Ashkenaz in Legal and Cultural Conversation" Project (G.I.F. Grant no. 1359). My warm thanks to Dr Christoph Cluse for his helpful comments. 1 See Achille LUCHAIRE: Social France at the Time of Philip Augustus, New York 1967, pp. 3-5; Evan GREEN-HUGHES: A History of Firefighting, Ashbourne 1979, pp. 14-16; Peter WEIMAR et al .: Brandstiftung, in: Lexikon des Mittelalters, vol. 2, Munich, Zurich 1983, cols 568-69 (with further bibliography); Christopher R. FRIEDRICHS: The Early Modern City, 1450-1750, London 1995, pp. 276-81; Penny ROBERTS: Agencies Human and Divine: Fire in French Cities, 1520- 1720, in: Fear in Early Modern Society, ed. by William G. NAPHY and Penny ROBERTS, New York 1997, pp. 9-27; David GARRIOCH: Why Didn't Paris Burn in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries?, in: French Historical Studies 42 (2019), pp. 35-65.
284 Simcha Emanuel spent money24, for it was revealed that there was danger to lives, and he therefore had to spend money. However, if he did not spend money, perhaps there was no threat to lives, and it is for that reason that there was no reason to spend money, and conse- quently he is not subject to excommunication. In what case is there no danger to lives? If, for example, the townspeople said to him: "Have no fear. We know that he is lying about you and only wants to defraud you of your money." Even though it is possible to interpret the statement [=in the ordinance] that "he spent money" to mean that he must return the money, and if he spent it, he must be excommunicated for three days, nevertheless, the first interpretation may be the correct interpretation, and due to this uncertainty, excommunication