(French: "shepherds") Participants in two outbreaks of mob violence in medieval France.
The first Pastoureaux were peasants in northeastern France aroused by news in 1251 of the reverses suffered by King Louis IX while on his Crusade . Accusing the nobles, clergy, and bourgeoisie of indifference to the king's fate, they began pillaging churches and towns and attacking clerics, the rich, and Jews. The second Pastoureaux converged on Paris in 1320 to punish Philip V for failing to undertake a Crusade he had called. They sacked the city, opened the prisons, and marched into the countryside, where they carried out pogroms against Jews and lepers before being suppressed.