The Resettlement of the Converts

This chapter explores the challenges encountered during the task of settling immigrant converts in France. Muslim and pagan converts (whether slave or free, prior to baptism in Acre and France) were fully separated from native Frenchmen by habits and speech. Only providing them money directly and keeping close watch over them could assure that the king's plan for them had the remotest chance to succeed. But the task would not be an easy one. Converted Muslims and pagans suffered from total displacement. They had no immediate local knowledge of the kingdom in which they had arrived (everything they “knew” was based on hearsay), and they had little reason at the time, if ever, to love France. Moreover, the Near Eastern lingua franca a few of the immigrants spoke was not French. Acquiring genuine competency in the language of northern France—the focus of this chapter—took time.