Civic factions, denied conversions and the first European narrative of Jewish infanticide: Praejectus of Clermont's Deeds of Austremonius (c.650/75).

This article examines the *Gesta* ("deeds") of Austremonius of Clermont, a seventh-century hagiographical text notable for its strong anti-Jewish themes and its reinvention of Austremonius as an early Christian apostle and martyr killed by Jews. It situates the *Gesta* within the factional political struggles of Merovingian Clermont, particularly in relation to the city's fraught Christian-Jewish history following the violent conversion and expulsion of Jews around 576. The text may contain the earliest Latin Western narrative of Jewish child murder, depicting a baptized Christian child thrown down a well, a motif that later became widespread in medieval anti-Jewish legends. The article argues that the *Gesta* served both to undermine rival local saint cults and to erase the memory of Clermont's Jewish community, reflecting complex social and political dynamics in seventh-century Gaul.