(Carpentras Museum)
The creation of the «carrières»
- the local term for a ghetto - dates back to the fifteenth century and is the manifestation of the permanent policy of the Papal authorities of the Comtat to isolate the Jews from the rest of the population and to protect them from popular violence, always easily sparked off. There were four of these ghettos in succeeding years, at Avignon, Carpentras, L’Isle-sur-Sorgue and Cavaillon. Strictly walled off - up until their suppression in 1790-1791 -, these ghettos were the sites of terrible problems of hygiene and overcrowding.