The growth, albeit gradual, in the Jewish population of Germany and northern France, including the Champagne region where Rashi was active, that took place during the eleventh century.

The ‘twelfth-century renaissance’, which effectively began in the middle of the eleventh century, and the increased importance of the individual in European society at the time (two factors that were considered in Chapter 1). The multi-pronged interpretative effort of Rashi and his students reflected the new atmosphere that encouraged people to work with greater openness and a more critical approach than in the past. This activity, which enabled more scholars to have access to ancient sources, had a democratic quality that suited the new atmosphere, as I pointed out when discussing Rashi's personality. These two developments—the renaissance and the increased importance of the individual—reached their peak only in the twelfth century, but it is hard to separate developments in the atmosphere and literary output of Rashi's beit midrash from the earliest sparks of the renaissance in Europe as a whole and France especially.

France's ascent to pre-eminence in the intellectual life of Christian Europe at the end of the eleventh century and the beginning of the twelfth. It is reasonable to assume that this development had an influence on the changes in intellectual life within Jewish society. The study of medieval Jewish culture in Muslim and Christian lands alike shows the close, if not absolutely direct, link between the development of Jewish society and the development of its non- Jewish surroundings.