Maison sublime, Medieval Jewish house in Rouen, France

Maison sublime is the surviving lower room of a rabbinic school (yeshivah) built around 1100, found beneath the courtyard of Rouen's Palais de Justice. Its walls of Caumont stone, 1.30 to 1.50 m thick, are pierced by three round-headed arched openings; the room measures 14.14 m by 9.46 m and keeps 2.17 m of elevation outside, 4.10 m inside.

The house was built around 1100 and stands as France's oldest surviving Jewish structure. It lay hidden for centuries until archaeological digs in 1976 uncovered it beneath the Palace of Justice, revealing a crucial piece of medieval Jewish history.

The building's name comes from a Hebrew wall inscription quoting the Book of Kings: "May this house be sublime forever!" It was the rabbinic school of Rouen, the Scola Rothomagi, recorded in a Latin text of 1203 and built to hold 50 to 60 students from across Normandy. A cross-shaped graffiti on a wall marks the Christian occupation that followed the 1306 expulsion.

The remains lie under the courtyard of the Palais de Justice, not on rue aux Juifs, and are reached from inside the building. The low room is only partly preserved, with about 2 m between the medieval floor and the present one, so watch the steps. It reopened to visitors in 2022 through the Rouen Normandie tourist office.

The building was found by chance on 13 August 1976, during paving work in the cour d'honneur of the Palais de Justice; a second Hebrew building came to light at the same time in the western part of the courtyard. Four months earlier Norman Golb had published his book locating Rouen's rabbinic school north of the rue aux Juifs, exactly where the Maison sublime was then unearthed.