ר׳ יצחק בן שמואל מדמפייר

ר׳ יצחק בן ר׳ שמואל מדמפייר (c.1115–c.1185), known as ר״י הזקן, was the foremost French Tosafist after his uncle and teacher ר׳ יעקב בן מאיר רבנו תם. Through his mother he was a great-grandson of ר׳ שלמה יצחקי, while his paternal grandfather was ר׳ שמחה מוויטרי. He studied for years in Rabbenu Tam’s academy at Ramerupt, assisted with its extensive correspondence and succeeded to its leadership after his teacher moved to Troyes. He later lived at Joinville and established a celebrated academy at Dampierre. Medieval accounts describe a large, highly organized circle of pupils; his students transmitted teachings that became fundamental components of the standard Tosafot, even though few independent texts survive under his name. He answered questions from France, England, Germany and Provence and exercised wide authority over communal and financial law. Under Philip Augustus he ruled that confiscated Jewish property must not be purchased and, if purchased, must be restored. His son ר׳ אלחנן בן יצחק, himself a Tosafist, was killed in 1184. ר״י הזקן’s late Hilkhot HaGet and dispersed responsa preserve part of a much larger oral and written school whose redaction shaped subsequent Franco-German Talmud study.