THE KING’S JEWS

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 The King’s Jews
Money, Massacre and Exodus
in Medieval England

Robin R. Mundill
 Continuum UK, The Tower Building, 11 York Road, London SE1 7NX
Continuum US, 80 Maiden Lane, Suite 704, New York, NY 10038

www.continuumbooks.com

Copyright © Robin R. Mundill 2010

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission
from the publishers.

First published 2010

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781847251862

Typeset by Pindar NZ, Auckland, New Zealand

Printed and bound by MPG Books Group
 Contents

Illustrations vii
Acknowledgements ix
Preface xi

1 Colonisation and confinement 1

2 Jews and the economy 21
3 A community within a state 43
4 Saints and martyrs 67
5 Christians and Jews 97
6 Church and Synagogue 123
7 Dissolution and Diaspora 145
Glossary 167
Abbreviations 173
Money 175
Notes 177
Manuscript sources 213
Bibliography 215
Index 233
 For my girls,
Elaine,
Emma, Catriona and Becky
 Illustrations

Maps
1 Jewish settlement in the twelth-century xiv
2 Towns with archae in late thirteenth-century England xv

Illustrations
1 Scribal illustration of a Jew wearing the tabula in
the margin of an early fourteenth-century chronicle
(British Library) 17
2 Scribal caricature of Isaac of Norwich depicted as the
Antichrist (The National Archives) 70
3 Plaque commemorating the mass suicide of over 100
Jews at York in March 1190 (Photograph courtesy of
E. Mundill) 82
4 Late thirteenth-century illustration of ritual murder
accompanying the story of Adam of Bristol (British
Library) 86
5 Hebrew quitclaim attached by an eight-pointed seal to a
charter of 1239 (British Library) 103
6 Marginal caricature of Aaron on the Plea Roll of Essex
Forest 1277 (The National Archives) 119
7 Jews being driven out of England in 1290 (British
Library) 157
8 The Wandering Jew from Matthew Paris’s Chronica
Majora II (Corpus Christi College, Cambridge) 165
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 Acknowledgements

Like any other book of this genre there are always many debts of gratit-
ude and acknowledgements to be made. The idea originates from 1980
and my desire to study what was then considered to be a backwater of
British history. The wish to bring medieval Anglo-Jewry into more focus
came to fruition in a BBC Timewatch documentary, which was entitled
‘All the King’s Jews’ and originally shown on 1 November 1990. Since the
programme and with the publication of England’s Jewish Solution, which
analysed the last decades of the Jewish presence in England, as well as many
years of further research, I had always aimed to write a book which would
take readers back into the world of the small colony of Jews who came to
England between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries.
I have been fortunate. Fortunate, in the first place, that Michael
Greenwood approached me and asked me to write the book. Fortunate
in the fact that my studies and work have been kept going over the last 30
years by a growing interest in what was once deemed to be a mere footnote
of history or even minority history. I am grateful for the support I have
had from the University of St Andrews, which awarded me an honorary
Research Fellowship in the School of History. I was also fortunate in being
appointed School Teacher Fellow in the Lent term of 2009 at Corpus
Christi College, Cambridge, which enabled me to once again brave the
lift in the North Front of Cambridge University Library. I thank Corpus
Christi for their hospitality and friendship. I am also greatly indebted to
the Council of Glenalmond College, Perth for allowing me to take what
in effect was a sabbatical term, in Lent, 2009.
My thanks, as always, must go to Elaine Mundill for reading and com-
menting as the book gestated and for letting me follow the trail. They also
x ACKNOWLED GEMENTS

deservedly go to Professor Chris Given-Wilson, who has read and com-

mented on most of what follows. As fate had it, I bumped into Chris on my
first day at the Public Record Office, Chancery Lane, many years ago and
he pointed out the delights of the Nordic Sandwich Bar as a possible place
to grab a sandwich while not taking too much time off from the E101s,
E9s and E401s (not to mention the SCs). More recently, a productive set of
impromptu meetings and coffees in the University Library at Cambridge
led to the interest and kind offer by Professor Miri Rubin to read a near
completed version of the work. I am very grateful to her for her astuteness
and comments. My thanks also go to Michael Greenwood and his team
at Continuum for their belief in and hard work on the final production.
Naturally in what was commissioned to be ‘a more general history of
the Jews of medieval England’ in some places I have drawn heavily on the
work of others, such as Professor Barrie Dobson, Dr Zefira Rokeah and
Professor Robert Stacey to mention but a few. In Chapter Four I have relied
on the work of Joseph Jacobs extensively. His pioneering compilation is
still a Pandora’s box, which you emerge from having noticed yet another
aspect he has covered. I regard all of them and many others as fellow
enthusiasts and companions in a long journey to get closer to one specific
aspect of Jewish civilisation and congratulate them and others who have
been active in this field. I have drawn much from my own work, some of
which has been published and some of which has been given as papers.
Having been so fortunate, any mistakes, misprints or misinterpretations
that have been made are entirely my own misfortune!
I hope that reading about the medieval Jews of England will demand
questions, foster understanding, but above all will make the reader reflect
on the follies of bigotry, hatred or persecution. My fervent hope is that
all should try to be more accepting, tolerant and open in all that they do
among all those they rub shoulders with.

Lammas 2009
St Andrews
 Preface

Never in the field of medieval history is it possible to know so much about

so few as it is about the Jews of Angevin and Plantagenet England.
CECIL ROTH1

Material remains of the first Jewish colony in Britain are not abundant. The
former Jewish populace has left the sites of its burial grounds, several stone
houses with associations with Jewish owners and a few religious items,
which include a bowl and a prayer book. In recent years there have been
the infrequent but exciting archaeological finds of a possible synagogue in
Guildford, mikva’ot in London, and the opening of Jacob’s Well in Bristol.
The Jew in medieval England has left a memory – sometimes a place name
or a street name, at other sites a legend and certainly, at Clifford’s Tower in
York, a scene of martyrdom, which has entered both Christian and Jewish
recall alike. While there is not a tremendous amount of tangible evidence,
the documentary evidence is vast. Medieval Anglo-Jewry is unique in
the amount of records that it has left behind. It was precisely because the
Jews were considered to be royal property that their records far outstrip
the surviving documentation of some of their Christian contemporaries.
Because the Jews were regulated and protected by the whim of the
Crown, they always remained under royal surveillance. To control them
the Crown eventually founded the Exchequer of the Jews in Westminster,
appointed Justices of the Jews and maintained this dedicated ever-vigilant
government machinery for over a century. There were also the less import-
ant officials who worked with the Jewry such as Sergeants, Keepers of
the Rolls and other clerks. Locally, there were chirographers who were
paid every time a financial transaction was made. There were also certain
xii P R E FA C E

Christians in some towns that were specifically charged with looking after
the Jews.
The Jewish Plea Rolls recorded any involvement in legal cases with
Christians, which range from trespass to non-payment of debt. Such a
class of documents gives us a feel for the issues that preoccupied both
central government and local officials. The types of business conducted
by this special court for Jewish affairs, which was once described as
both an ‘official bureau and a judicial tribunal’, give us a real sense of the
impact of the medieval Anglo-Jewish community on Christian society.
These records are being made available by the Jewish Historical Society
of England and are a rich source for information on both medieval Jewish
and Christian life. Similarly, the Patent Rolls, which granted permissions,
are full of special licences and orders concerned with the social intercourse
between Christian and Jew. The Close Rolls reflect in full the orders given
to the officials of the Jewish Exchequer and the sheriffs about the general
day-to-day running of the Jewries. The Pipe Rolls and the Receipt Rolls
are full of details of payments made both by individuals and Jewish com-
munities. These particular records are in themselves the distant cousins
to the more specific Jewish Receipt Rolls.
Elsewhere, the actual financial documents that the Jewish community
generated are still accessible and lists or registers of long lost individual
transactions still allow the historian to recreate the dealings of some of the
Jews who engaged in the thirteenth-century money markets. Above all, the
archa system, which was spawned by the Crown’s desire to regulate Jewish
affairs, has produced a detailed archive that allows the historian to take
snapshots of how differing Jewish communities or an individual Jewish
family fared in increasing or decreasing its lending. Of course, this is not
to say that there were no impoverished Jews in medieval England. From
time to time we do have information about Jews who were poor or who
did not have financial documents registered in the archae.
Other individual documents, such as mortgages, contracts and other
types of agreements, still survive in major archives such as the National
Archives, the British Library and Westminster Abbey. Other documents
 P R E FA C E xiii

survive in Cathedral archives and local record offices. There are single
documents that date to the period of the first Jewish colony, which can
be found in odd places. A cereal bond was fairly recently discovered in
the Hereford Cathedral archives. A single document with relevance to
the Jews even turned up for sale at Sotheby’s in 1904! There are Hebrew
documents or starra and other quitclaims that survive elsewhere.
These written records give us a day-to-day glimpse of a single, small
community. As we glimpse the activities of the Jews, it is easy to forget that,
for every transaction or guarantor, there were also Christians involved
both in the agreements and the recording of the transactions. Relations
with Jews and their debtors cannot always have been bad. It is likely that
some Christians, at least, must have been grateful for the injection of
capital and even possibly for friendship.
Over and above this, we can glimpse the gripes and grumbles of
contemporary chroniclers who naturally tended to denigrate what some
of the more fanatical of them saw as the ‘enemy within’ or even as ‘fifth
columnists’ who were trying to bring down order and take over society
as a whole. Such writers were of course priests in holy orders. They rep-
resent the written literate record of the time. They also were responsible
for preaching their message to the masses by means of caricature, scribal
doodles, miracle plays and lastly but most importantly, preaching and
teaching. Such was the background to the record left by the King’s Jews
who lived in England for almost two centuries.
 0 50 100 150 200km

Newcastle

York
1159

Lincoln
1159

Nottingham
1194
Stamford Kings Lynn Norwich
1190 1144
Coventry Leicester 1185 Thetford Bungay
1194 Northampton 1190 1159
Warwick 1159
1194 Cambridge Bury
Worcester 1159 St. Edmunds
Hereford Bedford
1159 1190
1178 1194 Colchester
Gloucester Oxford 1190
1159 1141 Hertford
Wallingford
1194
1194 Rochester
London 1194
1067? Ospringe Canterbury
Bristol
1154 1190 1160
Winchester
Chichester
1148
1194

Exeter
1181

1 Jewish settlement in the twelth-century

 towns with archa in 1290
towns with lists of archa
contents extant

0 50 100 150 200km

York

Lincoln

Nottingham

Stamford Norwich

Warwick Northampton Huntingdon

Ipswich
Worcester
Cambridge
Hereford Bedford
Colchester
Oxford

London

Devizes Canterbury
Bristol

Winchester

Exeter

2 Towns with archae in late thirteenth-century England

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 1

Colonisation and confinement

Did those feet in ancient time,

Walk upon England’s mountains green?
WILLIAM BLAKE

There is still much mystery concerning the arrival of the Jews in Britain.
One of the earliest students of Anglo-Jewish History, D’Blossiers Tovey,
writing in 1738, admitted that historians did not agree when Jews first set
foot in England’s countryside.1 Historians are unlikely ever to pinpoint
exactly when Jews first came because the evidence is piecemeal. It is likely
that a few Jews had set foot in this land well before 1066. In the mid-
nineteenth century, a Jewish historian, Moses Margoliouth, claimed that
Jews were settled ‘on British soil, long ere Saxon, Dane, or Norman coveted
the possession of the British Isles’.2 While this might be an unprovable
boast it is still worth musing on. Yet the problem of whether followers
of the Jewish faith actually took up residence here prior to 1066 is still
open to debate. Conversely, it is well known that the Jewish communities
were expelled in 1290. Thus it is, as Barrie Dobson has observed, this neat
compartmentalisation that makes the history of England’s first Jewish
community attractive. It is finite. It can be seen to start in 1066 and tragi-
cally ends with expulsion in 1290.3
Much mystery and myth can be connected to the legends of Joseph of
Arimathaea, the secrets of Glastonbury Tor and the questions posed by
Jacob’s pillow, which allegedly later became the sacred stone of Scone.4
Far more tangible is the likelihood that Jews must have visited this
country in the company of Phoenicians, who came to the ‘Cassiterides’ in
search of lead and tin. Some Jews also came to Britain in the cohorts of
2 THE KING’S JEWS

camp-followers and traders who followed the Roman legions when they
settled here.5
Even the early documentary evidence is unclear. Archbishop Egbert of
York in the eighth century forbade Christians from participating in Jewish
religious services and from selling their co-religionists into the hands of
Jews.6 Does this chance reference mean that there were sufficient numbers
of Jews present within the diocese of York to merit this early prohibi-
tion? Yet this particular document was recorded on the continent, many
years after Egbert’s death, and might merely have been used to establish
a precedent. Apart from this early dubious reference, there are several
place names which might prove some connection with Jewish presence
but that also might be coincidental. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle makes a
reference to a fortress called ‘Iudanbyrig’ near York in the tenth century.7
Names such as Marazion or Menheniot exist in Cornwall and the latter
might be a derivation of min oniyot – ‘from ships’ in Hebrew.8 Perhaps the
earliest Jewish visitors to England did not come from the Continent via the
Channel ports, as one might have expected. Did early Jewish settlers know
the West Country rather better than the eastern coast? Jewish footsteps in
ancient times are hard to track.
Pre-Conquest Jewish migration is referred to by St Jerome, the transla-
tor of the Vulgate, who in the late fourth century had learnt his Hebrew
from a Rabbi, and who was well aware of the Diaspora (70 ce) and even
commented that ‘The Jews move from sea to sea and from the British to
the Atlantic Ocean’.9 Such a movement of Jews, possibly Jewish traders or
even Jewish colonists, took place during the time of the Diaspora and for
several centuries after. Jewish sources show a similar awareness. Indeed a
midrash or commentary of the early second century states that the people
of Britannia ‘go about naked’ and talks of Jews who had even been exiled
to Britain.10 It is also possible that some Jews were driven to Britain as a
result of the Bar Kochba revolt (132–5 ce). A sixteenth-century Jewish
source refers to much earlier Jewish migration from Germany across
the Channel to England. Joseph Cohen’s Emek Habacha (Valley of Tears)
claims:
 C O L O N I S AT I O N A N D C O N F I N E M E N T 3

In the year 4570 (810 c.e.) Christians and Moors fought one another, and men of
high station were brought low, and for Israel there was a time of trouble. For many
Jews fled from the sword from Germany to Spain and England . . .11

There is some evidence that some Jews had settled slightly further afield.
The Annals of Innisfallen in Ireland record that: ‘Year 1079: Five Jews came
over the sea with gifts to Tairdelbach and they were sent back over the sea
again’.12 Thus, although the documentary evidence for Jewish presence in
England during the first millennium ce is sparse and difficult to interpret,
it does not rule out that Jews had visited the so-called ‘mountains green’
in ancient times.
The archaeological evidence is sparser still and even more difficult to
interpret. There are some tangible links, which, if nothing else, indicate a
sort of contact with the original Jewish homelands. One example of the
most tenuous of these is a stone bas-relief of Samson driving the foxes into
a field of corn, which was unearthed in London in the late seventeenth
century. The theme of Samson and the foxes was a common ornamenta-
tion for Jewish granaries. Yet was the mason who carved the relief merely
copying a design they had seen and were they actually of the Jewish faith?13
Early coins from the Jewish homeland have been found in Britain. One
example found in London dated from the second revolt 132–5 ce, another
found at a Roman fort at Melandra in Derbyshire dated from 66–72 ce,
and a third found on Bingley Moor in Yorkshire dated from the reign of
Herod Agrippa 42–3 ce.14 Coins such as these are not necessarily proof
of Jewish residence. Using other evidence, Dr Shimon Applebaum has
suggested that it was very likely that Jews had passed through early medi-
eval Exeter. A ridged bowl dating to the third century that had a Hebrew
graffito on it was found there.15 Yet, like the coins, the transmission of a
design or Hebrew letters scratched on these artefacts might only suggest
trading connections rather than any positive evidence for settlement.
Thus the archaeological evidence does no more than create the pos-
sibility of the presence of a few Jewish soldiers serving in oriental units
of Roman Britain and of Jewish traders on business trips to the far flung
4 THE KING’S JEWS

‘Isles of the Sea’, as England was later known to continental Jewry. Such
articles may have belonged to Jews, from communities in Rouen and
Bordeaux, who may have traded indirectly with Britain. The proximity of
centres of Jewish settlement on the continent must have meant that some
Jews had crossed the Channel and visited this country for themselves. It
is thus unlikely that no Jew had set foot in England before the eleventh
century and still possible that some settlement, if only of a single family,
may have happened.
Despite thin evidence for Jewish presence before 1066, it is unanimously
agreed that the Norman Conquest gave a new impetus to the settlement
of Jews in England. Some have suggested, with little foundation, that the
transfer of Jews from Normandy was accomplished by a bribe being made
to the Rouen Jewish community by William the Conqueror. Others have
even stated that his invasion fleet had some Jewish financial backing.
Taking such hypotheses further it has also been suggested that Arlette,
William’s mother, who was raped by his father, Robert, was a Jewess from
Falaise. The connections between some Jewish nomenclature and the
Conqueror himself tend to suggest that there was a special association
between William and his Jewish subjects. The widely used Jewish name
Dieulecresse and its variants may well be an imitation of the Conqueror’s
battle cry ‘Dex aiae’ or ‘God aid me’. Certainly the motto is genuine.
Perhaps more intriguing is the name Manser, which may have derived
from the Hebrew Mamzêr and may have been adopted by those who took
the name who had some affinity to the Bastard – the men of the Bastard.16
All accounts of Jewish settlement coinciding with the Conquest are
unequivocal in suggesting that the first Jewish colonists came from Rouen.
Norman Golb, among others, has examined the Rouen Jewry and most
of the accounts of the transfer of Jews from Normandy to England. Golb
accepts that there were already Jews in England prior to the Conquest
and suggests that the transfer was ‘to ensure their assimilation into the
framework of the Normannic administrative process’.17 Writing within
60 years of the Conquest, William of Malmesbury recorded that the
Jews who were then living in London were brought over from Rouen by
 C O L O N I S AT I O N A N D C O N F I N E M E N T 5

William the Conqueror.18 Malmesbury’s statement gives us a universally

accepted start to England’s first Jewish colony. Golb, writing some 900
years later, has pointed out that, at a council in 1070, William I addressed
the status of the Jews and gave them the King’s protection to the point that
‘the king would treat both their persons and property as his own’.19 By
1070 therefore the Jew had become another part of the Normanisation of
England. Certainly they were present in March 1093 when Gilbert Crispin
wrote The Disputation of a Jew and a Christian and presented Archbishop
Anselm with a copy.20
In order to understand how willing Jewish colonists were enticed to
seek a new life in the territories that the Normans had won in 1066, it
is important to consider what kind of background these early Jewish
settlers came from. By the late twelfth century the Norman Jewry had
settled in just over 38 different centres.21 They were used to living in
small communities and they were prepared to travel. The ducal charter
of 1201, echoing as it does earlier pronouncements, treats the Jews as a
group who were exempted from tolls and who engaged in retailing and
peddling. It also recognised their activities as village moneylenders and
pawnbrokers.22 The Jews of northern France were by the eleventh century
already supporting themselves primarily by commerce and increasingly by
moneylending.23 Whatever reason first brought them to England in 1066,
a link had already been established; immigration might offer them finan-
cial success and prosperity. Another spur to a new wave of immigration
to the islands was brought about by the massacres of Jews in Rouen and
elsewhere in 1096 during the opening of the First Crusade.24 Some of the
Jews who migrated from Normandy under the Conqueror and his sons
came via Canterbury or London, which was not yet the capital but was still
a trading port. Some of Jewish origin may even have taken the very first
voyages in 1066 and landed at Pevensey and settled in the Rapes of Sussex.
Some may also have reversed the Normandy landings of 1944 and come
through Southampton and Winchester, the then capital. In 1177, Jurnet
the Jew was fined a massive £1,333 6s 8d at Winchester for crossing the
Straits without King Henry II’s permission.25
6 THE KING’S JEWS

The migration of Jews from the continent in the second half of the elev-
enth century was mainly to the south of England and it is London which
had the earliest traces of Jewish domicile. From a survey of properties
belonging to St Paul’s made in about 1127, mention is made of lands ‘in the
street of the Jewry’.26 The earliest reference by actual title deed in London
was a chirograph – or agreement – between the Canons of St Paul’s and
Benedict the Jew in 1152. The monastery of St Paul’s granted Benedict
a third part of the land that Alric Parole had held from them in return
for 3s 2d a year. The payment was to be made in instalments at Easter
and Michaelmas. Benedict was to hold the land ‘freely and quietly and
honourably like others holding land of them in the city’. It is clear that by
a further agreement that Abraham the Jew, son of Symon, was Benedict’s
next door neighbour. Abraham was permitted to hold land ‘from the post
of the house of the said Benedict to the King’s Road’ (the main road from
Cripplegate to Bishopsgate). The plot that Abraham had purchased cost
him 6s 10d a year.27 A further chirograph recorded in about 1197 by none
other than the chronicler, Ralph of Diss, granted the Jew, Peter Blund, and
his wife, Miriam, and their heirs some land that had formerly been held by
Delesalt the Jew in the parish of St Lawrence, Jewry, for an annual payment
of 6s 6d. Peter paid £1 6s 8d for this right. A few years later, in 1202, Peter
Blund also paid £20 for a rent of £1 on some land and a shop in Old Fish
Street.28 Thus one of the earliest documented commercial transactions
between Jew and Christian was for the rental of property and the purchase
of rentals, and shows that Jew lived alongside Christian.
A similar pattern of land grants to Jews is discernible in Kent where
other early references to Jewish moneylending show that at least some
members of the Jewish community must have been quite well established.
By the late eleventh century Jews had settled in Rochester and in Ospringe
as well as in Canterbury itself.29 A fairly sizeable and recognisable Jewish
community was well established in the city by 1187, when a conflict broke
out concerning Christ Church. It involved the Crown and the Papacy as
well as the Jews of Canterbury. The bellicose Archbishop Baldwin had
not got his way in a dispute and had blockaded the monks of Christ
 C O L O N I S AT I O N A N D C O N F I N E M E N T 7

Church in their monastery. The townspeople sided with the monks, and
threw bread to the besieged over the walls and smuggled food by other
means to keep their kitchens stocked with fish and vegetables. The Jews of
Canterbury also helped the monks. As Gervase, the chronicler of the event
relates:

But this was no real concern for the Jews, for they themselves sent food and as much
drink as they could into the monastery and prayed in their synagogues for the con-
stancy of the monastery. The Archbishop did not cease to remove them and for the
Jews he did not hesitate to engage with them. The Archbishop excommunicated and
the Jews prayed. Wonderful things to tell you.30

A conveyance that was witnessed by seven Christians and five Jews showed
that in about 1190 a Jew, known as Jacob the Old, had purchased several
plots of land in Heathenman’s lane, Canterbury, for £5 13s 4d. On one of
the plots Jacob built himself a stone house opposite the synagogue.31 Jews
such as Jacob were involved in moneylending as well as other activities
in the surrounding area. By 1194, Jews had lent money to the Hospital
of Strood. In exchange for some meadows along the road to Frindsbury,
Bishop Gilbert of Rochester paid off £30 with arrears of interest that were
owed to the Jews. Gilbert then gifted the lands back and also built the
hospital a stone cloister and provided an organ.32
Elsewhere early Jewish settlement was facilitated by the old road system
and the rivers of eleventh- and twelfth-century England. Small colonies of
Jews spread along the River Thames. Although over 20 Jewish colonies had
been established by the mid-twelfth century, a spur to further colonisa-
tion occurred in 1177, when for the first time Jews were actually allowed
burial grounds outside London.33 Now Jewries such as Lincoln, York and
Northampton had the right to bury their dead at Le Jewbury in York.34
This new privilege not only shows that the Crown recognised the presence
of significant Jewish communities but that each community must have had
a fairly numerous congregation with enough capital to purchase land for
establishing cemeteries.
8 THE KING’S JEWS

Late twelfth-century Jewish settlements were dominated by Jewish

magnates. Many such men bought up land and rents, built stone houses
and supplied synagogues for their communities. William of Newburgh, a
contemporary chronicler, remarked that both Benedict and Josce of York
were engaged in moneylending and had also managed to build ‘princely
and spacious mansions for themselves through the profits’. Josce’s man-
sion, in York, was in Coney Street, not far from St Martin’s Church, while
Benedict’s house was in Spen Lane.35 Such influential Jews had houses in
other major centres. Despite having a house in Lincoln, Aaron of Lincoln
died at his other house in London.36 Rubigotsce, a leading member of the
London Jewish community in the 1130s, also at one time had a house in
Rouen, which was sold in 1203.37 By the mid-twelfth century Jewish set-
tlement had started to spread throughout England and Jews had become
involved in the local economy.
Some Jews became involved in the tin business in the West Country.
In 1198, Justiciar Hubert Walter sent William de Wrotham into the west-
ern counties as Warden of the Stannaries to regulate them, to issue new
weights and measures and to issue ordinances pertaining to their smooth
running. In Wrotham’s subsequent ordinances it was made clear that
neither Jew nor Christian could export first smeltings of tin if they had
not first been weighed and stamped, nor were they allowed to export tin
from Devon and Cornwall without a licence from the head custodian of
the stannary. Jews were involved in some role in the stannaries because it
is unlikely that de Wrotham predicted a massive migration of Jews to the
West Country in the future.38
By 1154 there was a significant Jewish settlement in Bristol when a local
official, Robert Fitz Harding, allegedly founded a ‘school for converted
Jews’.39 In 1170 there was at least one Rabbi in Bristol who, like so many
others, owed his origins to continental Jewry and was descended from
Rabbi Simeon the Great of Mainz.40 The earliest mention of a Jew in Exeter
was in 1181 and there were enough to form a community and to set up a
Beth Din to try ‘pleas which were between them’.41 From the records of a
donum in 1159 the Jewish community at Gloucester was probably no more
 C O L O N I S AT I O N A N D C O N F I N E M E N T 9

than a few families but had clearly grown by 1168 when an accusation of
ritual murder was made against them.42
It is not surprising, as the late Dr Vivian Lipman pointed out, that
Jewish communities were never far away from castles.43 The fact that
they were a Norman import, French-speaking, and naturally alien to the
indigenous population meant that the Jews would have found it hard to
be assimilated into local society, even if they had personally wished to be.
The castles offered them some form of refuge and protection in a society
where the Jew must have been widely resented by the majority of the
population as much as any other foreign influence. It was for reasons of
security, self-preservation and social welfare, as well as the preservation
of their own religion, that they tended to live in centres that had a royal
representative or a powerful protector close at hand. The Jew needed
protection from society from the day he arrived in England until the day
he was expelled. Joe Hillaby has examined the links between the Jews and
their protectors and has shown that at times they were so strong that Jews
sometimes moved with their patrons. When the Bigods’ castle at Bungay
was demolished in 1174 the Jewish community moved with the family to
Hereford. Hamo of Hereford, as he became known, took advantage of the
protection of the Marcher Lords and moved to the town sometime in the
early thirteenth century. Further encouragement for him to settle there
came from the promise of protection, from the sheriff, Walter de Lacy.44
Colonisation was hampered by the disruption and dislocation of the
struggle between Stephen and Matilda. The chronicler William Fitz
Stephen observed that, after Stephen’s reign, the Jews began to return to
their business and that ‘Peace was everywhere and there emerged in safety
from the towns and castles both merchants seeking fairs and Jews seeking
creditors’. Fitz Stephen indicated that Jews were a fairly common feature
in twelfth-century England.45 With the disruption over, and by the end
of the twelfth century, separate Jewish communities had started to make
connections with more rural districts. The Jews’ financial activities and
their search for clients made them even more itinerant and brought them
out from the towns into the countryside.
10 THE KING’S JEWS

Further Jewish immigration to England must have taken place in or

around 1171, when the Jewish community of Blois was accused of ritual
murder.46 Some Jews might well have embarked for England in 1182
when they were expelled from the Ile de France by the French king, Philip
Augustus.47 Even more likely is the possibility that as Normandy fell to
the power of the Capetians, in 1204, this again led to the arrival of Jews
in England.48 Given the proximity to the continent and the relative ease
of the sea voyage, it is not surprising that Jewish communities seemed to
have flourished more on the east and south coasts of England. By the end
of the century Jews from the continent had discovered that they could find
a new life in England. Certainly one commentator summed up the special
position of the Jew in contemporary society:

Under our first three sovereigns they had been to a certain extent left alone; they had
been loyal and industrious subjects, and had ministered much to the prosperity of
the country of their adoption; they worshipped in their synagogues in peace, bought
land and amassed riches; their lives had fallen in pleasant places and they concluded
that the future would be as the past had been.49

The Jewish settlements were widespread geographically, often isolated and

divided into small numbers in each separate town but yet dependent upon
each other for religious, academic and marital purposes. They were com-
munities with a great deal of communication and frequent social mobility
between them. They were also communities with a stratum of very rich
influential men of business at the top, a majority of comparatively wealthy
Jews in a larger middle social grouping, and a very few poorer Jews at the
lower end, who might in some cases have been servants, but certainly
would have found jobs within the community either in the food and vict-
ualling trade or in the metalworking trade.50 Compared to their Gentile
hosts, many of the Jews would have appeared to have been fabulously
wealthy and influential because they conducted business with the higher
social classes, including the king. By the closing decades of the twelfth
century, the Jews were widely accepted as being part of the economic
 C O L O N I S AT I O N A N D C O N F I N E M E N T 11

infrastructure of the country at large. To some Gentiles in desperate need

of cash they were the short-term answer to their prayers but in the long
term to debtors like Roger de Estreby (whose plight will be discussed
below), they were creditors who only inspired hatred and contempt and
miraculous visions.51
It was not to be such a pleasant and peaceful existence. At the end of
the twelfth century William of Newburgh complained about the position
that the Jews had made for themselves: ‘By an absurd arrangement they
were happy and renowned far more than Christians, and swelling very
impudently against Christ through their good fortune, did much injury
to Christians’.52 It was growing anti-Jewish sentiment and Jew hatred that
was to lead in 1189–90 to the massacres of Shabbat ha-gadol, the Sabbath
preceding Passover, one of the most decisive turning points in the his-
tory of England’s first Jewish settlers. This was a massive blow to Jewish
colonisation and the attacks, which will be discussed below, stuck in the
memory of both Jew and Christian alike for many decades to come. As a
result many who show only passing interest in the first Jewish colony in
England nearly always know that something happened at York in 1190
that involved Jews.
The despoliation of the king’s Jews produced an angry response from
Richard I. It was an event that was to mould the future for the Jews. In
response Richard demanded that his royal Jews be protected and Hubert
Walter, the ‘Father of English archives’, introduced the archa system, which
made it compulsory to register all Jewish transactions in a chest. As a
result of the massacres what amounted to a ‘protection racket’ was now
established.53 From 1190 to 1290 the Jewish community had protection
provided it paid what was due to Caesar. It became the subject of intense
intelligence-gathering, increasing financial demands and growing legisla-
tion. Despite his preoccupation with the Crusade as well as his quarrels
with his brother, Richard left an organised government department for
the Jews that controlled, directed and surveyed all there was to know
about what had become ‘the King’s exquisite villeins’.54 The establishment
of Richard’s new Department of Jewish Affairs, which will be examined
12 THE KING’S JEWS

in more detail below, led D’Bloissiers Tovey to observe that in exile in

Egypt the Jews had been asked to make brick, but in England they were
now asked to make gold. The tide had indeed turned and for most of the
thirteenth century the Jews were a regular source of royal revenue.55
‘If we have given our peace even to a dog’, so King John railed at the
Londoners in 1203, ‘it shall be inviolably preserved’.56 The royal Jews
were protected because they were the property of the Crown. King John
protected the Jews but he was protecting them as a king who had started to
profit by them. The story connected with the Bristol tallage of 1210, even
though recorded by the St Alban’s chronicler Roger of Wendover, shows
a more horrific approach to the Jewish presence.57 A Jew who refused to
pay his tax of £6,666 13s 4d was ordered by King John to have a tooth
removed each day until he paid in full. On the eighth day, as the torturers
were about to begin their gruesome work, the Jew paid the required sum
to save his last molar. For Jews the thirteenth century was to be a very
different existence to that of their fathers.
While the Jews’ royal status was to some degree ‘protected’, they were now
restricted to living where the government dictated. As the Crown began to
take a stronger hold on its Jewish subjects so it also began to limit where
they could live and to restrict the Jews to the archa towns. In 1253, in the
mandate of the Jews, they were confined to live only in the towns where they
had been ‘accustomed to live’.58 The Crown was never able to completely
confine the Jewish community and to keep it in locked ghettos, and there
has been much debate over just how far Jews were restricted to living in
defined and controlled areas in towns. Some have suggested that Jews lived
in the archa towns because this was necessary for their lending activities.
Others have suggested that Jews lived in towns because of the need to attend
the synagogue. There were other limiting factors, such as the presence of a
castle or a market or even simply the fact that the town of residence was a
port, which may have affected where Jews settled. In the main, Jews seemed
to have inhabited places which were the main commercial centres.
By the mid-thirteenth century greater polarisation of Jewish settlement
took place and the evidence of tallage assessments of July and October
 C O L O N I S AT I O N A N D C O N F I N E M E N T 13

1256 and of actual tallage receipts for 1253 and 1260 confirms this.59
There has always been much debate over how Jews could live in remoter
areas. H. G. Richardson claimed that permanent residence outside the
archa towns was illegal without the King’s licence.60 In France it has been
established that despite it being difficult for Jews to live with Christians
in more remote and isolated villages, it was fairly common place.61 If in
thirteenth-century France there were places where only ‘two Israelites’
lived, why should this not be the case in England?62 More recently Paul
Hyams accepted that while the pattern of Jewish settlement in England
was urban-based there was the possibility that more rural settlements
could have flourished.63 It must now be accepted that the repeated govern-
ment legislation to limit the residence of Jews to archa towns must mean
that some Jews were accustomed to living in communities that did not
have archae and which were rural.64
Between 1262 and 1290 there were Jewish settlements, albeit in some
cases a single family, in over 80 different places. Jews lived or conducted
business in the mid-west of the country; in towns like Bridgenorth,
Caerleon, Gloucester, Ludlow, Tewkesbury, Warwick and Worcester,
Hereford and Bristol.65 They lived, or certainly travelled, as far north as
Shrewsbury, for between 1284 and 1289 they were forced to pay a special
toll for using Montford Bridge.66 Nearer to Hereford, where there was
a large community in the 1280s, Jews lived in Weobley and later on the
small manor of Much Markle.67 Other evidence shows that some lived in
places as remote as Abergavenny in Wales, Bridport in Dorset, Cricklade
in Wiltshire, Dunwich in Suffolk, Maldon and Rayleigh in Essex, Retford,
Royston, Sandwich and Tewkesbury.68 In England, although there were
attempts to contain and restrict the Jews in the archa towns, Jews were still
able to live further afield.69
However, there were other factors apart from government control that
dictated where Jews lived. Two different models that influenced settle-
ment emerge: first the restrictions as laid down by the Jews’ overlord, the
king; and secondly those laid down by local circumstance. In the early
thirteenth-century taxation of the Jews, clerical pressure against the Jews
14 THE KING’S JEWS

and the rumour of ritual murder of children by them led to more restric-
tive control of the Jewish communities. Local conditions and perceptions
also played a role. In 1231 an early attempt to enforce a local Jewish expul-
sion took place in Leicester, where there had been a community of Jews for
several years. Simon de Montfort announced a plan for the expulsion of
the Jews from the town. In his charter he gave two major reasons, claiming
that this would bring salvation for his soul and the burgesses of Leicester
would be free from ‘Jewish usuries’. De Montfort was probably inspired by
his own family’s hatred of the Jews and the fact that he had experienced
earlier local expulsions in France.70 His attempt certainly provoked debate
from outside the town. When the Bishop of Lincoln, Robert Grosseteste,
caught wind of what was happening he warned against it, claiming:

. . . they (the Jews) are a wandering people through their diaspora and they are
fugitives from their proper home, that is Jerusalem, they wander through uncertain
stopping places and flee from fear of death . . .

The learned bishop went on to remind both the Countess of Leicester and
de Montfort that the Jews were the ‘Lord’s reminder of the Passion’ and
stated that the Jews should be protected:

Truly in the last times, together with all peoples, just as it says in the scriptures, they
will enter in and turn to the faith. Then all Israel, that is the Jewish people – will be
saved through their faith and will come to true liberty from their captivity.71

Grosseteste’s admonishment bought time for the Jews of Leicester. The

Leicester community were temporarily moved no further than the east-
ern suburbs of the town, which were held by de Montfort’s great aunt,
Margaret de Quinci. Finally, after Grosseteste’s death in 1253, a charter
for the expulsion of the Jews from Leicester was issued and enforced.72
The 1230s were an important period of Jewish relocation within England.
While little is known of Jewish settlement in the north of England, it is
clear that by 1177 there had been a definite Jewish presence as far north
 C O L O N I S AT I O N A N D C O N F I N E M E N T 15

as Newcastle. It was probably a very small community.73 Yet here on 2

July 1234 the burgesses of Newcastle paid £66 13s 4d to the royal coffers
for the right not to have Jews residing.74 Jews had lived in Southampton
for some time when in the 1230s the citizens of Southampton petitioned
the King to expel the Jews from their town.75 In 1236 Henry III ruled that
‘henceforth no Jew shall remain in Southampton without special order of
the King and the Justices of the Jews are ordered that no Jew may come to
reside in the same place without the King’s special licence’.76 The crown
was starting to restrict Jewish settlement in earnest. Nicholas Vincent sees
the spate of local expulsions that followed the Canterbury statute of 1233
as part of ‘a coherent and deliberate campaign’ against the Jews created
by Peter des Roches and influenced by what was happening in France.77
Elsewhere, in the mid-1230s there were examples of the government
enforcing and deciding where Jews should live. In 1234, an order was
issued to the sheriff of Warwickshire that stated that the King no longer
permitted Jews to remain in towns or bailiwicks where they had not been
accustomed to live. The sheriff was to arrange for the Jews to collect their
debts, pay their tallage and then to force them to leave Warwick.78 In 1235
the Sheriff of Buckinghamshire received similar orders concerning the
Jews who had settled in High Wycombe. In March 1237, explicit instruc-
tions were issued to the Sheriff of Northamptonshire that no Jew should
live outside the town of Northampton.79
There were also enforced internal migrations of Jewish communities.
In 1242, either for personal convenience or for better security, special
permission was granted to Richard, Duke of Cornwall, ‘to move Jews
from one place to another’.80 Also under his protection, the Jews of
Berkhamstead were moved to Wallingford and he was granted permission
to maintain an archa.81 In 1243 the Sheriff of Berkshire was ordered, ‘with-
out delay’, to move the Jews who were staying in the towns of Newbury
and Speenhamland to Winchester and to allow them to remain there, ‘as
they have not been allowed to live in the aforesaid towns’.82
Different models of locally driven expulsion and enforced internal
migration continued during the late thirteenth century. It might have been
16 THE KING’S JEWS

the proximity of Leicester to Derby that made the burgesses there wish
to banish their Jewish population. In 1261, in return for a payment, they
applied for a special licence from the King, who granted that no Jew or
Jewess would be allowed by the King or his heirs to ‘remain or dwell in the
same town’.83 A further local expulsion from Romsey in 1266 gives a hint
as to the motive. In that year, Henry III made a grant to a royal favourite,
Robert Walerand, who had appealed to him on behalf of the abbess and
nuns of Romsey in Hampshire, ‘that no Jew shall henceforth dwell in the
town of Romsey without licence’. Robert Walerand’s sister, Alice, was the
abbess of the convent of Romsey.84
Jewish settlement was continually restricted and they were not allowed
to inhabit new places. The government was suspicious of Jewish presence
and concerned enough to take action. On 18 June 1273 the royal council
issued instructions to the barons and bailiffs of the port of Winchelsea in
Kent ordering them to remove those Jews who had, ‘recently entered the
town . . . without delay, without any damage to their bodies or goods, as
according to the custom of the King’s Jewry Jews ought not to dwell in
any cities or boroughs or towns except those wherein they were wont to
dwell of old time’.85 A similar royal order was issued in October 1274 to the
Sheriff of Shropshire instructing him to remove the Jews who had entered
and were dwelling in the town of Bridgenorth.86 Again this was a case of
the Crown actively controlling Jewish settlement rather than a response
to an individual request to be free from Jews.
Early in Edward I’s reign the polarisation of Jewish residence became
even more pronounced. Having returned from the Crusade in late 1274,
Edward I visited his mother, Eleanor of Provence, in early 1275.87 He
granted her permission to make her will and to enter the convent of
Amesbury in Wiltshire (eight miles north of Salisbury).88 Possibly ‘for the
good of her soul’, Eleanor enforced the removal of the Jews from her lands,
which she held as ‘dower towns’ and which as such gave her an income.
On 12 January 1275 Edward ratified this and ordained that ‘no Jew shall
dwell or stay in any towns which the queen mother holds in dower’.89 On
16 January 1275, the Jewish community of Marlborough was expelled
 C O L O N I S AT I O N A N D C O N F I N E M E N T 17

and was moved to Devizes. Subsequently, the Jews of Gloucester were

moved to Bristol, those of Worcester to Hereford, and those of Cambridge
to Norwich. Eleanor also held several other towns, such as Andover in
Hampshire, Bath in Gloucestershire and Guildford in Surrey.90 Certainly,
in January 1275, there was an attempt to remove Jews from Andover and
Jacob Cok, a Jew, brought a charge of felony against Guy de Tanton, who
had forcibly removed him from Andover on Eleanor’s orders. However,
if Jacob did manage to remain it is clear that by 1281, lands that had
belonged to Jews in Marlborough and some in Andover were granted to
new owners.91
The Statutum de Judeismo (Statute of the Jewry), issued in late 1275,
reiterated that the Jews must live only in the archa towns.92 Yet even with
these clear instructions such restrictions still did take place. Cecil Roth
indicated the need for the issue of periodical orders to arrest Jews not
residing in archa towns.93 In 1277, Hugh de Digneuton was commissioned
to investigate where Jews were living and how far the new legislation
was being observed.94 In October 1283 Edward ordered the constable of
Windsor Castle to remove ‘certain Jews who have entered the town and
who inhabit it’. Windsor was described as ‘a town wherein there is no
chest of chirographers [archa] and no Jews were wont to dwell there in

1 Scribal illustration of a Jew wearing the tabula in the margin of an early fourteenth-
century chronicle.
18 THE KING’S JEWS

old time’.95 In January 1284 new orders confining Jewish residence to the
archa towns were issued.96 Jewish settlement was still subject to anomalies,
the influence of local protectors and even special royal licences. After the
restrictions on settlement in the Statute of the Jewry, Edward I appears to
have made a reversal of policy and to have granted licences to individual
Jews ‘to trade and ply merchandise and to live’ in places like Baldwin
Wak’s town of Strapeston in Northamptonshire, Gilbert de Clare’s town
of Caversham near Reading, as well as Rochester, Southampton, Ipswich,
Dorchester, Royston and Retford.97 Such grants show that Jewish settle-
ment was not polarised within a small number of archa towns.98
Some Jews did inhabit and have contact with more remote rural com-
munities. The evidence of mortgaging in rural areas in the twelfth century
and the lending or advancing of cash in the thirteenth century shows that
some Jews were widely travelled and must have known the countryside
quite well. In the 1280s some of the Lincoln Jews specialised in lend-
ing to members of the village of Hackthorn some seven miles north of
Lincoln. Jews from Canterbury seem to have had a network of debtors in
the Romney Marsh.99 Jews also settled in remote communities perhaps
because of growing animosity in some towns. In the early 1270s, Norwich
Jews were dealing in the east coast port of Dunwich.100 In 1275 Josce fil
Aaron of Colchester and his wife were living at Dunwich and were fined
£22 16s 2d for having taken the chattels of Isaac Gabbay, a deceased Jew.101
Payments from Jews in other remote places and special fines for residency
in smaller towns appear in the Jewish Plea Rolls. On the receipt roll for
1275, Belia and Ursell of Gloucester paid 12s so that they could remain
at ‘Brocstred’ (Bread Street in Gloucestershire); Vyves fil Moses of Clare
paid 6s 8d to remain at Maldon in Essex; and Samuel fil Jacob and Samuel
fil Manser paid 4s to remain at Wickham.102
In 1275, other records show that William Page of Warminster, who had
stolen a green mantle, a woman’s coat, a tapet and a linen sheet, had sold
them for 5s to Michael, a Jew of Fisherton Anger, just outside Salisbury.103
In 1278 Samson of Norwich was killed by thieves and his goods were
carried off from his house in Farningham in Kent.104 The accounts and
 C O L O N I S AT I O N A N D C O N F I N E M E N T 19

surveys of the Wiltshire lands of Adam de Stratton reveal that Jews not
only contributed to the farm but also lived on the manors of Cricklade
from 1269 until at least 1281, and at Highworth from 1277 until 1281.105
De Stratton was himself involved in profiteering from Jewish debts.106
There is evidence that some Jewish families did live, in small numbers, in
minor coastal ports and in the countryside. Clearly, families who dwelt in
such isolated communities did so at great risk and it is likely that they had
the protection of patrons in the form of their major clients. Even without
the Jewish badge they would be easily distinguishable from their Christian
contemporaries.107
Thus Jews probably visited England before the Conquest but they never
settled in any great numbers and did not form a recognised community. It
was after the Conquest that greater numbers of Jewish colonists gradually
established themselves in London. In keeping with their Norman charter
they were subsequently granted royal permission to settle elsewhere. Some
may well have landed on the south coast and remained in the ports, while
some may have moved further inland by river or road. Colonies of Jews
seem to have established themselves in other towns in the mid-twelfth
century and such settlement was eventually recognised by granting them
the right to establish their own cemeteries. Immigration from France and
elsewhere on the continent was clearly an option for some Jewish families
to escape either local expulsion or violence or simply to start a new life
in the new territories. By the end of the twelfth century some Jews had
established themselves in the West Country. Wherever the communities
settled they were never far from the protection of a royal official in a
local castle. Within the towns Jews tended to settle in commercial areas
and by the mid-twelfth century they were a fairly widespread feature
of society.
In the thirteenth century, despite the establishment of the archa towns,
some Jews had started to live in more isolated and rural areas and had
inhabited over 80 different locations. From the 1230s the pattern of set-
tlement laws was altered by local expulsions and attempts by towns to rid
themselves of Jews. For many reasons the Jews were often moved on from
20 THE KING’S JEWS

one settlement to another. In 1275 the Queen mother, Eleanor of Provence,

emptied her dower towns of Jews and several well-established Jewish
communities such as Marlborough, Gloucester, Worcester and Cambridge
were forcibly removed. Strengthened by the Statute of the Jewry in 1275,
royal control of settlement tried to confine the Jews to live in towns where
there were established archae. This led to some polarisation of settlement
in such towns. The Crown consciously attempted to contain and monitor
Jewish settlement but despite this would occasionally issue special licences
for Jews to live in remoter places. Jewish settlement was always under
scrutiny by royal officials and their residency in a particular location was
always ultimately at the discretion of the king whose possessions they
were.
 2

Jews and the economy

There are few people in British history who have given their name to a
government department. Such a man was Aaron of Lincoln. His career
has left him as the best-documented Jewish financier of the medieval
period.1 If we wished to examine the accounts of a wealthy and success-
ful twelfth-century businessman, the abundant records of Aaron and his
activities are a case study in themselves. His business was carried out on
a local as well as a national level. His financial activities included buy-
ing the debts of other Jews, lending both large and small sums, securing
rent charges, pawnbroking and even speculating in cereal crops. It was a
business that involved a wide range of clients from all over the land. His
debtors included the Kings of England and Scotland, earls, abbots, priors,
towns, sheriffs and even the Archbishop of Canterbury.2 Historians know
so much about this single Jewish entrepreneur because, in 1186, when he
died in London, his debts (worth well over £15,000) were confiscated by
the Crown.3
The King had a right to at least a third of all Jewish estates but in this
instance Henry II took the whole estate. Aaron’s possessions were seized
and the Exchequer proceeded to realise his assets for the Crown coffers. To
collect these debts a special branch of the Exchequer was set up in 1187.
The new department, called the ‘Exchequer of Aaron’, had two full-time
treasurers, Richard Le Breton, Archbishop of Coventry, and Robert of
Inglesham, Archdeacon of Gloucester, who were assisted by two clerks.4
Their work was to collect and realise the maximum financial benefit for
the Crown. This clearly was not an easy task and by 1201 there were still
about £12,000 worth of debts outstanding.5 As an encouragement to
debtors, Henry II allowed interest on debts to cease running on Aaron’s
22 THE KING’S JEWS

death. Yet even this moratorium did not help the officials to collect them.6
The administration of Aaron’s estate and particularly the realisation of
Aaron’s bonds presented many problems. Not all were owed to him in his
own name, some represented very complicated transactions, and it was
not always certain that the loans had not already been repaid. In order to
organise collection, the bonds were classified and entered on special indi-
vidual rolls.7 All of Aaron’s debtors were summoned to account with the
King at different centres such as Nottingham, Northampton and Oxford.
The officials were tenacious in pursuit of the King’s rights and did not
despair when faced with what amounted to hundreds of bad debtors. They
tried many ploys to collect this windfall. Ultimately they even discounted
the debts and tried to turn them into cash. Some debtors, like the Abbot
of Peterborough, settled there and then, and paid £100, much less than
he owed, to redeem his debts. Given the nature and spread of Aaron’s
business it is not surprising that the realising of his estate was a protracted
and unsuccessful process.8
By 1192 the officials had almost given up and the residue of outstanding
debts was transferred back to the ordinary machinery of the King’s main
Exchequer. Now it was a question of getting what they could for the debts.
Benedict, the son of Isaac, who had discounted bonds with Aaron during
his lifetime, bought some of Aaron’s bonds from the Exchequer. Finally, 22
years after Aaron’s death, in 1208, his son Elias agreed to pay a lump sum
of £133 6s 8d for bonds worth £400, which were neither the worst nor the
best debts from Aaron’s estate. Elias also paid to have a special licence to
secure payment on the charters that he claimed were of very little value
to the King. He eventually paid a further sum of £133 6s 8d to obtain
possession of 40 other charters of a slightly higher value.9
The dealings of the House of Aaron show a very varied portfolio of
credit and investment. First and foremost he lent money to the King,
whose repayments from the revenue of various counties are detailed in
the records. In the early 1160s, Aaron had been responsible for advancing
one-fiftieth of the annual royal revenue. By the late 1170s, Aaron and other
Jews were lending large sums to the Crown in consortia.10 By 1179, the
 JEWS AND THE ECONOMY 23

concept of the Crown borrowing from its Jews seems to have changed.
The King modified his finances and now simply took what he required in
the form of taxes from his Jews.11 In response to this, Aaron diversified
his business.
Aaron was also a property developer. At least some business associa-
tions between Jews and Christians flourished on a local level and it was
not just those who desperately needed finance who turned to Aaron but
those who needed finance for capital investment. Aaron had property of
his own in London, in the Gloucester Soke near Lothbury. This site (three
plots of land near the present Mansion House) was an area of vacant land
that lay between it and the Walbrook. A consortium of his neighbours
approached him for a loan to develop the area. Gervase of Cornhill, his son
Henry and three brothers, Alan, Gervase and Jascelyn, the sons of Peter
Fitz Alan, joined the venture. Each group had a half interest in the prop-
erty and borrowed money from Aaron on that security. On Aaron’s death,
Henry of Cornhill seems still to have owed £100 and the three brothers
£50.12 This was not a case of needy landowners borrowing improvidently
from a moneylender, for Gervase of Cornhill was a wealthy man and a
moneylender himself. It was a business deal financed, at least in part, by
Aaron himself.
It is not clear why Aaron chose Lincoln as his base but he probably first
went there in the 1150s. Certainly the town made an ideal centre. It stood
almost 200 feet above the surrounding countryside and at the junction
of roads – the successors to the Roman Ermine Street to London and
the ancient Fosse Way from the West Country. It was also well served by
waterways; the Cardyke ran from the River Witham to the River Nene at
Peterborough and the navigable waterway, the Fossdyke, was re-opened
in 1121, which united Brayford Pool at Lincoln with the River Trent at
Torksey, making Lincoln a port.13 Remigius of Fécamp’s Minster burnt
down in 1141 and was immediately rebuilt by Bishop Alexander. Lincoln
was also a fortress – by the late twelfth century the Lucy Tower had been
built to replace the simple Norman motte and bailey.14 It was a bustling
mercantile centre whose fortunes were in the ascendancy and was only
24 THE KING’S JEWS

slightly less prominent than London and York. The wool trade, upon
which Lincoln’s fortunes were built, had begun to develop by the mid-
twelfth century. The guild of weavers was formed in 1130. By the end of
the twelfth century, the wool of Lindsey enjoyed a high reputation as far
afield as Italy.15 Lincoln made an ideal place to settle and to make profit-
able loans. Aaron saw this potential and decided to leave London to others
and to strike out on his own in what William of Malmesbury described
as ‘One of the most populous cities of England and a market place of men
who came by land and sea’.16
Although he had a large house in London, Aaron clearly considered
Lincoln to be of such importance that he obtained several houses worth £3
in the Bail. His brother, Senior, joined him in Lincoln and held land worth
10s per annum in the parish of St Michael, which had a much more modest
house than that of his brother.17 Many other Jews, who acted as Aaron’s
agents throughout the country, also came to Lincoln during this period
to seek their fortune. Aaron’s presence in Lincoln had a large effect on the
local Jewish community as well as on his Christian customers. As Lincoln
became a centre of finance and Aaron’s business flourished, it must have
attracted barons, clergymen, merchants, farmers, townspeople, as well as
poor Christians who came in search of financial aid.
Once established in Lincoln, Aaron quickly found new local creditors.
The list of his debtors gives a striking picture of his relationship with local
merchants and churchmen. William son of Fulk, founder of a chantry in
the cathedral, owed £63 1s 4d, secured on his mill at Washingborough,
his stalls at Stow and his lands in the parish of St Peter Stanhaket. Thomas
son of Godwin owed £7 by deed on his land and house in Lincoln and a
further £26 on his land in the churchyard of St Peter Stanhaket; a third
bond was also secured on his land in Parcheminstreet. Ralf son of Fulk
owed £7 9s 6d by deed and £13 on his house in Hungate by another deed.
Robert the Constable owed £1 6s 8d as pledge for his brother William.
Osbert le Long of Butwerk owed £9 4s by pledge of Brian son of Askell.
James Fleming, the brother-in-law of the first mayor of Lincoln, owed £16
13s 4d. John son of August owed £13 6s 8d on land and houses in the high
 JEWS AND THE ECONOMY 25

market. Warin, the draper, owed £3 3s by pledge of Godwin the rich and
Gamel, Warin’s brother. Elwin Net, several times bailiff of Lincoln, owed
£19 6s 8d by pledge of Gilbert his brother and Robert Cause. Reinbold
son of Ralf owed £2 10s 6d on his lands in Bakestergate. Outi, the clerk
of Eastgate, owed 10s secured on his house and orchard in the parish of
Holy Trinity. The sacrist of the cathedral and five of the canons were also
indebted to Aaron. Many Lincoln folk knew their way to his house in
the Bail and Aaron gained an excellent knowledge of the commercial life
of Lincoln.18
His lending went much further than the confines of the city. The deal-
ings in Lincoln were far outstripped by his dealings with local monasteries.
Between 1140 and 1152, Aaron made massive loans totalling well over
£4,374 13s 4d to the abbeys of Rievaulx, New Minster, Kirkstead, Louth
Park, Revesby, Rufford, Kirkstall, Roche and Biddlesden. All of these
Cistercian abbeys were fairly new twelfth-century foundations. The abbeys
used the advances for building and establishing themselves but the loans
they contracted were so large that they had difficulty paying them off.
Even after Aaron’s death they were still heavily in debt. It was not until
1189 that Richard I granted them a charter which exonerated the nine
abbeys from their debts.19 Aaron also made that to other major clerical
establishments. He accepted the Lincoln Minster plate as a pledge for a
loan made to Bishop Chesney. The loan was later redeemed in 1173 for
£300 by Geoffrey, the son of Henry II, who was horrified that such valuable
Christian religious objects should have been in ‘hock’ to a Jew.20 Aaron
also lent further afield than the Lincolnshire and Yorkshire hinterlands.
The chronicler of St Albans states that when Abbot Simon died he left his
abbey in debt for more than £400 to the Jews, besides other debts of £133
6s 8d and more:

Whereupon Aaron the Jew who held us in his debt coming to the house of St Alban
in great pride and boasting, with threats kept on boasting that it was he who made
the window for our St Alban, and that he had prepared for the saint a home when
he was without one.21
26 THE KING’S JEWS

Aaron also helped the Church on a smaller scale. It is commonly held that
the villages of Selston and Normanton in Nottinghamshire possess parish
churches that were founded with the help of Aaron’s money.22
In establishing his financial empire, Aaron used many employees. He
had a network of agents to manage the far-flung geographical spread of
his dealings. While Aaron found partners among his direct family – his
brothers, Senior and Benedict, and his sons, Elias, Abraham and Vives – he
also used agents who were not bound by familial ties. A Hebrew deed of
1183 shows that two Jews of Warwick, Peitivin and Leo, acted as attorneys
on Aaron’s behalf. Another document shows Deudone fil Aaron acting as
an attorney. A third shows that a Jew came all the way from Paris to collect
money at York which was due to his master, Aaron of Lincoln.23
Aaron was also involved in lending money to members of the Jewish
communities. Among 80 debtors from York in 1192, a quarter were Jews.
Josce of York, another wealthy man of business, owed Aaron’s estate £80
for a silver vessel which he had bought from him. In addition, Aaron also
sold property to Jews. At Southampton, two Jews owed the King for their
houses which they had bought from Aaron.24
Aaron’s debtors included William the Lion, King of Scotland, the Earls
of Northampton, Leicester, Arundel, Aumale and Chester, the Abbot of
Westminster and the Prior of the Hospitallers, the Bishops of Lincoln
and Bangor, the Archdeacons of Colchester and Carlisle, the towns of
Winchester and Southampton and the Sheriff of Norfolk. Even Baldwin,
the Archbishop of Canterbury, owed him £66 13s 4d, which was secured on
lands in Kent.25 This list of Aaron’s debtors clearly proves that a successful
Jewish businessman or his agents had to be well travelled, well informed
and well aware of the different types of securities offered for each loan, as
well as able to deal with a wide spectrum of different Christian clientele. For
business reasons, if no other, by the late twelfth century Aaron and other
Jews had dispersed themselves throughout the land and were becoming
familiar with national, urban and rural clients through their businesses.
Aaron also dealt in chattels. Roger de Estreby, a Lincolnshire knight,
illegally pawned his coat of mail to Aaron. The impoverished knight’s
 JEWS AND THE ECONOMY 27

conscience got the better of him. Concerned by his debts, Estreby had a
vision that his coat had been miraculously returned to him. He found it
at the foot of his bed. Voices told him to go to London to Baldwin, the
Archbishop of Canterbury, and Ranulph Glanville, the Justiciar, and order
them, on behalf of God, to cross the Straits to King Henry and to tell him
to fulfil seven Holy Commandments that God had revealed to Roger, and
to go on Crusade. The officials, one of them himself indebted to Aaron,
ignored Roger de Estreby’s revelations and complaints. Estreby thus took
it upon himself to cross the Channel and to seek out the King. When they
met, the King duly promised to carry out the seven commandments. The
commandments included injunctions such as not to condemn anyone to
death without a trial but ended with an explicit command to expel the Jews
from England. According to Estreby, the Jews should be allowed to keep
their money and to take their families into exile but they were not to be
allowed to have their pledges or their charters. It is ironical that Estreby’s
vision was a premonition of what was to happen to the Jewish communi-
ties over a century later.26
Aaron’s obituary appeared on the Pipe Roll of 1190, under the Surrey
Forest Pleas, which noted that he owed £36, and under entries for London
and Middlesex, which showed that he owed £333 6s 8d for a fine but added
that ‘he is dead, and the King has his goods’.27 His death must have been
a severe blow to the Jewish community. The confiscation of his estate by
Henry II must have also been a severe blow to his debtors. Yet the King was
also to suffer a financial blow of his own. In early 1187, Henry II, who was
in France, urgently required money. The only immediate cash that could
be raised was that from Aaron of Lincoln’s goods. All of Aaron’s treasure
and belongings were transported to London and thence to Shoreham for
shipment across the Channel. En route a storm caused the ship carrying
the treasure to sink between Shoreham and Dieppe, a loss later described
by Richard Fitz Nigel, an Exchequer official, as a ‘grave misfortune’.28
Aaron’s death was also a misfortune for the Jewish community at large.
Not only did the King now start to record the debts but he also started to
collect them for himself. It might well be that it was the attempts of the
28 THE KING’S JEWS

members of the Exchequer of Aaron to collect and realise debts that led to
some of the resentment and the fear that caused the massacres of Shabat
ha Gadol of 1189–90.
The stimulus for the foundation of the Jewish Exchequer came from
the attempts to realise Aaron of Lincoln’s fortunes for the Crown and the
nationwide massacres of the Jewries in 1190. By 1194 the archa system
had been founded and legislation passed that meant that all transactions
between Jew and Christian were to be written down and to be kept in a
series of arks or chests. These were to be guarded and accessed by two
Jewish and two Christian chirographers. What was actually kept in the
chests comprised many different types of transaction that regularly
evolved as a result of changing government policy over the century that
the archa system was in place.29
Such transactions were the legacy of Aaron and Jews like him. In a
way they can be seen as the top plutocratic end of Jewish society.30 Aaron
himself appears not only as a cameo in Ivanhoe but also featured in the
Sunday Times ‘Richest in History’ supplement as if he were still an influ-
ence on modern-day society.31 His career and transactions give a good
idea of what methods were available to both lender and creditor and
exactly what would subsequently be kept in the archae of England. The
House of Aaron set the mould for Jewish moneylending and provision of
credit in medieval England. His financial acumen was to provide a pattern
that had profound effects on medieval society from King to peasant. The
Jewish Exchequer led to even more control of Jewish financial affairs. The
detail of its record keeping is unparalleled in Europe. There were many
different methods of lending that were used by Jewish financiers. Often
as not such agreements and memoranda were referred to collectively
as instrumenta. They represented a large amount of administration and
record keeping, all of which was eventually put into the archa or archive.
Such instrumenta included the tally which recorded both payment and
debt, the written agreement, the promissory contract and the fee debt or
annuity. This buoyant market in credit also led to what we might recognise
as the concept of a transferable bond. It certainly led to the provision of
 JEWS AND THE ECONOMY 29

credit methods for Christian merchants in the form of a contract – the

recognisance.32
Jewish lending promoted the theory of ‘interest’ or inter est – ‘that which
is between’.33 It was from this that the concept of risk and ultimately the
concept of futures and derivatives were developed. Such was the sophist-
ication and range of methods that were used by Jewish lenders that it is
difficult to maintain any notion that the twelfth and thirteenth centuries
were once described as ‘barter economies’. Indeed the Jews were almost
ahead of their time in providing the wherewithal for credit to drive an
economy forward.
Some of the earliest references to Jewish settlement and investment
relate to the purchase of houses. Bricks and mortar, wattle and daub,
ready-built roofs over heads have always been valuable commodities. In
many of the towns that Jews inhabited some trace of where they lived
has been left behind. The traditional idea that Jews had stone houses
whereas Christians could not afford stone does have some basis. Moyses
Hall in Bury St Edmunds, Jurnet’s House in Norwich, Aaron’s house in
Lincoln, Belasset’s house on Steep Hill in Lincoln, Jacob the Old’s house
in Canterbury and Benedict of Southampton’s house, ‘Runceval’, are all
clear reminders that some Jews’ houses must have mirrored the plutocratic
palazzos of Renaissance Italy.34 Some Jews, such as Benedict of York, who
lived in Spen Lane, were also able to maintain a presence in the ‘chic’
areas of town.35 Many other medieval Jews lived in domiciles which were
centred on the main mercantile areas of the town. Those who were not so
wealthy lived in suburbs or even on manors away from the urban centres.
It has been suggested that the Jews in Oxford even moved into a revitalised
part of the old town that had been dying away.36
Other Jews followed the lead of Aaron of Lincoln and invested in what
today would be known as ‘buy-to-let properties’. In 1290, Elias had a shop
in Colchester market that was worth 6s, for which Elias paid Elyas Daniel
3s a year and which he had let to Robert de Elmham, a merchant, for 12
years. Similarly in York, Sarah the widow of Josce and Benedict her son
had a tenement worth £3 6s 8d, for which they paid the King 2d a year
30 THE KING’S JEWS

house tax and to Lawrence de Bonthun 2s a year. They had let the tene-
ment to Agnes la Gra for ten years.37
Investment in property and utilising the rental market naturally led
Jews to use the currency and the customs of the land they had adopted.
The Jew who was involved in commerce soon picked up contemporary
practice. They, like Christians, used the simple tally for both receipt of
payment and the recording of debt.38 Many ‘Jewish tallies’ survive. The
evolution of the tally is just as lost in time as the question of pre-Conquest
Jewish presence in England. The tally that was so widely adopted and
used in Britain had evolved just before the late eleventh century.39 It was
a simplistic method for recording the payment of a debt. A piece of wood
was marked up by making notches to represent the cash amounts, which
after being split could be brought together to match up. This method
of notching or ‘nicking’ provided an easy and convenient method for
recording monetary sums.40 The tally was written on and then cut into
two, producing a stock and a counterstock or counterfoil. These stocks
could be exchanged for money or could be used as proof of receipt – an
early form of stock exchange.
Both Christian and Jewish men of affairs were responsible for the
development of what we might recognise as both the (now disappearing)
cheque and the bond. Where more complicated arrangements needed to
be recorded there was growing recourse to parchment. Yet the model was
the same. Chirographs, or bonds as they became known, were virtually
a paper copy of their tally counterparts. Two or three copies of a deed
were separated by indentures that cut through a whole word. Therefore,
all three parts, as well as the teeth or indents, then fitted together in a
jigsaw-puzzle-like precision to ensure the integrity of the deed. Such
agreements were either bipartite or tripartite. The capitula and pes – the
head and the foot in the case of a bipartite instrumentum – were divided,
with one part being retained by the creditor and the other by the debtor.
The third part of a tripartite bond was kept in a safe place to prevent the
loss or later denial of the transaction. It was a major step forward in the
development of the scribe or scrivener in England. It almost became an
 JEWS AND THE ECONOMY 31

obsession to write down charters, transactions and testaments of different

kinds. Into this explosion of the written record came the credit-providing
Jews. Each of their transactions now became a legally recorded agreement
by all parties, which could be proven in court.41
Clearly arrangements needed to be made in case the debt was not repaid
on time. Such arrangements had to allow for the loss that the creditor
might sustain if the debtor was unable to clear his loan. This led to the
provision of a recompense for that which was in between or inter-est.
Payments of this kind were of two basic types: damnum emergens and
lucrum cessans. In the case of damnum emergens, interest was charged
on the understanding that the loss was actually sustained by the credi-
tor by the debtor’s default. Lucrum cessans meant that interest could be
charged when the loan had failed to be repaid.42 It is no surprise that the
derogatory term ‘filthy lucre’ emerged out of this wide acceptance of such
arrangements. Yet in real terms lucrum was the legal device of a penalty
or fine for non-payment at an appointed time in order to encourage the
fulfilment of contractual agreement.43 The penalty did not necessarily go
to either of the two parties involved in the agreement; it could be payable
to an altar, a shrine, an abbot, the King or a guild.44 It could also, however,
be used to cover the usurious element of moneylending.
The actual arrangements between Jewish creditor and Christian debtor
can be categorised into three different types: the ‘simple bond’, which
recorded that ‘Reginald’ would pay ‘Aaron’ a specified sum of money on
a certain date and also recorded the date the agreement was made; the
‘conditional bond’, which recognised that ‘Reginald’ would pay ‘Aaron’
a certain sum of money or goods (or a mixture of the two), or whatever
‘Aaron’ desired at the time of payment – the payment was to be made either
by fixed instalments or all of it on a certain date; and the ‘penal bond’, which
recorded that ‘Reginald’ would pay ‘Aaron’ a certain sum on a specified date
and that if he did not he would pay lucrum on the money at a specified
agreed rate until the bond had been paid off.45 In most cases the bonds
themselves rarely contained the amount or quantity of what the creditor
actually lent to the debtor. Indeed, out of the details of over a thousand
32 THE KING’S JEWS

transactions that survive from the dissolution of the Jewries, there is only
one, made in Canterbury, which gives any indication of what was lent out.46
Usury avoidance was always paramount in the dealings of any credit agents.
A charge of usury could after all lead to death and confiscation or both.
Parchment was also used to record receipt. This led to Jewish creditors
developing their own kind of receipts or quitclaims, which would act as
proof of final payment. The Jewish financiers also used their own methods,
which had been used for many hundreds of years before their arrival in
Britain. Such contracts were based on Hebrew tradition and even phrases
of the original Hebrew were later lifted and translated into Latinate copies
of the transaction. Such a deed, sometimes in both Hebrew and Latin, was
known as a starrum or starr. On the payment date of a loan, the Christian
debtor, with his bonds, normally went to the place where the record of the
transaction was kept and paid the debt. If the debt was settled in full the
second copy of the transaction was returned. What was now required was
an official statement from the Jewish creditor that the loan had actually
been redeemed and any other claim had ended. If the debtor wished to
be sure of his debt being well and truly cancelled, he would press the Jew
for a starrum or quitclaim (an official receipt) in Hebrew for the debt. This
would more than likely be drawn up by a chirographer for a small fee or
even in some cases written by the Jew himself. It became quite common
for starrs to be issued and even rerecorded on the Plea Roll of the Jewish
Exchequer. Some starrs or copies were kept by the Jewish community in
their synagogues.47
From early times, Jewish lenders began to use their own styles of
transactions, which in turn had influence on other transactions in the
contemporary financial markets. Pollock and Maitland were among the
first to point out that what they called the ‘Jewish gage’ was a completely
novel institution in England, in that it gave rights to a creditor who was not
in possession of the land.48 It was introduced by the Jews and patterned
by them after devices such as the Talmudic odaita, which they had used
for many centuries prior to their settlement in England.49 This type of
instrument can only be understood by reference to Hebrew Law.
 JEWS AND THE ECONOMY 33

This ancient device, which was the precursor to what has been called
the ‘Anglo-Jewish gage’, was not a mortgage as we would recognise it
today but was more simply a pledge or promise of specific property as
security for the payment of a debt. It was a general agreement in favour
of the creditor upon all the real property owned by the debtor at the time
the debt was incurred. By virtue of this the creditor could pursue their
claim on the property into the hands of a transferee, who had acquired
the property after the lien had attached to it. The right to claim the real
estate was strengthened by the fact that the deed was signed at the instance
of the debtor by two witnesses and accompanied by sufficient publicity
and by judgements of a court. Most transactions of this type were also
accompanied by a stipulation that the debtor bound his property for the
payment of the bond, under Jewish Law this was taken as written, if it was
not actually noted at the time (in the language of the Talmud the omission
is presumed to be the error of the scrivener). Under Jewish Law the credi-
tor was limited and could not follow the debtor’s property into the hands
of a transferee if the debtor had free assets to satisfy the debt in full. This
limitation distinguished this lien from a proper mortgage.50
Originally, the creditor could only claim on the debtor’s immovable
property. At a later period, special provisions were included in the agree-
ment or shtar to cover the debtor’s movable property. Medieval theory on
what was allowable financially was always driven by trying to avoid the
stigma of usury and to at all times maintain an acceptable façade. Such
contrivances became necessary for everyday commerce and some of the
earliest methods of lending on security such as the simple loan were,
ironically, carried out by the monasteries in the twelfth century.51 The
creditor simply enjoyed the use of something tangible – a horse, a carpet,
a suit of armour – until the loan had been repaid.
Naturally, as it is today, land was the easiest commodity to use as secu-
rity. The Jewish gage, which was limited, became not only transferable but
also changed into the more recognisable mortgage of today. Although the
Jews were versed in the ideas and theories of their own gage, it became
common practice to accept the more severe Gentile interpretation, which
34 THE KING’S JEWS

had been used by monasteries and other institutions to expedite their

affairs. Because of this the mort gage and the vif gage developed. The mort
gage was a contract where the creditor obtained the possession of the land
and any profits he could make from it other than the rents, until the debt
was paid off by the debtor. The vif gage was when the land was officially
made the creditor’s possession but the rents and profits of it were allowed
to the debtor and could be used to pay off his debts.52
By the mid-thirteenth century indebtedness had led to the development
of the fee debt or annuity. Examples of such arrangements appear on a roll
of debts dating from 1262 and perhaps serve to illustrate what lengths a
debtor might go to to obtain credit in the short term. On the roll there are
several records of annual payments to be made. Most of these date from
1258–61 and show that payments as large as £20 or as little as 4s were to
be paid to creditors ‘until the end of the world’.53 Thus these perpetual pay-
ments show a different, far more binding agreement than had previously
been the case. Such arrangements were brought to an end when, in 1269,
the Provisions of the Jewry outlawed and acquitted ‘all debts to Jews which
are fees’.54 However, records of other payments that were in perpetuity
can be found elsewhere. For instance, there were two such arrangements
still in the Lincoln archa in 1290 when it was finally closed to business
and brought into Westminster. Both were undated and owed by Richard
Foliot, a Yorkshire knight, to Hagin fil Magister Benedict of London. In
the first, Richard owed Hagin a flying hawk annually during his lifetime
and on Richard’s death a final payment of £50 on the anniversary of his
decease to his heirs. In thirteenth-century Lincolnshire, hawks and falcons
were almost a currency and in some parts of the world they still have an
intrinsic value today.55 In the second agreement, Richard owed Hagin a
beast of the chase (doe or buck) every year and on his death a payment of
£66 13s 4d to Hagin’s heirs.56 The provision of a beast of the chase every
year may just have been an agreement for Hagin to hunt on Richard’s
estate. Hunting was a pastime in which some Jews took part.57
Just as many of the transactions of Jewish financiers give little hint
to what exactly was advanced, so too there are relatively few indicators
 JEWS AND THE ECONOMY 35

of what, if any, was the standard rate of interest. The common view
held by most historians is that the ‘Jewish interest rate’ was a flat rate of
43.3 per cent per annum. For example, the Lombards in Bruges, in 1306,
were supposedly allowed by law to lend and charge weekly interest of 2d
in the £1.58 This figure has its attractions for reasons that will be explained
below, but it does not really represent either the ‘Jewish rate of interest’
or ‘profit margin’. It is merely the rate charged as a penalty or for lucrum
for non-payment of a debt. The actual charge for the loan was probably
concealed in the sum lent to and owed by the debtor. In the early thirteenth
century, the Crown could fix rates almost at will and 2d or 3d in the pound
per week was an accepted measure in England.
Several extant bonds from the reign of Henry III made in different
parts of the country reveal a little more detailed information than many
of their counterparts, from which some impressions of the real profit
margin from loans can be gained. In 1226, Alan de Senior of Norwich
owed Isaac fil Jurnet £9 6s 8d and was to give as interest thereof £1 every
year. The interest was to be paid by instalments of 10s at Easter and 10s on
29 September. If the instalments were not paid, there was to be a penalty
of 2d in the £1 per week. Thus for a loan of £9 6s 8d, Alan was to repay the
principal, pay £5 and risk penalty interest of 2d in the £1 per week if he
defaulted. The actual profit on the loan can therefore be seen, irrespective
of penalty interest, to be of the order of 10 per cent per annum. In another
transaction, the profit was higher. On 24 December 1226, John fil Robert
of Depham owed Samuel fil Isaac £4 13s 4d and agreed that by 2 February
1227 he would have paid him a first annual instalment of £1 6s 8d, the
first of a series of repayments which were to last for 15 years. After that
date, John of Depham was to pay annually 8s 11d on 15 August, 8s 11d on
1 November, 8s 10d on 2 February, and finally, on 29 September, two loads
of wheat. The three annual cash payments during this period added up
to £1 6s 8d, and the wheat was extra. Thus, the annual interest rate in this
case seems to have been approximately 25 per cent. Another bond shows
a still higher profit margin. On 26 May 1227, Andrew Wascelin acknowl-
edged that he owed Aaron fil Jacob £2. He was to repay it according to
36 THE KING’S JEWS

the following terms: £1 on 25 March 1228 and £1 on 29 August 1228, and

finally, to secure the withdrawal of the chirograph from the chest, a further
£3. If Wascelin was to clear his debt of £2 in one year, the profit margin for
Aaron fil Jacob would have been 150 per cent.59
Indications of other rates of interest and profit margins can be found in
the complaints of debtors. In 1220 at Northampton, Robert Fitz Henry, a
clerk, complained to the Justices of the Jews that David of Northampton,
unlawfully and against the assize, lent him on gage £1 for 10d a week
interest, a rate of approximately 216  per  cent per annum. In the same
entry Cok of Northampton had a loan of £6 from mid-Lent to Pentecost
and from Pentecost to Michaelmas, for which he demanded £11 13s 4d
for his repayment. If the loan was not using compound interest, then it
would appear that for £6 the total repayment of £11 13s 4d could only be
arrived at by charging a rate of almost 8d per £1 a week, approximately
167 per cent per annum.60 Another type of transaction is represented by a
debt made by Emma de Beaufou in 1236. In return for £160 she promised
to pay £6 13s 4d a year for the rest of her life. This, according to Cecil
Roth, represented ‘a yearly interest rate of 4.16 per cent’.61 A bond made
in Hereford, in 1244, reveals the amounts that John de Balun, lord of the
manor of Much Markle, had to repay for a loan from Moses fil Hamo.
In this case it indicates that he was to pay an interest rate of 17 per cent
per annum.62 Clearly all transactions show different interest rates and
profit margins and different agreements between creditor and debtor. It
is not possible to estimate a standard rate of interest or profit charged by
the Jews. In general all the surviving bonds remain silent concerning the
interest they contain. This makes it even more likely that debtors would
look for the best deal that they could find.
Inter-Jewish loans tend to contain more information. Again such
agreements are clearly not representative of the total interest attached to
the original loan.63 In a transaction made between Jacob fil Elias and his
brother-in-law Moses in 1251, Jacob promised to pay Moses £2 13s 4d. As
security, Jacob’s sister Hannah held a bond that was owed to her and Jacob
by Robert Bataile, from which Jacob promised to pay Moses the sum of
 JEWS AND THE ECONOMY 37

£2 13s 4d. As further security for the loan Jacob deposited a bond for £4
owed to him by Robert de Elmswell with the Rabbi, Jacob Gabbay. In order
that Moses might be able to obtain interest on his loan of £2 13s 4d, it was
passed through the hands of a Gentile (to avoid the stigma of usury). The
actual amount of interest that should accrue was agreed to be at 4d in the
£1 a week, approximately 86 per cent per annum.64 Another inter-Jewish
transaction gives some indication of a lender’s expected profit margin. The
Lincoln ketubbah, or betrothal contract, of 1271, gives details of a loan. In
February 1271, Belassez undertook to marry her daughter Judith to Aaron
fil Benjamin. A ketubbah, which has survived, was duly drawn up, and, as a
dowry, Belassez promised to give the bride and groom a Hebrew Bible and
£13 6s 8d in money. Benjamin, the father of the groom, was to administer
the money and promised to lend it out at interest to Gentiles. On the day
of the marriage, in February 1275, he was to return £20 to the bride and
groom or more if it had accumulated from the original £13 6s 8d. Thus,
in a space of four years Benjamin expected to turn £13 6s 8d into £20 or
more – an interest rate of 12.5 per cent per annum.65
There were other ways of obtaining instant advances that were perhaps
not so regulated or scrutinised. Never has the attitude of both Church and
medieval governments been more equivocal and more of a paradox than
when it came face to face with pawnbroking.66 Throughout history it has
been a commonly held assumption that pawnbroking was aimed at the
lower level of society but it is clear even from Aaron of Lincoln’s advance
on the plate of Lincoln Minster that pawnbroking involved all kinds of
society. The Church might condemn any form of interest on consumer
loans but the consumer was still in need of an advance from somewhere.
It was not until the Church itself created a system that would advance
such monies (and indeed charged interest) that any help was given to
those in search of an immediate loan that was secured on chattels. Robert
Grosseteste set up a loan chest at St Frideswide’s, Oxford, to try and estab-
lish an alternative form of credit by setting up student loans. Similarly in
Cambridge, the Hospital of St John the Evangelist provided short-term
loans for townsmen and villagers.67
38 THE KING’S JEWS

The connection of poverty and pawnbroking is an ancient one and one

which has left few records. Naturally, once a pawn has been claimed by the
broker it became a matter of simple commercial trade to realise the asset,
which may well have been obtained at a knock-down price. It is virtually
impossible to quantify the degree to which Jews traded but it does seem
that Jewish involvement in commerce might have been ‘underplayed’.
Jewish pawnbroking has remained relatively unexplored because of the
lack of recorded evidence and because of the tendency to consider mon-
eylending as the main Jewish occupation.68
Unlike moneylending, which was heavily policed and systematised,
the records of the pawnbroker were never under such scrutiny. There are
in the records many arguments over wrongful detention of a pawn or an
exorbitant charge to redeem a pawn. It is only when pawnbrokers’ goods
and stock were subject to confiscation that the world of the pawnbroker
was illuminated. Such confiscations happened during the coin-clipping
allegations and hangings of 1279, which will be examined below. The sale
of goods confiscated from Jews clearly gives some idea of what must have
been a fairly thriving pawnbroking business.69 At face value these might
have just been an opportunity for the government to cash in on former
Jewish private possessions but the sheer volume of them must raise ques-
tions. The officials in charge of such confiscations were meticulous. In 1279
one account reveals details of Hugh of Kendal’s sale of confiscated goods
that had been taken from Jews who had been hanged. It shows that Jacob
of Bedford owed £2 13s 4d for buying back some Jewish books. The Jewish
community at Lincoln paid £9 for buying back what might have been
Talmuds. Peter, a clerk of Stamford, owed £6 13s 4d for buying what was
referred to as pluma of condemned Jews – possibly their feathered bedding.
All of these items may have been the personal possessions of the Jews from
whom they were confiscated, but the most frequently mentioned items on
Kendal’s roll are money, gold and silver rings and brooches, silver spoons
and cups, as well as clothing and kitchenware, which are recorded in such
abundance that they are certainly not personal possessions and must
have clearly been goods collected in relation to some sort of commercial
 JEWS AND THE ECONOMY 39

activity.70 John Le Falconer’s accounts reveal silver salt-cellars, towels

and table napkins, two horses, a cow and various amounts of grain, wool,
salt and cloth. They include a payment for what might well have been
Jewish prayer shawls and also feature a large amount of jewellery. Philip
of Willoughby’s account mentions the sale of similar items and includes
the sale of Jewish houses and shops. William Gerberd’s account, while not
so explicit, makes references to various pledges taken from Christians, as
well as cash found in the houses of the Jews of Exeter, Jewish chattels and
the normal collection of brooches, silver spoons, salt-cellars and girdles
barred with silver, making it perhaps the best evidence for such goods
being in the hands of Jews as a result of the practice of pawnbroking.71
A later source from 1285, which is a continuation of the confiscations
made by John Le Falconer in 1278–9, contains much fuller lists of Jewish
chattels taken in the West Country. It names 26 Jews who had chattels
worth a face value of just over £900. It shows that Benedict of Winchester
had some 99 gold rings, 165 silver spoons, 13 silver rings, 23 silk girdles,
24 stones called ‘peridot’ and 105 garnet stones, as well as one silver cup,
which is described as being in pledge to him. Henna de Perine had among
her possessions 66 silver spoons, 73 silver brooches, 19 silver rings and
eight silk girdles. A certain Abraham had one ounce of pearls. Solomon of
Chippenham had 48 brooches and 54 books written in Latin. Mendaunt
of Bristol had 68 spoons and 94 silver brooches, as well as one book of
old decretals, four coats of mail, two corselets of iron, four pairs of iron
chain-mail leggings, one neck piece, two iron helmets, one gorget, one suit
of iron armour, two silk cushions and one Rheims carpet, which had evi-
dently been pledged to him. Moses of Winchester had cloths, carpets and
bronze pots worth £2 11s 3d. Hak Le Prestre had a crimson robe, a blue
robe, a robe of threefold camlet with a mantle, five hoods, five napkins,
30 girdles of silk, one cup called ‘cavele’, one knife, one book described as
‘the little volume’ and a Bible. Among the possessions of other Jews many
wooden bowls and mazers are also listed.
Such possessions were luxury goods. Naturally, a pawnbroker will only
offer money on the security of a valuable item. These goods were not all
 40 THE KING’S JEWS

for personal use and some, given the pledges mentioned, would appear to
be the ‘stock’ that a pawnbroker naturally accumulates with time. It seems
unlikely that Benedict of Winchester would need 99 gold rings. Hak Le
Prestre would not have worn 30 silken girdles at once. Mendaunt of Bristol
would, in fact, have been breaking the law if he had appeared wearing any
item from the four coats of mail, two corselets of iron and the four pairs of
iron chain-mail leggings and the other military equipment that were in his
possession.72 It does seem, as Vivian Lipman showed by his interpretation
of such evidence, that:

My own picture of the proletarian Anglo-Jew of the Middle Ages is of one scraping
a living by occasionally negotiating a loan, taking articles on pledge, and then fur-
bishing them up and hawking a miscellaneous collection of unredeemed pledges.73

There is evidence of some Jewish lenders becoming involved in what might

be termed ‘futures’. Some Jews, including Aaron of Lincoln, had already
practised advancing money in return for commodities. However, in 1275,
under the Statute of the Jewry, Jews were encouraged to act like ‘legal

£12,000

Jewish Tallages 1159-1288

£10,000

£8,000

£6,000

£4,000
276

£2,000

£0
11 11 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12 12
59 94 10 21 23 26 40 53 60 72 74 74 75 75 76 76 87 88
-5 -6 -7
 JEWS AND THE ECONOMY 41

merchants’ and some were able to advance money on wool and cereal. The
evidence shows a burgeoning of commodity bonds, in some cases even
alongside pure monetary transactions. Some historians interpret these
transactions as false or ‘fictitious’ bonds or simply ‘camouflaged usury’
and point to the fact that such transactions were the main reason why the
Jews were expelled in 1290. Yet there is good evidence, from what has been
dubbed ‘The Edwardian Experiment’, that at least some transactions were
perfectly genuine legal transactions or ‘sale credits’ and that some Jews
had complied with the Statute and had tried to become ‘legal merchants’.74
Naturally both the profit from and the provision of credit by Jewish
lenders prompted the government to take its own cut of the profit. Beards,
windows, bikes, gambling, sex, alcohol, and tobacco have always attracted
a hardy revenue in taxes; whether the government in power approved or
disapproved of the business. The Jews similarly also had to pay their way in
silver. Much work has been done on exactly what the Jewish financiers of
medieval England rendered unto Caesar. After examining records which
have been described as ‘dull and repetitious’ as well as confusing, a glimpse
of the royal revenue created by Jewish finance can be obtained.75 From
around the 1150s and increasingly into the thirteenth century, the Crown
taxed or tallaged the Jews. It collected the taxes through local officials
using Jewish as well as Christian assessors. Often the main burden of
taxation fell on the richer Jews but this was not always the case. The most
complete details of a single Jewish taxation survive for the 1240 tallage.
For this financial imposition a so-called ‘Jewish Parliament’ was called, the
tax agreed and Jewish representatives appointed to make the collection.76
Work on the revenue generated by tallages is hampered by several fac-
tors that will never be satisfactorily resolved. First, there was a tendency
by the chroniclers to exaggerate the taxes and the wealth of the Jewish
population. Secondly, there is often a discrepancy between the quotas that
successive governments laid down as the sum to be assessed and the sum
that was actually collected. Thirdly, the arrears of one tallage ran into the
declaration of another.77 While tax avoidance was possible, the govern-
ment had the advantage in the fact that, through the archa system and the
42 THE KING’S JEWS

bureaucracy of the Exchequer of the Jews, the full value of each Jewish
community and, in some cases, pretty full details of individual lenders
were precisely known. For many financiers it was impossible to avoid being
financially exploited. Some tried to avoid being made an assessor of the
tallage and were even happy to try to gain tax exemptions by lump sums.78
It is through these tallages that the Jews have been compared to being
a ‘Royal Milch Cow’ or a ‘financial sponge’.79 One of the major results of
taxing the Jews was the fact that it put pressure on them to call in their
debts. There can be no doubt that the 1190 massacres were partially caused
by the financial pressures of the preaching of a crusade. Similarly, it was
such financial pressures, which will be discussed below, which led to the
Civil War of 1215 and the clauses set down by the barons in Magna Carta.80
Again, in the 1260s, the rebels were under financial pressure caused by
debts, as were the King’s Jewish subjects themselves.81 The correlation of
anti-Jewish riots, massacres and protests can in part be measured by the
pressure caused by the King pressing for Jewish tallages, which meant that
Jews had to enforce or try to foreclose on their debtors. It has even been
suggested that the final expulsion was a trade-off for levying a national tax.82
The Jews made a major contribution to the expansion of the medieval
economy. They provided a large variety of credit facilities and practised the
provision of credit in ways which were to be imitated by Christians. Under
Aaron of Lincoln, who was able to successfully develop many varied types
of business transaction, business flourished. Later other Jews, although
they were not able to build such large conglomerates, began to specialise in
property investment, mortgages, annuities, moneylending, pawnbroking
and even towards the end of the thirteenth century investment in futures
in cereal and wool. From the late twelfth century, as a result of Aaron’s
financial empire, the Crown began to take more of an interest in the Jewish
money markets. Kings soon realised that they did not just merely have to
borrow from their Jewish subjects but that they could just as easily tax the
Jews to supply some of their needs. As a result the kings of England not
only tacitly condoned and, to an extent, controlled the Jews’ lending but
they used the Jewish community to bolster the royal coffers.
 3

A community within a state

. . . they persisted through so many centuries of dispersion as a clearly

recognizable community, bound together by an intense feeling of solidar-
ity, somewhat aloof in its attitude to outsiders and jealously clinging to
the taboos which had been designed for the very purpose of emphasizing
and perpetuating its exclusiveness.

Thus Norman Cohn described the isolation of European Jewish communi-

ties throughout the centuries.1 In many ways it is a testimony to the beliefs
of the Jewish men and women who inhabited England during the period
of the first Anglo-Jewish community that they did remain so true to their
beliefs. Yet, as will be seen, there were many internal and external factors
and injunctions that must have made even the most fainthearted of them
first doubt then strengthen their beliefs. They were, as Barrie Dobson has
described them, ‘a medieval subject-minority struggling to retain its cohe-
sion and identity within a hostile unitary “state”’.2 Internally, the Jewish
community had its own embedded organisation and heritage as well as its
religion and faith. Externally, it was the subject of rules and regulations as
well as persecution and suspicion.
The medieval Anglo-Jewish community was a small, tightly knit collec-
tion of families with strong ties to their co-religionists on the Continent.
Over the period of their presence, there can only have been seven or
eight generations of Jews who could claim to have actually been born in
England. For the vast majority of the host population there was probably
little social intercourse or meetings with Jews at all. To this vast majority
the Jews were merely a subject for margination. For some contemporary
Gentiles, Jews were at the centre of accusations and stories and a subject
44 THE KING’S JEWS

of scorn and hatred. Whatever estimates of population are adopted, the

Jewish community in England was a small minority group probably
numbering no more than 0.25 per cent of the total population.3 Yet they
were controversial. They were the King’s Jews and belonged to the ultimate
secular overlord as mere servants of the Crown. This made them subject to
different laws and regulations and immediately put them outside regular
society. This unique status did not go unnoticed. The Jews were also a
minority that could not stand up for themselves but were cocooned while,
in effect, being the pawn in the lower end of a financial protection racket.
Thus excoriated and accused while under the royal protection, the Jewish
community could do little more than stick together as a homogeneous
unit. They were a paradox anomaly that was pushed to the edges of society.
They were also heavily dissuaded from any integration into society as a
whole. It is little surprise that some chose to remain ‘aloof ’.
Their lives were controlled by the Exchequer of the Jews, a working
department, housed in Westminster. It had its own royal seal, kept its own
separate records in both Latin and Hebrew, and employed its very own
justices, clerks and serjeants.4 It ruled in cases that were brought by Jews
or against Jews. It was also responsible for all financial aspects of taxation
and tallage and was controlled by two, sometimes three, salaried Justices.
These royal officials were experts in administration and finance. They
oversaw the administration of all Jewish affairs, heard cases, and passed
judgements. Much of their work had to do with accounting and keeping
records of loans made by Jewish creditors throughout the country. All of
the upper echelons of Exchequer personnel were men in clerical orders
and either King’s clerks or holders of ecclesiastical benefices.5
The royal Justices of the Jews were aided by a Keeper of Rolls and writs,
and assisted by several clerks and serjeants who were not appointed by
the Crown. Thus the Jewish community was controlled by the King’s own
officials and any Christians they appointed. They were aided in their work
by a member of the Jewish community who was also a royally appointed
official. Over the period of Jewish presence such a position involved only
a few Jews. The presbyter omnium Judaeorum or Archpresbyter, as he was
 A C O M M U N I T Y W I T H I N A S TA T E 45

Royal Control of the Jewish Communities

KING
Commissioners
ROYAL EXCHEQUER for Tallage
(SCACCARIUM)

EXCHEQUER
O F THE JEWS
JUSTICES
OF THE
Keeper of the Rolls
and writs JEWS

L ocal Officia ls
CLERKS ARCHPRESBYTER Mayors, Abbots, Priors

JUDAE ORUM
SERGEANTS
SHERIFF
SS

BAILIFFS and
under-constables
CHIROGRAPHERS
(2 Jewish & 2 Christian)
Key holders and
TALLIATORES Scriveners for the
archa

24 Christian Protectors

The local jewish community

known, had the same status as a Justice and was often a leading member
of the wider Jewish community who usually held the office for life.6 It
became an office that the Jewish community at large could sometimes fill
by common election. The task of the Archpresbyter was to provide a link
between Crown officials and the different Jewish communities. Indeed
this position was amplified in contemporary records by affirming that
the earliest known Archpresbyter, Jacob of London, was ‘our royal Jew
46 THE KING’S JEWS

whom we retain especially in our service’. Jacob was also described as ‘our
well-beloved and intimate friend’. The next incumbent, Josce of London,
held the position from 1207–36. A member of an influential rabbinical
family, Josce did not hold the office for life. Having served for almost 30
years he was replaced in late 1236 by Aaron of York, who held it as a life
appointment. When he was for some reason unable to sit in the King’s
Exchequer, Josce fil Copin represented him. Only a few years later Aaron
was relieved of his position and in October 1243 Henry III granted the
office to Elias Le Eveske, and commanded his Justices to invest him with
the office. Josce fil Copin remained as deputy in case of Elias’ absence.
Elias had been the representative of the London community at the
‘Jewish Parliament’ of 1241. He was also a chirographer for the London
archa. When he was commanded to raise a Jewish tallage in 1253, Elias
tried to persuade Henry III that the community could not pay his
demands. By 1257, the Jewish community at large had lost faith with
him and so Elias was deposed from office. According to Mathew Paris,
he converted in 1259, and went on to accuse the Jewish community of
attempting to poison certain noblemen. In return for a communal fine,
Henry III stripped Elias of his office. He also conceded that any future
holders of the post should be elected by the community.
The Jews now elected Hagin fil Magister Moses, a Lincoln Jew. Hagin’s
election allowed Henry III to restate the position. Soon after his appoint-
ment in 1258, Hagin ‘was under oath to the King to assist the King’s
justices in the Exchequer of the Jews by his advice and in setting forth
the King’s rights’. It is clear that, although Hagin had connections with
Lincoln, he also seems to have had a connection with a tower within the
precincts of the Tower of London to which he gave his name. He even
acted for the Jewish community when he acknowledged a debt of £39 to
a wine merchant ‘on behalf of the community of the Jews of England’ for
wines he had purchased for the use of the King. By 1275 Hagin was in
some form of trouble and was imprisoned at Windsor Castle. By 1280 he
stood accused of doubtful honesty in some of his dealings and later died
in prison.
 A C O M M U N I T Y W I T H I N A S TA T E 47

The last Archpresbyter, Hagin fil Deulecresse, was appointed in May

1281. Hagin was a London Jew who lived in Milk Street. In his new capa-
city Hagin tended to favour the government and clearly was not trusted
by the Jews he represented. In 1275 he was actually excommunicated by
the Jewish community for ‘refusing to be tried according to the Law and
Custom of our Jewry’. Hagin had royal influence and was well connected
with Eleanor, the Queen Consort, who may well have been instrumental
in his appointment.7 Although these officials were meant to represent the
greater Jewish community, it is clear that many of them leant towards the
government and at the end of the day had little influence on how the kings
ran their Jewish affairs.
At the local level the sheriff was the royal representative responsible
for ensuring the smooth running of Jewish affairs. The sheriff ensured
that chirographers and locally appointed archa officials were elected.8 In
each town, there were at least two Christian and two Jewish chirographers
who both received payment for drawing up the business instruments.9
The archa was often simply a chest or safe box that was kept in a private
house. In 1264 the Earl of Gloucester’s followers stole the Canterbury
archa from the house of the Christian chirographer, Simon Pabley.10
The chirographers followed set rules of work. At Nottingham, Henry de
Braybroc, Justice of the Jews, instructed them to have at least one Christian
and one Jewish chirographer present at all business transactions.11 Such
officials were an early form of scrivener – or official scribe – who were
under direct orders from the Exchequer in London and also under direct
orders from the King himself. When Henry III limited the interest that
might be charged on debts, he also forbade the Nottingham officials ‘from
allowing any bond or tally to be made or placed in the scriveners’ chest in
which is contained more than 2d in the £1 interest per week’.12
We know something of the type of business such local officials con-
ducted. Details from Nottingham during Edward I’s reign show that they
were not only responsible for recording bonds, but also for noting acquit-
tances of debt, keeping a wide range of records for reference, taking action
on other debts, extracting and replacing charters, and noting sales of debts
48 THE KING’S JEWS

when requested to do so.13 When a Jew died, these officials often acted as
part of a jury to inquire into the dead Jew’s financial affairs.14 The chirog-
raphers and the sheriffs were also responsible for sealing and transferring
the archa to London as well as providing scrutinies when so ordered. In
1268 John Le Moyne, the Sheriff of Northamptonshire, was reimbursed for
10s for the carriage of the archa of the Jews of Northampton to the Tower
of London. Similarly, Giles de Gousle, sheriff of Yorkshire, was reimbursed
in 1270 for £2 12s 3 1/2d for the carriage of the archa of the Jews of York to
the Tower.15 The sheriff was also responsible for the protection of the Jews
within his jurisdiction and was thus expected to appoint Christian protec-
tors of the Jews. After John’s reign, as a result of the renewed preaching
of the Crusade and of the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215, 24 townsmen
were appointed to be responsible for the safety of the Jewish community
in every city where Jews dwelt. By 1218, such officials had been appointed
in at least nine major towns.16
Some local sheriffs had even more personal contact with the Jews
in their care. At Canterbury during the early 1250s the Sheriff of Kent,
Reginald of Cobham, governed the Canterbury Jewish community with
the aid of an under-constable, John of Northwood. The close contact that
the local Jewish community had with such officials is reflected in the
records of fines imposed on them being written in Norman-French, the
common ‘everyday’ language of both Jew and local official rather than the
Latin of official records. In such payments we see the Jews of Canterbury
acting communally. They paid, as a community, for having their bonds
received and valued when the archa was sealed; for delaying payment
of Queen’s Gold; for concessions related to the collection of tallage; and
even for having their corn ground at the King’s mill at Ospringe, near
Canterbury. Individual members of the community also paid for other
privileges rendered by the sheriff. Salle fil Josce, for instance, paid £1 for
his son-in-law to become the Jewish keeper of the archa. Perhaps some of
the most difficult items to understand are the payments made by ‘Dame
Abigail’, Salle’s wife, for assistance when her husband was overseas and
she lay in childbed, as well as for providing her nurse leave to eat ‘our
 A C O M M U N I T Y W I T H I N A S TA T E 49

lamb at Easter’. Jews also paid to be excused from attending inquests; for
getting inquests held; for not attending the Justices of the Jews in London;
for help with the payment of dues; for assistance in claiming their debts
from Christians; for obtaining exeats from the City; for marrying their
daughters off to Jews from other communities and for special concessions.
For instance, John of Northwood, the under-constable of Canterbury,
was clearly so unpopular with the Jewish community that when his term
of office was complete, they paid £2 because they did not wish him to be
re-elected. In another case the Jewish community paid to have the whole
contents of one particular Jew’s house seized.17
Most of the national fiscal business that affected different Jewish com-
munities was put into the hands of specially appointed commissioners.18
Robert Stacey’s research on the 1241 tallage shows the efficiency of men
like Jeremiah de Caxton and William Hardel, as well as what he refers to as
a ‘squad of royal clerks’.19 Such clerks then pressed a team of local officials,
both Christians and Jews, to help them collect the money due. In York in
1275, the Abbot of St Mary, the mayor and others were held responsible for
the tallage assessed on the Jews of York. Elsewhere the Prior of Okeburn
was responsible for the Marlborough community, the Prior of St Nicholas,
Oxford for the Oxford community and the Prior of Dinmore for the
Hereford community.20 The Jewish communities were sometimes asked
to appoint their own officials to administer the payments. The evidence
for the 1241 tallage provides us with an intricate list of appointments of
Jews that included six wealthy Jews to assess the tallage, six magnates, six
minores and six mediocres. Their role was clearly defined by an oath: ‘so
that no one may be injured by hatred nor spared by love or affinity’.21 The
position of Talliator, who apportioned payments within the community,
was naturally an unpopular duty as in 1273, Cok fil Cresse, a London Jew,
paid a voluntary fine so that he would not be appointed.22
So the business of the Jewish community was closely monitored by
Christian officials in most of what it did. Yet, within their own community,
Jews had a certain amount of autonomy. They were the King’s Jews in the
secular world, but they had a spiritual and cultural world of their own that
50 THE KING’S JEWS

was just as tightly organised. As James Parkes once observed of the small
Jewish community:

Internally it was unable to take a lead from a functioning priesthood, a Patriarchal

authority or a Jewish sovereign. It therefore attached considerable importance to the
sanctity of local customs and traditions within the overall framework of the Bible
and the Talmud.23

The Jews of medieval England were governed by their own very distinctive
heritage based on Talmudic Law. Louis Rabinowitz observed that of the
three traditions of Jewish customs, annals and Law, ‘everything depends
upon local custom’.24 The centre of communal life and local custom was
the synagogue.
Despite the importance and centrality of the synagogue to the Jew,
history has demonstrated that it is not a necessity to actually attend a
synagogue to be a practising Jew. It has been possible for Jews living in
small or even large numbers without a synagogue to keep, foster and
maintain their faith. The trademark of the Ashkenazi Jew has been said
to be ‘not what a Jew must know but what a Jew must do’.25 For the most
part the Jewish community of England was made up of many smaller com-
munities, centred on major towns, often near a castle where the Jews could
shelter, as well as close to markets and a cathedral and in some places they
possessed a large public or smaller private synagogue as well as a burial
ground.26 It was the synagogue that provided a natural focus for the Jewish
community’s cultural, social and religious life.27 This multipurpose build-
ing was used as a place of prayer, study and assembly.28 It often offered
accommodation for travellers and in their adjacent courtyards law cases
were heard and marriages solemnised. Sometimes business took place and
markets were allowed. It also had its ritual bath or mikveh.29
Most medieval Anglo-Jewish synagogues were fairly simple buildings.
All that was necessary was an ark for the Torah and a partition, which
might merely a curtain, to keep men and women apart. The sole surviving
synagogue, ‘Jew’s Court’ at Lincoln, reflects these basic needs.30 In other
 A C O M M U N I T Y W I T H I N A S TA T E 51

cases synagogues were bethels, which were smaller establishments main-

tained by wealthy patrons in private houses.31 Documentary evidence
from over 30 synagogues has survived, but there were probably more in
existence at various times.32 Most of these synagogues were situated in
the centre of a town. In some cases there are references to more than one
synagogue in a town, differentiated by the descriptions ‘old’ and ‘new’. In
some towns there were public or communal synagogues as well as private
synagogues provided by a patron.
Although at Bristol settlement for Jews was originally barred by a
charter that prohibited strangers from settling within the town walls, the
Jews established their synagogue on the corner of Small Street and Quay
Street, inside the town walls. At some point in the late thirteenth century
it appears that St  Giles Church was constructed on this site. However,
Jewish worship continued in a house that had formally belonged to Hak le
Prestre in Winch Street. By 1285, the house was rebuilt and the community
of Bristol Jews then rented it from a Christian family.33 The community
also seems to have established a burial ground on the secluded hillside of
Brandon, little more than a mile away, which had two sources of water,
one for the washing of their dead and the other for purification rituals.
The chamber for preparing the dead for burial (tahara) was separate from
the mikveh, which later became known as Jacob’s Well. The mikveh still has
the sacholim or warning sign deeply carved into the massive lintel stone
above it.34
The Cambridge congregation also had several sites for communal
worship. There is reference to a synagogue called the Domus Benjamin,
a fairly substantial building of brick and stone with a stone cellar, on the
site of the old Tolbooth in Butter’s Row by the Guildhall.35 When the
Franciscans arrived in 1224 they were given ‘the old synagogue which
was next to the prison’, which had been taken from the Jews, where they
then built a small chapel. There was another group of Jewish houses that
formed what was known as ‘the Jewry’ in the parishes of All Saints and the
Holy Sepulchre near the Hospital of St John the Evangelist (later St John’s
College). Geoffrey Andre, the Christian chirographer, lived in the same
52 THE KING’S JEWS

parish in 1290. Antiquarians have tended to identify a further synagogue

with a building that later became known as Bede’s House on the north-east
corner of the old St John’s Lane.36
The Canterbury synagogue was situated in the parish of All Saints where
there were at least four or five properties within close proximity that were
owned by Jews.37 It has now been subsumed by the site of the present-day
County Hotel, just opposite All Saints’ Church, and close to the Eastbridge
Hospital for Pilgrims off the High Street, in what was once known as
‘Heathen Man’s Lane’ on the modern Stour Street. In 1290 the synagogue
was granted to William Le Taylleur, who was Queen Eleanor’s robe-maker,
and was valued at 11s 8d per annum; by 1320 it was a private dwelling.38 It
remained a striking building, as in 1640, a local antiquarian commented
that ‘the Stone Parlour of the Saracen’s Head which was mounted upon a
vault and ascended by many stone-steps is the remains of a good part of
that which was our Canterbury Jews’ school or synagogue’.39
While the whereabouts of the synagogue in Colchester is not known
for sure, it may have been sited within a group of substantial stone-built
houses in St  Runwald’s Parish in modern-day West Stockwell Street. It
was situated not far from the castle and just off the High Street, more or
less just opposite Pelham’s Lane.40 The Colchester synagogue also had
adjoining shops, perhaps rented by Jewish shopkeepers to serve the Jewish
community.41 The synagogue at Hereford was probably a late develop-
ment; it was probably founded by the beneficence of Hamo of Hereford
and was situated in Malierestreet (modern-day Maylord Street).42 In
the early 1250s, Hamo’s widow, Sara, and his impoverished son, Moses,
had to sell most of the family property including ‘all the buildings, stone
and timber thereof ’ and the synagogue.43 As noted above, Hereford also
had a mikveh, called Jacob’s Well, which was situated just to the north of
Bewell Street and was also associated with the spring. The Hereford Jewish
cemetery was situated to the rear of the site of St Giles Hospital (founded
1290), now the corner of St Owen Street and Ledbury Road.44
On a visit to Lincoln in 1934, Cecil Roth concluded that Jew’s Court
on Steep Hill was the ancient scola or synagogue of Rabbi Peytevin the
 A C O M M U N I T Y W I T H I N A S TA T E 53

Great. He stressed its importance as one of the few ancient surviving

synagogues in Western Europe, and even compared its importance to the
synagogues of Worms and Toledo. This historic building clearly played a
major role in the lives of the medieval Lincoln community. The substantial
building offered ample accommodation for a house of study downstairs.
It may even have had a mikveh close by. Upstairs on the first floor, a niche
in the wall has been identified as the ark for the Torah scrolls. Another,
private, synagogue occupied a long plot of land between the High Street
and Hungate at the junction of Brancegate, where several Jews held
properties.45 There may also have been a third synagogue.46 The Lincoln
Jewish community shared the large burial ground in York at Le Jewbury,
but may have developed its own cemetery in the late thirteenth century
just outside the town.47
Joseph Jacobs was the first to identify a synagogue in London, opposite
the present-day St Lawrence Jewry in modern-day Gresham Street.48 In his
Survey of London, John Stow actually left a sketch of it, and referred to it
as Bakewell Hall. Stow even suggested that ‘Bakewell’ was a corruption of
Bathwell indicating the presence of a mikveh. Joe Hillaby has shown that
this ‘magna scola’ – probably the first and earliest London synagogue – was
set up by private money belonging to Abraham son of the Rabbi and his
family.49 Such a communal synagogue probably had a mikveh, hospitium,
scola and shops.50 There were other synagogues in the city, both communal
and private, which were built at various times. Complaints from the Friars
next door about the sound of wailing prayers emanating from a Jewish
synagogue in 1253 allowed Henry III to close it and to give permission
for a new synagogue to be built.51 This may have been the newly built
synagogue that was attacked during the Barons’ Wars in 1264. In 1280
Aaron fil Vives, a rich leading London Jew, granted the Jewish community
a stone building with its court in Gresham Street for the building of a new
synagogue. This was an L shape that was somewhat obscured from the
street.52 Despite this attempt at blending in to the city, Archbishop Pecham
wrote to the Bishop of London in 1282 complaining and accusing all the
leading London Jews of having their own private synagogues.53
54 THE KING’S JEWS

The London Jews also established a burial ground from about the
mid-twelfth century. This cemetery was particularly important since, up
to 1177, it provided the sole burial space for Jews in England. It became
variously known as ‘the common cemetery of the Jews’, the ‘ward of
the Jews’ and eventually the ‘Jews’ Garden’, and was situated at St Giles,
Cripplegate, just outside the City Walls.54 From time to time the com-
munity enlarged it, as in 1268–9, when part of a garden planted with trees
was sold to Jacob of Oxford and the entire community of Jews for £3 6s 8d.
The Jewish community was subsequently allowed ‘for ever to bury there
at will – even those condemned to death’. It was a walled cemetery with a
gate. By 1290 it had been improved and had a garden with a dovecot and a
pond. By the seventeenth century the area was still quite open. It has been
calculated that the total area by 1290 would have been somewhere in the
region of 1 ½ to 1 ¾ acres.
The ‘Jews’ Garden’ was administered by the London Jewish commu-
nity, which paid a subsidy for ‘the sustaining of their common cemetery
in London’. Burial in accordance with Jewish Law was a communal
responsibility under the leadership of senior community members and
Henry III allowed the Master of the Laws to impose a herem (ban) on any
London Jew who failed to promise financial support for the maintenance
of the cemetery. Over the centuries, as the ground has been redeveloped
and disturbed, some tombstones have appeared. John Stow recorded one
with the Hebrew inscription ‘Here lies buried Rabbi Moses son of the
Honourable Rabbi Isaac’.55
Recent archaeological excavations have also revealed the presence of
two mikva’ot in Milk Street and Gresham Street.56 The Milk Street mikveh
was probably built in the mid-thirteenth century and was the more
substantial of the two. It was built using high-quality squared green sand
ashlar blocks. In 1290 the property on which it was dug was occupied
by a Jew called Moses Crespin.57 The Gresham Street mikveh was built
earlier, during the twelfth century, and partly dismantled in the thirteenth
century. Both were situated within private property and were therefore
likely to be personal rather than communal, unless the nadiv who funded
 A C O M M U N I T Y W I T H I N A S TA T E 55

and founded them allowed the community to use them.

At Northampton, the synagogue was situated close to their walled
cemetery. The ‘Jews’ Garden’ or ‘House of Life’ was situated outside the
North Gate of the town in the present-day Barrack Road area. It is likely
that the burial ground in Northampton was also used by the Stamford
Jewish community, who contributed upkeep payments towards it. In
keeping with Ashkenazic practice, the cemetery also had a small house
for funeral rites, and provided lodging for the eternal watchman. After the
expulsion, the stone fixtures of the Northampton cemetery were valued
at £1 10s ‘for carting away’.58 A top corner of a late thirteenth-century
Hebrew tombstone has remained, and was found in Princes Street in the
1840s after being lodged for several centuries in a wall. It may well have
been the headstone of ‘the devout Rabbi Solomon’, who was a Talmudist.59
The communal synagogue was situated in Silver Street, probably on the
site of the former Red Lion Inn. The entrance, which was clearly discrete,
also had houses close to it in Corn Row, the marketplace and near the
Fish Market.60
Norwich also had a synagogue and a small ‘Jews’ Garden’ or burial
place close by. The synagogue was situated on a site between the former
Star Inn and the Lamb Inn and was clearly set back from public view.
At one time, it was approached by three entrances – one from the west
from the Haymarket, one from Orford Hill, and one from the south of
the Haymarket. It was probably constructed with stone columns and had
glazed roof tiles. It was the focal point of the Jewish community and, as the
late Vivian Lipman observed, most of the Norwich Jewry lived within 250
yards of it.61 There were many formerly held Jewish houses to the north
and east of the Haymarket and just opposite the eastern end of St Peter’s
Church. There was also a cluster of Jewish-held properties to the south of
the Haymarket in the parish of St Stephen’s. In 1290 the synagogue was
valued at 5s.62
At Nottingham, the main areas of Jewish residence were scattered
throughout the city in the parishes of St Mary on the Wall and Wall Street,
as well as the Parish of St Peter’s.63 A synagogue can be identified as being
56 THE KING’S JEWS

near the marsh on the south-west corner of Castle Gate and Lister Gate.
It is referred to in a transaction made in 1257, when a plot including
the gateway to the Synagogue was sold.64 In 1261, Rachel, the daughter
of Jedodyah, and her husband, Jacob fil Menachem, sold a house and a
courtyard in the parish of St Peter ‘with a synagogue on it’ to Moses fil
Samuel. The vendors had bought it three years earlier from Jedidhay fil
Eleazar, who had originally purchased it from William le Coroner, who
had himself bought it from William le Convers. It was described as being
on a plot of land that had a house with a courtyard and a cellar, near the
marsh on the edge of town.65 It was also described as ‘being let to the Jews’.
It seems that Moses fil Samuel sold the property on in 1264 as his wife,
Miriam, daughter of Rabbi Chaim, resigned all claims on the properties,
which her husband had sold to a Joseph fil Berechiyah. Here again it is
possible that some stones with Hebrew inscriptions, which were found in
the 1940s, survived from a nearby Jewish cemetery.66
The Jews in Oxford seem to have settled in the oldest part of the city.67
There was a large concentration of Jewish houses around St  Aldate’s,
an area known by contemporaries as the Great Jewry. The site of the
known Oxford synagogue was not far from the churches of St Aldate and
St Frideswide.68 It is possible that there might have been two synagogues
in Oxford, which may be explained by a split in the minyan or congrega-
tion between those who attended the public synagogue and those who
attended a private synagogue under the patronage of David of Oxford.69
The burial ground of the Jews was outside the East Gate of the city near
Magdalen Bridge, at the present-day Botanical Gardens, and may well
have also had a mikveh.70
At York, despite the massacre of the Jewish community in 1190, there
were at least two synagogues in use in the thirteenth century. One of
them was on a plot that backed onto the River Ouse, while the second
was probably in a house adjoining Le Jewbury or the burial site of the
Jews.71 The former was abandoned in the late 1270s as it was granted to
John Sampson and Roger Basy on 15 November 1279 by Eleanor and was
described as ‘the whole land with buildings and appurtenances and with
 A C O M M U N I T Y W I T H I N A S TA T E 57

a school built therein and with steps leading to the entrance of the said
land’.72 The burial ground at Le Jewbury was of great importance to the
Jews of the northern parts of the country and served at least three different
Jewish communities – those of York, Nottingham and Lincoln.73 It was
originally surrounded by ditches and a wall. There is good evidence to
suggest that superimposed burials were used and that due to lack of space
the cemetery was extended sometime in the 1230s.74
Little is known about the Winchester synagogue, which, in 1290, was
valued at being worth about 16s 6d per annum and was near the present-
day Royal Oak Passage. The Winchester burial ground was situated outside
the Westgate in the area of St James and had a yearly value of 2s 6d. It
possessed what is to the best of our knowledge a unique feature – a laving
stone for corpses worth 4s.75 Like the Winchester synagogue there were
other synagogues situated in other towns and cities whose whereabouts
are not so well known. For instance there was, at one time, a synagogue in
Stamford.76 More recently there has been the discovery of a stone chamber
that may well have been a private synagogue in Guildford.77 Moyses Hall,
Bury St Edmunds, may well have been a place of worship for the Jewish
community before their expulsion from there in 1190.78
Centres of Jewish worship in English towns and cities were well known
to the townspeople be they large communal synagogues or smaller private
synagogues.79 This made such properties easy targets during the Barons’
Wars, when the rebels were able to single them out and sack them.
Ecclesiastical authorities were also well aware of the possible religious
competition offered by the synagogue and sometimes tried to shut them
down. The Friars complained about the ‘howling’ from one London syna-
gogue, which disturbed their service.80 Centres of Jewish public worship
may have shifted according to circumstances. The government officials
were also aware of the scolae, and even used them to make proclamations
or announcements to the Jewish communities.81
The synagogue was not just the centre of worship but also of education
and learning. Two surviving thirteenth-century ketubboth (marriage
contracts) show the importance that the Jewish community placed on
58 THE KING’S JEWS

both protocol and education.82 In one marriage contract, Yomtob fil Moses
promised to engage a teacher to instruct his future son-in-law Solomon
during the first year after his marriage.83 Such a teacher could only have
been trained at a major yeshivah. Another contract reveals a gift of ‘a
volume on calf skin containing the whole 24 books of the Hebrew Bible
properly provided with vowel points and the Masorah, each leaf contain-
ing six columns and also having a separate portion with the Targum of
the Pentateuch and the Haftaroth’.84 Only a trained Jewish scribe could
have accomplished this work and it would seem that synagogues must
also have had the function of teaching and training in the writing of legal
documents as well as sacred texts.
Synagogues were seats of Jewish education for the whole community.
Jewish children were taught the basics of religious knowledge by the haz-
zan or ‘overseer’ in the Beth ha Sepher or the ‘House of the Book’.85 For
the male adults’ more advanced education there was the Beth ha Midrash;
the scola of Peytevin Magnus in Lincoln was probably one such example.86
It was here that Jews learned Hebrew and were taught the Hebrew Bible,
Talmud and the Responsa literature. The Torah was well known through-
out the Anglo-Jewish communities as it was recited throughout the year.87
Jews in England were allowed to swear on the Torah scroll just as the
Christian was on the Latin Bible. The Talmuds owned by the synagogues
as well by some individuals had a very different reception from Christian
society. As late as 1286, a papal injunction ordered ‘that the books com-
monly called Thalamud which the Jews of England were putting forth as
of greater authority than the Law of Moses were to be confiscated’.88
The scola was also the centre for communal finance and self-government.
The internal administration of the Jewish community was dominated by
the synagogue officials: the Rabbi, the Hazzan, the Shamash (organiser/
caretaker) and the Gabbai (treasurer/tax-collector). They were supported
by wealthier Jews or nadivs (patrons) and the kahal (congregation).89
Surnames indicating communal positions such as ‘Gabbay’ (treasurer),
‘Chazan’ (reader) and ‘Chantur’ (cantor) appear in contemporary records.
Albert Hyamson made reference to Dayanim or ecclesiastical assessors;
 A C O M M U N I T Y W I T H I N A S TA T E 59

Parnassim or presidents of the congregation, as well as Gabbayim.90 It is

likely that some synagogue functionaries received salaries and certainly
Rahash payments were well established in the continental communities.
At Purim the cantor received a special donation for reading the Megillah
(Scroll of Esther), and on other Jewish festivals a plea was made for for
communal collections.91 The kahal was also responsible for paying two
levies to the Gabbai: a collection actually taken in the synagogue and
a monthly contribution made by each member.92 Further funds were
gathered from payments for weddings, funerals, and the administration
of oaths, as well as for reciting prayers for the sick or leading mourners.
The Gabbai co-ordinated the collections, paid the community officials,
and even issued loans to augment the community’s income. He also
worked closely with the Shtadlan or advocate/pleader, whose business it
was to try to modify and reconcile any unfavourable taxes or legislation
imposed by the state.93 Tallage payments were sometimes paid en bloc
from communal funds: if more were required, the Jewish bailiffs or tallia-
tors appointed by the state negotiated with the shtadlan and the Gabbai,
and spread the financial burden over the whole community.94 Sometimes
synagogue officials were in charge of a bursa communis or common purse,
which would cover the general welfare and needs of the community. It was
often used to provide the wherewithal for very poor Jews to be married
or buried.95 In some cases the community gave financial support as a
corporate body to the synagogue. The Northampton Jewish community
had an income from an annual rent of four shillings from houses it owned
in Stamford. This income went towards the upkeep of the Northampton
synagogue and the cemetery there.96
In terms of local custom, the Jews were answerable to their peers and
jurisdiction was in the hands of the Capitulum Judeorum or Beth Din. The
Beth Din or court was normally composed of three appointed officials
from the congregation who were responsible for arbitrating over dowry
rights, marriage settlements, the appointment of guardians for minors
and land and contract disputes.97 Vivian Lipman’s examination of the
cases tried before the Norwich Beth Din between 1243 and 1267 shows
60 THE KING’S JEWS

that these were temporary appointments made from among the most
influential members of the community.98 There was no right of appeal.
The punishments ranged from a fine or temporary suspension from
access to the community to full excommunication. There was a hierarchy
of courts; just as the Parisian Beth Din’s decisions were considered to be
more important than London’s, so to in England the Beth Din at York was
considered to be more authoritative than that of Norwich.99
Communities controlled their members through bans, like the Herem
ha yishuv or prohibition of settlement.100 One example, signed by 17
Canterbury Jews, has survived and established that:

no Jew of any other town than Canterbury shall dwell in the said town, that is to say,
any liar, improper person or slanderer, and that should anyone come to dwell there
by writ of their lord the king, the whole community shall pay to the king . . . in order
that the person may be disqualified by the king from residing there.101

Louis Rabinowitz claimed that this was ‘probably the only document
extant giving the formula of an institution which persisted in southern
France, Germany, Italy and eastern Europe for some seven centuries’.102
Adler saw this document as an attempt to deal with the problem of an
influx of refugees from other Jewries that might have been devastated
during the troubles of the early 1260s.103 Daniel Cohn-Sherbok saw the
Canterbury herem as an attempt to deal with unscrupulous members of the
Jewish community in order to improve the image of Jewish business. The
herem was intended, in Rabinowitz’s words, ‘to bring about the economic
protection of the community and the establishment of a virtual trading
monopoly’ in a time of difficulty.104 It shows that the Jewish communities
were occasionally prepared to exclude other Jews from settlement in their
communities.
Not only the existence of places of worship, burial customs and law
separated the Jew from Christian society, language did too. The legal used
for contracts with Christians was Latin. But the Jews of England also spoke
and wrote in French and it is possible that the majority were happier to use
 A C O M M U N I T Y W I T H I N A S TA T E 61

The Jewish Community

T almud Internal Justice

CAPITULUM JUDAEORUM (BETH
T orah Customs, Annals, Law DIN) Three officials specially appointed
from the community (Kahal) with power
R espons a of fining, suspension from the community
and, ultimately, excommunication
. with dowry rights,
(Herem ) . Dealt
marriage settlements, land and contract

S YNAGOGUE (Scola) (Beth

Knesset)
M INYAN (10 adult males)

SHAMASH P ARNASS RABBI

(Sexton) (President of
Communal Life
Congregation) • education (Beth ha Sepher
and Beth ha Midrash)
• kosher diet (butchers and
bakers)
HAZZAN • scriptorium
GABBAI &
( Treasurer) C ANTOR

Fiscal
S htadlan (liaison officer) and T alliatores

Funds and Fabric

∗ R ahash payments by members of the community for the synagogue
officials
∗ collections or pledges in synagogue services and monthly contributions
∗ payments from weddings, funerals, the administration of oaths, prayers for
the sick or for mourners
∗ payments at festivals like Purim
∗ B ursa Communis
∗ communal property – burial ground and synagogue, m ikveh (ritual bath)
and shops

this as their everyday language.105 Certainly it was deemed necessary to

translate the Haggadah, which was used on the Eve of the Passover into the
vernacular for the benefit of women and children.106 However, it was the
use of Hebrew for ritual and prayer that set the Jewish community apart.
It was used for epitaphs and graffiti, as well as inter-Jewish transactions
and signatures.107 Inter-Jewish loans, contracts and kettuboth were drawn
up by Jewish scribes, and the Exchequer of the Jews also employed some
62 THE KING’S JEWS

Hebrew scribes. A copy of the Plea Roll was recorded in Hebrew, and many
of the stocks of tallies bore Hebrew characters, presumably as a means of
easy reference for Jewish businessmen.108
Food also set the Jews apart from Christian neighbours, as Jews
observed the laws of kashrut.109 Rabbi Benjamin of Canterbury forbade
his followers to buy milk from a Gentile, even from one who had raised no
unclean animals.110 English Jews followed similar laws to their brethren
on the continent. Rabbi Meir of Rothenberg claimed that his teacher,
Rabbi Leon of Paris, had heard that Rabbi Tam had directed implicitly that
barnacle geese (which were widely believed to grow on trees) should be
slaughtered after the Jewish fashion and even had his decision on this sent
to the ‘sons of Angleterre’.111 Rabbi Moses of London has left his recipe
for charoseth or the paste that the Jews ate on Passover to remind them of
the mortar they used as slaves in Egypt. He instructed his congregation to
take some ‘dates or figs or raisins and crush them into vinegar and make
them into a paste like mortar’.112
The Jews’ diet was probably not only different, but probably better than
that of their neighbours. The more copious evidence from France suggests
that this was clearly the case. Moses of Coucy regarded bread, fish, meat
and wine as a sufficient diet for poor Jews. At least 20 different kinds of
bread and cakes were available to the French Jew, from a sponge cake fried
in oil to a cake made with flour fermented in grape skins that Rabbi Tam
had forbidden.113 Perhaps such delicacies were available to some English
Jews too. In 1290 Hagin of Lincoln owned a house in St Martin’s parish,
rented from Adam Ack for 9s per annum. He also paid a yearly rent to the
Priory of St Katherine for a plot of land on which his kitchen was built.
Was this the kitchen of his busy household, or a communal one?114
Fish was also widely eaten, and Rabbi Tam had pronounced barbell as
being the best for Jewish consumption; tuna, carp, herring and salmon
were also eaten.115 Some Jews were even implicated in a large herring
robbery in Norfolk.116 Meat was commonly eaten in the form of a pastide
(pie) and perhaps the annual gift from Richard Foliot to Hagin of Lincoln
of a beast of the chase, as well as other references to Jews enjoying hunting,
 A C O M M U N I T Y W I T H I N A S TA T E 63

means that some game may have been eaten too.117 Meat fit for Jewish
tables was clearly available; in 1285 in Hereford, John Bibol was fined for
selling ‘meat of the Jews’.118
Wine was of great importance to the Jews. The Kiddush was recited
over wine. The London Jew Rabbi Elijah Menahem imported wine from
Gascony.119 There were Jewish vintners in Oxford and Isaac of Colchester
even had his own vineyard.120 There were rulings on alcohol and, in
France, cider and liquor made from berries and cherries was not regarded
as wine and could be purchased from a Gentile.121 The Tosafists give as
an example of the partial abstinence enjoined on the Feast of the Ninth
of Ab the advice that if a Jew was accustomed to drink ten glasses of beer
a day, on this day he should drink only five.122 It was not unknown for
Jews to drink with Christians. Two continental Rabbis had noted with dis-
approval that ‘It is surprising that in the land of the Isle they are lenient in
the matter of drinking strong drinks of the Gentiles and along with them’.
They claimed that this could lead to intermarriage but added ‘. . . perhaps
as there would be great ill-feeling if they were to refrain from this one must
not be severe upon them’.123
In the twelfth century, links between English and Continental Jews were
certainly very close. The Jews of England were Ashkenazi in origin and, as
such, shared the influences, culture, literature and ritual that their brethren
in Northern Europe had practised for centuries. Louis Rabinowitz saw
England’s Jews as a branch of northern French Jewry with few distinctive
or separate characteristics’.124 Rabbi Tam quoted a Jewish scholar from
Dover, while Ibn Ezra dedicated his work, the Yesod Moreh, to Joseph fil
Jacob while he was in London; Rabbi Yomtob of Joigny died at York. Books
stolen from the York Jewry ended up in Cologne.125
Gershom of Mainz, Rashi, Rabbi Tam, Maimonides, Meir of Rothenburg
and Moses of Coucy were the inspiring teachers, but the Jews of England
also had their own cultural achievements.126 Moses of London (d. 1268)
wrote the Darkhe ha-Nikkud veha-Neginah, an important work on Hebrew
punctuation and accentuation. His three sons all produced scholarly works
during Edward I’s reign: Elijah Menahem, Benedict of Nicole and Jacob
64 THE KING’S JEWS

of Oxford.127 In 1287, Jacob fil Jehudah of London produced the work

Etz Chayim, a collection of Jewish Law that made available the rabbinical
opinion of scholars such as Rabbi Elijah of Warwick, and two of Moses
of London’s scholarly sons, Rabbi Joseph of Bristol and Rabbi Moses of
Dover.128 The poems of Meir of Norwich have also survived and bear wit-
ness to the events leading to the expulsion – the massacres, imprisonments
and sequestration of property.129
Cultural, social and economic links between the Jews of England
and France were maintained throughout the two centuries of presence.
Although forbidden from travelling across the Channel without permis-
sion, there were times when Jews did travel. The year 1218 saw the last
great influx of Continental Jewry into England, while 1233 and 1240 saw
Jews leave England; in 1255, they were forbidden to leave.130 During the
period 1240–60, Moses of Coucy allowed a Jew to embark for England on
a Friday, because with a favourable wind the passage could be made before
the start of the Sabbath.131 In 1254, Salle fil Josce, a Canterbury Jew, was
overseas while his pregnant wife was cared for by the Sheriff of Kent.132
In 1273, Jacob of Oxford went overseas and took the key to the Oxford
archa with him.133 Rabbi Elijah Menahem was not only given permission
to import wine from Gascony but was even summoned with his servant,
Abraham Mouton, to the sickbed of the Count of Flanders in 1280.134
Contact with the Continental Jewries was active, as was contact between
the Jewish communities in England. Contact with other Jews outside and
individual community was a vital lifeline for legal advice, support, busi-
ness and when planning marriage.
Despite the problems posed by remoteness, local antipathy and the
forcefulness of royal government to bring the Jews into line, it is to their
credit that the Anglo-Jews remained true to themselves. Ultimately it was
religion more than culture, linguistics or customs that kept them from
assimilation. The fact that the only remains of Anglo-Jewry, apart from
seals, yards of documents and a few surviving houses, are religious objects
– the Bodleian ewer and a few prayer books – demonstrate unequivo-
cally that the Anglo-Jew not only knew his religion but also practised it
 A C O M M U N I T Y W I T H I N A S TA T E 65

fervently.135 Even the Jews’ own conception of time and history was col-
oured by religion. Their documents were dated by the Jewish calendar and
they divided their year accordingly.136 The Jews dated their transactions
with the format ‘from the beginning of the world to the end’, reflecting
the time at which, they thought, God created the world, and celebrated
festivals throughout the year.137 Even when incarcerated in the Tower of
London between 1275 and 1277, Jews still took solace in performing their
rituals. It is clear that some Jewish prisoners paid bribes so that they might
be outside on the Sabbath and also be free to celebrate ‘Josana et Enna
que Purim’.138 They also celebrated Seder, and it was unfortunate that this
festival often caused offence to Christians, falling as it generally did close
to Easter.139 The Jews remembered the atrocities they had suffered, and
elegies of their martyrs of Blois and York have survived as clear reminders
of the sufferings of Israel for its religion.140 Many must have held very
strong beliefs that one day their lot would improve.
Thus the Jewish communities maintained and practised their own
religion in their synagogues. They preserved their culture, ritual, customs,
diet and language. As long as it did not impinge on the law of the state,
they kept their own Law. They maintained their education and had their
own sages. Within their community they elected officials both within and
outside of the synagogue. They maintained their burial customs. They also
maintained their links with Jewish communities on the continent. They
were organised and mindful of their own traditions, as well as having an
immense sense of corporate identity. Yet they were tightly controlled by
a hierarchy of government officials. Ultimately they were the King’s Jews,
and as such were governed by the royally appointed Justices of the Jewish
Exchequer, who in turn were advised by the Archpresbyter of the Jews.
Their place of residence and their financial dealings were closely moni-
tored. They were hemmed in by government interference and surveillance.
They were to a point protected but were made to pay for that protection
by arbitrary tallages. These small communities were indeed a community
within a state that rendered unto Caesar and at times prayed that they
might be delivered.
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 4

Saints and martyrs

Writing in 1943, Joshua Trachtenberg observed that ‘the most vivid

impression to be gained from a reading of medieval allusions to the Jews
is of a hatred so vast and abysmal, so intense that it leaves one gasping for
comprehension’.1 Such expressions of raw hatred arise from the chronicles
and were sustained by constant references to the ‘perfidious’ Jew in ser-
mons. In the late twelfth century, Richard of Devizes referred to the Jews
as ‘bloodsuckers and worms’.2 In the thirteenth century Matthew Paris
compared them to ‘Cain the accursed’.3 To fully understand this ‘vast and
abysmal hatred’ for Jews, historians have to peel back a veneer of semantics
and to reach their own conclusions about both spin and smear. Clearly one
of the historian’s greatest gifts is hindsight but this can sometimes obscure
foresight by the use of anachronistic semantics. With the exception of
the word ‘holocaust’ (a word first used in the eleventh century), other
words like ‘pogrom’, ‘anti-Semitism’ or even ‘anti-Judaism’ (all created in
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries) cannot replace the raw fears and
turmoil that the Jew purportedly caused and, in turn, the horrors that they
suffered from the product of the medieval mind. At times it was a mindset
made up of both hate and rejection in equal proportions.4
At the start of the second millennium Europeans easily recognised
expressions like ‘soldier of Christ’ or ‘imitation of Christ’ and were fired
by slogans like ‘God wills it’.5 To the Christian the infidel was bad enough,
but the Jew was worse. The first level of antipathy towards Jews was what
a Christian had been told from birth onwards. To any Christian, the Jew
was first and foremost the Christ Killer. The Jews had also refused to accept
Christ as the Messiah; the Jew had missed and even rejected redemp-
tion.6 The story of Ahasuerus, the Wandering Jew, was a front-line motif
68 THE KING’S JEWS

sometimes used like the proverbial bogeyman by Christian mothers to

frighten their children.7 First and foremost, the Jew was already beyond
the register of most of Western society because of his religion alone.
The second level of enmity was what Christians actually saw when they
encountered Jewish communities. Often they could not see further than a
difference in physiognomy, a difference in clothing, a difference in dietary
practice or even a badge. Revulsion was easily increased as some Jews
became creditors and some Christians became users of capital supplied by
Jews. Resentment of debt and of riches is, and always has been, a reason
for the development of abhorrence.8 The third level of odium was what a
single individual actually believed and then embellished. It was possible
to believe anything of an avowed enemy. This type of misbelief is the type
that in history has produced Napoleon eating babies, German soldiers
bayoneting babies at the outbreak of the Great War, and the creation in
a popular psyche of weapons of mass destruction. Within the Christian
medieval mind the Jew was capable of all of these accusations.9
To the citizens of Christendom, after the failure of the world to end in
either 1000 or 1100 and Armageddon to be ushered in, these three single
strands wound irretrievably into an aversion that led to intense hatred and
eventually to massacre as the Jewish demon became even more demon-
ised. Although words such as ‘anti-Semitism’ and ‘pogrom’ nearly always
appear in modern discussions of the medieval Jew, they are probably
more accurately replaced by the more simplistic ‘Jew hatred’ in place of
‘anti-Semitism’ and ‘local massacre’ in place of ‘pogrom’, and both reader
and writer should try to have both the foresight not to be influenced by the
terminology of later centuries and perhaps also to forgive contemporary
ignorance that resulted in Jew hatred and the prevailing animosity towards
the Jews.10
For scholars and almost all religious men Jew hatred was backed by a
long history. In a society with an insatiable thirst for stories and tales and
with the desire to see the supremacy of Christianity over evil, many differ-
ent media developed concerning the accursed Jew. Stories and perceptions
travelled widely. In one well-known story the death of a Jewish glassblower
 SAINTS AND MART YRS 69

of Bourges, who attempted to kill his Jewish son for having attended a
Christian mass, was portrayed to the literate masses as little more than
a miracle. The Jewish father, who had thrown his son into the furnace,
was the villain of the piece. The unfortunate boy was miraculously saved
from the flames after his screaming mother had attracted a crowd. The
Virgin Mary appeared and shielded the boy. The crowd who had gathered
threw the father into the flames, where he died.11 Such tales and widely
circulating rumours and beliefs about the Jews naturally helped to increase
resentment of Jewish presence.
Saints, and in particular the Virgin Mary, were the lifeblood of promot-
ing Christianity. It is no surprise that soon after the Jews settled in Oxford
there was a tussle with the local saint. In the late 1180s, Deulecresse, the
son of Moses of Wallingford, was accused of ‘insulting the devotions of
Christian folk and deriding the divine miracles with blaspheming words’.
He was even accused of having claimed he was as good as St Frideswide
and that gifts should be given to him as well as to the local saint. His father,
Moses, chastised his wayward son so much that Deulecresse later com-
mitted suicide. Moses tried to keep the death quiet but when Deulecresse’s
body was leaving Oxford on a cart en route for the Jewish cemetery in
London a number of Oxford dogs followed it howling and barking.12
Another blasphemous outrage is told in a further story. In 1250,
Abraham of Berkhamstead was alleged to have bought an image of the
Madonna and Child and ‘in order to heap more insults on Jesus Christ’
he placed the icon at the bottom of his privy. He then defecated on it and
commanded his wife to do likewise. The Jewess took the icon out from
the jakes and cleaned it. Her husband found out and killed her.13 Another
lavatorial story of a Jew, called Solomon, who died as a martyr in 1257, was
later included in John Foxe’s Book of Martyrs and was clearly widely known
in the medieval period.14 Solomon had fallen into a latrine in Tewkesbury
and had refused to be pulled out because it was the Sabbath. The following
day Richard de Clare, the Earl of Gloucester, refused permission for the
unfortunate Solomon to be pulled out for ‘reverence of the holy day’ and
the Jew was eventually found dead in the dung on the Monday morning.15
70 THE KING’S JEWS

The different physiognomy of Jews was also seized on by contemporary

scribes. From 1215, and possibly before, the Jews were further segregated
from Christian society by having to wear a badge of shame or tabula,
as well as being forced to wear a spiked hat. These physical marks were
carried over into the portrayal of Jews. There are several extant drawings
that illustrate these differences.16 The well-known scribal depiction of a
vista at the head of one of the Jewish rolls of 1233 might well represent a
glimpse of a common miracle play that the scribe had seen and now put
names to the characters.17
At the top of the roll, with three heads looking everywhere at once
and mirroring medieval pictures of the Antichrist, is Isaac fil Jurnet of
Norwich, a moneylender who lent on a national scale. To the left is Moses
Mokke who was Isaac’s debt collector. Moses wears the Jewish spiked
helmet. Moses was a rather shady character who had been charged for
assault in 1230 and was eventually executed for clipping coins in 1242. Just
beneath Isaac and near the castle is Avegaye, who was the wife of either

2 Caricature of Isaac of Norwich depicted as the Antichrist, with his wife Avegaye and
his debt collector Moses Mokke being taunted by demons, 1233.
 SAINTS AND MART YRS 71

Moses or Isaac. There are also several devils representing the accursedness
of the Jews. The main one is nicknamed Colbif. Even artists who portrayed
biblical Jews began to depict them anachronistically.18 Thus Jew hatred
was not just manifested in stories but in the popular image of the Jew and
particularly associated with the moneylender and the Devil.
Execration of the Jew was also manifest in what Trachtenberg termed
‘popular subjective and non-natural beliefs’.19 The belief of mystical
powers and Jewish magic stirred by suspicion of the Kabbalah and par-
ticularly suspicion of the mazzuzah was common.20 In 1240, the Synod of
Worcester decreed that ‘when men and women magicians shall be found
and also such as consult Jews for the purpose of finding out by magic
about their lives or actions, they shall be brought before the bishop to be
punished’.21 The common belief that before selling meat to Christians the
Jews had their children urinate on it to induce sickness and death led to
prohibitions against Christians buying food from Jews.22 The belief that
Jews had a thirst or need for blood to cure the haemorrhoids with which
they had been punished was also prevalent.23 Similar suspicion sur-
rounded the fact that circumcision demanded the use of Calumus Draco
or ‘Dragon’s blood’, a gum obtained from a species of palm, in order to
stem the wound.24 The custom of male circumcision was itself open to
misinterpretation and provided more fuel for absurd accusations.25 It was
widely held that all male Jews menstruated and that blood was needed to
make matzah.26 The belief that the Jew had a distinguishable smell was also
common – possibly caused by the eating of garlic or the use of chemicals
to remove hair, for the Jew was forbidden by religious law to use a blade
on his beard.27
Inevitably, any unusual or inexplicable disaster could be blamed on the
Jews. The Jew was also seen as an international conspirator. In 1228, when
an Armenian archbishop visited St Albans, news of Joseph Cartaphilus, the
Wandering Jew, and of strange happenings in the East reached England.
Such news only confirmed the worst suspicions of Gentiles. Was not the
Antichrist to be born of Jewish parents and Armageddon ushered in by
the Jews?28 Then, as news of Mongol invasions reached the West, panic
72 THE KING’S JEWS

broke out and the belief that the Jewish legions were at hand was rife. Many
believed that there was a world conspiracy that threatened Christianity.
The Jews were kinsmen of the Tartars and these invasions by the Mongols
were carried out in order to release the sons of Israel. This rumour was fur-
ther spiced up with the speculation that the Jews in Germany had bought
up and hidden as many weapons as they could find. The Jewish Mongol
‘Plot’ of 1241 had all the makings and trappings of an international ter-
rorism scare, with their own weapons of mass destruction.29
One of the most enduring fantasies about the Jews was first told in
England.30 The story was backed by the evidence of a Jewish convert,
Theobald of Cambridge, and was recorded in the Life of St  William of
Norwich, written by Thomas of Monmouth, monk of Norwich Cathedral
Priory. Whether or not Thomas was partly inspired by earlier ritual
murder allegations in Germany during the First Crusade, he certainly
now disseminated a full dossier concerning a premeditated Jewish ritual
murder in Norwich.31 By the time Thomas wrote his hagiography the case
was six years old. The accusations and the martyrdom itself had come and
gone but the embers from flames of bigotry were still glowing and now, a
few years after the event, were fanned up.32
According to Thomas, who has recently been described as both a ‘cyni-
cal hagiographer’ and a ‘sly and secret manipulator’, the affair started on 20
March 1144, the first Monday of Easter week, and involved the family of
two Norwich women, Elviva and Leviva Sturt.33 On that Easter Monday, a
man claiming to be the Archdeacon of Norwich’s cook appeared at Elviva’s
house and offered her son, William, a job. On Tuesday 21 March, the
man and William visited Leviva’s house. On 25 March, Easter Saturday,
William’s body was found in Thorpe Wood just outside the city by a nun
and a peasant who immediately informed Henry of Sprowston, a forester.
On Monday 27 March, Henry of Sprowston buried the body where it had
been found in the wood. On Tuesday 28 March, Godwin Sturt (Leviva’s
husband), his son, Alexander, and William’s brother, Robert, exhumed the
body, recognised it and immediately reburied it. Godwin subsequently
informed Leviva – who then told Godwin about a dream she had had
 SAINTS AND MART YRS 73

two weeks before. In the dream she had been in the marketplace when
Jews ran at her, surrounded her and broke her right leg with a club, tore it
from her body and ran away with it. The Sturt family then informed the
boy’s mother, Elviva, who immediately ran around the town accusing the
Jews of murder.
At a synod held by Bishop Eborard of Norwich in the middle of April
1144, Godwin arose and publicly accused the Jews of the murder. Bishop
Eborard summoned the Jews of Norwich three times to answer the charge.
The Sheriff of Norwich denied the charges and took the Jews into the
castle for security. A visiting cleric, Prior Aimar of the distant Abbey of
St Pancras in Lewes, asked if he could have the body, but Bishop Eborard
refused and ordered the body to be exhumed on 24 April 1144 and buried
in the monks’ cemetery. In order to fully establish a new shrine and to
boost the pilgrimage revenues of Norwich cathedral it only needed a
well-constructed and informed hagiography or saint’s Vita, which, after
the event, Thomas was happy to supply.
The sanctity of the martyr and the authenticity of the saint were further
bolstered by Monmouth’s one-sided evidence. He claimed that at first the
Jews had received the boy kindly on the Tuesday, 21 March, which was
the first day of Passover. After the synagogue service on the Wednesday
the boy was seized and gagged, his head tied with cords and pierced with
thorns; he was then bound as if on a cross upon three uprights of wood
and a horizontal bar. To these his right hand and foot were secured with
ropes, his left hand and foot with nails. His left side was later pierced to
the heart and scalding water poured over the body to cleanse the wounds
and stop the flow of blood.
He next described a meeting of the Jews, which took place on the
morrow and at which the decision was made to take the body to a remote
place. On Good Friday, a time when Thomas admitted that Jews did not
normally stir abroad, the body was taken by the leading Jew, Deus-adiuvet,
Eleazar and another Jew to Thorpe Wood.
This monk-detective was quite clear in adding and exploiting further
evidence for his readers. First, Thomas claimed to have interviewed a
74 THE KING’S JEWS

Christian maidservant who had served in the house where William was
murdered. She professed that she peered through a chink in the door and
caught a momentary glimpse (with one eye) of a boy fastened to a post and
that she later found a boy’s knife in the room. To put the matter beyond
doubt, Thomas himself was shown two nail holes in the post in the house.
The marks of wounds on the body (which were found on 24 April, more
than a month after its discovery) more than proved that skulduggery and
murder had taken place.
Five years after the discovery of the body, in 1149, a citizen of Norwich,
Aelward Ded, confessed that he had seen two Jews entering Thorpe Wood.
He had spoken to them and had felt a body in a sack carried over the neck
of one of the horses. Aelward explained that he had not said anything
before because he had been sworn to secrecy by the sheriff, John de
Chesney, whom the Jews had bribed to keep this secret. The sheriff had
died in 1146 and so Aelward was free to make his revelation. The story
spread beyond Norwich, and similar accusations were made against the
Jews in Gloucester in 1168, Bury St Edmunds in 1181, Bristol in 1183 and
Worcester in 1192.34
In 1168, the Jews of Gloucester and elsewhere had gathered to celebrate
the circumcision of a boy from a prominent Gloucester Jewish family. At
about the ninth hour on Saturday 18 March that year, a fisherman dis-
covered a body floating in the River Severn. It was brought to the bank. A
crowd was attracted and within a short time the monks of St Peter’s and the
citizens of Gloucester had gathered.35 The boy’s head was encircled with
thorns and his feet tied together with his own girdle. When his clenched
hands were examined ‘it was believed or the signs indicated that tortures
like crucifixion had been inflicted’. Further examination showed that ‘he
had been placed between two fires so that his whole body was burned’
and that fat had been poured over him, like roasted meat. Burns covered
his eyes, ears and face.
The condition of the boy’s clothes provided similar confirmation. The
onlookers said they ‘bore the marks of presumed martyrdom’, a new shirt
that he wore was ‘scorched off around him’ and ‘some 300 holes’, were
 SAINTS AND MART YRS 75

found on his body. One witness saw and handled the victim’s clothes and
‘his sacred little body’ and found his tunic in a similar state. On 19 March
at sunset, a cortege marched in procession from the riverside to the abbey.
The body was taken to a private place, washed and laid out, and on the
morrow it was buried in the north-east chapel.36 Once again it was alleged
that the boy, who had been identified as Harold, had been hidden by the
local Jewish community until all the Jews of England came together for the
sacrifice. Once again the Jews were identified as the culprits and, although
both cases were unproven, the Jews were blamed for the appearance of the
dead bodies as well as the plague and other supernatural happenings. By
the end of the twelfth century, there were two officially recognised shrines
to boy martyrs who had reputedly been done to death by the Jews – those
of St William of Norwich and St Harold of Gloucester.
Over 20 years after the discovery of Harold of Gloucester’s body, the
Jewish chronicler Ephraim of Bonn noted that, ‘In the year of the creation
4950, Evil was brought upon Israel from heaven. For there arose a King in
the Isle of the sea known as Angleterre . . .’.37 The King was Richard I and
ironically it was an accusation of Jews giving the evil eye at his coronation
that started a general massacre all over England. In 1190 Jew hatred was
heightened by a surge of religiosity that accompanied crusading as well as
a feeling of insecurity that accompanied the start of a new reign. Christians
were feeling sensitive and were spiritually whipped up by both Pope and
churchmen alike.38 Richard’s coronation was accompanied by anti-Jewish
feeling and Jew hatred on a national scale. In 1189 a new stimulus and
excuse for mass murder was created in London on 3 September. Leading
Jews from all over England had travelled to attend King Richard’s coro-
nation and to pay their respects. Outside the ceremony their presence
was clearly resented and led to the accusation of the evil eye: ‘and bad
men hastened to say that it was not allowed for the Jews to look on the
King’s crown’.39 There were subsequent calls for the Jewish delegation to
be banned from attending the ritual. This was accompanied by a rumour
that the King had commanded the conversion of the Jews. It seems that
this disturbance was not reported by the doorkeeper and the brawl turned
76 THE KING’S JEWS

into a massacre.40 Ephraim of Bonn’s Hebrew account of the event blamed

the doorkeeper for actively stirring up the situation and for banning the
Jews from the ceremony and he even relished in the royal revenge that was
taken on the doorkeeper, who was punished by being dragged through the
streets until he was dead.41
In London, the massacre left 30 Jews dead and Jewish households
burned to the ground. Whether annoyed at loss of revenue or simply at
the lack of control, Richard took action. William of Newburgh, when he
wrote of the coronation riots in London, illustrated the new king’s reac-
tion: ‘He was angry and yet perplexed to know what was to be done in this
matter . . . But the prince guaranteed peace to the Jews by an edict after
the slaughter’.42 Yet it was too late. The many contemporary accounts of
the ensuing massacres of Shabbat ha Gadol recognised the copycat effect
of violence throughout the country. ‘Other cities and towns of the country
imitated the Londoners’, wrote Richard of Devizes. ‘and with equal devo-
tion sent down their bloodsuckers with blood down to Hell’.43 There were
some exceptions; the Jews of Winchester were left unharmed because the
citizens there were law-abiding:

Winchester alone spared her vermin, a people prudent and foreseeing and a city
acting always civilly. It never did anything in a hurry, fearing nothing so much as to
repent; it thinks of the end of things before beginning them. It did not want to vomit
forth the load on its stomach by which it was opposed, and took care of its bowels
in the meantime, modestly concealing the trouble, till an opportune time when she
might once and for ever evacuate the whole mass of disease.44

Yet the seed was sown and the ensuing massacres and violence spread
northwards. Ralph of Diss acknowledged the spread and implications
of the London massacre: ‘Many of those who were hastening to go to
Jerusalem determined first to rise against the Jews before they invaded the
Saracens . . .’.45 Many other chronicles report the massacres that took place
in the spring of 1190. We are left with the feeling of a series of intermittent
risings against the Jews in the major towns where they lived. It is clear that
 SAINTS AND MART YRS 77

hatred swept up the country. There were early outbreaks during the first
week of February 1190 in King’s Lynn; on 6 February all the Jews who
were found in their own houses in Norwich were butchered.46 On 7 March
many were slain during the fair at Stamford.47 Government records refer
to serious assaults on Jews at Colchester, Thetford and Ospringe in Kent.48
Although chroniclers disagree on the date of the outbreak of violence at
Bury St Edmunds, Ralph of Diss dates it to 18 March which he maintained
was the peaceful Jewish festival of Palm Branches. For the Bury Jewish
community it was far from peaceful and it is claimed that some 57 Jews
were slaughtered.49 At Bury St Edmunds Christian-Jewish relations had
been marred by another ritual murder accusation. In 1181 it had been
alleged that the Jews of Bury St Edmunds had crucified a young Christian
boy called Robert.50 The local chronicler, Jocelin de Brakelond, who had
become a monk in the abbey of Bury in 1173, did not hint at the guilt of
the Jews for the alleged murder and furthermore makes little reference
to the accusation or the massacre. Certainly the presence of Jews in Bury
had not been popular. In the town there had been an ongoing struggle
about jurisdiction over the Jews between the abbot and the Crown. The
Jews were not men of St Edmund’s and under the abbot’s jurisdiction but
they were the King’s men. It appears that now Abbot Sampson, who was
himself deeply in debt to the Jews, took the opportunity to banish the Jews
from Bury forever.51
William of Newburgh recorded one of the provincial massacres at Lynn
in some detail. In Lynn the spark for the massacre was provided by a Jew
who had converted to Christianity. The local Jewish community, ‘thirst-
ing for blood of a deserter and traitor’, allegedly seized arms and attacked
the new convert in the street, and he headed for the nearest church to
shelter. But the ‘madmen’, as Newburgh called them, did not give up. They
besieged the church and tried to break down the doors and drag the fugi-
tive out for punishment. A clamour was raised by those inside the church
and help was summoned. The shouting and noise alerted the Christian
inhabitants for miles around. Many joined in the struggle but ‘worked
half-heartedly for fear of the King’. Their efforts were boosted by a group
78 THE KING’S JEWS

of young foreigners who attacked the ‘insolent assailants more stoutly’. The
Jewish posse fled, a few were killed in flight and the Christian mob now
turned on them and started to burn Jewish properties. Many other Jews
were killed. The next day the mob killed a Jewish physician, a respected
member of both communities, who had started to speak out against the
murders. The gang of Christians seized him and put him to the sword. The
group of young foreigners, loaded with booty, returned to their ships and
went away before the King’s officers began an enquiry. The inhabitants of
Lynn blamed the whole affair on the young aliens who had got away.
At Stamford on 7 March 1190, at the annual fair, ‘a number of youths
who had taken the Lord’s sign to start for Jerusalem who had come
together from different provinces’ were blamed with starting the mas-
sacre of the Stamford Jewish community. Once again it was easy to blame
outsiders but certainly one chronicler alludes to a motive:

They were indignant that the enemies of the cross of Christ who dwelt there should
possess so much when they had not enough for the expenses of so great a journey . . .
considering, therefore, that they could be doing honour to Christ if they attacked his
enemies, whose goods they were longing for, they boldly rushed upon them, nobody
either of the inhabitants of the place or of those who had come to the fair opposing
such daring persons and some even helping them.52

Some of the Stamford Jews were slain, but the rest escaped by retreating to
the castle. Jewish properties were pillaged and a great quantity of money
was taken. Yet not all Christians took part and some, like the Bishop of
Lincoln, were quick to put a stop to a rather strange martyrdom that took
place in connection with the Stamford massacre. One of the plunderers,
John, described as ‘a most audacious young man’, fled the scene of the
crime and went off to Northampton where he deposited a part of his
money with a landlord of an inn. The landlord murdered him and took
the stolen money for himself. It was said that John’s dead body performed
miracles and many flocked to hear the tale, hoping to be cured, and
crowded to his grave. It was Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln, who heard of it
 SAINTS AND MART YRS 79

and immediately put a stop to the hysteria paid to what he considered to

be a false martyr. Yet, even Bishop Hugh was unable to stop the carnage
spreading to his own cathedral town of Lincoln.
From Stamford the violent attacks spread slowly, but surely, northwards.
As another chronicler records:

The men of Lincoln hearing of what was being done to the Jews, seizing the opportu-
nity and encouraged by these examples, thought that something should be attempted
and gathering in a mob broke out into a sudden rising against their Jewish fellow
citizens. But they (the Jews) rendered more cautious by knowing the fate or the
terror of their fellows in various places, had betaken themselves with their money
to the fortified part of the town. And so nothing much being done, though much
investigation was carried on by the royal officials, that vain rising quickly subsided.53

In Lincoln the blame was not put on the presence of foreigners or outsiders;
the rising was the work of the locals. The fortified part of the town was the
Bail, where Aaron of Lincoln and his family had settled. We know from sur-
viving records the subsequent action that was taken against the perpetrators
and that some of the Lincoln mob were townsmen and numbered among
them wealthy merchants like Godwin the Rich, Reimbald of Wigford and
William son of Warner, as well as craftsmen and other local artisans.
Despite the fear of the recriminations that might be taken by the
representatives of the King, the violence and killings of Shabbat ha Gadol
eventually reached York. York’s townspeople, led by local knights, burst
into the house of Benedict of York in Spen Lane. Benedict had been one of
the Jewish delegation to the coronation in Westminster and subsequently
he had been forcibly converted and then killed in London. The York rioters
now killed Benedict’s widow and children and set fire to his house. The
York Jewish community took refuge in the castle and ‘carried into it huge
weights of their monies equal to the royal treasures’. The mob then set
upon Josce of York’s house in Coney Street. Some of the rioters also tried
to baptise the Jews by force: ‘those who refused to accept the sacrament of
life, even as a matter of pretence, were butchered without mercy’. 54
80 THE KING’S JEWS

The violent crowd even used siege towers against the Jews who had
taken refuge in the castle. According to several chroniclers, the leader of
the rabble was a holy man. Tradition has it that this bellicose monk was
a member of the minor local order of Praemonstratensian Canons. He
stood dressed, we are told, in his white surplice, which he considered to
be as a coat of mail, and reiterated: ‘Destroy the enemies of Jesus!’ Before
he went to join the attack and assist in battering the walls, he swallowed a
consecrated wafer, but even this did not protect him from a rock thrown
from the castle walls that struck and killed him. His death further enraged
the mob. Besieged on all sides, the Jews then made a suicide pact, prefer-
ring martyrdom to conversion. Urged on by the exhortations of a visiting
French Rabbi, Yomtob of Joigny, they set fire to the castle where they were
sheltering.55 Josce of York cut his wife’s throat with his own hand and
then dispatched his sons. Then Yomtob made a speech that echoed that of
Eleasar at Masada, as reported by Josephus, and killed Josce and himself as
other York Jews ended their lives.56 Next morning at daybreak, when the
besiegers gathered to deliver the final assault, the few Jews who had not
killed themselves were persuaded to throw open the gates with promises
of clemency if they converted to Christianity. As they ventured out they
were set upon and massacred. Among all the chroniclers who reported
the mass killings only one lone voice deplored the massacres. Ralph of
Diss ended his account with the following: ‘It can not be believed that so
sad and fatal a death of the Jews can have pleased prudent men, since that
saying of David so often comes to our ears – “Do not Slay them”’.57
When he heard the news, Richard I took immediate action against those
who had killed what he considered to be ‘his’ Jews. The reprisals on the York
citizens, while perhaps not as drastic as the fate that met the doorkeeper of
Westminster Hall at Richard’s coronation, were severe. Mass anarchy and
disobedience were not to be tolerated by a new King. On 26 March 1190,
a messenger from London had arrived in Normandy to inform the royal
court of the news. Richard immediately dispatched his new Chancellor,
William de Longchamp, to England. He gathered a force and arrived in
York finally on 3 May. By this time the leading perpetrators had fled.
 SAINTS AND MART YRS 81

Immediately, Longchamp dismissed the sheriff and the constable of the

castle and confiscated much land in and around the city. Naturally York’s
citizens denied that they had been involved, but 50 or 60 leading wealthy
citizens of York were heavily fined. This time the blame was clearly based
not on culpability but on wealth. The subsequent royal enquiry revealed
the names of three prominent perpetrators: Robert of Ghent, Robert de
Turnham and Richard Malebisse. All had fled the scene of the crime.58
Chroniclers and other records confirm that all three had their own
motives for the killings. Robert of Ghent had been indebted to Aaron of
Lincoln and to a Jew called Brun of Stamford. Robert of Turnham had
been indebted to Aaron of Lincoln. By marriage he was a member of
the Fossard family, patrons of the parish church of St Crux in York and
also owners of houses in Spen Lane, thus close neighbours of Benedict
of York.59 The clearest motive for the massacre came from Richard
Malebisse or Richard the Evil Beast. Malebisse was indebted to Aaron of
York and that may be why the rioters targeted the Minster and burned all
the bonds that were owed to Jews. Malebisse had a mansion in the village
of Acaster Malebis, just outside York, and a house at Copmanthorpe on
the banks of the Ouse, even closer to York. His family had held lands in
Lincolnshire and by 1182 he too was in debt to Aaron of Lincoln. For
his part in the slaughter, Malebisse’s estates were seized and his esquires,
Walter de Carlton and Richard de Kukeney, were imprisoned. By 1193
Richard Malebisse was worming his way back to favour and paid £13 6s
8d for the restoration of some of his lands that had been seized because of
his part in the ‘killing of the Jews of York’. When John came to the throne,
Malebisse returned to favour, and his lands were restored. Ironically, in
1198, Malebisse founded a Premonstratensian monastery in Lincolnshire,
the same order as the monk who had whipped up the rabble on the night
of the massacre.60
The damage that was done to the York community was somewhat
over-estimated by some of the chroniclers. The Jewish chronicler Ephraim
of Bonn puts the number of Jews who died in Clifford’s Tower at 150.61
Yet Jewish residence in York did not cease in 1190, as it did at Bury
82 THE KING’S JEWS

St Edmunds. Barrie Dobson has shown that soon after the massacre at
least some Jews returned to the city. Nor did the burning of the bonds and
the massacre destroy all Jewish business. The heirs of Benedict of York,
who somehow survived the carnage, paid the Crown £466 13s 4d for the
right to have their inheritance and to collect their father’s outstanding
debts.62 By 1210, York was again a city inhabited by Jews but now they
were under the protection of the Crown. The townspeople were punished
with large fines that were used by the government to rebuild the castle as
the symbol and tool of its authority. The rebuilding cost between 1190
and 1194 was £247 8s 5d, with £190 being spent on the castle within six
months of the massacre.63
The massacres and accusations were not to end at York. The Jewish
communities rebuilt their lives, but were under constant threat of attack.
Although there seems to have been no massacre at Winchester in 1190, the
city was not a safe haven. In 1192, an allegation of ritual murder shattered

3 Plaque commemorating the mass suicide of over 100 Jews at Clifford’s Tower in
York in March 1190.
 SAINTS AND MART YRS 83

any hope of good relations in Winchester, which Richard of Devizes had

described as ‘the Jerusalem of the Jews’.64 An apprentice, on the advice of
a French Jewish cobbler, went to England, ‘a land flowing with milk and
honey’, to seek service. He carried a letter of introduction to a member
of the Winchester Jewish community. On his way to find employment he
fell in with a boy of the same age and they were eventually offered work
by a Winchester Jew. On Good Friday the first boy did not turn up for
work. The second boy sought out the Jew and challenged him over the
disappearance of his friend. There followed a barrage of accusations of as
cannibalism and throat-cutting against the Jew and the final allegation of
ritual crucifixion. The second boy tried to supply a witness and to have
the Jew brought to trial. He failed because he was underage and the Jewish
community purportedly paid off the judges.65
The ritual murder accusations continued in the thirteenth century. In
Lincoln, in 1202, two Jews were suspected of killing a child whose body
had been found outside the city walls. At Stamford, in 1222, it was claimed
that Jews played games that mocked Christianity.66 In 1225, a jury in
Winchester found two Jews guilty of murdering a child, four others were
freed on a heavy bail. In the same year, a Winchester Jew was accused of
killing a girl but was freed on pledge because it was later reported that the
girl was still alive. In 1230, a Jewish boy went missing in Norwich and his
disappearance, which once again was blamed on the Jewish community,
led to a massive hunt. It also seems to have led to worsening relations
between the Jews and their Gentile neighbours.67 In 1232, some Jews were
imprisoned at Winchester because they were held responsible for the death
of Stephen, a one-year-old boy who had been dismembered, castrated
and had had his eyes and heart removed. The accused were later freed,
while the boy’s mother, who had also been arrested, was kept in prison.68
In 1244, the body of a baby was found in St Benet’s cemetery in London.
On examination it was found that there were marks on the body that were
thought to be Hebrew words. The Canons of St Paul’s immediately seized
the corpse and solemnly buried it near the high altar – another victim and
a further accusation.69 The spectre of irrational accusations and venomous
84 THE KING’S JEWS

allegations still pursued the Jew. By the middle of the thirteenth century
there were four shrines to alleged victims of Jewish ritual murder in exist-
ence. Yet until the mid-thirteenth century, with the possible exception of
Norwich, no secular authority had ever investigated any of the allegations
in any great detail.
The alleged murder of the boy Hugh of Lincoln received royal attention
and an ensuing investigation that left behind the most copious evidence
for any ritual murder allegation against the Jews. The evidence can be
found in the chronicles, the governmental records, myth and even some
actual material evidence. According to the monk-historian Mathew Paris,
on 27 July 1255 the Jews of Lincoln stole an eight-year-old Christian boy
called Hugh and sent invitations to other Jewish communities to join them
in Lincoln. When they were gathered, a crucifixion was enacted, with
Hugh as victim. A Lincoln Jew was appointed to play Pontius Pilate, and
the boy was tortured, stabbed, crucified and disembowelled. When the boy
had been missing for several days, his mother searched for him and was
told that he had last been seen playing with some Jewish boys and entering
the house of a Jew. She went into the house and found the boy’s body lying
in a well.70 A local knight, John of Lexington, was present at the discovery
and a confession was later made by a Jew called Copin. He claimed that
the Jews could not get rid of the disembowelled body. They had buried it
but it had been spat up again from the earth. Finally, they had dumped the
corpse in the well where it had been discovered. Subsequently Copin was
executed and 91 other Jews were taken to London under arrest. According
to Matthew Paris, all the Jews were guilty and this was a premeditated
murder as well as a full-blown conspiracy.71
The evidence of other chronicles shows slight variations. In the Annals
of Burton on Trent, the murder supposedly occurred on 31 July. They
blamed a Jew called Jopin as being responsible for the kidnap of Hugh, a
schoolboy aged 9, towards sunset on 5 July. The boy was said to have been
concealed for 26 days and starved. Finally, at a council of Jews made up
of Lincoln Jews and others, it was determined that Hugh should be put
to death. The Jews allegedly stripped the boy, flogged him, spat at him,
 SAINTS AND MART YRS 85

cut off the cartilage of his nose and his upper lips, finally breaking his
jaw and his main upper teeth. They then stabbed him all over and lanced
him in the side. The body was dumped in a well. It was eventually drawn
out by a woman who had been blind for 15 years. Miraculously, contact
with the body made her recover her sight. The body was then taken into
the cathedral. King Henry III arrived in Lincoln and ordered the arrest
of the whole Jewish community. John of Lexington forced a confession
from Jopin and the other Jews were arrested and taken to London, where
18 were killed.72
The diffusion of the legend of Little St  Hugh perhaps owes more to
popular ballads than it does to the chroniclers. An Anglo-Norman ballad
retold the story and embellished it in 93 verses. It claimed that Hugh
was kidnapped in Lincoln at the start of August, when there was a great
gathering of Jews, by a Jew called Peitevin. The boy was stripped and tied
up by Jopin. There then followed a ceremonial auction of the child to a Jew
called Hagin for 30 silver pennies. After his purchase, Hagin pronounced
the death sentence and pierced the boy’s heart in two. The aftermath of
the murder again retraced the difficulties of getting rid of the body and
the miraculous healing of the blind woman. The plot was revealed to the
authorities by a converted Jew called Falsim.73 The transmission of the
story was both wide and diverse. Over 60 different ballads exist in Scots,
French and English. In a version sung in Shepherds Bush in 1872, the
murder scene switched to Scotland. The ballad of the ‘Jew’s daughter’
circulated widely in nineteenth-century folk music, spreading to America,
with versions being sung in Philadelphia and Baltimore. A later version,
performed in New York’s Central Park in 1956, became the ballad of ‘Little
Harry Hughes’.74
John de Lexington’s part in the matter is confirmed by most of the
sources. He was ‘a man of learning, wise and prudent’ and a member
of Henry III’s civil service, and had been a royal envoy to Rome, France
and Scotland. He was also the brother of Bishop Henry of Lexington,
who had been elevated from Dean to Bishop in 1253. John had lands in
Laxton (Lexington), 15 miles west of Lincoln, which he had inherited
86 THE KING’S JEWS

4 Late thirteenth-century illustration of ritual murder accompanying the story of

Adam of Bristol.
 SAINTS AND MART YRS 87

from his older brother in 1250.75 In 1255, he had been with Henry III on
a journey to Scotland. By the time John and Henry III arrived in Lincoln
on 4 October the body of St Hugh had been buried and work had probably
started on a make-shift shrine.76 John had only about 12 hours to inves-
tigate the case. He neither saw the body nor did he interview the 92 Jews
who were subsequently arrested. After what was described as interrogation
in ‘diverse ways’, a confession was obtained from a Jew called Copin, on
which the case was judged.
Thus on 4 October 1255, Copin, a Lincoln Jew, was arrested, interro-
gated, probably tortured, charged with murder, dragged through the city
behind a horse and finally hanged at Canwick. On his evidence alone some
91 other Jews were arrested and sent to the Tower. All south-coast ports
were alerted to stop any Jews leaving the country. By 22 October the 91 Jews
imprisoned in the Tower attended a hearing. On 22 November 18 Jews,
who refused to plead guilty, were drawn through the streets of London
before daybreak and then hanged on specially constructed gallows. The
remaining 73 were reduced to 71 when one converted to Christianity and
another, Rabbi Benedict son of Moses of London, accepted the verdict and
paid a large fine. Benedict was later declared guiltless by Hugh’s mother.
At a retrial on 3 February 1256, the 71 were condemned to death as well
as any other Jews who had consented to the murder. Finally, in May 1256,
after the intercession of the Franciscans, the Dominicans and Richard of
Cornwall, 71 Jews were released.77
A shrine to St  Hugh now graced Lincoln cathedral and the legend
lingers on. For a short period it was quite popular with pilgrims. In 1277
the shrine received £21 3s 4d in oblations but only 6d by 1341, rising to
10  1/2d in 1420–1.78 In 1791, St  Hugh’s coffin was opened. It revealed
the skeleton of a 3ft 3in male child wrapped in lead. The metatarsals and
carpals were unbroken and the rest of the bones were found to be intact,
including the jaw bone. The bones bore no relation to the gory descrip-
tions in the chronicles. However, innuendo and accusation had wreaked
a vengeance on the Jews of Lincoln. Soon after the affair, which took the
lives of at least 20 Jews, records that bear references to Lincoln Jews style
88 THE KING’S JEWS

them as ‘damned’, ‘hanged’, ‘fugitive’ and ‘outlawed’, and in Hebrew, ‘hakko-

dosh’, or ‘martyred’. For many years after, as a testimony to the witchhunt,
Lincoln Jews signed their business deeds describing themselves as ‘son of
the martyred Vives or Moses’.79
It was not rumour or innuendo but economic envy that produced even
more Jewish martyrs during the open civil war of the baronial risings in
1258–66. This period saw the Jews being used as pawns by both sides. For
financial reasons the Crown tried to protect its Jewish subjects while the
indebted insurgents tried to destroy them. The general dislocation gave
impoverished debtors the chance to liquidate their debts by attempting
to destroy their creditors and the bonds and contracts that tied them. For
different reasons the Jewish archae suddenly became a target for both
sides. Simon de Montfort used the annulment of Jewish debts almost as a
recruiting device. De Montfort’s own feelings for the Jews were clear. He
had already tried to run them out of Leicester with only limited success.80
Now his adherents wreaked their own revenge. In the south-east in 1261,
the Canterbury Jewry was attacked and many of its inhabitants were vio-
lently assaulted.81 In 1264, Gilbert de Clare, the Earl of Gloucester, captured
the town and sacked the Jewry.82 According to Gervase, ‘at this same time
nearly all the Jews were destroyed and exiled’.83 Gloucester’s followers
forcibly entered the house of Simon Pabley, the Christian chirographer,
and stole the archa. The archae at Bristol and Bedford were also burned.84
The disturbances also made some Jews attempt to save their assets.
In Kent, Aaron of Sittingbourne took two fine linen mantles and cloaks
and four silver buckles, with other valuables, and left them in two bags
in the house of Alan and Dionisia of Sittingbourne. He locked them in a
chest and took away the key. As troops who were headed for the siege of
Rochester Castle moved into Sittingbourne, both Alan and Dionisia took
the chest and their own valuables to the church ‘where it might be safe-
guarded from the pillagers’. When the pillagers arrived, unknown armed
men demanded that the townsfolk of Sittingbourne surrender Aaron to
them or they would burn the town. Eventually Alan confessed that the Jew
had gone but that his goods were in the church. The armed band entered
 SAINTS AND MART YRS 89

the church and took away Aaron’s chest. A year later, in an accusation
of theft, Dionisia was accused of having one of the stolen buckles. She
claimed that Aaron’s wife had given it to her for a loan of 4s 4d a week
before Aaron had made his deposit in the chest.85
Further despoliation occurred in the west when Robert de Ferrars, the
Earl of Derby, stormed Worcester in February 1262 and seized the archa.
Most of the Jews who lived in Worcester were massacred. The archa was
subsequently taken to the earl’s castle at Tutbury. When Prince Edward
finally took Tutbury, after the fall of Northampton, he broke the archa
open and sent the documents for safe-keeping to Bristol.86 In the south,
in 1265, Simon de Montfort junior, who was on his way to Kenilworth,
attacked the Winchester Jewry.87 In Easter week 1264, John fitz John, ‘one
of the most ruthless and vigorous of Earl Simon’s henchmen’, led the attack
on the London Jews and is said to have killed Isaac fil Aaron, one of the
chief Jews of the time, as well as Cok fil Abraham, with his own hands.88
Many London Jews had their houses burnt and looted. The Jewish survi-
vors of the attack, as well as the official records of the financial transactions
of the London Jewry, were saved by the justiciar and the mayor and were
subsequently sent to the Tower for protection.89 Fitz John allegedly shared
the plunder with de Montfort himself.
In 1265, John Dayville, the leader of a party of renegade rebel barons
and referred to as the ‘Disinherited’, attacked Lincoln. The band had been
sheltering in the Isle of Axholme to the north of Lincoln and now swooped
on the city. The rebels entered the city and besieged the castle. Henry III
sent his son, the Lord Edward, to deal with them. Unfortunately for the
Jews of Lincoln, it was too late. The rebels had taken the opportunity to
march down from the Bail and to sack the Jewry.90 According to Walter of
Hemingburgh, they entered the synagogue, tore up the scrolls of the Law,
killed many Jews and, as a final gesture, seized all the bonds and charters
belonging to the Jews and set fire to them.91 After the event, Henry III
ordered 24 citizens of Lincoln to protect the Jews and their goods.92 The
business records had been thoroughly destroyed. Almost as a last act, in
1266, the ‘Disinherited’, who had then been using Cambridge as a supply
90 THE KING’S JEWS

base, massacred some Cambridge Jews and took the archa to Ely.93
The Jews depended on the protection of their royal masters. During
the upheavals of the 1260s it is clear that Jews flocked into Oxford from
the surrounding countryside for protection. After the baronial wars,
the English Jewry was undoubtedly in a deplorable state.94 At Wilton,
the Jewish losses had been so severe that Henry III ‘out of compassion’
appointed a number of burgesses to be their guardians and defenders.95
Henry had also ordered the citizens of York to protect their Jews for ‘cer-
tain persons . . . threaten them touching their bodies and goods, whereby
they fear grave peril’.96 After the civil war and the dislocation there was a
new royal policy and an attempt to protect the Jews and ensure that the
royal business they facilitated was not affected. The burgesses of Bridport
were ordered to restore the goods that they had seized from the Jews
during the disturbances.97
A decade later, Henry III’s son Edward I, on his return from his
Crusade, tried to address the Jewish question by issuing the Statute of
the Jewry of 1275. This new approach to the Jewish problem was also a
harbinger of mass arrests of Jews. Between 1275 and 1277 many Jews spent
time in the Tower of London. Many Jews lived as a virtual community
under the shadow of Hagin’s tower.98 A new accusation, a new pretext of
a new crime committed by the Jews, was to turn the Tower into a place of
mass execution. This time the charge was of debasing the coin of the realm,
of clipping the King’s coin. In February 1275, a young Jewess, Belasset
of Lincoln, was married in Lincoln.99 Three years later, in 1278, she was
hanged by her neck, as were 293 Jews in London for allegedly clipping the
coin.100 In November 1278, many Jews were arrested for having clipped
the coin. John of Oxnead claimed:

All the Jews no matter what condition age or sex were suddenly captured and impris-
oned in castles throughout England under guard. Whilst they were so detained a
thorough search of their houses was made and they found evidence of clipped money
as a sign of their guilt.101
 SAINTS AND MART YRS 91

Another chronicler stressed that these mass arrests were made by night,
and some Jews were hanged for coinage offences.102 Certainly the
swoop on the coin-clippers and the Jewish community was thorough.
In December 1278, all ports were put on alert for Jews and Christians
smuggling clipped coins or ingots out of the country.103 In January 1279,
special justices were appointed to deal with the coin-clippers and their
accomplices and those who had looted the empty Jewish houses. There was
a lull in the trials and hangings during Easter 1279, but in May it became
clear that Christians were trying to denounce Jews for coin-clipping. This
led to a sudden change of policy that allowed imprisoned Jews to pay fines;
those accused could, if they could afford to, make financial settlement with
the Crown for their alleged crimes.104 Over 600 Jews were imprisoned
within the confines of the Tower and the Constable, Giles de Oudenarde,
had to pay 30 foot-serjeants for guarding the extra influx of Jewish prison-
ers.105 In late November 1279 the Crown directed its officials in charge
of the purge to open the archa in 19 towns and to remove the bonds and
160 Punishment of Jew s for Coin-Clipping
violations 1240-1280
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92 THE KING’S JEWS

agreements of Jews who were ‘lately condemned, fugitive or converted to

the Christian faith’.106 The various accounts about the events of 1278–9
show how many Jews suffered either arrest or hanging. Some idea of the
increasing severity of the punishments can be seen from comparing the
penalties imposed on Jews accused of coin-clipping between 1240 and
1280 with those penalties and hangings imposed in 1279. Of 481 Jews
accused of coin-clipping during 1240–80, confiscation and fining seemed
to be the more normal punishment.
Yet hangings and imprisonment became the norm for the late 1270s.
The hangings of 1278–9 probably represented a worse and more terrifying
attack on the Jewish population than the massacres of 1190. In a single day
in London 293 Jews were hanged. Over 600 Jews were imprisoned at the
Tower alone. Others were accused and hanged locally, their houses looted
and deeds destroyed or passed to the royal treasury. The records became
full of references to hanged or condemned Jews. This was an unprec-
edented attack that saw hatred and denunciation at its most virulent. It
was not to be the last such onslaught.107
The new hostility towards the Jews led to the revival of old accusations.
In a narrative about Adam of Bristol, written in the 1280s and described
as fabula ineptissima or ‘very unfit or even silly’, the theme of ritual
murder was once again brought to the fore. The text is full of invective
and contains much villany, vilification and hatred towards the ‘murdering
Jew’.108 It encapsulates the antipathy towards the Jews as promulgated by
the literate and aimed at the illiterate. It takes the form of a confession by
Samuel, a Jew of Bristol, who divulged to his sister that he and his wife and
son had ritually murdered a Christian boy.109 As Samuel’s confession went
on, it appeared that he was also guilty of further murders.
One day, Samuel, with the offer of an apple, enticed a boy called Adam
from the parish of St  Mary Redcliffe into his house. Adam was subse-
quently given food and drink by Samuel’s family. They then all attacked
him. During the course of the attack they tortured him, cutting him with a
dagger, beating him, making him swallow hot coals and then roasting him
on a spit over the fire before finally nailing him to a cross. In terror and
 SAINTS AND MART YRS 93

anguish, Adam called on the Virgin Mary to help him. In deep contrast to
the saintly boy, the villainous Samuel then murdered him while cursing
Jesus and the whore Mary and spitting.110
As Adam was dying, a phantom voice in Hebrew told them to stop.
Samuel’s wife and son panicked. Samuel’s wife pleaded with him that they
should take the boy down and place him in bed. Samuel insisted that he
remained on the cross and scoffed that perhaps Christ would come and
save him. The wife then spoke with Adam and asked him what he had
seen and heard when he had been in the fire. Adam described a vision of
a beautiful woman who spoke English and who sat with him kissing him
and comforting him in the heat of the fire. He also saw a little boy kissing
his wounded hands and feet and saying, ‘You are my beloved brother’. The
Jewess asked whether the apparitions knew who had been responsible for
his agonies. Adam replied that the little boy who was with him on the cross
was Jesus of Nazareth, at which point a clear voice rang out announcing his
name. At this point Samuel lost his temper, took out a dagger and stabbed
Adam in his right-hand side through to the heart, as well as raging that
even if Jesus appeared here and now he would crucify him as well.
A heavenly chorus of thousands of voices now filled the room. Samuel’s
wife declared that she had sinned and that she intended to be baptised
to atone. Samuel denounced Christ as being maleficus and stabbed his
wife four times. Samuel’s son also declared that they had sinned and was
also duly dispatched. Samuel then took Adam down from the cross and
hid the body in the privy. By now both distraught and confused, Samuel
announced that he would never crucify another Christian child. He cov-
ered the bodies of his wife and son and went to sleep. The cock crowed
and Samuel, now needing to use the privy, saw a vision of a threatening
angel armed with a burning sword, which prevented him from using it.
Samuel ran to find his sister to confess.
Samuel’s sister took control of the situation and told him that they
needed to get rid of the bodies. Although Samuel urged against it, his sister
now entered his house and was greeted by a marvellous light and fragrance
emanating from the sewer. She insisted that Adam’s body be moved from
94 THE KING’S JEWS

the privy immediately. Samuel agreed and said he was willing to pay £26
13s 4d for the body to be removed and buried. His sister suggested that
she could find a corrupt priest to do the deed for much less. They decided,
in secret, to approach a priest and to concoct a story that Adam was their
son, who had been crucified by other Jews. They also decided that they
would bury Samuel’s wife and son with all their belongings and claim that
they had left the country.
After a long discussion, they decided to find a priest, but it was the
Feast of the Assumption and all the clergy would either be busy or eating,
drinking and feasting. She went into the town and found an Irish priest,
who was on his way to Rome. The priest complained about the general
absence of hospitality in Bristol. Samuel’s sister invited him back to her
house. The Irish priest had little grasp of English and did not recognise
her as a Jewess but asked for food and for pork in particular. She claimed
that she could not offer pork because pigs were leprous and ate human
excrement but that she could give the priest and his entourage good loc-
ally produced beef and chicken. She gave the priest and his companions
hospitality and the offer of a meal.
Once back in the house the priest, by now inebriated, blessed the food,
made the sign of the cross and invoked the Trinity and seemingly did not
notice Samuel in the background spitting on the floor three times. After
eating, they all had more drink and the Jews’ predicament was explained
to the company. Just as it was time to sleep, the priest even propositioned
Samuel’s sister’s Christian maid, who declined the offer as she was a virgin.
When the household woke next morning, Samuel’s sister suggested that
they should all go to church to hear mass first. The priest declined and
tried to bow out, saying that he would pray for his hostess and Samuel. His
hostess offered him hard cash to sing a mass and the priest accepted. After
mass, having agreed to a fee of £4 13s 4d to keep quiet and to help get rid
of the body, the priest was led to Samuel’s house by the maid.
On arrival the maid was astonished by the beautiful heavenly chorus
coming from the house. Her mistress was quick to point out that it was
heavenly angels singing for the soul of her sanctified, martyred son, Adam.
 SAINTS AND MART YRS 95

The priest was about to enter the house with two of his companions when
two passers by informed him that he was about to enter a Jewish house.
However the priest did not understand them and, in need of the privy,
he entered Samuel’s house. Just as he entered the latrine, the priest heard
a voice that told him he was a sinner and must confess and do penance
before entering. This was too much for him and he left the burial party
standing at the door and ran off to find a local parish priest. The Irish
priest found the local priest, who happened to be sitting in his garden with
his wife. The two priests conversed in French and then went to the local
church where the Irish priest made full confession and took absolution.
The Irish priest then returned to Samuel’s house.
While he had been away the burial party had experienced another
vision. This time they had seen a woman and a child dressed in purple
robes surrounded by a wonderful light. The priest again approached the
privy with fear and trepidation and saw the sight of a thousand angels
praising the Virgin Mary and her son. He was then instructed by an angel
to make a coffin and to take the body of Adam back to Ireland for burial.
But, in return, the angel demanded the conversion of Samuel and his sister.
While the family did not convert, they were more than willing to get the
body shifted. Samuel duly went to town to fetch wood to make a coffin. The
priest, with the aid of three angels, made a coffin, laid Adam’s body into
it and carried it with great care to a ship that was waiting at the quayside.
The priest was given further instructions by the angel that, after burying
the body in Ireland, he should continue on pilgrimage to Rome and on
his return should not try to find the grave, as God wished it to be hidden.
While such a story can be seen as reflecting attitudes towards Jews in
the closing decades of their presence in England, it also does much to
denigrate the priesthood and to amplify the holiness of Christianity by
stressing and overplaying the supernatural powers of Christianity and
visions. It demonises Samuel as the murderous Jew. It also engendered a
‘vast and abysmal’ hatred that stirred up and tore at people’s minds.111 It
made a powerful story for both literate and illiterate, which once again
singled out the Jews as villains. It rekindled and emphasised the idea of
96 THE KING’S JEWS

ritual murder and the martyrdom of young Christian boys. Such a genre
reappearing in the 1280s also carried with it the death knell for the Jews
of England. The making of Christian saints led to the making of Jewish
martyrs.
 5

Christians and Jews

The Jews were controlled by the government, resented and hated by the
general population, pushed to the fringe of society, and encouraged by
Christians to provide a means to avoid usury. It was Jewish business tech-
nique and acumen that brought economic advancement to this country.
In effect the Jews had helped to foster a revolution in the provision of
capital in medieval England. Ironically for them, it was the nurturing
of credit that was, in part, to be their downfall. Once Christians had
both benefited from Jewish credit and had started to understand the
intricacies of this financial revolution then they wanted to recreate it
for themselves. However, the consequence of the lending and provision
of credit had other disastrous side effects for the Jewish community
and in many ways dictated and moulded the relationship between Jew
and Christian.
Given the state of the economy at the turn of the thirteenth century,
it can come as little surprise that two clauses about Jewish lending were
included in Magna Carta by the rebel barons. The financial pressures that
John had enforced on the Crown’s debtors led to resentment and difficul-
ties from some of those who had sought Jewish credit. However, there
were many other, more immediate, mounting financial problems. It was
customary for the debts of the father to become the debts of the son, as
interest went on mounting. The barons referred to this fact in Magna Carta,
and tried to limit this post-mortem transmission of liability for debt. The
barons suggested that when a debtor died there should be an automatic
moratorium on the interest on his debts. A second clause also tried to
protect the widow and the children of someone who had died indebted
to the Jews and to others.1 There can be no doubt that these were sensible
98 THE KING’S JEWS

suggestions but that is all they remained. It was too late and just as John
had pressed his debtors and his Jews, so they had pressed theirs.2 Indeed,
because these clauses were actually seen as an invasion of the royal privacy
they were omitted from the re-issues of the charter in 1216 and 1217.3 It
is little surprise that indebtedness and particularly indebtedness to the
King’s Jews appeared again, among baronial requests later in the century.4
Such problems of mounting debts had come to crisis point in 1190–1
and 1215. Indebtedness had also made a change in the feudal checks and
balances and now allowed various sections of society to aggrandise them-
selves by taking over debts that were secured with land. For the debtor
this was more than just mortgage repossession – this was the total loss
of his or her security. Until the mid-thirteenth century it was the Church
that had generally supplied a bailout for those who were in debt. The
monasteries could either supply money to help people pay the debt or in
effect take over the debts while at the same time having the use and rights
of debtor’s original security, which was normally land. It was a solution
that would allow wealthy institutions with liquid capital to aggrandise
themselves with fairly small inconvenience. Under Henry III’s government
the relationship between Jewish businessmen and religious houses almost
became a recognisable partnership.
Richardson identified 25 religious houses that were involved in the
redemption of indebted lands between the reigns of Henry II and Henry
III.5 During the period 1150–1250 it is possible to identify over 40 reli-
gious institutions that benefited from buying up land that had in effect
been mortgaged to the Jews. Most of these transactions were evidenced
by the issue of Jewish starra or simply noted in monastic cartularies up
and down the country.6 Even those religious institutions that did not make
use of the chance to buy up land were also becoming closely involved with
the Jews. Canterbury Cathedral Priory borrowed directly from Jews as
early as 1223; it also relied on Jews for ready cash when representatives
attended fairs.7 A series of documents known as the Pollard Starrs shows
Canterbury Cathedral Priory had started to dabble in what might today
be called the ‘repossession market’.8 The plight of a local landlord, Peter
 CHRISTIANS AND JEWS 99

de Bending, was so bad in the 1230s that over half a millennium later, a
nineteenth-century clerical antiquarian, the Reverend Larkin, illustrated
how in his words, de Bending had:

. . . became entangled step by step with those merciless money-lenders, who exacted
an enormous interest, and were ever binding his estates more and more; till he was
driven to alienate them all to the Priory of Christ Church Canterbury to pay off his
debts and release him from his thraldom.9

In 1230, because of debt, de Bending mortgaged his manor of Westwell,

near Ashford, to Christ Church Priory, Canterbury, in return for an
advance of £171 17s and the manor of Little Chart, which de Bending
was now to hold at rent. By January 1234, de Bending was £33 6s 8d in
arrears with the rent for Little Chart; the priory in return for all rights to
the manor of Westwell dissolved the debt. Still short of money, de Bending
turned to Jewish financiers, and a little later, in 1234, borrowed £2 4s
from Moses Crispin at the rate of interest of two pence in the pound per
week. In November 1234, he borrowed £5 a year for the next ten years
from Benedict Crispin at the same rate of interest. In March 1235, by two
bonds he borrowed a further £19 from Jacob Crispin. All the loans were
made on the security of de Bending’s land and chattels. Still insolvent in
1236, de Bending mortgaged the manor of Little Chart to Bonami, a Jew
of Canterbury, reserving the right of a quit rent of one pound of pepper a
year. Bonami paid de Bending £200. Finally, in 1237, having mortgaged
his property and with no means of paying, de Bending approached the
priory of Christ Church and asked them, in return for his manor of Little
Chart and another advance of £133 6s 8d, to release him from his debts.
All de Bending’s transactions with the Jews were paid off and the priory
received starra from Benedict and Jacob Crispin, Isaac fil Benedict and
Jacob fil Isaac, Aaron Blundin, Joseph fil Moses and Moses fil Jacob, and
Bonamicus and Cresselin of Little Chart.
Thus in a period of about seven years the Christ Church Proiry had
gained Westwell and Little Chart at a relatively cheap price and the Jewish
100 THE KING’S JEWS

financiers operating from both Canterbury and London had received their
debts and interest.10 While this particular case may not totally justify the
Reverend Larkin’s diatribe against the Jews, it clearly demonstrates the
complexities of the local land market. Jewish businessmen may or may not
have been responsible for Bending’s initial indebtedness, but the priory
gained two manors, Westwell and Little Chart. Over the next few years
the priory also gained the land of Adam de Garewinton, near Adisham,
by paying off his debts to Isaac fil Mayer, the land of Nicholas de Borne
in Hildinge by paying off his debt to Benjamin fil Mayer, and it gained
ten acres of land in Gare for paying off a debt of £6 13s 4d of Henry de
Hok to Solomon fil Jesse.11 A powerful informal sleeping partnership had
been formed between monastery and Jewish financier whereby the Jewish
moneylender could lend knowing that there was a good chance of a local
monastery bailing out the debt if the debtor failed.
The pattern was the same elsewhere in the country. In 1237, the Priory
of Durham paid off Thomas the Serjeant’s debts of £6 to Aaron of York,
which had been secured on his land in Northallerton and other places.
Aaron issued a starrum to the Priory that guaranteed that he no longer
had any claim on the debt or the land:

and if it happen that a charter, foot-piece, tally or any other instrument under my
name and under the name of Thomas be found in or out of the archa of the Lord
King, that it shall have no force and be of no value.12

Aaron also declared that he would enrol the quitclaim in front of the
Justices of the Jews.13 In Sussex, the Praemonstratensian Abbey of Durford
acquired lands from those who could not meet the loans that they had
taken out from Jews. Geoffrey Cook and his wife Eve parted with first a
croft and then 16 acres in Nutsted in return for a 2s rent and a lump sum
of £13 6s 8d, ‘to free the land from the hand of the Jews’. Another acre was
later added to this by their son Guy. Similarly Peter Crespi and his wife
gave up some of their land in Nutsted ‘to get free from debt to the Jews’
in return for a down payment of £10 13s 4d and half a pound of cumin.
 CHRISTIANS AND JEWS 101

William son of Otway gave the abbey two yardlands at Sunworth at a rent
of 12s and another yardland on the road to Chalton at 4s rent in return
for which ‘the canons have given me, in my great need, to release me from
the hand of the Jews £14 13s 4d and a palfrey and 40 ewes, 50 wethers and
50 lambs . . .’. The priory also gave his family a variety of gold and silver
jewellery.14
The abbeys, priories and monasteries were able to choose the best land
and make some extremely advantageous purchases. Such business meant
that Jews were frequent visitors to abbeys to finalise or even initiate such
transactions. There is evidence from the mid-west of England that the
growing relationship between religious houses and Jews also led to the
former actually trafficking in Jewish bonds. The ecclesiastical houses,
while on the one hand condemning the Jews, were on the other quite
happy to do business with them. Leo, a Jew of Worcester, was arrested
for forcible entry into the Hospital of Worcester when he tried to get his
‘partner’, the Abbot of Pershore, to pay up.15 Richard de Clare, Earl of
Gloucester, who was known to have allowed Jews to live on his estates
and to have bought the exclusive right to collect the debts of another Jew
in Gloucestershire, even used the local abbey of Tewkesbury to negotiate
a loan on his behalf to finance his Crusade in 1248.16
It is clear that agreements over mortgages, paying off debts and dealing
in Jewish bonds were not just confined to large debts or to religious insti-
tutions. Locals with an eye for gaining land might also provide another
way out of Jewish debt for encumbered debtors. In Herefordshire in the
1230s Hugh Freman of Shelwick was in debt to the Jews. He was forced to
grant his land in Shelwick to de Geyton for the sum of £3 6s 8d so that he
could be acquitted of a Jewish debt.17 A little later he was forced to grant
another five acres of land to Thomas de Geyton for £2 for another Jewish
debt.18 In 1248, Philip de Kynemaresbur, who was indebted to the Jews,
was forced to lease his land called Yondercumb to the Abbey of St Peter’s,
Gloucester, for a consideration of £6 13s 4d to pay off the Jews.19 Neither
were such transactions confined to rural lands. In Hereford itself land was
pledged to the Jews. Emma, the widow of Hugh le Taillur, was obliged to
102 THE KING’S JEWS

release her land in the city to Isaac the Jew of Worcester.20

Because of chance survival it becomes difficult to measure the problems
caused by encumbered estates or even to attribute the original debt. In
Cambridgeshire in the early thirteenth century, in the village of Barton,
Hugh son of Ernald conveyed 12 acres to Walter the cook. In return
Walter paid £6 13s 4d to the ‘Jews of Cambridge’ in order to acquit the
said land. In 1253 in the same village John son of Adam of Barton granted
a messuage with appurtenances plus eight acres in Barton to his son John,
in return for a payment of £5 6s 8d, ‘which he gives me so that I may be
acquitted in the Jewry of Cambridge’.21
Individuals could also obtain encumbered estates and even control
over debts owed to Jews. In 1267, Leo fil Preciosa, a London Jew who
possibly operated from Hereford, sold all the rents and debts that he had
contracted with James de Helyun in the county of Hereford to William
de Chysulle. Leo also sold William the right to levy the debts on James de
Helyun’s land and even offered to help William collect them.22 Others who
were indebted made arrangements that led to the granting of corrodies or
pensions. Such was the agreement between the monks of Worcester and
Alfred of Penn Hall. In about 1230 Alfred gave his consent to the sale of
land that he had sold to Sampson Trien to the monks of Worcester. He
officially released the monks from 2s owed to him annually by Sampson
in return for £1 to enable him to meet his obligations to the Jews of
Worcester. He also sold his mother’s dower lands which were in the hands
of the Jews in return for a crannock (quarter) of hard corn – half wheat,
half rye – every six weeks and, as long as his mother was alive, a payment
of 6s 8d annually and, after her death, 10s and the right for him to dwell
in his house and croft that was his mother’s dower. He also agreed that,
on his death, the house would revert to the monastery.23
The issuing of a quitclaim or a starrum or even a guarantee that land had
not been used to secure an undisclosed debt became increasingly impor-
tant in land transactions. In Cambridge in late 1253, Thomas de Ho, clerk,
granted Peter de Wilburham and Sabina his wife a messuage in Cambridge
in the parish of St Peter without Trumpington Gate next door to his croft,
 CHRISTIANS AND JEWS 103

in return for £1 and annual payments of 3s to the nuns of St Radegund and

two pairs of white gloves to Thomas’ representatives. Thomas promised
to maintain the agreement ‘against all people, Christians or Jews’. He also
ensured that he provided a Hebrew starrum signed by Abraham fil Samuel
that he was free from debt.24
In Lincolnshire there was a growing market in the sale of mortgaged
property to monasteries and other speculators for whom starra and
similar guarantees were also considered to be important. Sometime in the
1220s, William of Barkwith, who had been indebted to Ursell fil Pucella,
granted his lands, which comprised of three bovates with three tofts in
Great Sturton and a further bovate that William the son of Gerard held
from him, to the church of St Mary and the monks of Kirkstead. Kirkstead
paid off William’s debt to Ursell in return for his land and duly received a
Hebrew quitclaim for the land from Ursell.25 It may well be that the Jews
actually wrote these Hebrew documents themselves. In what is described
as an amateur example made by Diaia son of Miles in the 1230s, Diaia
granted a release to Reginald of Bath, Parson of Great Paxton, of two acres

5 Quitclaim attached by an eight-pointed seal to a charter granting land near

Tonbridge, Kent, between Walter of Colverholdene and Blanche his wife which had
been obtained by William son of Godfrey the Brewer for £4 13s 4d in 1239. The
Hebrew reads: ‘I Jacob son of Aaron acknowledge that I release William the Brewer
of two measures of land which they call acres which he purchased from Walter of
Colverhode from the creation of the world unto the end thereof ’.
104 THE KING’S JEWS

of land in the fields of Great Paxton that had been taken from Thomas
the son of William.26 This economic relationship between the Jews and
the local Lincolnshire monasteries, while once again unwelcome for the
debtor, was successful for both other parties. However, such transactions
were becoming notorious and a new clause became more and more com-
mon in Lincolnshire land transfers. It seems to have evolved between 1240
and 1260. The new clause forbade the recipient of the land to alienate the
land to either Jew or religious institution. Examples are found in both rural
and, more prominently, in urban transactions within the city of Lincoln
itself.27 It is even possible that in the city the townspeople might well have
feared a Jewish takeover of lands, especially in the popular Jewish areas of
St Martin’s, the Strait, Brancegate and Michaelgate.
It was not only monasteries and local entrepreneurs who had started
to benefit from Jewish finance.28 The royal family took its share from
the profits of Jewish lending, but also used their position for their own
profit. They provided patronage and protection for several individual
Jewish financiers. This handful of ‘royal’ Jews must have had a very direct
relationship with the royal family and their officials. Edward I’s uncle,
Richard of Cornwall, used Jewish financiers and often seems to have
intervened on their behalf.29 Certainly he had a lot to do with encourag-
ing the small number of Jews who, in the 1230s, were living on his lands
at Berkhamstead.30 He was able to raise some £2,000 of Jewish financial
backing for a Crusade in the late 1230s, and had an archa established at his
new castle at Wallingford in 1242, so that their deeds would be protected.
When, in 1249, Abraham of Berkhamstead was in trouble and imprisoned
in the Tower, it was Richard who intervened on his behalf.31 Eventually,
Abraham became a ‘royal Jew’ and his debts were collected for Richard’s
own benefit. Richard also intervened to help save 21 Jews who had been
accused of being involved with the alleged murder of Little St Hugh of
Lincoln. However, Richard’s slightly more favourable treatment of the Jews
was not always mirrored by other members of the royal family.32
Richard’s sister-in-law, Eleanor of Provence, wife of Henry III, was
antagonistic towards the Jews, yet benefited from the finance they
 CHRISTIANS AND JEWS 105

provided.33 She was, as Margaret Howell has described her, ‘a seasoned

financial practitioner accustomed to quick exploitation of casual wealth
and to large scale lending and borrowing’.34 While she may have been full
of antipathy for the Jews, she was prepared to receive payments from their
profits. Eleanor of Provence’s income came from her lands, which she had
received as a dowry. She also boosted it by receiving 10 per cent on any
voluntary fines over £6 13s 4d that were made to the Crown as part of what
was known as Queen’s Gold. While Eleanor was young, Henry III ensured
that he collected and allocated the money to her. In 1237 such monies were
used to buy jewels, to enhance her chamber at Westminster, and to help
build a church for the Dominicans at Canterbury.35 By 1240, the Queen
had her own officials and started to take more control of her financial
affairs, and by 1254 she even appointed her own officials. Such royal clerks
handled the day-to-day running of her affairs. Occasionally the Queen
was happy to actually receive payments in Jewish bonds taken directly
from the archae. At other times, via her officials, she insisted on cash only.
She had a growing portfolio of Jewish debts and showed favour to certain
Jews, like the Evesque family of London, who helped and advised her.36
Eleanor’s attitude to the Jews changed suddenly in 1275. When Edward
visited his mother early in that year she sought his permission to enter
the convent of Amesbury and demanded the removal of all Jews from her
dower towns.37 Subsequently Jewish communities were moved on from
Marlborough, Devizes, Gloucester, Worcester, Cambridge, Andover, Bath
and Guildford. Eleanor was starting to prepare her own way to heaven – a
journey that would take her another ten years.38
Kings had their own experiences of the Jewish communities. They
met with leaders of the Jewish communities and were at times forced to
make judgements on Jews, just as Henry III had in the case of St Hugh
of Lincoln.39 The royal family’s contact with their Jewish subjects was
probably greater than that of most of the population. As a young prince,
Lord Edward had grown up in a court that was only too well aware of its
Jewish subjects. He found that financiers had their uses and borrowed
from them quite early on. He also knew of the growing baronial hatred
106 THE KING’S JEWS

for the Jewish financiers.40 His brother, Edmund, had connections with
some of the richer London Jews, and even had his own ‘personal’ Jew, the
great London entrepreneur Aaron fil Vives.41
Eleanor of Castile, his Queen, had her own personal Jew, Cok Hagin or
Hagin fil Deulecresse, who benefited from her favour and became known
as the ‘Jew of the King’s Consort’. In 1275 he was effectively excommu-
nicated from the Jewish community.42 It is, however, hard to understand
why, in 1281, Eleanor of Castile recommended him for the position of
Archpresbyter of the Jews.43 She favoured other Jews too and seems to have
dealt in particular with Jacob of Oxford and Hagin fil Magister Moses, who
had been Archpresbyter in 1280.44 She certainly profited from the Jewish
communities: like her mother-in-law, Eleanor of Provence, her Queen’s
Gold was often paid to her in Jewish debts.45 In 1281 she gained lands
worth over £380 per annum from nine knights who were deeply indebted
to London Jews. Over the years these unfortunate debtors had amassed
debts worth over £3,996 13s 4d to Jews like Jacob of Oxford and Hagin
fil Magister Moses. During a decade of dealing with the Jews, the Queen
acquired these debts and now tried to liquidate them by taking over the
debtor’s lands in return for either making extra cash payments or in others
by granting partial remission of the debts. She gained the manor of Burgh
in Suffolk worth £30 per annum, the manor of Quendon in Essex worth
£40, the castle of Leeds worth £30, the manor of Westcliffe in Kent worth
£60, the manor of Nocton in Lincolnshire for a term of 14 years worth
£60, as well as the manors of Torpeyl and Upton in Northamptonshire
worth £80 per annum. From debts arising from payments of her Queen’s
Gold she also obtained the manor of Scottow in Norfolk worth £40, the
manors of Westham, Fobbing and Shenfield, in Essex, and the manor of
Longele, each worth £40 per annum. It is little wonder that Eleanor was
later accused by Archbishop Pecham of acquiring land by ‘utilising the
whirlpools of Jewish usury’.46
By the mid-thirteenth century, the long-term effect of Jewish lending
with land as security meant that Jewish moneylenders had effectively
become ‘real estate agents’.47 Land was security, but it was the rights of
 CHRISTIANS AND JEWS 107

ownership which led to problems when the debt could not be repaid. This
is what had given the monasteries and the royal family the opportunity
to expand their landholdings. Jewish business meant that land was being
brought to the market and feudal rights were being capitalised.48 This
wheeling and dealing had serious consequences and impact on feudal
land tenure and was producing a shift of lands from old hands to new.49
More recently it has been observed that Jewish moneylenders introduced
abbeys, lay magnates, stewards and royal clerks to the opportunities of
investment in the property of indebted knights.50 Jewish lending allowed
many opportunities for Christians to gain from the general indebtedness
of others, be they clerics, nobles, merchants, cooks or parsons.
People in debt were grateful to be able unload their debt to whoever
would service it for them. There were also royal officials who saw opportu-
nities. Between 1208 and 1234, the Braybrooke family used its position as
sheriffs to gain a series of lands in Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Essex,
Leicestershire and Northamptonshire. Their dealings have been recorded
by a scribe who noted the details of the Latin starra negotiated with over
14 Jews who subsequently issued quitclaims on lands the Braybrookes had
patiently and methodically acquired.51 Eleanor of Provence’s favourite,
Sir Geoffrey de Langley, gained several estates by shrewd investment. He
took over estates from the d’Aubigny family, who lost their inheritance of
lands, mills and rents centred around Bisseley to the south of Coventry.
De Langley added to this when he took over the Stichivall estate to the
south side of Coventry from the de Lucy’s. In Derbyshire, the Willougby
family lost the manor of Ashover.52 It is significant that de Langley oper-
ated in an area where there was little monastic competition for the bad
debts.53 Such a transfer and loss of land through debt meant that the Jew
and the new owners naturally became the target of bitter resentment. In a
complaint in the Petition of the Barons of 1258 they remonstrated about
lands mortgaged to the Jews and debts owing to the Jews being transferred
to magnates who then refused to release the land.54 It was such resentment
that drove some of the knightly debtors to follow the reformist rebel earls
in the 1260s.55
108 THE KING’S JEWS

By the middle decades of the thirteenth century, the role once played
by monasteries in buying up debt-encumbered lands was open to many
others. In the 1240s, Walter de Merton, a Chancery clerk who acted as a
commissioner to examine the state of the royal lands in Kent, Essex and
Hertfordshire, was able to start dealing in lands that were encumbered
by Jewish debts.56 He purchased the manors of Malden, Chessington and
Farley from the royal escheators who held them during the minority of
Richard de Clare, Earl of Gloucester.57 On 28 April 1240, in partnership
with Peter Cuddington, Walter paid £100 to Aaron fil Abraham of London
to free William Watevill from the debts that were secured on his lands at
Malden and Chessington. Seven years later de Merton paid off another
Wattevill debt to Aaron of £58. Again, in 1247, he paid off Aaron of York to
take on the lands of Thomas Amundeville at Stillington, County Durham,
which he later used for his new foundation.58
Cecil Roth once described de Merton as a shrewd businessman and
certainly he went on adding to his portfolio as and when choice cheap
possibilities opened up.59 As a career civil servant and later as Edward I’s
Chancellor, de Merton was in a position that allowed him to aggrandise
himself and to become what has been termed a ‘capitalist clergyman’.60 In
the late 1260s, whether from piety or guilt, de Merton started to amass
land in and around Oxford. He was later to become a munificent benefac-
tor after gaining lands in both university towns.61 In Oxford he founded
his house for scholars. In February 1267 he bought a house on the south
side of Merton Street for £20 from Jacob fil Magister Moses of London.
Jacob had originally purchased this ‘buy-to-rent’ house from the previous
owner, Halegod, in 1263. In doing so Jacob had become a landlord for
two aristocratic students, Anthony and Thomas Bek, who both later went
into careers in the Church and also had their own dealings with the Jews.
Subsequently, in about 1270, de Merton also bought a house in St Aldates
for the ‘poor scholars’ of the King of the Romans.62 He had paved the
way for providing an endowment in 1260 when Sir Stephen de Chenduit
granted him the manors of Cheddington in Buckinghamshire and Ibstone
in Oxfordshire. These deeds were accompanied by another surviving
 CHRISTIANS AND JEWS 109

starrum from Hagin of Lincoln and Manser fil Aaron stating that the lands
were unencumbered. Until quite recently the living of Ibstone was still in
the gift of the college.63 In 1270 in Leicestershire, de Merton cleared the
debts of Saer de Harcourt, which were owed to Cok Hagin fil Deulecresse,
and obtained the manor of Kibworth Harcourt. He also paid off Cok Hagin
(nephew of Jacob the Jew) for lands at Barkby by taking on and cancelling
the debts of Robert Parcy. Elsewhere de Merton purchased Grantchester
Mill and other lands in Cambridge from William Appleford by paying
his debts to Samuel fil Ursell and Aaron fil Abraham. Such dealings did
not go unnoticed. In March and April of 1264 there were attacks on his
property in London.64
Walter de Merton was capable of self-aggrandisement at the same time
as spin-doctoring and forming government policy on the state of the
lending market. In 1269 he may even have advised Henry III and the Lord
Edward in preparing new legislation in response to baronial complaints.
Concerned that too many annuities had been placed in circulation, the
Crown now banned Jews from taking out new fee debts and limited the
way in which Christians could sell these on.65 In 1271, further legislation
even forbade Jews to enjoy a freehold in manors, lands, tenements, fees or
tenures of any kind. This effectively only left the Jews cash and commodi-
ties in which they could legally deal, and quite possibly resulted in higher
interest charges on loans. The mandate also stipulated that all fee debts,
lands and tenures that the Jews had made or negotiated before 1271 were
to be discharged as quickly as possible and that the Christians involved
were to pay off the principal only.66 From the legislation itself it seems that
the Jew was starting to be squeezed out of the credit markets.
De Merton had not only exploited Jewish lending but had shown the
way to other Crown servants who could use their own shrewdness and
inside information concerning royal business affairs to become both rich
and influential. He had also paved the way for another Chancellor to
amass an even larger portfolio. There can be no doubt that Robert Burnell
was more a man of business than of religion. Salzman once described
him as being ‘practically a layman’.67 His rival for the position of primate,
110 THE KING’S JEWS

Archbishop John Pecham, even accused him of being under the influence
of the merchants of Lucca. Burnell certainly knew the money markets of
the time and how they operated. Any examination of his financial dealings
shows that he was a man who could operate at high- and low-level finance.
He was a man who could supply money. He was also only too familiar with
the methods of both Jewish and Italian financiers, as well as being active
in the land market. At his death, he had acquired estates in 19 counties.
He held 82 manors spread over the whole country, with 21 in Shropshire
alone and eight in Worcestershire.68 Nearer London, he held 13 manors in
Kent and Surrey, which extended from Woolwich to Sheen and Wickham
– almost encompassing the whole of south London.69
Burnell’s connection with the Jews was a strong one and he certainly
knew or had met many of the leading Jewish London financiers. One of his
earliest dealings with Jews was in June 1267, when Master Elias Menahem
granted him two yearly fees worth £31, together ‘with the usuries and pen-
alties’.70 He was present when, in August 1272, Master Elias Menahem and
Floria, his wife, came into the Exchequer and, in front of him and others,
quitclaimed William de Hecham, a knight of Suffolk, of a debt of £70.71 In
1273, Burnell was even used as an agent by Benedict of Winchester for the
Jew’s tallage payment, which was secured by a promise of monies to help
maintain Winchester Castle.72 In 1275 Hagin of Lincoln made a starrum or
quitclaim in front of him and in the following year he was granted a licence
to buy a debt of £20 that was owed to Isaac de Provincia by John de Lade.73
Later in the same year, when Burnell had ‘retired from court’, he personally
acknowledged 22 Jewish starra while he was staying at Beaulieu.74 Indeed
the individual relationship between Robert Burnell and Master Elias
Menahem was so strong that the latter applied directly to the Chancellor
for permission to have safe passage to go to France to treat the Count of
Flanders, Jean d’Avesnes, for a malady that could not be treated locally.75
Finally, in 1286, when Master Elias had died, the Exchequer was ordered
to cancel some old debts owed by Richard de Coleworth to Robert Burnell
and his brother Hugh, who were now tenants of the deceased Richard de
Coleworth’s lands in Essex.76
 CHRISTIANS AND JEWS 111

Not all Christians who came into contact with Jewish finance as a third
party were of such high status as the two Chancellors of the Exchequer.
Exchequer clerks of lower status also learned how to use and abuse the
possibilities offered by Jewish finance in order to aggrandise themselves.
Several even took risks and fell foul of the law. Such was the case of
William de Watford, who found himself in court. In July 1272, Guy
of Rocheford brought a case in the Exchequer of the Jews over a false
charter. Several royal officials, Robert of Fulham, William de Watford and
William Pasket were accused of the forging of a charter. The forgery had
come to light on the death of Pictavin fil Benedict le Jofuene, who owed
the King £120. Pictavin’s two son-in-laws, Pictavin Le Fort and Isaac of
Northampton, had made a fine with the King in early 1272. Some worth-
less charters were sent into the Exchequer. The Exchequer demanded that
all of Pictavin fil Benedict’s debts be sent. Eventually some of his charters
were sent in a strapped casket, which was sealed with Pasket’s seal and
delivered by Pasket himself and the two Christian chirographers of the
London archa, John de Ferrun and John de Laufar. The casket contained
17 sealed charters and one unsealed charter in the names of Pictavin and
John of Rochford for £90. It had been made in December 1239 but was
written on new parchment, which had been trampled and trodden upon
and covered with dust. Guy claimed that it was false.
The barons of the Exchequer called Watford and Pasket before them.
They also examined John de Ferrun and John de Laufar, the Christian chi-
rographers of the London archa, as well as the Jewish officials, Pictavin le
Fort and Isaac de Northants, Aaron Crespin and Aaron’s servant Sam. All
were questioned separately about the charter in question. Watford claimed
that because the Jewish Exchequer had been closed due to a dispute
between the justice, Robert de Fulham, and the clerks of the Jewry over 4d,
he (Watford) had placed the 17 charters in the casket with the strap. The
strap had two pieces and he had placed his seal on the rear binding while
William Pasket has sealed the front. Watford then took the casket home.
He got his clerk to prepare a royal writ, which he sealed, telling the London
chirographers to put the casket into the archa. He summoned Aaron, gave
112 THE KING’S JEWS

him the casket and the writ, and told him to follow the instructions. Thus,
he claimed, both he and Pasket were totally innocent.
The casket was apparently in the custody of Aaron and Sam for eight
days. Aaron testified that he had received the casket unwillingly and
only because of William de Watford’s threats and that he had given it
to his servant, Sam, to deliver to the Christian chirographers since he
had to leave town then with his Lord Hagin. When Aaron received the
casket it was sealed with William Pasket’s seal and it had only one strap.
The two Christian chirographers also testified to the fact that there had
only been one strap and one seal. Aaron also added that when he had
been summoned to pick up the casket both Pictavin Le Fort and Isaac
of Northampton were present in Master William of Watford’s lodgings.
Eventually, it seems, justice prevailed and Watford later confessed to
wrongfully sending the casket to the Jewish rather than the Christian
chirographers and to tampering with the seals. He was sent to gaol.
Dealing in Jewish debts became one of Watford’s ways of making
money. He was summoned once again to face an investigation in the
Exchequer of the Jews, this time at the behest of Peter le Marchaunt, son
of Robert of Mapeldorham, in a case of trespass. Le Marchaunt claimed
that Watford, in collusion with Benedict of Winchester, had placed an
unsealed charter for £64, which had been made between Peter’s father,
Robert, and Elias fil Chera, in the treasury. The charter was subsequently
withdrawn by royal writ and given to Benedict to put in the Winchester
archa. Subsequently, Benedict had used this charter to gain possession of
Peter’s lands, tenements, rents and chattels in Mapeldorham, Oxfordshire,
from 12 March to 7 June 1272. Benedict, who had been in possession of
the land, had wasted his goods and done up to £100 of damage. The case
was not proved and Watford disappeared but not without being described
as ‘an arrogantly contumacious clerk’.77
One of the most notorious cases of forgery and misuse of Jewish debts
was brought against Adam de Stratton in an enquiry into general cor-
ruption just a year before the expulsion of the Jews. Soon after his return
from Gascony, on 13 October 1289, Edward issued a writ to his sheriffs
 CHRISTIANS AND JEWS 113

throughout England informing them that he had set up a commission

to investigate the allegations against the corrupt officials of which his
people complained. The sheriffs were to make their reports of injustice
by 12 November 1289. For the following months a special commission of
investigators was in session and sat at Westminster. The following enquiry
investigated allegations against 13 Justices, 40 sheriffs, nine mayors, five
escheators and 300–400 lesser culprits.78
Subsequently, in 1290, Adam de Stratton was arrested for homicide,
forging records, peculation, sorcery and other trespasses and enormities.
According to differing accounts, his personal fortune, valued between
£20,000 and £33,333 6s 8d, was seized.79 Much of this was in old coinage
and jewels, as well as in gold crowns. In addition, his lands and houses at
Westminster were confiscated and his forfeited estates later raised the sum
of £50,000. Apart from this booty, the case was made stronger because
of various other findings. A bag of silk containing toe- and fingernails,
human hair, the feet of both moles and toads and other diabolica was
seized by a trustworthy Justice and sealed. However, Adam tampered with
the seal and threw the incriminating evidence into a drain. He was later
charged with contempt of court and convicted of sorcery and treason.
After he was tried and found guilty, the Crown seized his lands and wealth,
and he was banished from court. His life was only spared because he was
a member of the clergy.80
In order to acquire such wealth de Stratton had used his knowledge of
Jewish finance, as in his acquisitions in Rotherhithe and Shenley in 1268,
when he gave William de Ore £13 6s 8d and paid off a further £80 that
the former owed to Aaron de La Rye of London.81 This was followed in
1269 by another payment of £13 6s 8d to John fil Saer and the liquidation
of his debts in return for the whole manor of Shenley, which had been
encumbered in debts to both Jews and Christians. De Stratton paid a
large sum for clearing the debts. He paid £208 13s 4d to Hagin fil Magister
Moses for an annuity for £20 that John owed him and also paid off a debt
of £80 owed by John’s father, Saer, to Benedict Crespin. To finally secure
the manor Adam also had to pay off debts, owed by John, to two other
114 THE KING’S JEWS

Christians. It cost him a further payment of £20 11s 8d to John Rosamond

and £20 to Thomas de Leukenore. Thus at a price of £329 5s the manor of
Shenley was finally acquired for Stratton’s growing property portfolio.82
By the late 1270s, many other Christians were involved in lending
money. Their number included the Queen mother, the Queen, the
Chancellor of the Exchequer, as well as merchants, clerks, and even the
King’s baker.83 Such lenders recorded their debts in recognisances that
were recorded in advance so that they were assured of redress if their
debtors failed and could then make a legal claim on the debtors’ lands.
Such recognisances were a way of minimising the risks of non-repayment.
Such business techniques had been directly copied from Jewish practice
and now were finally honed and legitimised by Chancellor Robert Burnell.
In October 1283, Burnell took the accepted method of simple enrolment
of debts a little further. He now set up an archa system for Christians, as
well as a new method of registration. It was not mandatory to use the new
system but it was a way of strengthening the reclamation of a debt. The
new ‘lettre de obligacioun’ was later called a Certificate of Statute Staple.84
With the Statute of Acton Burnell, which was subsequently amended by
the Statute of Merchants, two years later, Burnell not only opened the
doors to both overseas and native merchants to enable them to enrol
their debts, but gave access to the lower clergy and other lenders of a
lower social status.85 The debts were now officially enrolled in registries
and debt collection was guaranteed by a prejudged legal ruling entered
into willingly by the debtor in case of default. It was indeed a bond with
‘vicious teeth’, as Richard Bowers has put it.86 It can be of little surprise that
the modified regulations laid down in the Statute of Merchants expressly
state that this does not apply to Jews, for ‘whom other arrangements will
be made’.87
The Jews, who now had direct Christian competition in the lending
markets, still continued to try to find custom. It has been widely accepted
that there was a marked change in the status of Jewish debtors between the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries.88 While Aaron of Lincoln and the larger
operators of the twelfth century had been able to lend to monasteries,
 CHRISTIANS AND JEWS 115

abbeys, kings, towns, sheriffs and officials, Jewish lending at such a high
social level had declined by the late thirteenth century. By then, apart from
a handful of plutocratic Jews, such as Elias Menahem, who were still able
to lend to the knightly class and above, the majority of the Jews’ debtors
were now agricultural.89 There is, for instance, a distinct contrast between
the status of the debtors of the great Hamo of Hereford, which were
almost 90 per cent from baronial and knightly families, and the debtors
of the Jews of Cambridge, who were 42 per cent rural and agricultural.
Other samples show that Jews lent to clerks, citizens, smiths, glaziers,
goldsmiths, fishermen, carpenters, beadles, chaplains, marshals, parsons,
rectors, butchers, tanners, vintners, mercers, masons, carpenters, tailors,
shepherds, cutlers and franklins.90 These were now to become the clients
for Jewish lending, while the Italian societas were starting to make steady
inroads on the higher-class debtors.91
The Jews had always made contact with rural debtors and were prob-
ably more travelled than some of their competitors. That they travelled is
evidenced by references to special tolls that applied to Jews for crossing
bridges. It is clear that while they travelled they came into contact with
Christians. Gerald of Wales, although disapproving, talks of Jew and
Christian jesting together while travelling.92 Large lenders like Elias
Menahem, David of Oxford and Benedict Crespin of London travelled
between Jewish communities and often did business on the way. They
even deposited bonds in different archae up and down the country.93 Local
Jews such as Jacob of Brancegate in Lincoln, Abraham fil Deulecresse in
Norwich, and Abba of Canterbury lent to debtors from much closer to
home. From bonds deposited in various archae it is possible to see that
most debtors came from within 12 to 19 miles of an archa town.94
Jewish lenders had also established their own credit networks, which
clearly involved some sort of relations with Christians. Abba, a Canterbury
Jew, seems to have dealt exclusively with debtors from the Romney
Marsh. Between 1270 and 1271 debtors from the Marsh owed the Jew
of Canterbury debts worth £60. Such debtors came from small villages
such as Woodchurch, Snargate, Snave, Newchurch and Burmarsh.95
116 THE KING’S JEWS

In Lincolnshire after 1275, it does not seem to have been too much of a
problem for Jews to negotiate commodity repayments. Their debtors, who
promised repayment in grain, come from areas that were predominantly
cereal-producing. Likewise those Lincolnshire debtors who had promised
wool to Lincoln Jews in return for advance payments came from good
grazing country.96
Thus the Jewish creditors were well aware of the local countryside and
the Christians who lived there. Their client base was probably expanded
and maintained by word of mouth. Between 1250 and 1270, Isaac Gabbay,
a Jew of Lincoln, dealt with clients in a cluster of Lincolnshire villages such
as Holme, Langton, Donnington and Stenigot to the east of the manor
of Hackthorn. In the 1280s many inhabitants of Hackthorn itself made
agreements with the Jews of Lincoln for commodities. Such commodities
showed an expectation of price fluctuation as well as some preferences
for particular commodities. In September 1285 Osbert son of William
de Soteban, and Geoffrey son of Alexander of Hackthorn acknowledged
that they owed Jacob of Brancegate, a Lincoln Jew, 50 quarters of cereal
priced at 6s a quarter. Geoffrey also made further agreements with Jacob
of Brancegate: on 11 November 1285 he owed a further 30 quarters priced
at 5s per quarter; in August 1287 he promised another 50 quarters priced
at 4s a quarter; in February 1288 a further 20 quarters at 3s a quarter; in
August 1288 he promised a payment of half a sack of wool priced at £4;
in January 1289 he acknowledged that he owed £7 6s 8d.97 Other debtors
like Hugh and Richard, who were described as staying in Hackthorn,
owed Jacob of Brancegate 20 quarters at 3s, 50 quarters at 5s, one sack
of wool priced at £7 and one at £6 13s 4d. Similarly, Richard son of John
of ‘Keleseye’, who was also described as staying in Hackthorn, owed
Elias Gubbay 20 quarters at 5s in 1286 and 60 quarters in January 1287.
Other members of the village owed further amounts.98 These examples
of rural indebtedness confirm that Jewish creditors not only had a
good knowledge of the countryside but also of their creditors, as well
as a shrewd understanding of expected prices. At times they were also
prepared to make secondary loans, which would indicate some degree
 CHRISTIANS AND JEWS 117

of trust and confidence in the debtor’s ability to pay. Elsewhere, Jews also
visited and dealt with those who lived in remoter places. When in 1277,
to expunge the debts due to him by James fil Gilbert, a knight, Abraham
fil Deulecresse of Norwich, actually took a lease in Norfolk on the manor
of Kelling (some 24 miles to the north-west of Norwich) for a period of
ten years, he must have known the surrounding area and have had some
contact with the Christians living there.99
Although, as we have seen, there is evidence for single Jews or Jewish
families living in rural areas after 1275, the majority lived in the towns.
Most of the major Jewries were centred in the busiest parts of the towns,
with enclaves or burial grounds on the outskirts. In this situation contact
between Christians and Jews was probably greater than elsewhere.100
While Jews were sometimes exempt from paying local taxes, they did
come under local justice. In Hereford in 1282, Hagin the Jew was charged
and fined 12d by the bailiffs for a transgression against the laws of the
market. Jews were also made to pay for entering the town, as in 1285 when
the two sons of Cok the Jew paid 2s for entry. Within the towns the Jews’
legal status was protected. In Exeter it was deemed that, in a case between
a Jew and a Christian, there had to be members of both denominations
present.101 Jews hired and rented properties from Christians and to
Christians. In Colchester, Robert de Elmham, a merchant, rented a shop
from Elias of Colchester, while in Norwich Abraham fil Deulecresse rented
a stall in the draper’s quarter.102
Such close contacts must have led to some dialogue between Jews and
Christians. In the twelfth century Jews even took part in local politics in
Canterbury. When the monks of Christ Church were blockaded for oppos-
ing the wishes of Archbishop Baldwin in 1187, the Jews threw food over
the wall to the monks.103 Members of the Jewish community attended the
funeral of St Hugh of Lincoln in 1200.104 Despite the attempts of bishops
to enforce social segregation, it is clear that some Jews had Christian serv-
ants and even employed Christian nursemaids for their children.105 Some
Christians consulted Jewish physicians or wise men and there are indica-
tions that both these groups socialised, even though this was technically
118 THE KING’S JEWS

not encouraged. As we have seen, there was an early continental Jewish

rabbinical ruling concerning drinking. It was deemed that English Jewry
were ‘lenient in the matter of drinking strong drinks of the Gentiles and
along with them’, yet this was allowable ‘. . . as there will be great ill-feeling
if they were to refrain from this’.106 In Hereford in 1286 relations were
so amicable that Christians were invited to a Jewish wedding. Although
the Bishop of Hereford threatened any Christians who attended with
recriminations, some ignored his threat. The Bishop thus claimed that
his congregation had eaten, drank, played and jested with the Jews and
had enjoyed ‘displays of silk and cloth of gold, horsemanship, equestrian
processions, stage-playing and sports and minstrelsy’ that had accompa-
nied the Jewish wedding feast. He suggested that those who had taken
part should take absolution within eight days or be excommunicated.107
At a higher social level, Elias Menahem, along with many of the ‘royal
Jews’ and the Archpresbyters, was probably well known to powerful
Christians in and around the royal court. Certainly Elias knew Edward’s
Chancellor, Robert Burnell, well and had even lent money to him. He had
also lent to one of the Queen’s yeomen. Elias was even once excused from
paying tax by the intervention of Cardinal Ottobuono. Elias had met both
the Justices of the Jews and their officials and had also lent to one member
of the King’s Exchequer. His dealings meant that he knew many leading
knights and families in Essex, as well as in many other counties. Another
well-connected Jew was Hagin fil Benedict, who made two agreements
with Richard Folyot for an annual gift of a flying hawk and a beast of the
chase. From this it might seem that Hagin was keen on hunting. Certainly
this would bring him into the company of Christians and this also seems
to have been the case in Essex in 1246, where Samuel the Jew hunted and
ritually (in accordance with kosher laws) killed a doe in Panfield.108
A rather unusual example of good relations between Jew and Christian
is the admission of Benedict of Winchester into the merchant’s guild of
that city in 1268. Despite the fact that he could not take the usual vow,
Benedict was admitted to the fraternity by the mayor, Simon le Draper.
Benedict was a chirographer of the Winchester archa and must have come
 CHRISTIANS AND JEWS 119

into contact with many local dignitaries; Simon le Draper referred to him
as ‘our beloved and faithful friend and special neighbour’. It is well known
that Benedict was an influential financier who had lands in the city and
had claims on neighbouring lands as his security. Jewish financiers like
Benedict also had cause to use and to consort with Christian attorneys
and this type of relationship or partnership must have been mutually
beneficial. Benedict was clearly a well known local figure.109
Sometimes Jews were involved in crime with Christians. One well-
known scribal drawing is recorded on an entry in the Forest Roll for
1277. It shows a Jew who is dubbed ‘Aaron son of the Devil’. The original
offence took place in December 1267 in Colchester. A doe was startled
in Wildenhay woods by the dogs of Sir John de Burgh the Younger and
fled past the city of Colchester towards the woods on the other side of
the city. Some of the inhabitants of Colchester ran out of the city, and so
worried the doe by their shouting that she ran through the double gate

6 Caricature of Aaron son of the Devil of Colchester wearing the tabula. Drawn in the
margin of a Plea of the Essex Forest Roll, 1277.
120 THE KING’S JEWS

and finally leaped over the wall and broke her neck. Among those who
joined the chase were William Scott, Henry the Gutter, Henry the Toller,
as well as Saunte, son of Ursel, Cok and Samuel, sons of Aaron, Isaac the
Jewish chaplain, Copin and Elias. What compounded the crime was that
Walter the Goldsmith, the local bailiff, and Robert the Toller, beadle of the
city, and others carried off the game while the group who had pursued the
doe were arrested. The forest authorities proceeded against all of them,
and they were imprisoned and fined. Finally they were liberated on bail,
whereupon Christians became surety for Jews, and Jews for Christians.110
There are many other cases of Jews and Christians committing crimes
together. In 1272, Abraham Mouton, a Cambridge Jew, in order to
bring purchase to bear on his debtor Geoffrey de Sawston, led a gang
of Christians to Sawston and drove away four bullocks, two oxen and
106 ewes, which he kept until the latter had paid up a debt of £1 10s.111
One night in Lincoln, Kocke Luctor and Hake fil Abraham, together
with Thomas du Bayl and Margery of Nottingham, broke into the stall
of Adam of Emplingham and carried off six measures of herrings to the
house of Elias fil Benedict and his wife, Milla.112 In Norfolk in 1286, Jews
and Christians worked together in breaking and entering churches in
Newton and Swainsthorpe and taking vestments, books and ornaments.
The King even sent orders to the justices, saying that ‘some malefactors
and disturbers of our peace, both Jews and Christians with exceedingly
wicked daring’ had carried off sacred things and other goods worth £10
from Loddon Church by night.113
There were of course both Jews and Christians who were in conflict
with each other. In 1286, Isaac of Suthwerk was accused of having killed
Matilda of Worcester by the dead woman’s daughter, Alice. Alice failed to
appear at the hearing and a jury declared Isaac not guilty.114 In about 1285,
Aaron of Worcester, his wife Blaka, and his son Isaac had killed Robert,
the porter of Oxford castle.115 There were also Christians who became
embroiled in internecine disputes. In 1258, Cresse fil Magister Moses
charged John Ferrant with the assault of his brother, Hagin, in Colechurch
Street, London. Ferrant had hit Hagin with an axe (up to its spike) causing
 CHRISTIANS AND JEWS 121

a wound two inches wide and three inches deep. Hagin fell to the ground
as if dead. A crowd gathered and Ferrant fled through St Olave’s graveyard
to eventually seek shelter at the house of Elias le Eveske. Cresse charged
Elias Le Eveske with instigating the attack and claimed that he paid Ferant
£2, as well as sheltering him. Cresse also accused Nicholas de Waucy and
his squire, Simon, Richard Smith of Northampton, and John of Forncett,
Elias Le Eveske’s man, as well as two Jews, Dyay of Kent and Pinchekoc
Gruel of complicity in the attack.116
Jews and Christians were also victims together. In 1277, Licoricia of
Winchester and her Christian servant, Alice of Bickton, were found mur-
dered in their house in Winchester by Belia, Licoricia’s daughter. A jury
found one Ralph of Chesulle, a saddler of Winchester, guilty but he had
fled. The coroner ordered Licoricia’s chest and strong boxes to be kept
under lock and key. Tempted by what they believed to be in the coffers,
William of Chichester, clerk, and Thomas de la Mare from the sheriff ’s
household, together with Lumbard fil Benedict, Jew of Winchester, and
Abraham fil Benedict, a London Jew, entered the house and broke the
locks of the strong boxes. William, Thomas and Abraham were all out-
lawed. Lumbard fil Benedict was subsequently hanged.
There are also many instances of Jews who were robbed and of corpses
that turned up by the side of the road, in an alleyway or in the woods. In
the early 1280s, Joceus of Guildford was travelling from Dartford towards
Plumstead when he was assaulted and murdered. Subsequently, Jornin
fil Abraham, Serjeant of the Tower of London, and two other London
Jews, Aaron fil Elias and Moses of Dogstreet, carried his corpse by cart to
London. When they reached Southwark the bailiff demanded a toll. He
then ordered men to seize the cart, claiming that he had a right to 2s for
each cart carrying dead Jews. A brawl ensued and some Christians were
charged with having overturned the small cart, and having assaulted,
beaten and maltreated the Jews, as well as having seized a tabard as pay-
ment for the toll. Eventually, a jury of six Jews and six Christians, which
included Moses of Dogstreet, ruled that the Jews should not have to pay
tolls and the Christians were to be arrested for trespass. The bailiff, who
122 THE KING’S JEWS

could produce no documentary evidence for his claim to 2s, was also
imprisoned for a time. Josce was finally laid to rest in London.117
Thus in the spheres of credit, conviviality and crime there were constant
inter-relations between Jew and Christian. In the early part of the thir-
teenth century a quasi-partnership had formed between the monasteries
and the Jews. This financially oriented rapport was later taken up by other
Christians who realised the potential that indebtedness to the Jews might
provide for them to gain. In pursuit of the more ordinary loans and trans-
actions the Jews clearly travelled the countryside and hinterland outside
the archae towns and would have known something of the possible landed
securities that their potential clients might offer. When, after 1275, some
Jews made advanced sale contracts in their forward loans on cereal or
wool, they engaged with clients who either worked the soil or watched the
flocks. However, the Jewish lender was forced time and again to compete
as an equal as their Christian neighbours and former customers began to
develop their own methods of lending.
The dynamics of the relationship between the two changed as the nature
of business changed. At a richer level of society some Jews still even social-
ised with their Christian clients. Some clearly had special relationships
with their royal protectors. At a lower level, when pushed together Jews
and Christians committed crime together. Within the towns, both clearly
lived together and socialised at levels that went beyond a pure business
relationship. Although that relationship varied there must have been times
when co-existence was not as bitter and tortured as perhaps it might be
thought. However, such relations are difficult to analyse correctly as they
were rarely documented.
 6

Church and Synagogue

In compliance therefore with a Council assembled at London for the

purpose of suppressing usury and its injurious consequences, and, as the
members composing the assembly affirmed, of separating these goats
from the sheep, the King gave his consent, doubtless with reluctance, to
what was then and there propounded; and in obedience to the decrees of
the council these rejected outcasts were doomed to disperse themselves,
different ways, to quit England for ever and to perish by eternal misery in
other lands till they should be entirely cut off.

With these words, John Ross, the author of the Annales Lincolniae,
summed up the expulsion of the Jews from England on 1 November 1290.1
It was as if the Church no longer wished or was able to separate the ‘goats
from the sheep’. England had washed its hands of the Jews and the final
exclusion had been made.
Both the antipathy and the anger of the medieval church towards the
Jews are evidenced in contemporary depictions of the Church and the
Synagogue. The Church is always portrayed as triumphant, sometimes
confidently holding a miniature church, while Synagogue is always por-
trayed as broken and defeated. Synagogue is shown as being blindfolded
and carrying a broken rod. This represented the old faith as having been
conquered and replaced by the new. The triumphant Church had always
been resentful of and even, at times, felt threatened by the old religion. It
was more than eager and desirous to usher in the last days, and with them
the total triumph of wholesale Jewish conversion.2
The conflict between Church and Synagogue was one that waxed and
waned, depending on many other influences that drove the medieval
124 THE KING’S JEWS

world. For many years the Church simply wished to keep the goats and
the sheep separate and the Synagogue wished to cling to its own unique
dogma and practice. Both sides were resentfully entrenched and embed-
ded in their beliefs and traditions. In this theological tussle the Church
stayed well ahead by taking the moral high ground. After all they alone
were the true new faith and the Jews were passé. As time went on and
as the Church became more insecure against other credos, the conflict
changed into an attempt for total conversion and nothing less. The history
of the struggle is clearly seated in the Crucifixion itself and ever since the
Jews had been depicted as Christ Killers. Such was the position of the early
Jewish colonists of England as far as the Church was concerned and this
stigma of deicide remained until their final expulsion and beyond.
The Church mission against the Jews commenced by making attempts
at discourse and trying to argue the efficacy of the true religion. This pro-
duced many tracts and theses about the supremacy of the Christian. It led
to open debates and disputations in which the Church tried to prove that it
alone was the true religion. Later the campaign moved towards a mission
against the Jews, which first started with evangelism, encouragement and
education.3 When this approach did not work the Church started a smear
campaign with physical attacks on Jewish ritual and demands of conver-
sion. Finally, when this failed, it moved towards physical rejection. In deep
contrast, the Synagogue’s resolve was merely hardened. In many ways it
was a one-sided battle. Judaism did not openly proselytise for Christians
nor, despite Christian propaganda, was there a world plan or policy to
Judaise or to press the Christian back into the old fold.
Disputations were part of academic training in the infant universities
or studium generale of medieval Europe. Debate and argument was a
general training. Some discourses were delivered ‘live’ and just argued ‘off
the cuff ’; others were written down as a basis for debate, while some were
even fanciful and only involved the author imagining an argument and in
effect just writing a script that was never actually delivered. Occasionally,
the debate spilled over from the university into a public forum. There
were times when this meant crucial developments for the world outside
 CHURCH AND SYNAGO GUE 125

academia. In the sixteenth century, the Leipzig debate between Martin

Luther and Johann Eck was to be the herald of a cataclysmic split in
Church thinking, which spilled over from formal debate and started a new
sect of protestors. In the eleventh century, the debate between Lanfranc
and Berengar over transubstantiation was in some ways a precursor to a
debate on the very basic beliefs of the early modern church. Disputations
had a great effect on shaping Church doctrine and dogma. At times, such
disputations were keenly followed by a wider audience. Whether they
were held in a Church synod or even in a secular court, they could be
attended by eager nobles wishing to see which side would win the debate.
It was to be in such a court in the 1090s that William II issued a direct
and immediate challenge to the Church. A party of London Jews had
brought gifts to the King; William II was pleased and then turned to the
Jews, to the horror of the clergy present, and proposed an open debate
between the two religions claiming that if the Jews won, he would convert
to Judaism. Despite their horror, the Church won the day, as William II
never converted to Judaism.4
For many of the eleventh- and early twelfth-century writers and debat-
ers the Jews existed because, as St Augustine had written, they were ‘our
supporters in their books, our enemies in their hearts, and witnesses in
their codices’. He likened the Jews to Cain, who had been cursed and
marked by God for killing his brother. The Jews had after all kept the
scriptures and were a witness to the truth of Christianity – they were the
People of the Book. Yet there were strong feelings and emotions that they
should be chastised and many saw the Diaspora as their punishment.
St Bernard, who tried to stop the massacres of Jews during the preaching of
the Second Crusade, claimed that the Jews had a twin function – that they
preserved the record of God’s prophecies in their books and that they were
witnesses to their truth by their own degradation.5 To the Church, the Jews
were a dichotomy. While Christianity’s ultimate desire was to bring about
a total conversion, they were happy to keep the Jews as an example of a
misguided, out-of-date religion, which had accepted neither the Messiah
nor the Virgin Birth and should live in slavery as a punishment for killing
126 THE KING’S JEWS

Christ. Until the Church achieved total conversion, it had to ensure that
the blind heresy, as they saw it, did not affect any of their members. In the
eleventh and early twelfth century it was more a policy of containment.
The Church wished to keep the Jews at arm’s length, ready to be whipped
in whenever the Second Coming arrived.
It was in this vein that much work sought to prove the supremacy of
the Christian religion. An early example was the work of Gilbert Crispin,
Abbot of Westminster Abbey. About 1096 he wrote down his debate that
he had had with what he called a Jewish ‘friend’. The Jew had been edu-
cated at Mainz and had a good knowledge of the Scriptures. According to
Gilbert, those present at the informal disputation had asked him to record
it for posterity. The debate also triggered the conversion of one Jew, who
immediately joined the Westminster community.6 This work was the start
of a long genre of highly sophisticated and educated written works in
which Christian theology is seen to be able to defeat Jewish Law. Another
debate, which was recorded by Peter of Cornwall, the Prior of Holy Trinity
Aldgate in London, was dedicated to Stephen Langton in 1208. It was in
the form of a dialogue but this time between Peter and a Jew called Symon
who was eventually won over to Christianity and became a canon of Holy
Trinity. The closing chapters of Peter’s work gave Symon instruction on the
future state of man.7 We have no idea how many public or indeed private
debates went on that were never recorded. Those that were recorded made
good religious propaganda, which the Church could publicise.
Between the end of the eleventh and the thirteenth centuries there was
a distinct and discernible change in the manner of such debates. Gilbert
Crispin’s tone was almost civil and as if arguing with an equal, whereas
Petrus Alphonsi in his ‘Dialogue’ with a Jew (1108–10) displays all the
zeal of a convert, and Peter the Venerable’s attempts in the mid-twelfth
century have more venom and violence in them.8 Peter the Venerable was
among the first to directly attack the Talmud. He saw the Jews as obstinate
and almost as a lost cause. He was, however, clear that they should be
‘preserved in a life worse than death, like Cain the fratricide’. He felt that
the ‘blaspheming Jews’ should have their money taken away so that it
 CHURCH AND SYNAGO GUE 127

could be used to help the conquest of the ‘audacious Saracens’.9 Such a

change is also noticeable in the works of Bartholomew of Exeter (1180–4)
and Peter of Blois (1204).10
In the mid-thirteenth century the rhetoric of enmity between Church
and Synagogue intensified from benign toleration to lambasting attacks
on Jewish Talmudic practice. In 1239, a converted Jew, Nicholas Donin,
presented his work on the Talmud in front of Pope Gregory IX. He sub-
mitted a series of broad allegations claiming that the Talmud actually
sanctioned anti-Christian behaviour and that it was blasphemous and
taught absurd doctrines.11 Donin was dispatched to perform further
research and to make a stronger case. The Pope, shocked by the findings,
responded by sending letters to the Kings of England, France, Portugal
and Spain ordering them to seize all copies of the Talmud and to deliver
them to the Dominicans and the Franciscans.12 It seems that only the
French King took the call to arms seriously. In the early part of 1240,
a grand disputation was arranged to be held in front of the royal court.
The Talmud was on trial. Donin became the prosecution and to help him
he even enlisted Rabbis as witnesses. Again he claimed that the Talmud
encouraged Jews to despise, deceive, rob, and even murder Christians and
that it contained blasphemous falsehoods, superstitions and puerilities, as
well as passages disrespectful to God.
Donin targeted the Rabbis and Talmudists. The Rabbis, he claimed,
had instructed the Jews to kill Christ in the first place. They ruled that the
Jews should cheat and deceive Christians without blame, they called Jesus’
mother an adulteress, spoke obscenely of Jesus, the Pope, the Church and
Christianity, cursed the Church daily in their prayers and told the Jews
that Christians were condemned to perpetual damnation.13 After hear-
ing Donin’s attack and an attempted defence by several Rabbis, the ‘show
trial’ found the Talmud guilty and sentenced it to burning. The Jews later
appealed to the papal court, which even suggested a compromise in that
the offensive Talmudic passages should merely be deleted. The French
King insisted that all Talmuds should be confiscated and in 1242 between
20 and 24 cartloads of Talmuds were ceremoniously burned at an auto
128 THE KING’S JEWS

da fé in the Place de Grève in Paris. It has been estimated that between

10,000 and 12,000 copies were thrown into the flames, which were fed for
a day and a half.14 On 9 May 1244, Innocent IV wrote to the French King:

The wicked perfidy of the Jews, from whose hearts our Redeemer, has not removed
the veil of blindness such as because of the enormity of their crime . . . [they are]
ungrateful to the Lord Jesus Christ, who, in the abundance of His kindliness,
patiently expects their conversion . . . In traditions of this sort they rear and nurture
their children, which traditions are called Talmud in Hebrew. It is a big book among
them, exceeding in size the text of the Bible. In it are found blasphemies against God
and His Christ, and obviously entangled fables about the Blessed Virgin, and abusive
errors, and unheard of follies.15

In France, the Talmud was proscribed, and in the rest of Europe it was also
outlawed. One of the main sources of Jewish life was now under threat.
The way was now clear to perceive Jews as heretics.16 In order to realise
this aim a unilateral attack between respective academics, popes, bishops,
kings and the secular officials was required.
The Papacy still maintained the stance that the Jews were to be protected
in servitude. It had for a long time made it clear that Jews were to be
unmolested. It issued what became known as the Protection Bull, Sicut
Judeis. First issued in 1120, it was subsequently re-issued with variations
by 16 different popes throughout the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. It
applied exclusively to those Jews ‘who do not presume to plot against the
Christian Faith’. It forbade Christians to baptise by force, to wound, kill or
rob Jews. It also gave the Jews the right to celebrate their festivals without
being disturbed ‘in any way by means of sticks and stones’. It protected
Jewish cemeteries from desecration and gave the Papacy the power of
excommunication against anyone who defied the decree. It was frequently
re-issued and on several occasions different popes raised different issues
in it. For instance, Innocent III felt he should remind the holy exactly why
the Jews should be preserved and made clear reference to St Augustine’s
views on the Jews. Issuing the bull even led to Pope Gregory IX being
 CHURCH AND SYNAGO GUE 129

accused of having been bribed by the Jews. Popes Innocent IV, Gregory X
and Martin IV all mentioned the blood libel and stated quite clearly that
Jews did not use human blood for their rites and were forbidden to come
into contact with it.17 On one level the Papacy was not overtly suggesting
outright conversion as a solution to the practice of the Jewish religion.
However, should conversion happen then the Church would naturally
defend the newly converted and rejoice.
The campaign against the Talmud had threatened the Jews’ position and
in some places it was enough to allow the mendicants to act as inquisitors
and to follow up potential blasphemy on any pretext. Such a pretext came
in 1267 when Clement IV issued the Turbato Corde bull and ordered the
mendicants to be on the alert:

With our heart in turmoil [Turbato corde] we have heard, and we now recount,
that exceedingly numerous reprobate Christians, denying the truth of the Catholic
faith, have gone over, in a way worthy of damnation, to the rite of the Jews. This is
realized to be the more reprobate in that thus the most holy name of Christ is the
more heedlessly blasphemed by a kind of enmity within the family! . . . We command
your organization that . . . you are to proceed against Christians whom you shall have
discovered to have committed such things in the same way as against heretics; Jews,
however, whom you shall have discovered inducing Christians of either sex into their
execrable rite, before this, or in the future, these you are to punish with due penalty.18

The warning of the need for vigilance was re-issued to the Franciscans and
the Dominicans in 1274, 1288 and 1290.19
The position of the Jews in early thirteenth-century England is ade-
quately summed up by Robert Grosseteste. He was one of the earliest
Hebrew scholars in England, and possibly even learnt his Hebrew from
an Oxford Rabbi.20 Grosseteste is reputed to have translated the Testament
of the Twelve Patriarchs as a missionary tract for the Jews; he also wrote
De Cessatione Legalium in 1231 as another conversionist tract.21 In 1231,
as Archdeacon of Leicester, he wrote to Margaret de Quinci, Countess of
Winchester, displaying his knowledge of the Jewish people. When Simon
130 THE KING’S JEWS

de Montfort tried to expel the Jews from Leicester, Margaret had offered
them shelter on her estate. Grosseteste tried to advise her: ‘For word has
come to me that Your Excellency has arranged to gather together on your
domain the Jews whom Lord Leicester expelled from his town to prevent
their further pitiless and usurious oppressing the Christians dwelling there
. . .’. Grosseteste then traced the Jews’ history from the destruction of the
Temple to St Augustine and stated that the Jews were being held captive
and punished for the crucifixion and would eventually obtain salvation
on their conversion at the end of the world. He admitted that, since the
Jews were the guardians of the Old Testament, it was the duty of lords to
protect them from being killed and at the same time to use the severest
measures to prevent them oppressing Christians with usury, and ‘to see
that they may gain their livelihood by lawful work of their own hands . . .’.
He repeated that ‘the Jews were not to be indulged by Christian rulers so
that they may oppress Christians with usury, and from that usury live in
luxury and leisure, for that they have been appointed by the word of the
Lord to the penalty of hard work’. He warned that rulers who ‘receive a
part of the usury which Jews had extorted from Christians live by robbery
and mercilessly eat, drink and wear the blood of those whom it is their
duty to protect . . .’.22
Grosseteste had a firm but enlightened attitude towards the Jews. In
order to try to remove the problems caused by students becoming indebted
to Jewish creditors he founded an endowed loan chest at Oxford.23 He
also intervened in 1244 when Oxford students invaded the Jewry and
sacked the Jews houses. Some 45 clerks were imprisoned, but Grosseteste
appealed to Henry III and asked for permission to deal with the students
himself. In effect he established the jurisdiction of the Chancellor of the
University to deal with student affairs.24 He clearly tried to keep a balance
between the two religions.
Not all were as benign and enlightened as Grosseteste. Yet religious and
general attitudes towards the Jews were changing.25 For the majority of
the populations, it was the Crusades that affected the change in attitudes
towards the Jews. Men like Richard Malebisse had become so deeply
 CHURCH AND SYNAGO GUE 131

indebted that it seemed to them that there was no financial way out. It was
desperation that drove many of the indebted to attack their creditors. The
fact that the Church had promised Crusaders forgiveness of sins once the
Kingdom of God had been established was certainly a powerful motivation
to rally an army of Christ. Yet the fulfilment of such a miraculous promise
was in the future. More immediate was the offer that the Church could make
in the present. Such an incentive took the form of the Church declaring a
moratorium on Jewish debts. This brought direct help to Crusaders and
their families. The Church was repeatedly ordered by the Papacy to enforce
moratoria and to delay payments with no interest.26 In 1215–16, to prevent
further massacres, Innocent sent a letter to the French clergy forbidding
all Christians, especially Crusaders, to hurt the Jews or their families. The
Crusades and debt were even in some cases responsible for local expulsions
of Jews. The expulsion of the Jews from Brittany in 1239 by John the Red
has been seen as a direct result of the preaching of the Crusade and of the
Crusaders’ exemption from the interest charged on their debts.
Although the Jewish religion had not presented a hugely antagonistic
threat to Christianity, it was the sin of usury that provoked a harsher
reaction from the Church. In November 1215, the problem of usury
was addressed by the Fourth Lateran Council: ‘The more the Christian
religion refrains from the exaction of usury, the more the Jewish perfidy
becomes used to this practice, so that in a short time the Jews exhaust the
financial strength of the Christians . . .’.27 The subsequent canons went on
to put a stop to relations between Jews who charged immoderate usury
and Christians who were commanded to abstain from such commerce.
In places where Jews lived segregation was to be enforced and Jews were
banned from ‘walking out’ in public during the last three days of Holy
Week and Easter Sunday. Usury continually dominated the business of the
Church Councils. In 1227 at the Council of Narbonne, it was a major issue
and it was decreed that Christians who entered into agreements with Jews
were to be excommunicated. In 1240, at the Synod of Worcester, an early
form of tacit money-laundering was stopped ‘because it amounts to the
same thing whether a man falls into the crime of usury by his own action
132 THE KING’S JEWS

or through someone else, we forbid any Christian to entrust money to a

Jew that he might lend it on usury under his own name’.28 The campaign
against usury came to a crescendo in the Council of Lyons in 1274,
which made even having contact with or helping a ‘usurer’ punishable by
excommunication.29
With the exception of ritual-murder allegations and host desecration,
conversion to Judaism and intermarriage were the two incidents that the
Church feared most. In the 1220s in Oxford, a deacon from Coventry,
who had probably come to enter the University, converted to Judaism. He
had studied Hebrew and met, fallen in love with, and married a Jewess.
Among the charges levelled at this young man was the accusation of steal-
ing a consecrated wafer from a church and having thrown it in the filth.
Naturally the wafer was miraculously saved by ‘angelic hands’.30 The event
was reported by many chroniclers, like Mathew Paris, who had heard it
from a witness. The young man ‘ardently desired her embraces’, but the
Jewess was adamant that she would not return the embraces unless the
deacon abandoned Christianity, allowed himself to be circumcised and
embraced the Jewish faith. He did so and thus ‘gained her unlawful love’.31
News of the illicit affair reached Stephen Langton, Archbishop of
Canterbury, who demanded that the deacon be brought before him.
According to Matthew Paris, after interrogation and after he was con-
victed, the former deacon confessed to even having taken part in a
sacrifice with Jews. The archbishop and other prelates demanded that he
return to Christianity. A crucifix was brought but the prisoner became
angry, renounced the ‘new fangled law’, called Jesus a false prophet, and
slandered Mary to the point that ‘it could not be repeated’. Weeping at such
blasphemies, Langton publicly deprived the convert of his clerical orders.
The Sheriff of Oxford, Fawkes de Breauté, immediately took the deacon
and dragged him away to a secret spot and cut off his head.32 In his second
account, Paris has the deacon arrested along with two hermaphrodites,
and hanged by the Sheriff.33
There are, as always, varying accounts of this episode but the Church
was unlikely to play down such accusations or ill-feeling laid at the door
 CHURCH AND SYNAGO GUE 133

of the Jewish communities by popular belief. What does emerge from the
story is that a conversion, an enquiry, a public degradation and finally an
administration of the death penalty took place. The converted deacon was
not the only culprit to suffer at the hands of Archbishop Langton and oth-
ers gathered at the Abbey of Osney during the Council of Oxford in 1222.
The convert was arrested and dispatched by the King’s bailiffs outside
the town. Other prisoners were dealt with severely too. Another deacon
was degraded for theft and a ‘rustic’ who had pretended to be Christ and
who had pierced his hands, side and feet, together with a woman who
had passed herself off as the Virgin Mary were sentenced to be walled up
forever at Banbury.34
Such a case and public recognition of a Christian consorting with a Jew
strengthened the resolve of the clergy who were meeting at Oxford. They
now rigidly enforced and implemented the decisions of Innocent III and
the Third Lateran Council, particularly over segregation. Men like Richard
Morins, Prior of Dunstable, who had attended councils both in Rome
and Oxford, took their own action.35 The fear of Christians converting
to Judaism led to a tightening of existing restrictions. Christian women
were banned from becoming servants in Jewish households, particularly
if they lived in the Jew’s house.36 The tabula, which had been officially
enforced in England from 1218, was reinforced and remodelled to be of a
different colour from the outer clothing as well as two inches in breadth
and four inches long. They also extended the wearing of it to Jewesses.37
Langton now banned all Jews from entering churches and from keeping
any of their property in churches.38 The building of new synagogues was
stopped and, in Langton’s own diocese, he forbade anyone to have dealings
with the Jews or to sell anything to them. He was followed in this by the
Bishops of Lincoln and Norwich.39 For the Church, segregation seemed to
be the simple answer. Not only was the Church concerned with possible
conversion to Judaism but also with intermarriage and sex. In 1257, at a
council in Salisbury, Bishop Giles of Bridport thundered and complained
that there were Jews having sex with married as well as single Christian
women. The women were to suffer excommunication, and the only way
134 THE KING’S JEWS

to deal with the Jews was to segregate them by enforcing the rules over
‘distinctive dress’.40
Yet it was not only the crusading ideal, fears of usury and of conver-
sion to Judaism that heightened the religious witchhunt and changed
attitudes towards the Jews. Perspectives and attitudes towards Jews were
further changed by the arrival of the new orders, the Dominicans and the
Franciscans. The former were dedicated to teaching the faith and eradi-
cating heterodoxy; the latter to the imitation of Christ, preaching to the
laity, and, if necessary, suffering martyrdom. Both orders were geared to
conversion and proselytising and both spread quickly within the towns.41
Both orders had papal backing and their members attended and infiltrated
dominant positions in the universities. In 1221 the Dominicans quickly
set up a base in Oxford, shortly followed by the Franciscans in 1224.42
The Dominicans immediately showed their intentions, planning a Domus
Conversorum, or house for converted Jews, which they started to build ten
years later. It eventually opened in 1232.43 The Franciscans not only made
an impact in Oxford but were quick to establish themselves in Cambridge.
They found favour with Henry III, who, in 1226, gave them half of a stone
house which had belonged to Benjamin the Jew in the marketplace at
Cambridge.44
Both orders had the clear aim that they should engage and get involved
in the task of converting the Jews. They also took a special interest, not
only in Jewish literature and custom, but in wider Jewish affairs. In Oxford,
Friar Roger Bacon was given the responsibility of looking after new con-
verts.45 Both orders were involved in the Little St Hugh affair in 1255. Led
by Brother John of Darlington, the Dominicans of London interceded over
the mass arrests of Lincoln Jews. Darlington even secured a pardon for a
converted Jew who took the name John, who was one of the accused. This
caused rumours that the Jews had bribed the Friars and led to a temporary
loss of revenue in alms.46 In a further instance of involvement in Jewish
affairs, Friar Henry of Wodstone managed to save a parcel of land (already
acquired from the Jews) from being alienated from the Abbey of St Albans
by Queen Eleanor. He also influenced the Giffard brothers, Archbishop of
 CHURCH AND SYNAGO GUE 135

York and Bishop of Worcester, to stop the Jews from holding freeholds in
lands in their provinces.47 There can be little doubt that the arrival of two
orders who desired total conversion was a new force that the Jews now
had to endure.
Possible early provision for the aid of converted Jews had been made
in Bristol by setting up a Domus Conversorum. Converts had often been
received and looked after in the local abbey or priory. Such must have been
the case with the Jew who, in 1096, converted at Westminster after having
been convinced by Gilbert Crispin. In Oxford, an early refuge was started
to which Henry III contributed to a refoundation in May 1231.48 Aid and
money was given to Jewish converts from time to time. Peter des Roches,
even during the interdict, made regular gifts of alms to converted Jews at
Southwark, Marwell and Twyford. In 1220–1 he paid for the entertain-
ment of Jews at Fareham.49
In January 1232 Henry III founded the Domus Conversorum in London
in New Street by the Temple, on the site of a former synagogue. Des Roches
was a witness to the event and Bishop John of Ardfert consecrated the new
foundation.50 The King endowed it with the promise of a gift of £466 13s
4d for those Jews who turned to the Catholic faith. Regulations for the
new house were laid down in a charter. There were to be two chaplains
to take the services in a purpose-built chapel. The inmates were to live in
houses on the site.51 Gifts and bequests soon helped to boost the promised
funds, which had still not been received. In 1234, the Archbishop of York
actively sponsored a convert’s entry into the house.52 In 1238, des Roches
donated £66 13s 4d to the house and, in 1242, Bishop Hugh of Lincoln
made a bequest for Lincoln converts.53 Although Jews would have to give
up all they owned, they were to receive a payment of 1½ d a day for men
and a flat rate of 8d a week for women.
Henry III’s policy of encouraging conversion was something that he
took seriously. In his Mandate of the Jewry in 1253 he included a clause
that stated that no Jew should try to stop a fellow Jew converting. Although
he probably never managed to honour his munificent original grant, he
kept financing the Domus Conversorum. In 1242, £133 6s 8d was donated.
136 THE KING’S JEWS

In 1244 he gave a silver-gilt communion cup and provided ornamented

robes for the chaplains. The officials were well clothed and in one year £11
was expended on chasubles and copes as well as a tunic and dalmatic of
rich material. In 1257, the royal tailors were commanded to provide 161
tunics for converts at Easter and at Christmas, of which 150 that year were
the special gifts of the King and Queen and 21 outfits were given by the
royal children.
Henry seemed to respond to, and take an interest in, individual con-
verts. Isabella of London was given a russet brown tunic; Hugh and John,
‘the king’s Chaplains’, were given special hoods.54 Many of the converts,
such as Philip of Reading in 1234, were baptised in his personal presence.
Some were given the Christian name of John in honour of his father and
others were called Henry. One such convert, Henry of Winchester, became
a special favourite and was given the ‘belt of knighthood’. Other converts
were named after royal officials: one was called John de Plessitis after the
Earl of Warwick, Constable of the Tower. Another even took the name
Robert Grosseteste, after the scholarly Bishop of Lincoln. One was given
the name of the papal legate, Otto. Another was named after Henry’s
Dominican confessor, John of Darlington.55
From time to time, Henry ordered that some of the inmates should be
sent out of the Domus in London to other religious houses. It is not clear
what his precise intentions were. However, in early 1255, about 150 con-
versi were sent to various religious establishments with an official letter
that required the houses to provide either food and hospitality for two
years or, if the convert preferred, a daily allowance of 1½ d.56 Some were
sent as far away as Yorkshire and Denbighshire. Families were split up. The
convert Robert Grosseteste was sent to St Swithin’s, Winchester, while his
wife, Matilda, and his son, John, were sent to Horton in Kent.57 It may well
have been that this was some sort of preparation for the new converts to
re-enter the world outside the cloister. Certainly some converts remained
in the London Domus.58 Yet there were other instances of converts being
placed elsewhere, like Warin and John in the 1240s, who were sent to
Oxford to be under the tutelage of Brother Robert Bacon. They were paid
 CHURCH AND SYNAGO GUE 137

at the usual rate and also had robes provided for them.59 Perhaps the most
notorious convert outside the London Domus was Henry of Winchester,
who not only involved himself in some rather dubious financial transac-
tions but worked for the Exchequer.60
On 17 May 1268 a religious procession marched along Fish Street
in Oxford on its way to the churchyard of St Frideswide’s Priory. In the
procession were the majority of the parish clergy, sacristans, choristers,
townspeople and students. Also marching within the body of the proces-
sion was the Chancellor of the University, Nicholas de Ewelme, who was
due to give an annual university sermon. At the head of the procession a
young clerk carried a crucifix. Many of the townspeople had stopped to
watch the event as it passed by. As the procession was nearing its destina-
tion, a single figure darted forward, snatched the cross and pushed the
clerk to the ground. He trampled on the crucifix and disappeared into one
of the crowded main streets.61 When the commotion had subsided, the
procession went ahead and the chancellor gave his speech. However, such
an overt blasphemy could not go unavenged and once he had finished he
was determined to find out who had dared to do such a deed.
The matter was investigated by the Masters of the University and the
town officials. Some blamed a Jew. Prince Edward, who happened to be in
Oxford at the time, hastened to Woodstock, where the King was staying,
and informed him.62 After some days, action was taken and the Oxford
Jews were ordered to hand over the criminal. They either did not know
who the perpetrator was or would not name him, and thus, on the order
of the Justices in Eyre, they were all rounded up and imprisoned until they
had made amends. Eventually, the Jews were released, but were sentenced
to bear the expense of a marble crucifix that was to be erected on the site of
the attack and they were also to provide a small ceremonial silver crucifix
to be given to the chancellor and scholars of the university to replace
the broken one. The King made a special exception for two Jews, Jacob
fil Magister Moses and Benedict, as they could prove they were not in
Oxford on the day.63 The citizens later rejected the proposed site as being
too inconvenient and urged that the crucifix should be set up opposite the
138 THE KING’S JEWS

Jewish synagogue. Henry III, however, finally ruled that the monument
be set up in the quadrangle of Merton College, by the Church of St John.
As far as Henry was concerned, this was a matter of grave importance.
This was the second major incident between townspeople and Jews during
his reign. In the same year as he had reorganised and placed his Jewish
conversi, he had been asked to rule on the alleged murder of Little St Hugh.
Now, 13 years after the Lincoln murder, the very symbol of Christ had
been insulted. According to the words used at the time, the insult had
been carried out ‘in contempt for the Cross of Christ and for the whole
of Christendom’.64 Both crosses were delivered by the Jews of Oxford in
early 1269 and they were finally humiliated by Henry for desecrating the
cross. As far as Prince Edward was concerned, the breaking of the cross
by infidels probably had a far larger resonance because that summer he
was planning to embark on his Crusade.65
Edward was preoccupied with his Crusade between 1270 and 1274,
but in 1275 he paid particular attention to the Domus and gave orders to
enlarge it. New houses were to be built for the converts and they received
a donation of £100.66 In the Statute of the Jewry of 1275, Edward had
ordered that all Jews above the age of 12 would pay a poll tax of 3d a
head, and in 1280 he directed this towards the upkeep of the Domus.67
On 10 May 1279, Edward decreed that all relapsed converts from Judaism
were to be subject to the secular arm. In January 1280, he endorsed the
Dominicans’ wish for the forced attendance of Jewish communities at their
sermons.68 In 1280, ‘in order that those who have already turned from
their blindness to the light of the church . . . and those who still persist in
their error may more willingly and readily turn to the grace of the faith
. . .’, he allowed the conversi to keep some of their goods and chattels to
maintain themselves for seven years; the rest would be given along with
any confiscated goods of dead Jews to the upkeep of the Domus.69 He also
expected ‘those converts who are skilful to learn secular handicrafts and
mysteries . . . to be maintained by their portions until they are able to
support themselves by their work’. Unlike his father, Edward did not see
conversi being supported by religious institutions but insisted that they
 CHURCH AND SYNAGO GUE 139

should make their own living in the world. The royal family still paid
special attention to the conversion of their Jews. A Jewish convert, who
took the name of Eleanor of St Paul, was baptised in front of Eleanor, one
of Edward’s daughters, as late as 1289.70
Edward was making his own attempts to bring the Jews into the
Christian fold. However, this was not enough for the new Archbishop of
Canterbury, who was consecrated on 19 February 1279, while Edward
was abroad. John Pecham, the ‘intense scholar of Paris and Oxford turned
overbearing Archbishop of Canterbury’, had been the candidate of Pope
Nicholas III over Edward’s own candidate, Robert Burnell.71 For the Jews,
this was an appointment that was to heighten the restrictions on their
religion and their social and economic status, and to see major initiatives
to bring their religion to heel. In July 1281, Pecham had secret discussions
with the Bishop of London and was intent on stopping the building of a
new London synagogue.72 On 2 November 1281, he wrote to the King
complaining that it had come to his attention that certain converted Jews
had gone back to Judaism ‘like dogs to their vomit’. Subsequently, he
requested that a full-scale enquiry take place and that the King should
use his power to bring these relapsed conversi back to the true faith.
In the interim, in August 1282, the Bishop of London was ordered to
destroy all the synagogues in London except one.73 The Master of the
Domus Conversorum, John de Sancto Dionysio, was appointed to run the
investigation, and by November 1282 he reported that he had found at
least 15 men and women who had returned to Judaism. The Mayor and
Sheriffs of London were ordered to arrest 13 of them. The victims had
taken refuge in the London Jewry, where they were under the protection
and jurisdiction of the Constable of the Tower of London. It may well be
that one of them at least had sought refuge with Master Elias Menahem,
one of the most influential members of the London community.74 Not put
off by this, Pecham persisted and wrote to the Chancellor, Robert Burnell,
who claimed that if a writ were issued to the Constable of the Tower, this
would compromise the Constable’s relations with the London Jewish com-
munity. It seems that Pecham did not succeed in getting his arrests as, at
140 THE KING’S JEWS

the Easter parliament of 1285, the clergy complained about the failure of
the Crown to act against relapsed Jewish converts.75
Pecham’s tenacity was to be rewarded by papal support. In a change
in papal policy towards the Jews in 1286, Pope Honorius IV sent letters
to the Archbishops of Canterbury and York that targeted the behaviour
of Jews in England: ‘We have heard that in England the accursed and
perfidious Jews have done unspeakable things and horrible acts, to the
shame of our Creator and the detriment of the Catholic faith. . .’. He went
on to condemn the continuing study of the Talmud, accusing the Jews of
seducing converts with gifts, inviting Christians into their synagogues,
keeping Christians in their households, using Christian wet nurses, and
banqueting and feasting together, as well as publicly abusing and cursing
Christians. He also questioned the loyalty of the English clergy by suggest-
ing that they had done nothing about such abuses. When the bull reached
England in early 1286, Edward had already embarked for Gascony.76 The
campaign against the Talmud was a new departure in England.77
Some Jews had tried to stop conversions. In 1236, a Jewish child from
Oxford, who had been baptised, was kidnapped by the community and
smuggled away. Several Oxford Jews were arrested and handed over to
the Constable and imprisoned. The convert was traced to Exeter, sent
back and put in the care of Robert Bacon.78 One of the converts, whom
Pecham had tried to arrest in 1282, might have been Rose of Dorking,
the wife of Abraham of Dorking who, in 1274, had been charged with
eight other Jews for conspiring to abduct two Jewesses who had recently
converted to Christianity and for threatening them with hanging if they
did not reconvert to Judaism. One of them, Juliana, who refused to return
to Judaism, was transported overseas by her captors, and only saved when
a storm drove her ship ashore at Sandwich.79 In 1290, the London Jews
objected vehemently to the baptism of a Jewish boy in St Clement’s Church
because they had not given their permission.80
As we have seen, there were cases of Christians turning to Judaism.
Perhaps more unacceptable and worrying to the Church fathers was the
case of a Christian who was kidnapped and circumcised. In August 1230,
 CHURCH AND SYNAGO GUE 141

a young boy, Odard son of Benedict, went out to play in the streets of
Norwich. He was approached by Jacob, a Jew, who enticed him into his
house where there were other Jews. The boy was circumcised and given
the name Jurnepin. He was kept in the house for a day and a night and
then released. He was later found wandering up the bank of the river by
Matilda de Burnham. The boy was distraught and kept weeping, claiming
that he was now a Jew. Matilda kept him overnight. Some Jews came to
her house and demanded that the boy be returned to them.
Matilda had contacted the boy’s father, Benedict, and he had secretly
come into the house. He was reunited with the boy. However, the Jews
then came in great numbers and demanded that they have the boy. Matilda
would not hand him over and the Jews went away warning her that she
should not give him pork to eat because he was a Jew. The Jews complained
to the Constable of Norwich Castle, Richard de Fesingfeld, and the bailiffs
that a Jewish boy had been kidnapped. The boy was taken for safe-keeping
to the Official of the Archdeacon of Norwich and the coroners who later
testified that he had been circumcised.81
In 1234 the boy’s father, brought a case against the Jews. Accordingly,
13 named Jews were summoned. In the intervening period at least one
Jew, Senioret, had been outlawed for the felony of circumcising Odard.
His messuage in Norwich had been given to Benedict.82 In 1234, the case
was heard in front of the Justices, the Prior of Norwich and representatives
of both the Franciscans and the Dominicans. Witnesses were called and
interrogated. Three Jews did not appear and, with the exception of Mosse
fil Solomon, nine Jews were found guilty. The case was referred to the King,
who decided that it was up to the Church to prosecute and take action.
As a result, three Jews were hanged, others condemned and, the following
year, the citizens of Norwich wreaked their revenge by attacking the Jewry
and setting it on fire.83
Some Jews showed their dislike of the attempts to convert them. In
1277, a Jew allegedly assumed the habit of a Friar Minor, preaching certain
things in contempt of both the Christian faith and the Franciscan order.84
At the request of Archbishop Kilwardby, Edward ordered that the ribald
142 THE KING’S JEWS

Jew should perform a penance that had been imposed on him by the
archbishop. Sampson, son of Samuel of Northampton, was arrested by
the sheriff for having taken the habit of a Friar Minor and for preaching
certain things ‘in contempt of the Christian faith’. Kilwardby had convicted
him and sentenced him to go naked for three days through the midst of
the cities of Canterbury, Lincoln, London, Northampton and Oxford,
carrying in his hands the entrails of a calf; the rest of the calf was to be
flayed and placed on his neck. Although Sampson seems to have escaped
the punishment, further similar persecution took place.85 At Nottingham
in 1278, a Jewess was charged with assault of Agatha, wife of Robert son of
Nemek, and with assailing her with abusive words, scandalising her and
all the Christian bystanders in the marketplace and spitting in her face.86
At Norwich in 1279, Abraham fil Deulecresse was burnt for blasphemy.87
The Jewish communities were self-contained. Cecil Roth commented
that the ‘. . . universality, the intensity and the catholicity of the medieval
Anglo-Jewish intellectual life, so far as we can trace it, were remarkable.
These men were usurers from compulsion: they were scholars by taste’.88
They had their guidelines and influences. Their books, both religious and
cultural, were well read. Their scholae or synagogues set the tone for the
community while their Talmudists interpreted their way of life by using
the Torah, the Talmud and the Responsa, which allowed the flexibility to
cope with anything that the Christian world outside might throw at them.
They were now, however, the subject of a deeper scrutiny and censorship.
On his death in 1244, David of Oxford’s library was examined for ‘books
which were against the law’ before his family were allowed to have them.89
The close examination of Jewish literature must have meant that tight
control was kept on writings that were of value to the community. It was
the Talmud that was so vital to the survival of Judaism because of its flex-
ibility and ability to find answers for all situations. The Talmud itself puts
it succinctly: ‘customs-annals-law’, and ‘everything depends upon local
custom’.90 As the Talmud came under open attack, the very lifeblood of
the religious make-up of Jewish communities was threatened. As James
Parkes observed:
 CHURCH AND SYNAGO GUE 143

It is evidence of the ruthless efficiency of the medieval Church that among the tens
of thousands of medieval manuscripts which fill the libraries of Europe, America
and Israel today there is only one complete medieval copy of the Talmud.91

It is little wonder that their laws and interpretations, as well as some of

their written guidelines, probably went ‘underground’ or were merely
maintained and shared orally in closed gatherings. The Jewish communi-
ties had their own rulings on usury and on conversion. Technically, usury
was forbidden to the Jew. However, just as for Christians, there were times
when it became necessary.92 It is true to say that, to an extent, they had
been forced into usury. However, once the campaign against it reached its
height then they were the first to suffer, while Christians benefited.
As regards the Christian hope of conversion in ‘the last days’, the Jews
had maintained their own religion, which had lasted unbroken for many
centuries. Nor did Judaism have any world plan in either the medieval
or late modern era. It did not openly court converts and quite naturally
disliked conversion of Jews to Christianity. The Jewish attitude to converts
to Christianity was extremely varied and depended on each case and each
community. Some communities had as much disregard for apostates as
they had hatred for an informer.93 A true apostate was regarded by the
Jews as having died and was openly mourned. All familial relationships
were broken off and inheritance rights were made void.94 Yet there
was some sympathy for forced converts and they were even prayed for,
and it was incumbent on the community to assist them to escape from
Christianity. Although it seems some Jewish communities had learned to
interpret the Talmud in the context of their everyday surroundings, they
also maintained rigid standards of mutual exclusiveness. Jewish orthodoxy
meant adhering to a strict raft of rules and prohibitions that continued to
separate the two religions.95 Despite the attempts to demean, to convert
and to deal with another religion in their midst, medieval Christians were
just as unable as modern Christians to bring about a mass conversion. In
many ways the cold war between the two religions became not only a war
of attrition but also a stalemate. It was, as Barrie Dobson has observed,
144 THE KING’S JEWS

always going to be ‘a case study in religious intolerance founded on mutual

ideological incomprehension’.96
In England between 1066 and 1290 the Church changed its attitude
towards the Jews. Matters that were argued and discussed in the disputa-
tions became accusations. The prevailing hatred of the Jew, which fired
allegations of ritual murder and host desecration, only hardened attitudes.
The Jews were no longer just to be punished by their Diaspora but were to
be put to work and made to forsake usury. The impact of the Dominicans
and the Franciscans brought with it a new mission and message of con-
version. The attack on the Talmud in Europe, which finally manifested
itself in England in 1286, also militated against the Jews. Men like Robert
Grosseteste, who in the early thirteenth century were prepared to tolerate
the Jews on their terms, were replaced by men like John Pecham, who
wanted an immediate end to Judaism and a total conversion. Although the
establishment of the Domus Conversorum did not accomplish the whole-
sale conversion, it represented the increased royal desire to convert the
Jews. Events like the conversions to Judaism and the alleged blasphemies
that took place only exacerbated the Church’s dogma and determination.
The goats remained separate from the sheep, while the sheep prepared to
rid themselves of the goats.
 7

Dissolution and Diaspora

In 1290 Edward I reversed a royal policy that had stood for over 200 years
and ordered the total expulsion of the Jews from England. In line with
other continental rulers he had already, in 1287, ordered the expulsion of
the Jews from his lands in Gascony. Yet previous expulsions from France
had in some cases often been little more than temporary suspensions.
The precedent in England may well have been the expulsion by Henry III
in 1240 of the Cahorsins, who were then readmitted in 1250, and again
proscribed in 1251. Kings had in the past used expulsion or suspension
as a tool to gather money in time of need. Naturally a foreign merchant
relied on the goodwill of the monarch for protection, but he had to pay for
it. In 1230 some Cahorsins were arrested at Northampton, the following
year they and all French merchants were ordered to leave England unless
they had licence to remain. In 1245 all the merchants of Siena, Cahors
and Florence and elsewhere from all over the country were summoned to
Westminster and ordered to provide £4,000. If they would not give it freely
then a loan was to be negotiated and if they would not agree to this then
they were to quit the realm. Threat of expulsion was merely a bargaining
chip to raise money. Royal coercion was simply another way of raising
cash.1 It was thus permissible for royalty to use such pawns to increase
the cash available on the Exchequer board.
To a ruler, it was part of medieval kingship to play cat and mouse with
vulnerable groups and, in particular, with aliens and foreigners. It was,
however, quite another thing to try to do this with royal subjects, like the
Jews. In England the Jew had a special status and had always been treated
separately by both Church and state. Towards the end of the thirteenth
century Church and state buried their differences and became united in
146 THE KING’S JEWS

one object, and that was to punish and redefine the role of the Jews within
their respective spiritual and secular domains. There has been great debate
among historians over the position of the Jews in medieval society and
this ranges from the Jew being of slave or servile status to the Jew being
of special status.
It has already been demonstrated above how in one sense the Jews
were enthralled and regarded as slaves by Christian society. The Papacy
repeatedly portrayed the Jews as serfs. In 1234 Gregory IX’s Decretales
claimed that Jews were subjected to perpetual servitude because they had
crucified Christ.2 The Jews were to be enslaved right up until the end of
the world. While there is little debate over the Church’s view of Jewish
servitude, there is much debate over the exact social standing of the Jews in
the secular world. Certainly the Jew was outside Christian society and dif-
ferent from aliens. As we shall see, in a sense, they defied any description
because they were so different. Anglo-Saxon law said little about the Jews’
standing. In England they were a royal import and therefore the Norman
and Angevin kings were able to invent their status. The kings had ‘a royal
monopoly of jurisdiction’ over their Jewish subjects.3
Thus for some, the Jews were owned by the kings. The pseudo-laws
of Edward the Confessor saw them as Crown property, ‘. . . for the Jews
and all theirs belong to the king. And if any detain anything of theirs,
let the king ask their money back as if it were his own’.4 For others they
were ferae naturae or ‘beasts of nature’, to be protected like royal swans
in Tudor times.5 They have also subsequently been defined as ‘the King’s
most exquisite villeins’.6 Certainly in most descriptions of the relationship
between kings and Jews there is always an implicit element of exploitation.
Simon Dubnow asserted that in both England and France ‘. . . the king,
who considered the Jew’s person and all belongings as his own property,
harshly exploited the commerce-serf – and when the serf ’s services were
no longer needed, he was driven from the country mercilessly’.7 For Joseph
Jacobs, they were a ‘sponge’. For Charles Gross, the Jewish Exchequer was
an ‘engine of extortion’, while for Cecil Roth they were ‘the King’s Milch
Cow’ and servi camerae regis or serfs of the royal chamber.8 Others saw
 DI S S OLU T ION A N D DIA SP OR A 147

them as the ‘goose that laid the golden egg’.9 No matter what nomenclature
has been used to describe the Jews and their position in society, the fact is
that they were both at His Majesty’s Pleasure and, later on, at His Majesty’s
Service.
The deterioration of their status and their relationship with the Crown
precipitated the final expulsion.10 Edward I actually paid lip service to the
relationship in his Statute of the Jewry in 1275, ‘albeit he and his ancestors
have received much benefit from the Jewish people in time past . . .’.11 The
Jews first arrival under William the Conqueror had been at royal invita-
tion. He had treated them as royal subjects. His son, William II, seems to
have merely seen them as a curiosity that could be useful to the Crown
and that is how the relationship might have stayed if it had not been for
the call to arms against the infidel which accompanied the Crusades.
Henry I, like his father, tolerated the Jewish settlements in London and
Oxford and again granted the community a charter, which, like preceding
charters, was probably made to a single leading Jewish magnate as a sign
of special favour.12
We know of the existence of two charters from Henry II’s reign. His
relationship with the Jews seems to have been a good one. In granting
rights of burial outside London Henry recognised that the Jews had spread
farther afield than either London or Oxford and had became a feature in
many provincial towns. He also had a fair knowledge of Aaron of Lincoln’s
business acumen and clientele. Certainly he allowed Jews to conduct their
financial affairs and was also happy to profit from tallaging them.13 Indeed,
as we have seen, one chronicler even referred to the Jews’ situation as ‘an
absurd arrangement’.14 Yet Henry II also insisted that they were his prop-
erty, should be protected, and were present only by his favour. As we have
seen, this was all to change with the coronation of Richard I.
At Rouen, on 22 March 1190, six days after the York massacres, Richard
I granted a charter to Isaac son of Rabbi Josce ‘and his sons and their men’.
These Jews were allowed to live ‘freely and honourably’ and were to be
allowed to have their legal cases judged and to swear on the Torah. They
were granted burial and inheritance rights. They were also allowed and
148 THE KING’S JEWS

expected to trade and lend money as they were granted permission to sell
their pledges after a year and a day, to secure their debts after a debtor
had died, and to have freedom of custom and tolls and modiation of
wine, ‘just like our own chattels’. They were also provided with protection.
Richard’s grant took its precedent from an earlier one: ‘just as the Lord
King Henry, our father, granted and by his charter confirmed to the Jews
of England and Normandy’.15 Yet only six days before the granting of this
charter, an assault had been committed on Richard’s Jewish subjects at
York. Even as the embers around Clifford’s Tower finally turned to ash the
King’s authority had been flouted and the royal protection of his special
subjects ignored, and this required a manifestation of royal power. York
was punished. The Jews were subsequently protected and as we have seen,
the Exchequer of the Jews was finally established.16
Even John, who, in 1210, taxed the Jews to the hilt, at other times
protected them to the hilt. They were ‘our proper chattel’ and were to be
guarded.17 The royal peace (such that it was under John) was not to be
broken.18 In November 1199, he gave a special protection and a tallage
exemption for Leo the Jew, ‘our goldsmith’.19 In 1201, he reconfirmed the
charters of the Jews in return for £2,666 13s 4d. The new charters were
read to the Jewish community in front of the Bishops of London and
Norwich.20 There can be little ambiguity about John’s relationship with the
Jews: ‘. . . since the Jews themselves and all they have are the King’s’. John
protected his Jews because he knew that he could exploit them and that
is exactly what he did. Yet the loss of Normandy in 1204 and its repercus-
sions were also to affect the royal Jews. A sudden change of emphasis in
John’s attitude towards the Jews and their debtors can be seen in 1207,
when he decided to collect the debts owing to Aaron of Lincoln.
From November 1207, John ordered that threats of confiscation for
non-payment should be used on all Aaron’s outstanding debtors. It had
been accepted since the arrival of the Jews in England that the debts of a
dead Jew belonged to the King. Now, according to Sir James Holt, John was
trying to collect the debts of Jews who were alive as well as those who were
dead. He threatened what amounted to a general foreclosure on Jewish
 DI S S OLU T ION A N D DIA SP OR A 149

debts. There seems to have been some success, as the examples of Gilbert
de Gant and Simon of Kyme show. Gilbert owed £1,000 in 1211 and this
was reduced to £800 when he promised to pay it off in two years. Simon
of Kyme was trying to pay off the debts of his father, including some that
had been owed to the Christian moneylender William Cade, as well as
those of Aaron of Lincoln. In 1211–12 Simon was found to owe £853 12s
4d capital and £419 11s 6d interest for Jewish debts. He agreed to pay off
£1,000 in three years. John kept on pressing and, according to a surviving
roll, other debtors were forced to compound payments for Jewish debts.21
Such debtors faced the threat of distraint and of royal land alienation. The
blame and resentment for these dire circumstances, which were expressed
in Magna Carta, fell partly on the Jews.
If this was not enough, John also demanded tallages from the Jewish
community. In 1207, a tallage of £2,666 13s 4d was ordered, as well as a
levy of one-tenth of the value of their bonds, of which the Jews were now
ordered to furnish precise details.22 After his return from Ireland in 1210,
John ordered the Bristol tallage, which demanded a further £44,000.23
This caused major problems for the Jewish community as well as for their
debtors. To aid collection, Jewish officials were nominated in each county
to organise the seizure of debtors’ lands.24 John had turned the Jews into
agents of the Crown whose new function was to become, in effect, royal tax
gatherers. This, as Holt has shown, was not always easy and made the Jews
even more unpopular. The difficulties some Jews had are demonstrated
by a case where a Jew managed to get the local sheriff to help him collect
a debt. In 1208–9 Mathew Mantel had pledged the manor of Stanton in
Hertfordshire to Moses son of Brun. The Jew could not obtain full posses-
sion of the estate because Mathew’s serjeant would not allow the men of
the manor to swear loyalty to a Jew. Moses obtained a writ that directed
the sheriff to give him full possession of the manor and the power to sell
the stock and the chattels to service the debt. When the sheriff arrived at
Stanton, he found only four oxen, six draught animals and no corn. He
was also unable to find buyers for the animals. Thus even a Jew who had
royal support in trying to claim his debt still found difficulty.25
150 THE KING’S JEWS

Subsequent proceedings against the Jews were severe, with a general

order to imprison the leading Jews of each community.26 This was noted
by many contemporary chroniclers. The archae were closely inspected, yet
the sum John demanded could not be collected. It was alleged that John
now resorted to other ways of making his collections. Certainly there were
threats, intimidation and possibly torture. Roger of Wendover, the only
contemporary chronicler to carry the tale, related the story of the Jew of
Bristol who had a tooth extracted daily until he eventually parted with a
large sum of money. During the attempts to collect money some Jews, like
Isaac of Canterbury and Abraham fil Abigail of London, were hanged.27
According to one chronicler, Isaac le Gros had his eyes plucked out. Others
were forced to purchase their pardons. Isaac fil Jurnet of Norwich was
imprisoned and fined £666 13s 4d. He was forced to pay at the rate of 13s
4d per day.28 The tallage was rigorously collected and the collection of
arrears continued into the 1220s.29 In 1215 John published an order that
any poor Jews who had left the country because of their inability to pay
the tallage assessed upon them should not be allowed to return unless
they had paid their debt and a fine of £2 to the Treasury.30 Contemporary
chroniclers may well have been correct when in response to enquiries by
royal officials they described Jews who ‘died or crossed the seas’. John of
Oxnead even spoke of an expulsion.31 It is not surprising that during the
Magna Carta rebellion the Jews of London were seen as part of the system
of royal oppression and attacked.32
The reign of Henry III saw a repositioning of the Jews on both economic
and religious fronts. Henry III personally took a delight in the conversion
of the Jews, founding the Domus Conversorum in 1232, and thus it is little
surprise that he and his bishops tried to segregate Jews from Christian
society. They were on a mission towards mass conversion. This was also
accompanied by several major adjustments about Jewish moneylending
activities. In 1233 the Jews were commanded that ‘No Jew shall remain
in our kingdom save such as can serve the king and find good pledges of
fidelity. Other Jews, who have nothing wherewith they may serve the king,
shall leave the kingdom . . .’.33 The Crown now insisted that the Jews were
 DI S S OLU T ION A N D DIA SP OR A 151

there to provide it with financial support when it needed it. The organisa-
tion and near complete collection of the 1240 tallage shows convincingly
that the Jews were the Crown’s business.34 But a tightening of the social
noose around the Jews came on 31 January 1253 with the Mandate to the
Justices assigned to the custody of the Jews. The message was unequivocal
and began with a threat.35
Until 1253, Henry III had merely reconfirmed his grandfather’s charter
defining the Jews’ position but his new approach was to redefine the
relationship between Crown and Jew.36 In 1253, in his Mandate to the
Justices of the Jews, he redefined the conditions under which Jews could
live. If they were not prepared to obey the royal command then it was
also ordered that no Jew was to remain in England ‘unless he do the King
service’. The Mandate asserted that the Jews belonged solely to the Crown
from the cradle to beyond the grave, and ‘that from the hour of birth every
Jew, whether male or female, serve us in some way’. Draconian social
restrictions were also placed on the Jewish population. The building of any
new synagogues was stopped and it was ordered that in all synagogues the
Jews subdue their voices so as not to disturb Christians. Jews were now
subject to paying parochial dues. Jews were forbidden to employ Christian
wet nurses or servants and Christians were banned from eating or meeting
with them. The sale of meat to Jews during Lent was forbidden. The Jew
was banned from disparaging the Christian faith or entering any church
or chapel except for the purpose of transit. Sexual intercourse between
Christian and Jew was utterly forbidden and was now likely to carry a
charge of bestiality. The tabula was now officially enforced by the state.
Jewish colonisation was limited to the towns where they already lived,
except by special licence.37
The Jews were no longer in England by invitation with special privilege.
They were now in England to be exploited and directed at the King’s whim.
In the following year, Henry III raised yet another enforced tallage on the
Jews. In 1254, Henry had approached parliament for a loan. His subjects
had refused and the barons of England told the King point blank that they
had no intention of approving any further finance. Henry ordered his
152 THE KING’S JEWS

brother Richard, Earl of Cornwall, to raise the money that was required
from the Jews who also denied him the money. The King’s retort was that
‘It is no wonder that I covet money, for it is dreadful to think of the debts
in which I am involved . . . I am a mutilated and diminished king . . . I am,
therefore, under the necessity of living on money obtained in all quarters,
from whomsoever and in what manner so ever I can acquire it’.38
In the deliberations that took place in 1254 the Jews begged to be
allowed to leave the country. The Jewish community had appointed one
of their senior Rabbis, Elias, to speak with the Earl. At the audience with
Richard of Cornwall, Elias duly explained that if the Jews had it in their
power to supply the King’s money, it would no sooner be done but that the
Jewish community could not supply the finance even if they were to sell
their own skins. Elias went on to explain that such a demand on the Jewish
community would be their utter destruction. On behalf of the community,
he begged the earl to ask Henry III for his permission to leave England. At
the end of his speech Elias fainted; it was some time before he came round.
Richard of Cornwall’s reply was that the King would not allow a mass
departure of the Jews and, besides, there was nowhere for them to go.39
The problem over the Jews’ status was shelved during the baronial
wars. The Jewries were, as we have seen, the target for vicious attacks as
enraged debtors tried to destroy their debts. Yet, after the wars, Henry
had to act to reconstruct the Jewish archa system and also to tackle the
problems that were caused by the advent of the fee debt. This he did and
his new provisions were delivered by his Chancellor, Walter de Merton,
in 1269. This new statement of the financial role of the Jews was drawn
up with the advice of the Lord Edward and other ‘trusty lieges’ and would
probably have included Merton himself. Their deliberations put a stop to
arranging fee debts and transferring them in the market that had sprung
up around them except without special royal licence. The penalties for not
conforming were severe. This prohibition was soon followed by another
order in 1271, which carried a new thrust to it. It was issued ‘. . . for the
honour of God and the Catholic Church, the better ordering and increased
prosperity of our land, and the relief of Christians . . .’. It paid lip service
 DI S S OLU T ION A N D DIA SP OR A 153

to the fact that it had been issued on the advice of bishops, barons and
nobles on the council. It clearly stated that no Jew was to have freehold
on any property.40
Prince Edward was in the midst of a Crusade when his father died. His
return to England in August 1274 saw him address the problem and the
status of the Jews. Like his father he was concerned with two main areas
of their lives – conversion and their financial usefulness to the Crown.
He made attempts to tackle the larger question of usury and launched an
inquest into it.41 He also bolstered the government’s attempts to contain
Jewish settlement. In October 1274 the Sheriff of Shropshire was ordered
to remove some Jews who had entered and were dwelling in Bridgnorth.
This did not prove to be so easily done as subsequently the people of
Bridgnorth requested that a letter be sent to the sheriff, ordering that he
make an extent of a house belonging to the Jews in Bridgnorth, to which
they had been returning despite an order that they be removed.42 In early
1275, Edward had allowed Eleanor to banish the Jews from Marlborough,
Gloucester, Cambridge, Andover, Bath and Guildford. It was clear that
Edward was prepared to treat his Jewish subjects in a very different way
than his royal predecessors and it is even possible that he had been con-
sidering expulsion as early as January 1275.43
Edward now implemented perhaps the most radical definition change
to the status of the Jew. They were to be brought into line and made to give
up usury. By October 1275 he had embarked on what has been called the
‘Edwardian Experiment’.44 In this, Edward wished to realise the sugges-
tion made by Grosseteste several years before and to turn the Jews from
their moneylending role into ordinary citizens who earned their living by
labour or legitimate commerce. His Statute of the Jewry of 1275 was very
clear about how he saw the Jews’ status and also hinted that his motives
were religious. He issued it for the ‘. . . honour of God and the common
benefit of the people . . .’. On several occasions the Jews were referred to
as serfs and the expression ‘whose serfs they are’ or ‘whose bond-men
they are’ certainly clarifies how Edward saw the Jews.45 There was a hint
of Edward’s future intent in the fact that he allowed them to buy houses
154 THE KING’S JEWS

and hold them on behalf of the King for a period of ten years or less, and
he ended the Statute with ‘and this licence to take lands to farm shall
endure to them only for fifteen years from this time forward’.46 These new
demands on the Jews were accompanied by a regenerating of the Domus
Conversorum and a continued campaign to convert the Jews. This desire
was supported by making sermons given by the Friars obligatory for Jews
to attend and by the witnessing of or promotion of individual baptisms
of Jews.47
Edward still regarded the Jews as a separate community that belonged
to the Crown. While he was away in 1279, the Jews became the victims
of what has been called the coin-clipping sting; many hundreds of Jews
were hanged or imprisoned for allegedly clipping the coin. When he heard
of what was happening Edward put a stop to the hangings. Still pressure
remained to do something more drastic about the Jews’ position in society.
Some sources indicate that the people had already asked Edward I to expel
the Jews in 1281 in return for a tax of a fifth.48 In 1282, the vanquished
Welshmen, the sons of Maredud of Penliti, complained to Archbishop
Pecham that among the English even the Jews were allowed to have their
own laws.49 In the summer of 1285, John Pecham launched an attack on
the royal power and the Jews. In particular he asked the King to put a stop
to Jewish malice and fraud and to sanction the Inquisition against Jewish
apostates. The reply came from the King that ‘as far as Jewish malice is
concerned, he simply has lost all hope of coping with it’. In 1287, when
a knight whose manor had been mortgaged to a Jew went to Gascony to
seek a judgement from the King himself, Edward, according to several
chroniclers, replied, ‘but I grant to you and to all others in my kingdom an
equal law so that I do not appear to favour a Jew rather than a Christian’.50
Yet during the closing years of Jewish presence in England Edward I no
longer favoured the Jews.
Events in Gascony in 1287 spelt disaster for both Edward and, ulti-
mately, the Jews. In a freak accident on Easter Sunday, 7 April, Edward was
standing in a room at the top of a tower in Bordeaux when the floor gave
way beneath him. The King and his attendants fell some 80 feet and were
 DI S S OLU T ION A N D DIA SP OR A 155

covered with rubble. Three knights were killed outright, others walked
away, but Edward was found underneath a Gascon knight with a broken
collarbone and severe bruising. He was so ill that it took him five weeks
to recuperate. It may be that his deliverance inspired him to make another
Crusade. On 12 May Edward once again took the cross and became a
Crusader who now needed finance to realise his quest.51 Soon after his
recovery, Edward officially expelled the Jews from Gascony. Meanwhile, in
England, in mid-April, the English clergy had met at the Council of Exeter.
Pecham, now armed with papal backing, urged them to act against the
Jews. They once again enforced the tabula, and forbade Christians to work
with, eat with or accept medicines from Jews. They restricted the Jews to
their houses on Good Friday and even made them keep their windows
shut, as well as banning the building of new synagogues.52 Yet on 2 May
1287, while Edward still lay ill in Bordeaux, all the Jews in England were
imprisoned. For many Jewish families they must have thought that this
was the end. Scratched on a wall in Winchester, a Hebrew inscription
recorded a chilling reference to the mass arrests. The London Annals refer
to Jews being brought to London by the cartload. During the Easter term,
on 3 May, the sheriffs had been ordered to produce Jews from 21 different
towns in front of the barons of the Exchequer to hear and do the King’s
command. The King’s demand for raising an instant £12,000 was too much
and only just over £4,000 could be supplied.53 This was the highest amount
the Jews had paid for over 40 years. In Gascony Edward was now in need
of every last penny and in February 1288 even replied to a report that in
order to avoid the new tallage in England, Josce fil Manser and Hagin of
Weobley had hidden their goods and transferred some of their valuables
abroad. He ordered that they should be found and captured wherever they
might be.54 Some Jews were still imprisoned as late as July 1289 for non-
payment of the new tallage. An impoverished Jewess, Belia of Gloucester,
complained to the King that she had nothing to live on and her sons and
daughters were still in prison because of the tallage.55
Having expelled the Jews from Gascony and having realised an immedi-
ate profit of just over £1,000, which was given to the Dominicans and the
156 THE KING’S JEWS

Franciscans, Edward eventually returned to England on 13 August 1289.56

In Gascony he left in place a mechanism to collect any further Jewish
debts.57 He was now ready to implement the new policy of expulsion in
England. Although there is evidence that suggests that in England at least
the so-called Edwardian Experiment had been partially successful, this
was overlooked by Edward, who now needed an excuse for total expulsion.
He was quick to justify his new policy and accused the Jews of not carrying
out his orders for their new economic redirection as fully as they should.
The final decision to expel the Jews followed quickly after Edward’s return
to England in 1290. It is more than likely that the royal circle surrounding
the King had been considering such a move for some time.
In November 1290, the expulsion of Jews, whose forbears had settled
in England almost two and a quarter centuries before and who had tried
to make this country their home, was completed. The whole process took
less than four and a half months. The final decision to exile the Jews was
made in secret at Westminster sometime in June 1290.58 Subsequently,
instructions were issued to the sheriffs in the provinces ordering them
to seal the archae for the last time.59 They were to ensure that the local
officials who were responsible for closing and sealing the archae had done
so by 28 June.
The official edict of the expulsion of the Jews from England was issued
on 18 July 1290, when writs were issued to the sheriffs, which informed
them that it had been decreed that all Jews were to leave England by
1 November. It was left to the sheriffs to pass on the royal ultimatum to
their Jewish charges. Once they had gone public the sheriffs were also
to be made responsible for making sure the Jews were not ill-treated
and to make a general proclamation stopping anyone from wronging or
injuring the Jews. The sheriffs were also responsible for organising a safe
conduct and passage for the Jews at their own cost towards London in
order to cross the sea. Before they left, the Jews were to restore all pledges
that Christians had lodged with them.60 It is likely that the orders were
read out in the synagogues and the Jews were told to prepare themselves.
Although the archae were supposed to be closed on 28 June, at Devizes,
 DI S S OLU T ION A N D DIA SP OR A 157

Solomon of Devizes registered a debt as late as 27 October and Lincoln

Jews were still registering debts there in August and September 1290.61
Such late agreements were stored in several of the small deed boxes that
accompanied many of the larger chests to Westminster.
Little is known about the return of goods that had been pawned to
the Jews but there was certainly time for the Christians to reclaim them.
Again, little is known of any violence and it may well be that the sheriffs
managed to prevent any local disturbances. Similarly, there is no evidence
of Jewish debtors banding together to steal or destroy the archae and all of
them survived until after the expulsion. There is one recorded act of vio-
lence against the Jews while leaving the country, which is portrayed in an
early fourteenth-century chronicle at the monastery of Rochester in Kent.
While this depiction might be the imagination of the chronicler, it may
also reflect something he had witnessed that summer. In it three Jews who
are wearing the tabula on their outer garments are driven out of England
by a man with a makeshift club. One of the Jews is putting a hand up to
protect himself. The outcome is not known but there is certainly violence
present.62

7 Jews being driven out of England in 1290, taken from a Chronicle written in
Rochester.
158 THE KING’S JEWS

During the summer of 1290, the Jewish communities organised them-

selves for their respective journeys to the coast. Not all Jews were expected
to pass through London and, in late July, a safe conduct was issued to the
bailiffs, barons and sailors of the Cinque Ports for peaceful passage of the
Jews.63 Some influential Jews managed to secure personal safe conducts
from the Crown. On 8 August the citizens of the Cinque Ports were
ordered to give Moses fil Jacob of Oxford, a Northampton Jew, a ‘safe and
speedy passage at moderate charges’.64 He may well have travelled with a
group of Jews. Such was the case with Bonamy of York, who had his son,
Josceus, and other York Jews in his entourage when he was ready to leave
on 24 August and was given the same protection by order of the King.65
The York community received the protection of Archbishop John le
Romeyn, who wrote to his diocese threatening with excommunication any
who molested the Jews.66 Other, more fortunate, Jews who had Christian
patrons managed to procure special licences to sell their property. On
28 July, Aaron fil Vives, who had been the property of Edmund, the King’s
brother, managed to secure permission to sell his houses and rents in
London, Canterbury and Oxford. In September, Edward I granted Cok
Hagin, ‘. . . the Jew of his dearest consort Eleanor’, the right to sell his lands
in London to Robert de Basing for £166 13s 4d. Even extremely rich Jewish
royal favourites had to join the other Jews in their exile.67
After they had embarked to go into exile some parties of Jews became
victims of violence. At Queenborough, in the Thames estuary, Henry
Adrian, the captain of a ship transporting Jews from England, pretended
that the ship had foundered on a sandbank and told the Jews to get off
while it was refloated. He jumped back on board and shouted at them that
they should call on Moses to help them. They drowned as the tide came
in and Adrian made off with what few possessions the Jews had carried.
He was eventually arrested and spent two years in Sandwich Prison for his
murderous deed.68 A similar piece of treachery may well have occurred
off the north Norfolk coast. The Sheriff of Norfolk, William de Redham,
reported that he had seized a ship found on the sea coast near Burnham
in Norfolk. It was suspected that it was one of the ships that should have
 DI S S OLU T ION A N D DIA SP OR A 159

carried Jews out of the kingdom. The crew had abandoned it save for one
boy, who was to be brought to London. The boat, goods and chattels,
which included a samite cloth valued at £1 6s 8d, a brooch worth 3s and
an old hauberk worth 2s, were impounded and valued at £90 11s 10 1/2 d.
A little later, part of a ship’s boat and part of the rigging valued at £5 6s 8d
were found at Weybourne.69 After the expulsion, the only Jews to remain
in England were those who had become Christians or those who perhaps
remained as illegal immigrants. The number of converted Jews does not
seem to have risen dramatically; but the records reveal nothing of those
Jews who chose to remain illegally.70
The reasons for the change in royal policy are multifarious. Even though
the Edwardian Experiment had been partially successful and some Jews
had emerged as successful merchants, some historians have argued that
the Jews of England had been so greatly taxed that they were no longer
useful to the Crown.71 It has also been argued that Edward banished the
Jews in return for a vote of a large tax from his people.72 This picture of
a grateful people and clergy conceding a tax because of a single popular
move against the Jews has been adopted by Edward’s most recent bio-
grapher. Yet it is still not the full explanation.73
The decision to abandon the Jews was probably taken much earlier
than 1290. It may even have been that Edward had dallied with the idea of
expulsion as early as 1275 but that he had tried to solve the Jewish problem
in another way with the Edwardian Experiment. Although it was a single
royal decision to banish the royal Jews, it was also due to many influences,
ranging from religious animosity, antipathy and angst. It was complicated
by religious and social perceptions as well as political interests, and of
course the bitterness and determination of Archbishop John Pecham that
the Jews should be continually punished for the death of Christ.74
Edward did not make much money out of the expulsion. Unlike his
grandfather, King John, who had retrospectively tried to collect the debts
of Aaron of Lincoln, Edward never pressed for his Jewish debts but merely
recorded them. Indeed, financial profit from the debts of expelled Jews and
their confiscated assets did not really directly benefit the King, who had
160 THE KING’S JEWS

now retracted his protection of his Jewish subjects and abandoned them.75
Yet Edward was still anxious to have a complete report of what the Jews
had left behind them. The subsequent dissolution of the English Jewries
was achieved quickly and efficiently. In early October 1290, orders reached
the Sheriff of York and other provincial sheriffs to deliver the archae
under safe and secure conditions to Westminster by late November. The
sheriffs were also ordered to make a full enquiry in the town as to what
properties the Jews held or inhabited, to whom they owed rent and other
payments. The arrival of the 21 different archae that were brought in was
meticulously noted and their keys duly deposited. In late November and
early December the Treasury officials set about opening the archae and,
under close scrutiny, made lists of all the bonds that were now in the King’s
hands.76 Lists of bonds from 11 archae survive, although the bonds have
long since been destroyed. It has been estimated that, in total, bonds and
tallies representing debts worth an approximate face value of £20,000 were
now in the King’s hands. Yet Edward never pressed for them nor does he
seem to have publicly annulled them. It was not until 1326 that a general
pardon of Jewish debts was issued.77
The survey of former Jewish properties took longer. Led by Hugh of
Kendal, Edward’s officials now began to list the properties. An estimated
valuation was achieved by late December 1290. There were properties
in 16 different towns worth a total of £1,835 13s 4d.78 This was not yet a
comprehensive valuation, as ownership of some of the properties had not
been established or had been disputed. A house in Devizes and houses at
Cambridge and Hereford were not included in the valuation. However, for
the moment, Edward had at his disposal over 130 different properties, a
few pieces of land and about a dozen shops to redistribute.
Most of the properties were concentrated in London, Lincoln,
Canterbury, Hereford and Winchester. The quality and size of the proper-
ties varied. At York, for instance, it is quite clear from the large yearly value
of £2 13s 4d that Bonamy of York must have had a rather luxurious house
in Coney Street compared to the stall with one storey in Colchester that
was shared between Dulcia and her son Pigge, worth 7s. The properties
 DI S S OLU T ION A N D DIA SP OR A 161

at Northampton were also diverse. Moses fil Jacob had a messuage on

Corn Row worth an annual value of £1 7s 8d. Pictavin fil Sampson had
a messuage in the Sheep Market with rights of passage and a well-built
house worth £1 1s 2d a year. Further down the range, Sara of London had
a house in good condition with one storey and a cellar worth 13s 4d a year,
and Gente, who was the wife of Sadekyn, had a cottage in very bad repair
with a small yard, worth 6s a year.
Lincoln had a large and very varied set of properties occupied by
Jews. One at least still remains today on Steep Hill. Some had been very
substantial properties indeed. Floria, daughter of Josce, had ‘a very good
house with two shops and a beautiful door’ in St Martin’s parish. Master
Benedict had three messuages in which he lived and also a well-built
house in Brancegate with two shops and tenements. Hagin fil Benedict
had a mediocre house, a messuage that was held by Garsy, a Jew, and a
plot of land on which his kitchen was built. Many of the properties were
in Brancegate. Manser of Brodsworth had two fairly substantial houses
there, one of which was rented to a Christian, John of Norwich. Josce of
Colchester had some good houses there which were well built, with two
chambers. Elsewhere in the town, Josce Gubbay had ‘a very good house’
with a copse and six shops. Benedict le Gannok had two high houses well
built and roofed with tiles. While there was a preponderance of gracious
houses, some Jews, like Mansell of Tickhill, had lived in a small cottage
in bad repair.
The returns from some towns, like Bedford, give the impression that
the Jews had not lived there for some time. Pictavus, who had ‘long since
died’, had two messuages in the High Street, which, according to the jurors,
had passed to his two sons, Jacob and Benedict. It was noted that Benedict
had been compelled to undergo baptism in the Isle of Ely and for more
than 12 years Jacob had held the two properties. Then Jacob was hanged
for felony and the messuages had finally escheated to the King. Similarly,
in Cambridge, there are indications that some Jewish properties had lain
empty or unoccupied for some years. Although the Jews had been expelled
from Cambridge in 1275, Josce fil Saulot still had a house there in 1290.
162 THE KING’S JEWS

In some places, Jews held more than one property. In York, apart from
his own residence, Bonamy of York owned a second property in Coney
Street in which another Jew lived, as well as property in Metsgate street
and a rental income from a property in Feltergate.79 In Canterbury, Abba
of Doggestreet had three adjoining tenements. In Colchester, Sancte had
several properties including three shops and a one-storey tenement which
was formerly the synagogue, another shop and a rental income from a
further tenement. The Nottingham jurors informed the sheriff that Moses
of Clare had a messuage in Ipswich and one in Nottingham, and Vives
of Suffolk had a messuage in Ipswich as well as a yard in the suburb of
Ipswich. At Oxford, Sarah, the wife of Benedict Le Eveske, had a messuage
with a hall as well as four shops in St Aldate’s.
Some Jews had rented properties and some had rented their own out. In
Hereford, Bonenfaunt fil Aaron of London had two shops and a tenement
that he had rented for four years. At York, Sarah widow of Benedict, and
her son, Josce, had a tenement that they had let to Agnes de Gra for a term
of ten years, of which eight had elapsed. Josce fil Solomon of Marlborough
had a tenement in Devizes that he had bought for a term of six years from
William Chyverel for 6s 8d and 4s a year ground rent. By the time the Jews
were ordered to depart from England only three-and-a-half years of the
agreement had elapsed. Cok of Devizes possessed a tenement and also
had a house for a term of 15 years. In 1290 only five years of the term had
passed and Cok managed to sell his rights for the other ten years to Henry
Lay, cobbler, from whom he had originally rented the house.
The sheriffs and the jurors were extremely thorough and enquired into
who was owed ground rents as well as token rents and small payments
such as a pound of cumin, a pair of gloves, a pound of pepper. However, at
times, they found no answers. In the case of the synagogue at Nottingham,
it was noted that the Jewish community paid 1s 4d to the annual payment
to the Crown for Nottingham and 1d to the chief lords of the fee, ‘. . . who
were unknown to the Jurors before whom the information was furnished’.
These returns cannot represent all of the Jewish properties that now passed
to the Crown. Even using a generous multiplier, such properties would
 DI S S OLU T ION A N D DIA SP OR A 163

probably not house more than 500–600 people. There were of course
other properties in major towns that had already been sold off during
Edward’s reign, particularly in the 1280s after the coin-clipping hangings.
There were others that were perhaps rented on more private agreements
and the jurors had not genuinely known about them. There were possibly
those who knew that former Jewish properties were to pass into the King’s
hands and who took them over later, making no declaration. There were
also some properties that may have exchanged hands for cash before the
Jews left, which have left no official record.80
Hugh of Kendal found it fairly easy to sell the more substantial houses.81
The disposal was undertaken quickly and by 27 December, a week after
his appointment, Hugh had received £677 19s 4d as payment for property
that had belonged to Jews. As further payments came in, Hugh began to
pay off some royal debts. Just over £100 was immediately spent on King
Henry III’s tomb at Westminster, on glass windows in the royal palace
and on general repairs. It was also noted that other potential buyers still
owed amounts totalling another £941.82 By April 1291, 12 of them had
made payments direct to the treasury amounting to £312; and Peter de
Appleby had also paid £6 13s 4d for various ex-Jewish tenements in York.83
Therefore, within six months, Edward had personally gained almost £1,000
from the sale of former Jewish properties. Hugh of Kendal certainly had to
be persistent in chasing up the new owners to settle for their properties.
In July 1291, Hugh wrote to the Archbishop of Canterbury and reminded
him that he still owed £53 6s 8d for his purchases. As late as September
1294, William la Vavassur of Hazelwood still owed £46 13s 4d for property
he had bought in York.84
Most townsmen would probably have noticed the exchange of prop-
erties more than the absence of the Jews. Some new owners certainly
managed to get some rather choice properties and thus were the ones
who really gained from the expulsion. Their properties were now also
guaranteed by the King by royal grant. Between 1291 and 1292 the King
made 85 separate grants to new owners. In Cambridge, the mayor received
one of the grants; in Northampton, William de Hamilton, the Archdeacon
164 THE KING’S JEWS

of York, received another; in Lincoln, Robert le Venour, recently appointed

Keeper of the Royal City of Lincoln, managed to secure two properties; in
London, Isabella de Vescy bought an expensive property in Wood Street;
in Canterbury, William de Somfeld, the Queen’s tailor, received the syna-
gogue. The Abbey of Chicksand bought property in London, the Abbey of
St James bought property in Northampton, the Abbey of Newnham was
granted property in Bedford, and Christ Church Canterbury received a
grant of the majority of the Jews’ property in that city. All of the property
that had been confiscated in Oxford was sold to the Chancellor’s brother,
William Burnell.85
Relatively little is know about the Jews who were dispersed from
England. We know that a large group of 1,461 Jews were shipped from
London to Wissant, 14 miles north of Boulogne. This party assembled in
London, probably close to the Tower, and paid Ralph of Sandwich, the
Constable of the Tower, a handling fee of £23 6s. Some 126 ‘poor Jews’
were charged half the standard price of 4d per person. Subsequently some
of these Jews from England joined the Paris Jewish community.86 The tax
returns from the Paris Jewry for 1292 show Abraham and Hermiete de
Quant (Kent), Bonami Lenglois and his wife, Moses and his wife Rose,
Belasset, Josce and Jorin, all either named ‘l’englesche’ or ‘l’englois’. In
1296, similar returns reveal a Mahy de Quiquelarde (Cricklade), Moses de
Fouleham (Fulham) and Symaan l’Englais. All these English refugees seem
to have dwelt in two distinct areas of Paris: La rue Neuve and Latacherie.87
It has been estimated that by the end of the thirteenth century a minimum
of 7 per cent (and possibly as many as 20 per cent) of the 1,000 or 1,500
Jews in Paris were English immigrants.88 Bonamy of York and his family
also chose to settle in Paris. Even in exile, Bonamy tried to reclaim a large
debt of £300 from Bridlington Priory by asking the Archbishop of York,
John Le Romeyn, who was returning from the papal court at Rome, to
claim it on his behalf. In 1291, in return for a payment of £100, Bonamy
and his family received the right from Philip the Fair to settle where
French Jews were accustomed to dwell.89
The majority of English Jews must have gone into exile in France. Joseph
 DI S S OLU T ION A N D DIA SP OR A 165

Shatzmiller has shown how some reached southern France. In 1311, a

Moses Anglicus was accused of fraudulently keeping a deed belonging
to a woman named Alasacia Rogerie of Manosque. He has also told the
story of Simon de Criclada (Cricklade) who was involved in a violent
argument with a customer who had asked if he could satisfy his debt of 15s
with a payment of 10s.90 There is evidence that other Jews settled briefly
in Amiens and Carcassonne. Although there is no evidence, it has been
suggested that some may have fled to Scotland, Wales and even Ireland.
There is slightly better evidence that some parties or families may well have
gone to Spain, Savoy, Germany and even Gozo.91 Intriguingly, an English
deed eventually found its way to Cairo, where it was discovered among
the genizah documents there.92
Although Edward was compared by one chronicler, using an Old
Testament analogy, to having outdone the Pharaohs for ridding England
of the Jews, a New Testament analogy may have been better suited to his
actions of June 1290 – that he simply washed his royal hands.93 Those Jews
that left an England that had in the words of Meir of Norwich ‘. . . become
a hell without light’ left their enslavement and preserved their dignity

8 Illustration of the Wandering Jew, Joseph Cartaphilus, from Matthew Paris’s

Chronica Majora II. Cartaphilus is said to have told Jesus carrying the cross ‘Go on
quicker, Jesus! Go on quicker! Why dost Thou loiter?’ to which Jesus is said to have
replied: ‘I shall stand and rest, but thou shalt go on till the last day.’
166 THE KING’S JEWS

until their re-admission in 1660. On 1 November 1290, the medieval

Anglo-Jews were, in the words of a scribe at the Council of London, ‘a
fugitive people exiled from England for all time, always a wretched people
to wander anywhere in the world . . .’.94
Five hundred and sixty years later, one Jew returned to the small
Lincolnshire hamlet of Hackthorn, some seven miles north of Lincoln,
where his forbears had lent money to the local inhabitants. In 1850, the
Church of St  Michael’s was being rebuilt and wooden furnishings had
been commissioned for the interior. However, in the summer of that
year, the proprietor of the business that was working on the decorations
died and they became part of his estate. Subsequently, the furnishings
became ten lots in a sale that was held on the 31 October 1850. At the sale
a Mr Benjamin (described as a Jew of commanding stature) asked that the
ten lots be put together. He purchased all of them saying, ‘I offer £10 for the
lot and where is the Christian who dare bid against me?’ The furnishings,
still in the church at Hackthorn, were saved by a Jew whose predecessors
had been expelled from Lincoln on 1 November 1290.95
 Glossary

Ab H. Jewish feast that commemorates both the

destruction in 586 ce of the First Temple, origi-
nally built by King Solomon, and the destruction
of the Second Temple in 70 ce.
Archa/ae L. Ark or strong box in which deeds were kept.
Archpresbyter L. Highest ranking priest or official.
Ark E. Box, but in context of Judaism the place where
the Torah scrolls were kept.
Ashkenazi H. A Jew of Eastern European descent.
Auto da fé S. An act of faith; a ritual of public condemnation.
Beth din H. Jewish religious court.
Beth ha Midrash H. House of Learning.
Beth ha Sepher H. House of the Book – place of elementary
learning.
Bethel H. House of God.
Bursa L. A common purse.
Calumus Draco L. Dragon’s Blood, a medicinal herb.
Capitula L. The top of a written agreement.
Capitulum Judeorum L. Chapter of the Jews. The Jewish Court or Beth
din.
Charoseth H. Literally paste made from apples, walnuts and
cinnamon for Passover.
Chirograph L. A hand-written document.
Communitas L. Community.
Conversus L. A Convert.
Cornutum Pileum L. The spiked Jewish hat.
168 G LO S S A RY

Damnum emergens L. Penalty clause in which interest mounts.

Dayanim H. A rabbinic judge.
Diabolica L. Materials influenced by the Devil.
Diaspora L. The Dispersal of the Jews from their homelands.
Domus L. House.
Domus Conversorum L. House of Converts.
Donum L. A gift or tax given to a King as a tribute.
Fabula ineptissima L. A very silly story.
Foetor Judaicus L. Jewish smell.
Gabbai/Gabbayim H. A Jewish sexton or sacristan.
Genizah H. An archive for old documents or books.
Ghetto I. C16th locked area of Jewish settlement.
Haftaroth H. A reading from the Prophets following each
lesson from the Torah in synagogue services on
the Sabbath.
Hagaddah H. A religious text that sets out the order of the
Passover.
Hakkodosh H. Holy name.
Hasid/Hasidim H. A member of a Jewish mystical movement – a
pious Jew.
Hazzan H. Cantor.
Herem ha yishuv H. A ban imposed on an individual to separate
him from the other members of the Jewish com-
munity. Excommunication.
Instrumentum L. A written agreement.
Inter est L. Literally ‘that which is between’.
Kabbalah H. A mystical aspect of Judaism.
Kahal H. Governing body of the Jewish community.
Kashrut H. Laws of dietary practice.
Ketubbah/ketubboth H. A Hebrew marriage agreement.
Kiddush H. Blessing recited over the wine before the meal
on the Sabbath.
Kosher H. Fit for consumption.
 G LO S S A RY 169

Letter de obligacioun F. Letter of obligation. Contract.

Lucrum cessans L. A penalty that increases.
Maleficus L. Evil. Malicious.
Masorah H. Oral law or tradition as handed down.
Matzah H. Unleavened bread.
Mazzuzah H. Literally a parchment carrying an excerpt from
the Torah (shema), which is fixed on a doorpost.
Mediocres L. Those in the middle.
Megillah H. The tenth Tractate of Mishnah, which deals
with the laws of Purim and offers exegetical
understandings to the Book of Esther.
Midrash H. Referring to the not exact, but comparative
(homiletic) method of exegesis (hermeneutic)
of biblical texts. A commentary on Hebrew
Scriptures.
Mikveh/mikva’ot H. Jewish ritual bath to obtain purity. Used by
men and women and also used for purifying
utensils.
Minores L. Those of smaller standing.
Minyan H. A quorum of ten adult males for religious
services.
Mort gage F. Literally a ‘dead gage’. A pledge for security of
a loan.
Nadib/nadibs H. A rich and influential member of the Jewish
community. A patron.
Odaita H. A Hebrew agreement.
Parnass/im H. The governor of the synagogue.
Pastide F. A pie.
Pes L. The bottom of a written agreement.
pluma L. Literally ‘feathers’.
Presbyter L. A leader or elder.
Purim H. Jewish Festival that commemorates the deliv-
erance of the Jewish people from Haman’s plot
170 G LO S S A RY

to annihilate them, as recorded in the Book of

Esther. According to the story, Haman cast lots
to determine the day upon which to exterminate
the Jews. Purim is celebrated annually on the 14th
day of the Hebrew month of Adar.
Rabbi H. A religious teacher.
Rahash H. Payments made to synagogue functionaries.
Responsa H. A body of written decisions and rulings
given by legal scholars in response to questions
addressed to them.
Sacholim H. A notice over a spring or mikveh stating that
the water was from flowing water.
Scola L. School or synagogue.
Servus Camerae Regis L. A servant or serf of the royal chamber.
Shabbat ha Gadol H. The Sabbath preceding Passover.
Shamash H. An attendant, caretaker, custodian, or syna-
gogue janitor.
Shema H. A prayer found in Deuteronomy.
Shetar/shetaroth H. A Hebrew quitclaim or business deed.
Shtadlan H. An intermediary who represented interests
of the local Jewish community, negotiating for
the safety of Jews with the authorities holding
power.
Societas I. A society or company for transacting business.
Starrum/a L. The Latin form of a Hebrew quitclaim or busi-
ness deed.
Statutum de Judaismo L. Statute of the Jewry (1275).
Studium generale L. A place of general studies; an old university.
Tabulum/a L. Badge of Ten Commandments.
Tahara H. The purification procedure (cleansing) before
burial.
Tallage E. An arbitrary royal tax.
Talliator L. An official who assesses the taxation capabilities
 G LO S S A RY 171

of a community.
Talmud H. Book containing the Jewish creed. A record
of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law,
ethics, customs, and history.
Targum H. An Aramaic translation of the Hebrew Bible.
Torah H. The first part of the Hebrew Bible, the
Pentateuch.
Tosafists H. Medieval Rabbis who created critical explana-
tions on the Talmud.
Vif gage F. Literally a ‘living gage’.
Vita L. Saint’s Life.
Yeshivah H. A Jewish institution for Torah study and the
study of Talmud. Advanced level learning.

E = English, F = French, H = Hebrew, I = Italian, L = Latin, S = Spanish.

This page intentionally left blank
 Abbreviations

BL British Library
CCR Calendar of Close Rolls
CFR Calendar of Fine Rolls
CPR Calendar of Patent Rolls
Condition Abrahams, B. L. (1896), ‘Condition of the Jews of
England at the time of their Expulsion in 1290’,
TJHSE, 2, 76–105.
Dobson Dobson, R. B. (1974), The Jews of York and the mas-
sacre of March 1190, Borthwick Papers, 45, York.
Hillaby Hillaby, J. (1993), ‘Beth Miqdash Me’at: The
Synagogues of Medieval England’, The Journal of
Ecclesiastical History, 44, 182–98.
Hyams Hyams, P. R. (1974), ‘The Jewish minority in
Medieval England 1066–1290’, Journal of Jewish
Studies, 26, 270–93.
Jacobs Jacobs, J. (1893), The Jews of Angevin England.
Documents and records from Latin and Hebrew
sources . . . for the first time collected and trans-
lated, London.
JHS Jewish Historical Studies
JMB Skinner, P. (ed.) (2003), The Jews in Medieval
Britain: Historical, Literary, and Archaeological
Perspectives, Woodbridge.
JQR Jewish Quarterly Review
Lipman Lipman, V. D. (1967), The Jews of Medieval
Norwich, London.
174 A B B R E V IAT I O N S

Misc JHSE Miscellany of the Jewish Historical Society

Mundill Mundill, R. R. (1998), England’s Jewish Solution:
Experiment and Expulsion, 1262–1290, Cambridge.
PREJ Calendar of the Plea Rolls of the Jews
Rabinowitz Rabinowitz, L. (1972), The social life of the Jews of
Northern France in the XII to XIV centuries, New
York.
Richardson Richardson, H. G. (1960), The English Jewry under
Angevin Kings, London.
Rigg Rigg, J. M. (ed.) (1902), Select Pleas, Starrs and
other Records from the Rolls of the Exchequer of
the Jews 1220–1284, Selden Society, 15.
Rokeah Rokeah, Z. E. (2000), Medieval English Jews and
Royal Officials: Entries of Jewish interest in the
English Memoranda Rolls, 1266–1293, Jerusalem.
Roth Roth, C. (1978), A History of the Jews in England,
3rd edn, Oxford.
RS Rolls Series
SCBM Loewe, H., Stokes, H. P. and Abrahams, I. (eds)
(1930) Starrs and Jewish Charters in the British
Museum, vols I–III, Cambridge.
Schofield & Mayhew Schofield, P. R. and Mayhew, N. J. (eds) (2002),
Credit and Debt in Medieval England c.1180–
c.1350, Oxbow Books.
Stokes Stokes, H. P. (1913), Studies in Anglo-Jewish
History, Edinburgh.
TJHSE Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society
TNA The National Archives
WAM Westminster Abbey Muniments
 Money

To facilitate the understanding of the monetary system of the two centur-

ies of Jewish presence in England between 1066 and 1290 all monies have
been expressed in pound sterling.
To give some sense of modern-day monies I have drawn on the specu-
lative work of the late Reva Brown and Sean McCartney, University of
Essex. See Brown, R. B. and McCartney, S. (2003), ‘The Internal Exile of
Medieval English Jewry’, The Medieval History Journal, 6, 64–5.

C12/13th C21st
1d £3.10
1s £37.50
£1.00 £750
£5.00 £3,750
£10.00 £7,500
£100 £75,000
£1,000 £750,000
£10,000 £7,500,000
£100,000 £75,000,000

Thus Aaron of Lincoln’s loans of £4,374 to Cistercian abbeys might

equate to £3,280,500. Aaron of Lincoln’s debts of £15,000 might equate
to £11,250,000, although, in modern terms, his personal wealth has been
valued elsewhere as being £21.6 billion (see The Sunday Times (2000),
‘Richest of the Rich’, magazine supplement, March, p. 8.). The alleged
fortune confiscated from Adam de Stratton of £20,000 would equate to
£15,000,000.
This page intentionally left blank
 Notes

Note to the Preface

1 Cecil Roth (1951) The Jews of Medieval Oxford, p. iii, cited in R. B. Dobson (1979),
‘The decline and expulsion of the medieval Jews of York’, TJHSE, 26, 34–52, p. 34,
note 3.

Notes to Chapter 1: Colonisation and confinement

1 Pearl, E. (ed.) (1990), Anglia Judaica or a History of the Jews in England by

D’Bloissiers Tovey, pp. 3–4.
2 Margoliouth, M. (1851), History of the Jews in Great Britain, 1, 9–15.
3 Dobson, R. B. (1974), The Jews of York and the massacre of March 1190, (Borthwick
Papers, 45), p. 1. Hereafter ‘Dobson’.
4 Singer, S. (1908), ‘Jews and Coronations’, TJHSE, 5, 112. Hyman, L. (1972), The
Jews of Ireland, p. 2.
5 Applebaum, S. (1953), ‘Were there Jews in Roman Britain?’, TJHSE, 17, 189.
6 Dobson, pp. 1–2. Frantzen, A. J. (1982), ‘The tradition of penitentials in Anglo-
Saxon England’, Anglo-Saxon England, 11, 30–2, 53.
7 Dobson, p. 2.
8 Susser, B. (1977), The Jews of Devon and Cornwall from the Middle Ages until the
twentieth century, PhD thesis, University of Exeter, p. 2.
9 Amos 8.11–12. Applebaum, S. (1953), ‘Were there Jews in Roman Britain?’,
TJHSE, 17, 198.
10 Ibid., p. 197.
11 Cohen, Joseph (1575), Emek Habacha, p. 12, cited by Jacobs, J. (1893), The Jews
of Angevin England, p. 4. Hereafter ‘Jacobs’.
12 Hyman, L. (1972), The Jews of Ireland, p.  3. Tairdelbach is the Irish name of
Turlough O’Brien, King of Munster 1009–86.
13 Atkinson, E. G. (1912), The Jews in English History, p. 6.
14 Applebaum, S. (1953), ‘Were there Jews in Roman Britain?’, TJHSE, 17,
199–201.
15 Ibid., p. 204. Susser, B. (1977), The Jews of Devon and Cornwall from the Middle
Ages until the twentieth century, PhD thesis, University of Exeter, p. 3.
16 Loewe, H., Stokes, H. P. and Abrahams, I. (eds) (1930), Starrs and Jewish Charters
178 N O T E S T O PA G E S 4 – 8

in the British Museum, vols I–III, vol. II, pp.  166–7, 203–4. Hereafter ‘SCBM’.
Certainly William’s motto does seem to have been in usage as a cry used at the
battle of Val-es-Dunes. Wace, Roman de Rou (dated c.1155–70) contains in part
iii, lines 3,937–8, the following: ‘Guillaume crie “Deus aie!” c’est l’enseigne de
Normendie’ (William shouted ‘God help’, that is the Norman battle cry). See Wace
(2002), The Roman de Rou, trans. Burgess, G. S. with the text of Holden, A. J. and
notes by Burgess, G. S. and van Houts, E., Societe Jersiaise, pp. 188–9. Kindly
communicated by E. van Houts.
17 Golb, N. (1998), The Jews in Medieval Normandy – a social and intellectual history,
p. 113.
18 Hillaby, J. (1994), ‘The London Jewry: William I to John’, JHS, 33, 2. Roth, C.
(1978), History of the Jews in England, 3rd edn, pp.  4–5, 271. Hereafter ‘Roth’.
William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum Anglorum, 4, 317.
19 Golb, N. (1998), The Jews in Medieval Normandy – a social and intellectual history,
p. 114.
20 Jacobs, pp. 7–8.
21 Jordan, W. C. (1989), The French Monarchy and the Jews, p. 50.
22 Ibid., p. 53.
23 Chazan, R. (1973), Medieval Jewry in Northern France: a political and social
history, p. 15; see also pp. 16–7 for pledges.
24 Hillaby, J. (2003), ‘Jewish Colonisation in the Twelfth Century’, in Skinner, P. (ed.),
The Jews in Medieval Britain, p. 16. (Hereafter ‘JMB’).
25 Jacobs, p. 64.
26 Hillaby, J. (2003), ‘Jewish Colonisation in the Twelfth Century’, in JMB,
pp. 18–19.
27 Adler, M. (1937), ‘Medieval Jewish MSS. in the library of St  Paul’s Cathedral,
London’, Misc JHSE, 3, 15–21.
28 Ibid., pp. 21–5.
29 Roth, p. 21. Pipe Roll 1191–1192, pp. 147, 203, 213.
30 Adler, M. (1914), ‘The Jews of Canterbury’, TJHSE, 7, 21–2, 61. Gervase of
Canterbury in Stubbs, W. (ed.), Historical Works of Gervase of Canterbury, vol. 1,
p. 45. Chronicles of Canterbury, 1, Rolls Series (hereafter ‘RS’) 72, 405. Jacobs, p. 93.
31 Adler, M. (1914), ‘The Jews of Canterbury’ TJHSE, 7, 21–2, 61. Canterbury
Cathedral Library Charta Antiqua 770.
32 Johnson, C. (ed.) (1937), Registrum Hamonis Hethe, Canterbury and York Society,
48, 2. Jacobs, pp. 73, 90.
33 Streit, K. T. (1993), ‘The Expansion of the English Jewish community in the
reign of King Stephen’, Albion, 25, 177–92. Honeybourne, M. B. (1964), ‘The
pre-expulsion cemetery of the Jews in London’, TJHSE, 20, 152–3.
34 Lilley, J. M. et al. (1994), The Jewish Burial Ground at Jewbury, The Archaeology
of York, 12, 306.
35 Davies, R. (1875), ‘The Mediaeval Jews of York’, Yorkshire Archaeological and
Topographical Journal, 3, 53.
36 Richardson, H. G. (1961), English Jewry under Angevin Kings, p. 11. Hereafter
 N O T E S T O PA G E S 8 – 1 2 179

‘Richardson’. Jurnet of Norwich is also likely to have had a pied-à-terre in

London.
37 Jacobs, p. 217.
38 Lewis, G. R. (1908), The Stannaries: A Study of the Medieval Tin Miners of Cornwall
and Devon, pp. 233–8, particularly p. 237.
39 Adler, M. (1928), ‘The Jews of Bristol in pre-expulsion days’, TJHSE, 12, 124–5. For
recent discussion see Fogle, L. (2007), ‘The Domus Conversorum – the personal
interest of Henry III’, JHS, 41, 1–7 and Hillaby, J. (2009), ‘A Domus Conversorum
at Bristol?’, JHS, 42, 1–5.
40 Adler, M. (1928), ‘The Jews of Bristol in pre-expulsion days’, TJHSE, 12, 129–30.
41 Susser, B. (1977), The Jews of Devon and Cornwall from the Middle Ages until the
twentieth century, PhD thesis, University of Exeter, p. 11.
42 Hillaby, J. (1994), ‘The ritual-child-murder accusation: its dissemination and
Harold of Gloucester’, JHS, 34, 81.
43 Lipman, V. D. (1984), ‘Jews and Castles in Medieval England’, TJHSE, 28, 1–19.
44 Hillaby, J. (1984), ‘Hereford Gold: Irish Welsh and English land – the Jewish
community at Hereford and its clients 1179–1253’, part 1, vol. 44, Transactions of
the Woolhope Naturalists Field Club, 3, 363, 367–8. Hillaby, J. (1985), ‘Hereford
Gold: Irish Welsh and English land – the Jewish community at Hereford and its
clients 1179–1253: Four Case studies’, part 2, vol. 45, Transactions of the Woolhope
Naturalists Field Club, 1, 212. CPR 1216–1225, p. 157.
45 Materials for the History of Thomas Becket, RS 67 (1875–85), 3, 19. The original
actually says creditors rather than debtors. Streit, K. T. (1993), ‘The expansion
of the English Jewish community in the reign of King Stephen’, Albion, 25,
177–92.
46 Jordan, W. C. (1989), The French Monarchy and the Jews, pp. 18–22.
47 Chazan, R. (1973), Medieval Jewry in northern France: a political and social history,
p. 64. Jacobs, pp. 75–6. Jordan, W. C. (1989), The French Monarchy and the Jews,
pp. 31–4.
48 Turner, R. V. (2005), King John: England’s Evil King, p. 95.
49 Atkinson, E. G. (1912), The Jews in English History, p. 8.
50 Abrahams, B. L. (1896), ‘Condition of the Jews of England at the time of their
expulsion in 1290’, TJHSE, 2, 82. Hereafter ‘Condition’. Richardson, p. 26.
51 Jacobs, pp. 272–3.
52 William of Newburgh, Historia Rerum Anglicarum, ed. Howlett, 1, p. 280.
53 Mundill, R. R. (1998), England’s Jewish Solution: Experiment and Expulsion
1262–1290, p. 56. Hereafter ‘Mundill’.
54 Prynne, W. (1656), A short demurrer to the Jewes, London, p. 128.
55 Pearl, E. (ed.) (1990), Anglia Judaica or a History of the Jews in England by
D’Bloissiers Tovey, p. 109.
56 Clanchy, M. T. (1979), From Memory to Written Record: England 1066–1307, p. 69.
57 Adler, M. (1928), ‘The Jews of Bristol in pre-expulsion days’, TJHSE, 12, 212–15.
58 Rigg, J. M. (ed.) (1902), Select Pleas, Starrs and Other Records from the Rolls of the
Exchequer of the Jews 1220–1284, Selden Society, 15, xlix. Hereafter ‘Rigg’.
180 N O T E S T O PA G E S 1 3 – 1 5

59 CPR 1247–1258, pp.  439–40, 441–4. The National Archive (hereafter ‘TNA’)
E/240/20; TNA E/401/43.
60 Richardson, p. 20.
61 Dobson, R. B. (1979), ‘The decline and expulsion of the medieval Jews of York’,
TJHSE, 26, pp. 37–8. Parkes, J. (1962), A History of the Jewish people, p. 93. Gross,
H. (1897), Gallia Judaica: dictionaire geographique de la France d’apres les sources
rabbinique. Chazan, R. (1969), ‘Jewish settlement in northern France 1096–1306’,
Revue des Etudes Juives, 128, 41–65; Golb, N. (1985), Les Juives de Rouen au moyen
age: portrait d’une culture oubliee.
62 Rabinowitz, L. (1972), The social life of the Jews of northern France in the XII and
XIV centuries, p. 31. Hereafter ‘Rabinowitz’.
63 Hyams, P. R. (1974), ‘The Jewish minority in medieval England 1066–1290’,
Journal of Jewish Studies, 26, 271. Hereafter ‘Hyams’.
64 Roth, p. 72. Jews paid to live in some fairly remote places. In 1272, Jews from
Bottisham and Holme paid to live there: Rigg, pp. 68–9. In 1272 there were at least
two Jews living in Basingstoke, Hampshire: PREJ1, p. 277. Another paid to live there
in 1273: PREJ2, p. 104. Hagin fil Isaac, qui vocat Benedict Bateman was also living
in Basingstoke: PREJ2, p. 297. Another Jew paid to reside at Berkhamstead: PREJ2,
p. 144. In 1275 Josce Bundy of Rayleigh in Essex was arrested for having dwelt
there without a licence: Rigg, p. 82. In 1275 at least one Jew lived in Abergavenny,
Wales: PREJ2, p. 144; Gross, C. (1887), ‘The Exchequer of the Jews in the middle
ages’, Papers given at the Anglo-Jewish Historical Exhibition 1887, pp. 188–90.
65 TNA E/101/249/10; TNA E/101/249/29; TNA E/101/250/4; TNA E/101/250/5;
PREJ1, pp. 9, 150; PREJ3, p. 319; CCR 1272–1279, pp. 49–50; Abbrevatio rotulorum
originalium (1767), 1, 243.; Historia et cartularium Sancti Petri de Gloucester
(1863), 1, pp. xxxix–lii, 20–1; Episcopal registers of Worcester – register of Godfrey
Giffard 1268–1301 (1898), Worcestershire Historical Society, 15, introduction, xvi.
66 CPR 1281–1292, p. 116.
67 TNA E/101/250/5; TNA Justices Itinerant 1/1303 m. 63 dorse, kindly
communicated to me by Dr Zefira Rokeah.
68 CPR 1258–1265, p. 442. Parker, R. (1979), Men of Dunwich, p. 151; PREJ3, p. 43.
Mundill, R. R. (1991), ‘Lumbard and son: the businesses and debtors of two
Jewish moneylenders in late thirteenth century England’, JQR, 82, 139. Mundill,
pp. 286–90.
69 TNA E/401/75.
70 Mundill, R. R. (1999), ‘Medieval Anglo Jewry: Expulsion and Exodus’, in
Judenvertreibungen in Mittelalter und früher Neuzeit, Hrsg. Friedhelm Burgard,
Alfred Haverkamp, Gerd Mentgen, Forschungen Zur Geschichte Der Juden,
Abteilung A: Abhandlungen: Band 9, pp. 84–5.
71 Letters of Bishop Grosseteste (RS 1861), ed. Luard, H. R., pp. 33–7.
72 Levy, S. (1902), ‘Notes on Leicester Jewry’, TJHSE, 5, 34–42; Madicott, J. R. (1994),
Simon de Montfort, p. 15.
73 Guttentag, G. D. (1977), ‘The beginnings of the Newcastle Jewish community’,
TJHSE, 25, 2–3.
 N O T E S T O PA G E S 1 5 – 1 9 181

74 CCR 1231–1234, p. 446.

75 Allin, P. (1972), ‘Medieval Southampton and its Jews’, TJHSE, 23, 89.
76 CCR 1234–1237, p. 275.
77 Vincent, N. C. (1992), ‘Jews, Poitevins, and the bishop of Winchester, 1231–1234’,
in Christianity and Judaism, Studies in Church History, 29, 122, 128, 131.
78 CCR 1231–1234, pp. 515–16.
79 CCR 1234–1237, pp. 20, 435.
80 CCR 1242–1247, p. 393.
81 CCR 1242–1247, p.  393. Denholm Young, D. (1947), Richard of Cornwall,
pp. 30–1.
82 CCR 1242–1247, p. 149.
83 CPR 1258–1266, p. 153.
84 CPR 1258–1266, p.  613; see entry for Walerand in the Dictionary of National
Biography.
85 CCR 1272–1279, p. 50.
86 CCR 1242–1247, p. 130.
87 Salzman, L. F. (1968), Edward I, pp. 46–7.
88 Biles, M. (1968), ‘The Indomitable Belle: Eleanor of Provence’, in Bowers, R. H
(ed.), Seven Studies in Medieval English History, p. 129.
89 Mundill, R. R. (1993), ‘The Jewish entries from the Patent Rolls’, JHS, 32, 48.
90 Rigg, p. 95. Alexander, M. (1997), ‘A possible synagogue in Guildford’, in de Boe,
G. and Verhaege (eds), Religion and Belief in Medieval Europe, pp. 201–12.
91 Mundill, R. R. (1993), ‘The Jewish entries from the Patent Rolls’, JHS, 32, 71.
Seventh report of the deputy keeper of the public records (1846), p. 240.
92 Statutes of the Realm (1810), 1, 220–1.
93 Roth, p. 72.
94 Mundill, R. R. (1993), ‘The Jewish entries from the Patent Rolls’, JHS, 32, 58.
95 CCR 1279–1288, p. 241.
96 CCR 1279–1288, p. 256.
97 CCR 1272–1279, pp. 259–60, 362, 370, 376, 382, 385, 389. Mundill, R. R. (1990),
‘Anglo-Jewry under Edward I: credit agents and their clients’, JHS, 31, 1–21.
98 Richardson, pp. 20, 83. Hyams, p. 271.
99 Mundill, R. R. (2003), ‘Changing fortunes: Edwardian Anglo-Jewry and their
credit operations in late thirteenth-century England’, Haskins Society Journal, 14,
83–5.
100 Parker, R. (1979), Men of Dunwich, p. 151.
101 PREJ3, p. 43.
102 TNA E/401/75.
103 Pugh, R. B. (ed.) (1978), Gaol delivery and Trailbaston 1275–1306, Wiltshire
Record Society, 33, Devizes, 35.
104 Rokeah, Z. E. (1984), ‘Crime and Jews in late thirteenth century England: some
cases and comments’, Hebrew Union College Annual, 55, 102–3.
105 Mundill, R. R. (1991), ‘Lumbard and son: the businesses and debtors of two Jewish
moneylenders in late thirteenth century England’, JQR, 82, 139.
182 N O T E S T O PA G E S 1 9 – 2 6

106 Calendar of Ancient Deeds, 6876, 6920, 13421.

107 Streit, K. T. (1993), ‘The Jewish community in the reign of Stephen’, Albion, 25,
184. Richardson, p. 3.

Notes to Chapter 2: Jews and the economy

1 Myer Davis in the last century first drew attention to Aaron and his activities and
claimed that he was ‘. . . doubtless the prototype for Sir Walter Scott’s Isaac of York
in Ivanhoe’. Davis, M. D. (1881), ‘The Mediaeval Jews of Lincoln’, Archaeological
Journal, 38, 179.
2 Mundill, R. R. (2002), ‘Christian and Jewish lending patterns and financial
dealings during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries’, in Schofield, P. R. and
Mayhew, N. J. (eds), Credit and Debt in Medieval England c.1180–c.1350, pp. 42–3.
Hereafter ‘Schofield & Mayhew’. Roth, pp.  15–16. Bartlett, R. (2000), England
under the Norman and Angevin Kings, pp. 346–60.
3 Jacobs, J. (1899), ‘Aaron of Lincoln’, TJHSE, 3, 167–8.
4 Richardson, p. 117.
5 Jacobs, J. (1899), ‘Aaron of Lincoln’, TJHSE, 3, 168, 174–9.
6 Richardson, p. 75.
7 Richardson, pp. 247–53. TNA E/101/249/1. This roll records Aaron’s debts in the
county of Rutland.
8 Richardson, p. 116.
9 Ibid., p. 76.
10 Hillaby, J. (2003), ‘Jewish colonisation in the twelfth century’, in JMB, pp. 26–8.
Jacobs, J. (1899), ‘Aaron of Lincoln’, TJHSE, 3, 158–9.
11 Richardson, pp. 8, 62–3, 161.
12 Ibid., pp. 47–8.
13 Stenton, F. M. (1936), ‘The road system of medieval England’, Economic History
Review, 7, 1–21. Hill, J. W. F. (1965), Medieval Lincoln, p. 173. Hill, J. W. F. (1975),
A Short History of Lincoln, p. 37.
14 Hill, J. W. F. (1975), A Short History of Lincoln, p. 25.
15 Ibid., p. 33. Power, E. (1941), The Wool Trade, pp. 22–3.
16 Gesta Pontificorum Anglorum, p.  312, cited by Hill, J. W. F. (1965), Medieval
Lincoln, p. 173.
17 Hill, J. W. F. (1965), Medieval Lincoln, pp.  220–1. Davis, M. D. (1881), ‘The
Mediaeval Jews of Lincoln’, Archaeological Journal, 38, 187.
18 Hill, J. W. F. (1965), Medieval Lincoln, p. 219.
19 Jacobs, J. (1899), ‘Aaron of Lincoln’, TJHSE, 3, 162; Jacobs, pp. 108–9.
20 Jacobs, J. (1899), ‘Aaron of Lincoln’, TJHSE, 3, 163.
21 Jacobs, pp. 79–80.
22 Nottingham Record Office, the Lassman Papers MSS 24, pp. 182–8.
23 Jacobs, J. (1899), ‘Aaron of Lincoln’, TJHSE, 3, 159.
24 Jacobs, pp. 142–5.
 N O T E S T O PA G E S 2 6 – 3 1 183

25 Jacobs, J. (1899), ‘Aaron of Lincoln’, TJHSE, 3, 169. Levy, S. (1899), ‘Aaron’s Debts’,
TJHSE, 3, 174–179.
26 Jacobs, J. (1899), ‘Aaron of Lincoln’, TJHSE, 3, 166. Jacobs, p. 272.
27 Pipe Roll 2 Richard I, pp. 153, 157.
28 Gesta Henrici Secondi, Benedicti Abbatis (1867), ed. Stubbs, W. (RS 49), 2, 5.
29 Mundill, R. R. (2002), ‘Christian and Jewish lending patterns and financial
dealings during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries’, in Schofield & Mayhew, p. 45.
30 Condition, p. 82.
31 The Sunday Times, (2000), ‘Richest of the Rich’, magazine supplement, March, p. 8.
Here Aaron’s total wealth was reckoned at £21.6 billion.
32 Mundill, R. R. (1990), ‘Anglo-Jewry under Edward I – credit agents and their
clients’, TJHSE, 31, 1–21. Mundill, R. R. (2000), ‘Clandestine crypto-camouflaged
usurer or legal merchant? Edwardian Jewry, 1275–90’, Jewish Culture and History,
3, 73–96. Mundill, R. R. (2002), ‘Christian and Jewish lending patterns and
financial dealings during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries’, in Schofield &
Mayhew, pp. 52–4.
33 Parkes, J. (1938), The Jew in the Medieval community, pp. 294, 300–1.
34 Samuel, E. R. (1974), ‘Was Moyses Hall Bury St Edmunds a Jews House?’, TJHSE,
25, 45–7. Lipman, pp.  22–33, 111–12. Roth, C. (1934), Medieval Lincoln and
its Jewry, pp. 19–21. Adler, M. (1914), ‘The Jews of Canterbury’, TJHSE, 7, 34.
Urry, W. (1953), The House of Jacob the Jew, Canterbury. Allin, P. (1972), ‘Medieval
Southampton and its Jews’, TJHSE, 23, 87–95.
35 Davies, R. (1875), ‘The Mediaeval Jews of York’, Yorkshire Archaeological and
Topographical Journal, 3, 53.
36 Manix, P. (2004), ‘Oxford: Mapping the Medieval Jewry’, in Cluse, C. (ed.), The
Jews of Europe in the Middle Ages (Tenth to Fifteenth Centuries), pp. 407–8.
37 Condition, p. 90.
38 Clanchy, M. T. (1979), From Memory to Written Record: England 1066–1307,
pp.  95–6. Stokes, pp.  75–82. Jenkinson, H. (1911), ‘Exchequer Tallies’,
Archaeologia, 62, 367–80. Jenkinson, H. (1925), ‘Medieval Tallies, Public and
Private’, Archaeologia, 74, 289–351. Page 292 makes reference to the collection of
30 tallies of which nine show Jewish script.
39 Clanchy, M. T. (1979), From Memory to Written Record: England 1066–1307,
p. 72.
40 Stokes, p. 75.
41 Mundill, p. 57.
42 Baldwin, J. W. (1970), Masters, Princes and Merchants: the social view of Peter the
Chanter and his circle, 1, 282–6. McLaughlin, T. P. (1939), ‘The teachings of the
Canonists on Usury’, Medieval Studies, 1, 145–7. Parkes, J. (1938), The Jew in the
Medieval Community, pp. 294–5.
43 Simpson, A. W. B. (1966), ‘The Penal bond with conditional defeasance’, Law
Quarterly Review, 82, 392–422.
44 Westminster Abbey Muniments (hereafter ‘WAM’) Nos 6859, 6783 and 6784 have
default penalties on them.
184 N O T E S T O PA G E S 3 1 – 3 7

45 Common examples are abundant but particularly on TNA E/101/250/2 –

E/101/250/12. See also WAM 6724. Simpson, A. W. B. (1966), ‘The Penal bond
with conditional defeasance’, Law Quarterly Review, 82, 394–422.
Postan, M. M. (1930), ‘Private financial instruments in medieval England’,
Vierteljahrschrift fur Sozial und wirtschaftsgeschichte, 23, 26–75.
46 Mundill, R. R. (1990), ‘Anglo-Jewry under Edward I: credit agents and their
clients’, TJHSE, 31, 6.
47 Rabinowitz, J. (1956), Jewish Law: its influence on the development of legal
institutions, pp. 263–70.
48 Pollock, F. and Maitland, F. W. (1898), History of English Law, 1, 469.
49 Rabinowitz, J. (1956), Jewish Law: its influence on the development of legal
institutions, pp. 258–9.
50 Ibid., pp. 252–9.
51 Parkes, J. (1938), The Jew in the Medieval Community, p.  308. McLaughlin,
T. P. (1939), ‘The teaching of the Canonists on Usury’, Medieval Studies, 1,
113–14. Rabinowitz, J. (1956), Jewish Law: its influence on the development of legal
institutions, pp. 290–2.
52 Baldwin, J. W. (1970), Master, Princes and Merchants: the social view of Peter
the Chanter and his circle, 1, 275–78. Barton, J. L. (1967), ‘The Common Law
Mortgage’, Law Quarterly Review, 83, 229–39. Parkes, J. (1938), The Jew in the
Medieval Community, pp. 308–9. SCBM, 2, lxiii–lxiv.
53 TNA E/101/249/10. The phrase ‘until the end of the world’ according to
Rabinowitz actually derives from Hebrew used on shetaroth. Rabinowitz, J. (1956),
Jewish Law: its influence on the development of legal institutions, pp. 265–8.
54 Rigg, p. li.
55 Ibid. Foster, C. W. (ed.) (1920), Final Concords. Suits in the King’s Courts
Temp. Henry II-Henry III, Lincoln Record Society, 17, 120. Lincolnshire Archive
Office – Canon Foster’s transcripts of Lincolnshire Feet of Fines: A 182, A 145,
B 193, A 222, A 133, A 320, A 361, A 402, A 10, A 21, A 412. Hill, F. (1965),
Medieval Lincoln, pp. 174–5.
56 TNA E/101/250/12.
57 Roth, C. (1957), ‘Oxford Starrs’, Oxoniensa, 22, 66–7.
58 Roth, pp. 106–7. Richardson, p. 70. Stenton, D. M. (1972), English society in the
Middle Ages, p. 194. Parkes, J. (1962), A History of the Jewish people, pp. 77–8.
de Roover, R. (1948), Money, banking and credit in Medieval Bruges, p.  104.
Hunt, E. S. and Murray, J. M. (1999), A History of Business in Medieval Europe
1200–1550, pp. 70–3.
59 Levy, S. (1902), ‘The Norwich Day-Book’, TJHSE, 5, 248–9, 261, 263.
60 PREJ1, p. 34.
61 WAM 6844. Roth, pp. 106–7.
62 PREJ1, p. 68.
63 WAM Nos. 6795, 6838, 6846, 6849, 6860, 6866, 6870. Fuss, A. M. (1975), ‘Inter-
Jewish loans in Pre-Expulsion England’, JQR, 65, 235–40.
64 WAM 6869.
 N O T E S T O PA G E S 3 7 – 4 2 185

65 WAM 6797. Lipman, p. 88.

66 Hunt, E. S. and Murray, J. M. (1999), A History of Business in Medieval Europe
1200–1550, pp. 215–16.
67 Cluse, C. (1995), ‘Stories of Breaking and Taking the Cross: a possible context for
the Oxford incident of 1268’, Revue d’Histoire Ecclesiastique, 90, 399. Rubin, M.
(1987), Charity and Community in Medieval Cambridge, pp. 224–5.
68 Hyams, 273. Lipman, V. D. (1968), ‘The Anatomy of Medieval Anglo-Jewry’,
TJHSE, 21, 73. Elman, P. (1939), ‘Jewish trade in thirteenth century England’,
Historia Judaica, 1, 94. Chazan, R. (2006), The Jews of Medieval Western
Christendom 1000–1500, p. 218.
69 Rokeah, Z. E. (1973, 1974, 1975), ‘Some accounts of condemned Jews’ property in
the Pipe and Chancellor’s Rolls’, Bulletin of the Institute of Jewish Studies, 1, 19–42;
2, pp. 59–82; 3, pp. 41–66. Adler, M. (1935), ‘Inventory of the property of the
condemned Jews 1285’, Misc JHSE, 2, 56–71.
70 Rokeah Z. E. (1973, 1974, 1975), ‘Some accounts of condemned Jews’ property in
the Pipe and Chancellor’s Rolls’, Bulletin of the Institute of Jewish Studies, 1, 19–42;
2, 59–82; 3, 41–66.
71 Ibid., 1, 21–5; 2, 65–80, 80–2; 3, 41–66.
72 Adler, M. (1935), ‘Inventory of the property of the condemned Jews 1285’, Misc
JHSE, 2, 56–71.
73 Lipman, V. D. (1968), ‘The anatomy of Medieval Anglo Jewry’, TJHSE, 21, 75.
74 Mundill, pp. 108–45. Mundill, R. R. (1990), ‘Anglo-Jewry under Edward I – Credit
Agents and their clients’, TJHSE, 31, 1–21. Mundill, R. R. (1992), ‘Lumbard
and Son – the businesses and debtors of two Jewish moneylenders in late
thirteenth-century England’, JQR, 82, 137–70. Mundill, R. R. (2000), ‘Clandestine
crypto-camouflaged usurer or legal merchant? Edwardian Jewry, 1275–90’, in
Richmond, C. (ed.), ‘The Jews in Medieval England’, Jewish Culture and History,
3, No. 2, 73–97. Mundill, R. R. (2002), ‘Christian and Jewish lending patterns
and financial dealings during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries’, in Schofield
& Mayhew, pp. 42–67. Mundill, R. R., (2003), ‘Edward I and the Final Phase of
Anglo-Jewry’, in JMB, pp.  55–70. Mundill, R. R. (2003a), ‘Changing fortunes:
Edwardian Anglo-Jewry and their credit operations in late thirteenth-century
England’, in Morillo, S. (ed.), Haskins Society Journal, 14, 83–90.
75 Mundill, pp. 72–107. Jenkinson, H. (1918), ‘The records of the Exchequer receipts
from the English Jewry’, TJHSE, 8, 20.
76 Stacey, R. C. (1985), ‘Royal taxation and the social structure of mediaeval Anglo-
Jewry: the tallages of 1239–1242’, Hebrew Union College Annual, 56, 175–249.
Stacey, R. C. (1988), ‘1240–1260: a watershed in Anglo-Jewish Relations?’, Bulletin
Institute Historical Research, 61, 135–50.
77 Mundill, pp. 74–6.
78 PREJ2, p. 13.
79 Roth, pp. 38–67. Jacobs, p. xix.
80 Holt, J. C. (1961), The Northerners – a study in the reign of King John, p. 34. Warren,
W. L. (1997), King John, p. 268.
186 N O T E S T O PA G E S 4 2 – 4 9

81 Roth, pp. 59–64.
82 Stacey, R. C. (1997), ‘Parliamentary negotiation and the Expulsion of the Jews from
England’, in Britnell, R. H. et al. (eds), Thirteenth Century England VI, pp. 77–101.

Notes to Chapter 3: A community within a state

1 Cohn, N. (1970), The Pursuit of the Millennium, p. 77.

2 Dobson, R. B. (1993), ‘The Jews of Cambridge’, JHS, 32, 2.
3 Hyams, p. 271. Lipman, V. D. (1968), ‘The anatomy of Medieval Anglo Jewry’,
TJHSE, 21, 65.
4 Mundill, pp. 6–7. Miller, A. J. (1957), ‘The Exchequer of the Jews’, Orthodox Jewish
Life, 25, 1, 65. Cramer, A. C. (1940), ‘The Jewish Exchequer: an inquiry into its
fiscal functions’, American Historical Review, 45, 2, 327–37; Cramer, A. C. (1941),
‘Origins and functions of the Jewish Exchequer’, Speculum, 16, 226–9. For more
detail see Brand, P. A., (2005), ‘The Exchequer of the Jews 1265–1290’, in PREJ6,
pp. 3–44.
5 Meekings, C. A. F. (1955), ‘Justices of the Jews 1218–1268: a provisional list’,
Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, 28, 173–88. Brand, P. A. (2005), ‘The
Exchequer of the Jews 1265–1290’, PREJ6, pp. 17–45.
6 Stokes, pp. 23–47. Golb, N. (1998), The Jews in Medieval Normandy – a social and
intellectual history, pp. 208–10. Brand, P. A. (2005), ‘The Exchequer of the Jews
1265–1290’, PREJ6, pp. 44–5. Much of what follows is derived from Stokes.
7 Stokes, pp. 24–5, 25–8, 30–3, 33–5, 35–7.
8 PREJ2, pp. 149, 240.
9 Rigg, p. 51.
10 WAM 6889.
11 WAM 9081.
12 WAM 6719, WAM 9002. Mundill, p. 57.
13 WAM 6888 (dated 1262). Kohler, F. (1952), Letters of Jews through the ages,
pp. 223–4. WAM 6720, WAM 6722, WAM 6744, WAM 6831, WAM 9074. PREJ4,
p. 68.
14 WAM 9076, WAM 9079. Mundill, R. R. (1991), ‘Lumbard and Son: the businesses
and debtors of two Jewish moneylenders in late thirteenth century England’, JQR,
82, 145. Mundill, R. R. (1997), ‘Rabbi Elias Menahem: a late thirteenth-century
English entrepreneur’, JHS, 34, 171.
15 Rokeah, Z. E. (2000), Medieval English Jews and Royal Officials: Entries of Jewish
Interest in the English Memoranda Rolls, 1266–1293, pp. 43, 70. Hereafter ‘Rokeah’.
16 CPR 1218, p. 157.
17 TNA E/101/249/8. PREJ4, pp. 139–43.
18 CPR 1272–1281, pp. 51, 52, 61, 62, 63.
19 Stacey, R. C. (1985), ‘Royal taxation and the social structure of mediaeval Anglo-
Jewry: the tallages of 1239–1242’, Hebrew Union College Annual, 56, 186.
20 PREJ4, pp. 13, 33.
 N O T E S T O PA G E S 4 9 – 5 2 187

21 Stacey, R. C. (1985), ‘Royal taxation and the social structure of mediaeval Anglo-
Jewry: the tallages of 1239–1242’, Hebrew Union College Annual, 56, 244. TNA
E/101/249/12. Mundill, pp. 76, 81.
22 PREJ2, p. 13.
23 Parkes, J. (1962), A History of the Jewish People, p. 71.
24 Rabinowitz, L. (1972), The social life of the Jews of Northern France in the XII to
XIV centuries, p. 85. Hereafter ‘Rabinowitz’.
25 Rosten, L. (1968), The Joys of Yiddish, p. 19.
26 Lipman, V. D. (1968), ‘The anatomy of medieval Anglo-Jewry’, TJHSE, 21, 65–77.
Lipman, V. D. (1984), ‘Jews and castles in medieval England’, TJHSE, 28, 1–19.
Hyams, pp. 270–93.
27 Shohet, D. M. (1931), The Jewish Court in the Middle Ages, p. 43.
28 Roth, C. and Wigoder, G. (1975), The New Standard Jewish Encyclopaedia,
pp. 1814–18.
29 Shohet, D. M. (1931), The Jewish Court in the Middle Ages, p. 24.
30 Jew’s Court, Steep Hill, Lincoln. Roth, C. (1934), Lincoln Jewry and its Synagogue.
Rosenau, H. (1936), ‘The relationship of “Jews Court” and the Lincoln Synagogue’,
Archaeological Journal, 93, 51–6.
31 Roth, p. 77.
32 Mundill, R. R. (1987), The Jews in England 1272–1290, PhD thesis, University of
St Andrews, pp. 30–6. Hillaby, J. (1993), ‘Beth Miqdash Me’at: the synagogues of
medieval England’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 44, 185–6. Hereafter ‘Hillaby’.
33 Adler, M. (1928), ‘The Jews of Bristol in Pre-Expulsion Days’, TJHSE, 12, 119–23.
34 Hillaby, J. and Sermon, R. (2004), ‘Jacob’s Well, Bristol: Mikveh or Bet Tohorah?’,
Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, 122, 127–52.
Lea-Jones, J. (2002), ‘The Ancient Springs of the Valley of the Sandbrook: a
vignette’, Dipping Wells, Living Spring Journal, 2 November. Online. Available
at: http://www.bath.ac.uk/lispring/journal/issue2/con2.htm. Emmanuel, R. R.
and Ponsford, M. W. (1994), ‘Jacob’s Well, Bristol: Britain’s only known medieval
Jewish Ritual Bath (Mikveh)’, Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire
Archaeological Society, 112, 73–86.
35 Stokes, pp. 113–21.
36 Dobson, R. B. (1993), ‘The Jews of Cambridge’, JHS, 32, 10–12.
37 Haes, F. (1903), ‘The Canterbury Synagogue’, TJHSE, 4, 230–2. Adler, M. (1914),
‘The Jews of Canterbury’, TJHSE, 7, 19–79. Urry, W. (1953), The House of Jacob
the Jew.
38 Condition, p. 89. Adler, M. (1914), ‘The Jews of Canterbury’, TJHSE, 7, 24.
39 Somner, W. (1640), The Antiquities of Canterbury, p. 145.
40 Cutts, E. L. (1888), Colchester, p. 119. Stephenson, D. (1984), ‘Colchester: A Smaller
Medieval English Jewry’, Essex Archaeological and Historical Journal, 16, 48–52.
Crummy, P. (1981), ‘Aspects of Anglo-Saxon and Norman Colchester’, Colchester
Archaeological Report, 1, Council for British Archaeology Research, 39, 69.
41 British Library Mss. Lansdowne 826, 4, fols. 28–64. TNA E/101/249/30, TNA
E/101/249/27. Condition, p. 90.
188 N O T E S T O PA G E S 5 2 – 5 6

42 See Wildolive, (accessed 11 February 2010), The Jewish Community in Hereford

(England), up to 1290. http://www.wildolive.co.uk/hereford_history.htm
43 Calendar of Inquisitiones Miscellanea, 1219–1307 No. 185. CCR 1255, pp. 12, 51,
67. Hillaby, p. 192.
44 Wildolive, (accessed 11 February 2010), The Jewish Community in Hereford
(England), up to 1290. http://www.wildolive.co.uk/hereford_history.htm
45 Roth, C. (1934), Medieval Lincoln and its Jewry, pp. 20–5.
46 Johnson, C.P.C. (1978), ‘A second Jewish scola in Lincoln’, Lincolnshire History
and Archaeology, 13, 35–7.
47 Davis, M. D. (1881), ‘The Mediaeval Jews of Lincoln’, Archaeological Journal, 38, 183.
48 Jacobs, J. (1896), ‘The London Jewry, 1290’, in Jacobs, J., Jewish ideals and other
essays, p. 167.
49 Hillaby, p. 189.
50 Blair, I. et al. (2002), ‘The discovery of two medieval mikva’ot in London and a
reinterpretation of the Bristol “mikveh”’, JHS, 37, 15.
51 Hillaby, J. (1993), ‘London: the 13th-century Jewry revisited’, JHS, 32, 101.
52 Hillaby, pp. 190–5.
53 Ibid., p. 196.
54 Honeybourne, M. B. (1964), ‘The pre-Expulsion cemetery of the Jews in London’,
TJHSE, 20, 152.
55 Ibid., pp. 148–54.
56 Blair, I., Hillaby, J., Howell, I., Sermon, R. and Watson, B. (2002), ‘The discovery
of two medieval mikva’ot in London and a reinterpretation of the Bristol “mikveh”’,
JHS, 37, 15–39.
57 Ibid., p. 30.
58 Ibid., p. 176. Condition, p. 98.
59 Roberts, M. (1992), ‘A Northampton Jewish Tombstone, c. 1259 to 1290, recently
rediscovered in Northampton Central Museum’, Medieval Archaeology, 36,
173–7.
60 Collins, A. J. (1946), ‘The Northampton Jewry and its cemetery in the thirteenth
century’, TJHSE, 15, 151–64. Jolles, M. (1996), A Short History of the Jews of
Northampton 1159–1996, pp. 13, 93–4.
61 Lipman, pp. 123–5.
62 Condition, p. 99.
63 Walker, V. W. (1963), ‘Medieval Nottingham: a topographical study’, Transactions
of the Thoroton Society, 67, 28–45. Potter Briscoe, J. (1908), Chapters of
Nottinghamshire History, pp. 21, 24, 25.
64 WAM 6799.
65 WAM 6800, WAM 6799.
66 Nottingham Record Office, the Lassman Papers, M24,183/5.
67 Mannix, P. (2004), ‘Oxford: Mapping the Medieval Jewry’, in Cluse, C. (ed.), The
Jews of Europe in the Middle Ages, Proceedings of the International Symposium at
Speyer, 20–25 October 2002, pp. 405–20.
68 Roth, C. (1951), The Jews of Medieval Oxford, pp. 98–9.
 N O T E S T O PA G E S 5 6 – 5 8 189

69 Hillaby, pp. 192–3.
70 Roberts, M., (accessed 11 February 2010), The History of Medieval Oxford
Mikvaot. http://www.oxfordchabad.org/templates/articlecco_cdo/AID/304691
71 CPR 1272–1281, p. 334. Adler, M. (1933), ‘Aaron of York’, TJHSE, 13, 120, 149, 150.
Lilley, J. M. et al. (1994), The Jewish Burial Ground at Jewbury (The Archaeology
of York – The Medieval Cemeteries, 12/3).
72 CPR 1279, p. 334. Adler, M. (1933), ‘Aaron of York’, TJHSE, 13, 120, 149, 150.
73 Honeybourne, M. (1964), ‘The Pre-Expulsion cemetery of the Jews in London’,
TJHSE, 20, 157.
74 McComish, J. (2000), ‘The Medieval Jewish Cemetery at Jewbury, York’, The Jews
in Medieval England, Jewish Culture and History, 3, no. 2, 22–4.
75 Turner, B. C. (1954), ‘The Winchester Jewry’, Hampshire Review, 21, 18.
76 TNA SC11/426.
77 Alexander, M. (1997), ‘A possible synagogue in Guidford’, in de Boe, G. and
Verhaeghe, F. (eds), Religion and Belief in Medieval Europe: papers of the Medieval
Europe 1997 Conference, Brugge, 4, 201–12.
78 Samuel, E. R. (1974), ‘Was Moyses Hall Bury St Edmunds a Jews’ House?’, TJHSE,
25, 43–8.
79 Hillaby, pp. 188–97.
80 Roth, p. 77. Richardson, pp. 194–5. Jacobs, J. (1896), ‘The London Jewry, 1290’, in
Jacobs, J., Jewish ideals and other essays, p. 169.
81 PREJ 2, pp. 34, 42, 53, 56, 126, 146, 153, 165, 250. PREJ3, p. 265. Mundill, R. R.
(1997), ‘Rabbi Elias Menahem: a late thirteenth-century English entrepreneur’,
JHS, 34, 166. Hillaby, p. 184.
82 Much of what follows is an elaboration and elongation of Mundill, R. R. (2003), ‘The
medieval Anglo-Jewish community: organisation and royal control’, in Jüdische
Gemeinden und ihr christlicher Kontext in kulturräumlich vergleichender Betrachtung
von der Spätantike bis zum 18. Jahrhundert Hrsg. Cluse, C., Haverkamp, A., Yuval,
I. J., Forschungen Zur Geschichte Der Juden, Abteilung A: Abhandlungen, Band
13, pp. 267–81. WAM 6847, WAM 6797.
83 WAM 6847.
84 WAM 6797.
85 Keith, K. E. (1959), The social life of a Jew in the time of Christ, p. 49. Rabinowitz,
pp. 213–24. Golb, N. (1998), The Jews in Medieval Normandy, pp. 171–90. Singer,
I. (ed.), (1912–1915), The Jewish Encyclopedia, vol. VI, 284–87. Hereafter ‘Jewish
Encyclopedia’. Landman, L. (1972), ‘The Office of the medieval hazzan’, JQR, 62,
159, 162–3, 173.
86 Jewish Encyclopedia, vol. III, 114–19; Roth, p. 279.
87 Stokes, H. P. (1914), ‘Records of Manuscripts and documents possessed by the
Jews in England before the Expulsion’, TJHSE, 8, 79.
88 Synan, E. A. (1965), The Popes and Jews in the Middle Ages, pp. 111–12. Parkes, J.
(1962), A History of the Jewish People, p. 73.
89 Shohet, D .M. (1931), The Jewish Court in the Middle Ages, p. 36. Metzger, T. and
Metzger, M. (1982), Jewish Life in the Middle Ages, pp.  181–8. It is more than
190 N O T E S T O PA G E S 5 9 – 6 1

likely that at times these offices were vested in the same individual. For Shamash
see Jewish Encyclopedia, Vol. XI, 230–1 and for Gabbai see Jewish Encyclopedia,
vol. XI, 230–1.
90 Hyamson, A. M. (1928), A History of the Jews in England, p. 91. For Parnass see
Jewish Encyclopedia, vol. V, 538 and for Kahal see Jewish Encyclopedia, vol. VII,
409–11.
91 Rahash combines the first letters of Rav, Hazzan and Shamash; cf. Landman. L.
(1972), ‘The Office of the medieval hazzan’, JQR, 62, 178–9.
92 Generally, the monthly contributions did not apply to visitors from other towns,
although in northern France 12 months of residence in a place established a
liability to the communal levy (Rabinowitz, pp. 99–102).
93 Shohet, D. M. (1931), The Jewish Court in the Middle Ages, pp. 24–33. Again it is
possible that these two functions might be vested in the same individual.
94 Richardson, pp. 285–92.
95 Lipman, V. D. (1968), ‘The anatomy of medieval Anglo-Jewry’, TJHSE, 21, 73–4.
96 The Northampton community also possessed a communal seal: Collins, A. J.
(1946), ‘The Northampton Jewry and its cemetery in the thirteenth century’,
TJHSE, 15, 154. Condition, p. 98.
97 Rabinowitz, pp. 77–83. Jewish Encyclopedia, vol. III, 114–18.
98 Lipman, pp. 150–3.
99 Rabinowitz, pp. 95–7. CCR 1237–1242, p. 464.
100 Adler, M. (1914), ‘The Jews of Canterbury’, TJHSE, 7, 47–8, 77. Rabinowitz, L.
(1937), ‘The Origin of the Canterbury Treaty of 1266’, Misc JHSE, 3, 76–9.
101 Rigg, pp. 35–6. Finkelstein, L. (1924), Jewish Self-Government in the Middle Ages,
pp. 13–15. Cohn-Sherbok, D. (1979), ‘Medieval Jewish persecution in England:
the Canterbury pogroms in perspective’, Southern History, 3, 23–37. Rabinowitz,
L. (1938), ‘The Medieval Jewish Counter-part to the Guild Merchant’, Economic
History Review, 8, 180–5.
102 Rabinowitz, L. (1937), ‘The Origin of the Canterbury Treaty of 1266’, Misc JHSE,
3, 76–9.
103 Adler, M. (1914), ‘The Jews of Canterbury’, TJHSE, 7, 43.
104 Cohn-Sherbok, D. (1979), ‘Medieval persecution in England: the Canterbury
pogroms in perspective’, Southern History, 3, 23–37. Rabinowitz, L. (1937), ‘The
origin of the Canterbury Treaty of 1266’, Misc JHSE, 3, 79. Rabinowitz, L. (1938),
‘The medieval Jewish counter-part to the gild merchant’, Economic History Review,
8, 180–5.
105 Loewe, R. (1953), ‘The medieval Christian Hebraists of England’, TJHSE, 17,
235. Dobson, note 18. Roth, p. 93. Jacobs, J. (1889), ‘Une lettre francaise d’un
Juif Anglais’, Revue des etudes Juives, 18, 256–61. Surviving examples of letters
from Jews that are written in French are: TNA SC/8/54/2655 (from Bonamy of
York),SC/1/13/106, SC/8/180/8966, SC/311/15531 (from Deudone Crespyn of
York), SC/8/219/10906 (from Bonamy of York),SC/8/220/10970 (from Bonefy of
Cricklade),TNA E/101/250/13 (A starrum issued by Gamaliel of Oxford). Other
examples can be found in WAM 9115, WAM 6806 and WAM 6812. Registrum
 N O T E S T O PA G E S 6 1 – 6 3 191

Antiquissimum of the Cathedral Church of Lincoln (1935), ed. Foster, C. W. and

Major, K., Lincoln Record Society, 3, 196–201.
106 Roth, p. 125.
107 Honeybourne, M. (1964), ‘The Pre-Expulsion cemetery of the Jews in London’,
TJHSE, 20, 153. Adler, M. (1914), ‘The Jews of Canterbury’, TJHSE, 7, 53. Roth,
p. 275. SCBM 2, first plate and note 1528. Nottingham Record Office – M/24/182-188
– the Lassman Papers. Hinton, D. A. (2003), ‘Medieval Anglo-Jewry: the
Archaeological Evidence’, in JMB, pp. 99–101.
108 Fuss, A. M. (1975), ‘Inter-Jewish loans in Pre-Expulsion England’, JQR, 65, 229–45.
Adler, M. (1935), ‘Jewish tallies of the thirteenth century’, Misc JHSE, 2, 8–23. Adler,
M. (1937), ‘Medieval Jewish Mss in the Library of St Paul’s Cathedral’, Misc JHSE, 3,
15–33. Davis, M. D. (1888), Hebrew Deeds of English Jews before 1290. Canterbury
Cathedral Muniments C.C.A. MsA68, MsA93, MsA90, Letter Book II 4 (these are
all Hebrew quitclaims); WAM 9015 (has a Hebrew signature on the back).
109 PREJ 4, 188. Roth, C. (1953), ‘A Medieval Anglo Jewish seal?’, Misc JHSE, 17,
283–6. Rabinowitz, pp. 69–74.
110 Jacobs, p. 54.
111 Ibid. Owen, A. (1953), ‘The references to England in the responsa of Rabbi Meir
ben Baruch of Rothenburg 1215–1293’, TJHSE, 17, 75.
112 Jacobs, pp. 289–90. Rosten, L. (1968), The Joys of Yiddish, pp. 510–11.
113 Rabinowitz, pp. 69–70.
114 TNA E/101/249/27, E/101/249/30. Metzger, T. and Metzger, M. (1982), Jewish Life
in the Middle Ages, pp. 76–8.
115 Rabinowitz, pp. 69–70.
116 Rokeah, Z. E. (1982), ‘Crime and Jews in late thirteenth century England: some
cases and comments’, Proceedings of the 8th World Congress of Jewish Studies,
pp. 15–16. PREJ 4, 172.
117 TNA E/101/250/12. Rabinowitz, p. 71. Roth, C. (1957), ‘Oxford Starrs’, Oxoniensa,
22, 66–7. Brown, R. B. (2006), ‘Medieval Anglo-Jewry and their Food, 1066–1290’,
in Hosking, R. (ed.), Authenticity in the Kitchen: Proceedings of the Oxford
Symposium on Food and Cookery, 2005, pp. 108–19.
118 Hereford Record Office. Bailiff ’s Accounts 1285.
119 Roth, C. (1946), ‘Elijah of London’, TJHSE, 15, 43–4. CCR 1280, p. 60. Domnitz,
M. (1970), Judaism, p. 51.
120 Roth, C. (1951), The Jews of Medieval Oxford, p. 12. WAM 6723.
121 Rabinowitz, p. 72.
122 Ibid.
123 Jacobs, p. 199.
124 Rabinowitz, L. (1945), The Herem Hayishub: a contribution of the medieval
economic History of the Jews, p.  61. Chazan, R. (2006), The Jews of Medieval
Western Christendom 1000–1500, pp. 130–1, 154–67.
125 Jacobs, pp.  23, 29, 130–1, 199. Marmorstein, A. (1931), ‘New Material for the
literary history of the English Jews before the Expulsion’, TJHSE, 12, 110. Roth, C.
(1952), ‘A Hebrew Elegy on the York Martyrs of 1190’, TJHSE, 16, 213–20.
192 N O T E S T O PA G E S 6 3 – 6 7

Schechter, S. (1894), ‘A Hebrew Elegy’, TJHSE, 1, 8–14.

126 Beit-Arie, M. (1985), The only dated Medieval Hebrew Manuscript written in
England (1189 C.E.), pp. 1–9.
127 Roth, C. (1946), ‘Elijah of London’, TJHSE, 15, 31–3. Roth, C. (1948), ‘Rabbi
Berechiah of Nicole’, Journal of Jewish Studies, 1, 67–81.
128 Marmorstein, A. (1929), ‘Some hitherto unknown Jewish scholars’, JQR, 19, 17–36.
Marmorstein, A. (1931), ‘New Material for the literary history of the English Jews
before the Expulsion’, TJHSE, 12, 103–15. Kaufman, D. (1893), ‘The Etz Chayim of
Jacob ben Jehudah of London and the history of the manuscript’, JQR, 5, 353–63.
Stokes, H. P. (1914), ‘Records of manuscripts and documents possessed by the
Jews in England before the Expulsion’, TJHSE, 8, 78–98.
129 Haberman, A. M. (1967), ‘Hebrew Poems of Meir of Norwich’, in Lipman, V. D.
(ed.), Jews of Medieval Norwich, pp. 157–9. Einbinder, S. L. (2000), ‘Meir b. Elijah
of Norwich: persecution and poetry among medieval English Jews’, Journal of
Medieval History, 26, 145–62.
130 Paris, M., Chronica Majora, 5, 441. Paris, M., Historia Anglorum, 3, 334.
131 Rabinowitz, p. 180.
132 PREJ4, p. 147.
133 Cohen, S. (1932), ‘The Oxford Jewry in the thirteenth century’, TJHSE, 13, 315.
134 Jacobs, J. (1889), ‘Une lettre francaise d’un Juif Anglais’, Revue des Etudes Juives,
18, 256–61. Roth, C. (1946), ‘Elijah of London’, TJHSE, 15, 43, 54, 55.
135 Exhibited at the Anglo Jewish Historical Exhibition of 1887; cf. Anglo-Jewish
Historical Exhibition of 1887 Catalogue, ed. Jacobs, J. and Wolf, L., London, p. 7.
Lipman, pp.  33, 313–14. Davis, M.D. (1887), ‘The Bodleian Ewer’, The Jewish
Chronicle, 12 August, pp. 9–10, 19 August, p. 11, 26 August, p. 6. Abrahams, M.
(1906), ‘Leaf from an English Siddur of the Twelfth Century’, in Harris, I., Jews
College Jubilee Volume, pp.  109–13. Cambridge University Library, Pembroke
College MS 59.
136 The calendar as laid down by Hillel II. Domnitz, M. (1970), Judaism. Rosten, L.
(1968), The Joys of Yiddish, pp. 476–7.
137 SCBM 1, pp. xviii–xix.
138 PREJ4, pp. 153, 168, 170.
139 Lipman, pp. 49–56. Langmuir, G. I. (1972), ‘The Knight’s Tale of Young Hugh of
Lincoln’, Speculum, 47, 462 and following. Allin, P. (1980), ‘Richard of Devizes
and the alleged Martyrdom of a boy at Winchester’, TJHSE, 27, 32–9.
140 Roth, C. (1952), ‘A Hebrew Elegy on the York Martyrs of 1190’, TJHSE, 16, 213–20.
Schechter, S. (1894), ‘A Hebrew Elegy’ TJHSE, 1, 8–14.

Notes to Chapter 4: Saints and martyrs

1 Trachtenberg, J. (1943), The Devil and the Jews, p. 12.

2 Bale, A. (2006), The Jew in the Medieval Book, p. 27. Richard of Devizes, Chronicles
of the Reign of Stephen, Henry II and Richard I, 3, 383.
 N O T E S T O PA G E S 6 7 – 7 0 193

3 Menache, S. (1985), ‘Faith, Myth and Politics – the stereotype of the Jews and
their Expulsion from England and France’, JQR, 75, 351–74. Menache, S. (1997),
‘Mathew Paris’s attitude towards towards Anglo-Jewry’, Journal of Medieval
History, 23, 140–1. Paris, M., Historia Anglorum, 3, 103.
4 One of the earliest uses of the word holocaust was by Richard of Devizes.
Bale, A. (2000), ‘Richard of Devizes and Fictions of Judaism’, in Richmond, C.
(ed.), ‘The Jew in Medieval England’, Jewish Culture and History, 3, 59. Bale,
A. (2006), The Jew in the Medieval Book, p.  7. Bale, A. (2003), ‘Fictions of
Judaism in England before 1290’, in JMB, p. 129. Langmuir, G. I. (1963), ‘The
Jews and archives of Angevin England – reflections on medieval anti-semitism’,
Traditio, 19, 183–244. Langmuir, G. I. (1971), ‘Anti-Judaism as the necessary
preparation for Anti-Semitism’, Viator, 2, 383–9. Langmuir, G. I. (1990), History,
Religion and Antisemitism. Langmuir, G. I. (1990), Toward a Definition of
Antisemitism.
5 Phillips, J. (2002), The Crusades 1095–1197, pp. 14–15.
6 Cohen, J. (1983), ‘The Jews as the killers of Christ in the Latin tradition, from
Augustine to the Friars’, Traditio, 39, 1–27.
7 Paris, M., Chronica Majora, 3, 161–3. Timms, E. (1994), The Wandering Jew: A
Leitmotif in German Literature and Politics. Baring-Gould, S. (1872), Curious
Myths of the Middle Ages, pp. 1–31.
8 Roover de, R. (1948), Money, Banking and Credit in Medieval Bruges, p. 149.
9 Jacobs, J. (1893), ‘Little St Hugh of Lincoln: Researches in History, Archaeology
and Legend’, TJHSE, 1, 95.
10 See Note 4 above.
11 This particular story can be traced to Byzantium in about 550. It was well known
across Europe and included by Gregory of Tours in his De Gloria Martyrum
in 593. It was transmitted to and recorded in a manuscript in the Old Sarum
scriptorium during the early twelfth century (Salisbury Cathedral MSS 165 fos.
177a/b). Depictions of the miracle are extant in the Lady Chapel at Winchester
Cathedral. Rubin, M. (1999), Gentile Tales: The Narrative Assault on Late Medieval
Jews, pp. 8–9.
12 Jacobs, pp. 68–70.
13 Menache, S. (1997), ‘Mathew Paris’s attitude towards towards Anglo-Jewry’,
Journal of Medieval History, 23, 146. Langmuir, G. I. (1972), ‘The Knight’s tale of
young Hugh of Lincoln’, Speculum, 47, 463.
14 Achinstein, S. (2001), ‘John Foxe and the Jews’, Renaissance Quarterly, 54, 86–120.
Mundill, p. 19.
15 Macray (1861), ‘Harleian Scraps: The Jew of Tewkesbury’, Notes and Queries,
s2-XII, pp. 479–80. W. C. B. (1880), ‘The Jew of Tewkesbury’, Notes and Queries,
s6-11, p.  318. Sermon, R. (2006), ‘The Jew of Tewkesbury and urban myth’,
Tewkesbury Historical Society, 15, 54–62. Bale, A. (2006), The Jew in the Medieval
Book, pp. 30–53.
16 Strickland, D. H. (2003), Saracens, Demons and Jews, pp. 105–7, Figs 28, 40. British
Library, Cotton Nero D.II f.183v.
194 N O T E S T O PA G E S 7 0 – 7 2

17 Bale, A. (2006), The Jew in the Medieval Book, pp. 3–5; see the National Archives
(undated), ‘A Medieval Mystery’. Online. Available at: http://www.learningcurve.
gov.uk/snapshots/snapshot12/snapshot12.htm#Background. TNA E/401/1565.
Roth, C. (1950), ‘Portraits and caricatures of Medieval English Jews’, The Jewish
Monthly, 4, Supplement, i–viii.
18 Melinkofff, R. (1973), ‘The round shaped hats depicted on Jews in B. M. Cotton
Claudius B iv’, Anglo-Saxon England, 2, 155–67. Strauss, R. (1942), ‘The Jewish
Hat as an aspect of social history’, Jewish Social Studies, 4, 59–72. Kisch, G. (1957),
‘The Yellow Badge in Jewish History’, Historia Judaica, 19, 91–101. Rokeah,
Z. (1972), ‘Drawings of Jewish interest in some thirteenth-century English
Public Records’, Scriptorium, 26, 55–62. Lipman, V. D. (1966), ‘The Roth “Hake”
Manuscript’, in Shaftesley, J. M. (ed.), Remember the Days – Essays in Honour of
Cecil Roth, pp. 49–71. Casey, M. F. (2007), ‘The Fourteenth-Century Tring Tiles:
A fresh look at their origin and the Hebraic aspects of the child Jesus’ actions’,
Peregrinations – International Society for the Study of Pilgrimage Art, pp. 1–53.
Online. Available at: http://peregrinations.kenyon.edu/vol2-2_1/FeaturedSection/
TringTiles.pdf
19 Trachtenberg, J. (1943), The Devil and the Jews, pp. 6, 12.
20 Scholem, G. C. (1962), On the Kabbalah and its Symbolism. Halevi, Z. B. S. (1976),
The way of the Kabbalah. For mazzuzah see ‘mezuzah’. Encyclopaedia Judaica, 11,
1,474–7. Such suspicions abound in Malamud, B. (1966), The Fixer, a novel that
deals with an accusation of ritual murder in pre-revolutionary Kiev.
21 Trachtenberg, J. (1943), The Devil and the Jews, p. 68.
22 Ibid., p. 100.
23 Roth, C. (1938), ‘The medieval conception of the Jew: a new interpretation’,
in Davidson, I. (ed.), Essays and studies in memory of Linda R. Miller, p.  184.
Matthew 27.25.
24 Trachtenberg, J. (1943), The Devil and the Jews, p. 157.
25 Lipman, pp. 59–62. Jacobs, p. 216.
26 Johnson, W. (1998), ‘The myth of Jewish male menses’, Journal of Medieval History,
24, 273–95.
27 Trachtenberg, J. (1943), The Devil and the Jews, pp. 47–9, 116. The foetor Judaicus
or Jewish smell is a belief which lasted in Europe until the late 1950s. Roth, C.
(1938), ‘The medieval conception of the Jew: a new interpretation’, in Davidson, I.
(ed.), Essays and studies in memory of Linda R. Miller, p. 176.
28 Paris, M. Chronica Majora, 3, 161–3; 4, 131–3; 5, p. 341. Cohn, N. (1970), The
pursuit of the millennium – revolutionary millenarians and mystical anarchists of
the Middle Ages, pp. 19–20. Trachtenberg, J. (1943), The Devil and the Jews, p. 34
and following.
29 Menache, S. (1997), ‘Mathew Paris’s attitude towards towards Anglo-Jewry’,
Journal of Medieval History, 23, 139–62.
30 One of the most recent notorious occurrences of the accusation appeared in
various copies of the anti-Semitic newspaper called Der Stuermer. Dr Goebbels
even dropped propaganda pamphlets over England in 1940, which revived
 N O T E S T O PA G E S 7 2 – 7 6 195

the medieval myth. The accusations that the Jews ritually murdered Christian
children have allegedly produced over 120 victims.
31 Yuval, I. J. (1993), ‘Vengeance and damnation, blood and defamation: from Jewish
martyrdom to blood libel accusations’ (in Hebrew), Zion, 58, 33–90; English
summary, pp. vi–viii.
32 Much of what follows can be found in the following: Jessop, A. and James, M. R.
(1896), The Life and Miracles of St William of Norwich. Anderson, M. D. (1964),
A Saint at Stake: The strange death of William of Norwich, 1144. Langmuir, G.
I., (1984), ‘Thomas of Monmouth: detector of ritual murder’, Speculum, 59,
820–46. McCulloh, J. M. (1997), ‘Jewish ritual murder: William of Norwich,
Thomas of Monmouth, and the early dissemination of the myth’, Speculum, 72,
698–740. Bale, A. (2003), ‘Fictions of Judaism in England before 1290’, in JMB,
pp. 130–1.
33 Hillaby, J. (1997), ‘The ritual-child-murder accusation: its dissemination and
Harold of Gloucester’, JHS, 34, 31. Bale, A. (2003), ‘Fictions of Judaism in England
before 1290’, in JMB, p. 131.
34 Ibid. Bale, A. (2002), ‘House devil, town saint: anti-semitism and hagiography in
medieval Suffolk’, in Delaney, S. (ed.), Chaucer and the Jews: Sources, Contexts,
Meanings (The Multicultural Middle Ages, 1), pp. 185–210. Lampert, L. (2001),
‘The once and future Jew: The Croxton Play of the Sacrament, little Robert of
Bury and historical memory’, Jewish History, 15, 235–55.
35 Hillaby, J. (1997), ‘The ritual-child-murder accusation: its dissemination and
Harold of Gloucester’, JHS, 34, 74–7.
36 Hart, H. W. (ed.) (1863), Historia et Cartularium Monasterii Sancti Petri
Gloucesteriae, 3 vols (RS 33). Annales Sancti Petri de Gloucester, 1, introduction,
xxxix–xli, 20–1.
37 Much of the chronicle evidence for the massacres has been conveniently published
in Joseph Jacobs’ The Jews of Angevin England. Jacobs, pp. 107–8.
38 Singer, S. (1908), ‘Jews and coronations’, TJHSE, 5, 79–114.
39 Ephraim of Bonn: see Jacobs, p. 107. See also William of Newburgh’s fuller account
of the London coronation riots in Jacobs, pp. 99–105.
40 Much of what follows can be found in Jacobs and in Barrie Dobson’s account of
the massacres, which is still the best account to date. Dobson, R. B. (1974), ‘The
Jews of York and the massacre of March 1190’, Borthwick Papers, 45. A  long-
forgotten fictional account by Joanne Greenberg is atmospheric and gives a
feeling of the impending massacres moving northwards: Greenberg, J. (1963),
The King’s Persons. In the 1970s the massacre became more widely known due
to the Bloxham tapes. Iversen, J. (1976), More lives than one?: the evidence of the
remarkable Bloxham tapes.
41 See Note 37 above.
42 Newburgh: Jacobs, p. 104. Dobson, p. 21.
43 Devizes: Jacobs, pp. 133–4.
44 Ibid. Bale, A. (2003), ‘Fictions of Judaism in England before 1290’, in Skinner, P.
(ed.) The Jews in Medieval Britain, pp. 59–61.
196 N O T E S T O PA G E S 7 6 – 8 4

45 Ralph of Diss: Jacobs, p. 112.

46 Ralph of Diss and William of Newburgh: Jacobs, pp. 112–13. Dobson, pp. 24–5.
47 William of Newburgh: Jacobs, pp. 115–16.
48 Dobson, p. 25.
49 Ralph of Diss: Jacobs, pp. 112–13.
50 Bale, A. (2002), ‘House devil, town saint: anti-semitism and hagiography in
medieval Suffolk’, in Delaney, S. (ed.) Chaucer and the Jews: Sources, Contexts,
Meanings (The Multicultural Middle Ages, 1), pp. 186–7. Lampert, L. (2001), ‘The
once and future Jew: The Croxton Play of the Sacrament, little Robert of Bury and
historical memory’, Jewish History, 15, 236–9.
51 Jocelin of Brakelond: Jacobs pp. 59, 78, 141. Scarfe, N. (1986), Suffolk in the Middle
Ages, pp. 87–94, 102–6.
52 William of Newburgh: Jacobs p. 113–15.
53 Ibid. p. 117.
54 Ibid. p. 120.
55 William of Newburgh: Jacobs p. 113–33. Dobson pp. 26–9.
56 Ibid. d’Israeli, I. (1959), ‘The Jews of York’, The Jewish Forum, 42, part 10,
158–62.
57 Ralph of Diss (Psalm 59, v. 11): Jacobs, p. 113. Davies, R. (1875), ‘The mediaeval
Jews of York’, Yorkshire Archaeological and Topographical Journal, 3, 147–97.
58 Dobson, pp. 28–9.
59 Davies, R. (1875), ‘The Mediaeval Jews of York’, Yorkshire Archaeological and
Topographical Journal, 3, 151.
60 Dobson, pp.  33–7. Davies, R. (1875), ‘The Mediaeval Jews of York’, Yorkshire
Archaeological and Topographical Journal, 3, 164–9.
61 Jacobs, pp. 117–31. Dobson, pp. 24–5.
62 Jacobs, p. 145. Dobson, R. B. (1979), ‘The decline and expulsion of the medieval
Jews of York’, TJHSE, 26, 43. Dobson, R. B. (2003), ‘The Medieval York Jewry
Reconsidered’, in JMB, pp. 145–56.
63 Dobson, p. 30.
64 Bale, A. (2003), ‘Fictions of Judaism in England before 1290’, in JMB, pp. 60–4.
65 Ibid.
66 Stenton, D. M. (1926), Earliest Lincolnshire Assize Rolls (Lincolnshire Record
Society, 22, no. 996). Hill, J. W. F. (1965), Medieval Lincoln, p. 223. Langmuir, G. I.
(1972), ‘The Knight’s Tale of Young Hugh of Lincoln’, Speculum, 47, 462–3.
67 Lipman, pp. 59–64. See Chapter Six below.
68 Rokeah, Z. E. (1988), ‘The State, the Church, and the Jews in Medieval England’,
ed. Almog, S. and trans. Reishner, N. H., Antisemitism through the ages, p. 108.
Bale, A. (2003), ‘Fictions of Judaism in England before 1290’, in JMB, pp. 134–5.
69 Rokeah, Z. E. (1988), ‘The State, the Church, and the Jews in Medieval England’,
ed. Almog, S. and trans. Reishner, N. H., Antisemitism through the ages, p. 109.
70 Menache, S. (1997), ‘Mathew Paris’s attitude towards Anglo-Jewry’, Journal
of Medieval History, 23, 140–1. Jacobs, J. (1893), ‘Little St  Hugh of Lincoln:
researches in history, archaeology and legend’, TJHSE, 1, 90–3.
 N O T E S T O PA G E S 8 4 – 8 9 197

71 Hill, J. W. F. (1965), Medieval Lincoln, pp. 224–5. Langmuir, G. I. (1972), ‘The

Knight’s Tale of Young Hugh of Lincoln’, Speculum, 47, 464–5.
72 Ibid., pp. 465–6.
73 Jacobs, J. (1893), ‘Little St Hugh of Lincoln: researches in history, archaeology and
legend’, TJHSE, 1, 107–8.
74 Ibid., pp. 107–10. Child, F. J. (2003), The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, 3,
Courier Dover Publications, p.  761. An online query at http://answers.google.
com/answers/threadview/id/478915.html (accessed 11 February 2010) tells of
a pupil who went to ‘a one-room private school in the village of Long Whatton,
Leicestershire, England from 1943 to 1948 . . . We sang a strange song . . . [the
first verse was]: “He tossed the ball so high, so high, He tossed the ball so low; He
tossed the ball right over the wall; And the Jews were all below . . . [The second
verse included] “She tossed the ball back over the wall . . .”.’ The story of St Hugh is
still preserved in the badge of St Hugh’s School, Woodhall Spa (founded in 1925),
which shows a wall and a ball as a symbol of the game that became attached to
the Little St Hugh legend.
75 Langmuir, G. I. (1972), ‘The Knight’s Tale of Young Hugh of Lincoln’, Speculum,
47, 469–81. Langmuir investigates John of Laxton’s actions in more detail.
76 Ibid., p. 468.
77 Jacobs, J. (1893), ‘Little St Hugh of Lincoln, researches in history, archaeology
and legend’, TJHSE, 1, 98–100. Langmuir, G. I. (1972), ‘The Knight’s tale of young
Hugh of Lincoln’, Speculum, 47, 478–9.
78 Jacobs, J. (1893), ‘Little St Hugh of Lincoln: researches in history, archaeology and
legend’, TJHSE, 1, 103–5. Bale, A. (2003), ‘Fictions of Judaism in England before
1290’, in JMB, p. 131. Hill, J. W. F. (1965), Medieval Lincoln, p. 229.
79 Ibid. The Banks Papers Lincoln Record Office. Davis, M. D. (1881), ‘The mediaeval
Jews of Lincoln’, Archaeological Journal, 38, 193. Roth, C. (1934), Medieval Lincoln
and its Jewry, p. 17.
80 Maddicott, J. R. (1994), Simon de Montfort, pp. 15–16.
81 CCR 1258–1266, p.  229. Cohn-Sherbok, D. (1979), ‘Medieval persecution in
England: the Canterbury pogroms in perspective’, Southern History, 3, 32.
82 Adler, M. (1914), ‘The Jews of Canterbury’, TJHSE, 7, 40. Rigg, p. 51.
83 Gervase of Canterbury (RS 1879–80), 2, ed. Stubbs, W., p. 235.
84 CPR 1266–1272, pp. 13, 21.
85 PREJ1, pp. 132–3.
86 Annales Monastici, 4, 448. Hillaby, J. (1990), ‘The Worcester Jewry, 1158–1290:
portrait of a lost community’, Worcestershire Archaeological Society Transactions,
35, 12, 105–6. Powicke, F. M. (1947), King Henry III and the Lord Edward – the
community of the realm in the thirteenth century, vols I–II, p. 487. CCR 1264–8,
p. 83.
87 Waverley Annals, Annales Monastici, 2, 363.
88 Roth, p. 61.
89 Powicke, F. M. (1947), King Henry III and the Lord Edward – the community of
the realm in the thirteenth century, vols I–II, p. 487.
198 N O T E S T O PA G E S 8 9 – 9 5

90 Hill, J. W. F. (1965), Medieval Lincoln, p. 209.

91 Walter of Hemingburgh, De Gestis Regum Angliae, p. 327.
92 CPR 1258–1266, pp. 421–2.
93 Dobson, R. B. (1993), ‘The Jews of Cambridge’, JHS, 32, 15–16.
94 Roth, p. 61.
95 Powicke, F. M. (1947), King Henry III and the Lord Edward – the community of
the realm in the thirteenth century, vols I–II, p. 516.
96 CPR 1258–66, p. 679.
97 CPR 1258–66, p. 442.
98 Mundill, R. R. (2003), ‘Edward I and the final phase of Anglo-Jewry’, in JMB,
pp. 60–1.
99 Ibid., p. 61. Roth, C. (1934), Medieval Lincoln and its Jewry, p. 18.
100 Ibid.
101 Chronica Johannis de Oxenedes, p. 252. Capgrave, J., The Chronicle of England,
p.  164, which incorrectly dates the event in 1274. Walsingham, T., Historia
Anglicana, p. 172. Skemer, D. C. (1999), ‘King Edward’s articles of inquest on the
Jews and coin-clipping, 1279’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, 72, 1–26.
102 Cotton, B., Historia Anglicana, p. 157.
103 Rokeah, Z. E. (1990), ‘Money and the hangman in late 13th-century England:
Jews, Christians and coinage offences alleged and real (part 1)’, JHS, 31, 87.
104 Ibid., 90. CCR 1279, p. 529.
105 Rokeah, Z. E. (1990), ‘Money and the hangman in late 13th-century England:
Jews, Christians and coinage offences alleged and real (part 1)’, JHS, 31, 91.
106 CPR 1279, pp. 317, 323, 352. CPR 1280, p. 364.
107 Much of the above is drawn from the painstaking work Dr Rokeah. Rokeah,
Z. E. (1972), ‘Drawings of Jewish interest in some thirteenth century English
public records’, Scriptorium, 26, 55–62. Rokeah, Z. E. (1973), ‘Some accounts
of condemned Jews property in the Pipe and Chancellor’s Rolls’, Bulletin of the
Institute of Jewish Studies, part 1, 1, 19–42; part 2, 2, 59–82 (1974); part 3, 3, 41–66
(1975). Rokeah, Z. E. (1990), ‘Money and the hangman in late 13th-century
England: Jews, Christians and coinage offences alleged and real (part I)’, JHS,
31, 83–109. Rokeah, Z. E. (1993), ‘Money and the hangman in late-13th-century
England: Jews, Christians and coinage offences alleged and real (part II)’, JHS, 32,
159–218. The graph is compiled from the results of her labours.
108 Cluse, C. (1995), ‘Fabula ineptissima’: Die ritualmordlegende um Adam von
Bristol nach der Handschrift London British Library, Harley 957’, Aschkenas, 5,
293–550.
109 Hames, H. J. (2007), ‘The limits of conversion: ritual murder and the Virgin Mary
in the account of Adam of Bristol’, Journal of Medieval History, 33, 43–59.
110 Bale, A. (2006), The Jew in the Medieval Book, pp. 133–4.
111 Langmuir, G. I. (1984), ‘Historiographic crucifixion’, in Blumenthal, D. R. (ed.),
Approaches to Judaism in medieval times, Brown Judaic Studies, 54, particularly
pp. 10–21. Cohen, J. (1983), ‘The Jews as the killers of Christ in the Latin tradition,
from Augustine to the Friars’, Traditio, 39, 1–27.
 N O T E S T O PA G E S 9 7 – 1 0 2 199

Notes to Chapter 5: Christians and Jews

1 Holt, J. C. (1965), Magna Carta, pp. 321, 233–4.

2 Holt, J. C. (1961), The Northerners, pp. 164–8. Roth, p. 34.
3 Holt, J. C. (1965), Magna Carta, p. 234.
4 Trehearne, R. E. and Sanders, I. J. (eds) (1973), Documents of the Baronial
Movement of Reform and Rebellion 1258–67, p. 87.
5 Coss, P. R. (1975), ‘Sir Geoffrey de Langley and the Crisis of the Knightly
Class in thirteenth-century England’, Past and Present, 68, 22. Richardson,
pp. 91–9.
6 Monastic institutions that bought up debts included among others: Abbey
Dore, Beaulieu, Biddlesden, Bildewas, Bullington, Christ Church Canterbury,
Cirencester, Dale, Darley, Drax, Durford, Durham, Flixton, Fountains,
Glastonbury, Greenfield, Guisborough, Healaugh Park, Hereford, Holy Trinity
Aldgate, Holyrood, Hyde Abbey, Kirkstead, Lantonay, Lenton, Lincoln, Malton,
Melrose, Newbattle, Newhouse, Old Wardon, Peterborough, Ramsey, Rochester,
Rufford, St  Alban’s, St  Mary’s Osney, St  Neot’s Priory, St  Peter’s Gloucester,
St Peter’s York, Waltham Abbey, Westminster, Worcester.
7 Mate, M. (1973), ‘The indebtedness of Canterbury cathedral priory 1215–1295’,
Economic History Review, 26, 294.
8 SCBM 2, pp. 305–18.
9 Larking, L. B. (1886), ‘On the alienation of the manors of Westwell and Little
Chart by Peter de Bending and the tenure of the former manor’, Archaeologia
Cantiana, 6, 306.
10 SCBM 2, pp.  305–18. Larking, L. B. (1886), ‘On the alienation of the manors
of Westwell and Little Chart by Peter de Bending and the tenure of the former
manor’, Archaeologia Cantiana, 6, 305–18. Adler, M. (1914), ‘The Jews of
Canterbury’, TJHSE, 7, 31–2.
11 Canterbury Cathedral Archives Charta Antiqua A. 68, A. 90, A. 93.
12 Fowler, J. T. (1876), ‘On certain “Starrs,” or Jewish Documents, partly relating to
Northallerton’ Yorkshire Archaelogical and Topographical Journal, 3, 55–63.
13 Birnbaum, E. (1960), ‘Starrs of Aaron of York in the Dean and Chapter Muniments
in Durham’, TJHSE, 19, 199–205.
14 Blaauw, W. H. (1856),‘Dureford Abbey – its fortunes and misfortunes’, Sussex
Archaeological Collections, 8, 55–6, 62.
15 Jacobs, pp. 154–5.
16 Annales Theukesberia (RS 1863), p. 137. Abrahams B. L. (1894), ‘The debts and
houses of the Jews of Hereford in 1290’, TJHSE, 1, 139.
17 Hereford Cathedral Archives Mss. 335. Shelwick is approximately two miles
north-east of Hereford.
18 Hereford Cathedral Archives Mss. 334.
19 Hereford Cathedral Archives Mss. 1635.
20 Hereford Cathedral Archives Mss.110.
21 I am grateful to Dr Chris Briggs for these two references from King’s College
200 N O T E S T O PA G E S 1 0 2 – 1 0 6

Archives: KCA BAR/11 and KCA BAR/76. These properties were later granted
to Barnwell Priory.
22 PREJ 1, p. 157.
23 Worcester Cartulary, pp. 148–9.
24 Peterhouse, Cambridge, Treasury, Situs Collegii, A 26 now lost. Stokes, pp. 159–61.
25 SCBM, 1, 34.
26 Registrum Antiquissimum of the Cathedral Church of Lincoln (1935), ed. Foster,
C. W. and Major K., Lincoln Record Society, 3, 196–201.
27 Ibid., vol. 4, pp. 41, 68, 99, 130, 135, 173, 244–6; vol. 5, pp. 50, 102, 139, 140; vol.
6, pp. 25, 27, 60–62, 74, 116–17; vol. 7, pp. 33, 81, 91, 98, 155, 157, 173–4. Lincoln
Record Office Dean and Chapter Mss. (ii) 75/2/36, (ii) 75/2/37, (ii) 75/2/15.
28 Raban, S. (1985), ‘The land market and the aristocracy in the thirteenth century’,
in Greenway, D. et al. (eds), Tradition and Change, pp. 239–61.
29 Denholm-Young N. (1947), Richard of Cornwall, pp. 31, 68–9.
30 Ibid., pp. 21–2, 31–2. CCR 1242–1247, p. 393.
31 Denholm-Young N. (1947), Richard of Cornwall, pp. 69–70.
32 Ibid., p. 70.
33 Stokes, H. P. (1918), ‘The relationship between the Jews and the royal family
of England in the thirteenth century’, TJHSE, 8, 163–4. Biles, M. (1983), ‘The
indomitable belle: Eleanor of Provence’, in Bowers, R. H. (ed.), Seven studies
in medieval English history and other essays presented to Harold S. Snellgrove,
pp. 129–30. Howell M. (1987), ‘The resources of Eleanor of Provence as Queen
consort’, English Historical Review, 403, 375–6.
34 Howell, M. (1987), ‘The resources of Eleanor of Provence as Queen consort’,
English Historical Review, 403, 372–3.
35 Ibid., p. 376
36 Howell, M. (1998), Eleanor of Provence: queenship in thirteenth century England,
p. 277.
37 Mundill, R. R. (1999), ‘Medieval Anglo Jewry: Expulsion and Exodus’, in
Judenvertreibungen in Mittelalter und früher Neuzeit, Hrsg. Friedhelm Burgard,
Alfred Haverkamp, Gerd Mentgen, Forschungen Zur Geschichte Der Juden,
Abteilung A: Abhandlungen: Band 9, 89.
38 Howell, M. (1998), Eleanor of Provence: queenship in thirteenth century England,
pp. 299–301.
39 See Chapter Four above. Langmuir, G. I. (1972), ‘The Knight’s Tale of Young Hugh
of Lincoln’, Speculum, 47, 465–6.
40 Mundill, pp. 63–7.
41 Mundill, R. R. (1993), ‘The Jewish entries from the Patent Rolls’, JHS, 32, 64–5,
75–6, 85.
42 Stokes, H. P. (1918), ‘The relationship between the Jews and the royal family of
England in the thirteenth century’, TJHSE, 8, 166. Parsons, J. C. (1995), Eleanor
of Castile: Queen and society in thirteenth century England, p. 140.
43 Stokes, pp. 35–7.
44 Stokes, H. P. (1918), ‘The relationship between the Jews and the royal family of
 N O T E S T O PA G E S 1 0 6 – 1 0 9 201

England in the thirteenth century’, TJHSE, 8, 164–7. Mundill, R. R. (1993), ‘The

Jewish entries from the Patent Rolls’, JHS, 32, 72, 86.
45 Byerly, B. F. (1986), Records of the Wardrobe and Household 1286–1289, HMSO,
London, pp. xiii–xiv. Parsons, J. C. (1995), Eleanor of Castile: Queen and society
in thirteenth century England, pp. 121–3.
46 Stokes, H. P. (1918), ‘The relationship between the Jews and the royal family
of England in the thirteenth century’, TJHSE, 8, 164–7, 167–8. Parsons, J. C.
(1995), Eleanor of Castile: Queen and society in thirteenth century England,
pp. 128–35.
47 Langmuir, G. I. (1963), ‘Jews and archives of medieval England – reflections on
anti-semitism’, Traditio, 19, 214–21.
48 Maitland, F. W. (1952), History of English Law, 1, 475.
49 Richardson, p. 94.
50 Harding, A. (1993), England in the thirteenth century, pp. 92–3.
51 Richardson, pp. 100–2, 270–80.
52 Coss, P. R. (1975), ‘Sir Geoffrey de Langley and the crisis of the knightly class
in thirteenth century England’, Past and Present, 68, 7–16. Howell, M. (1998),
Eleanor of Provence: queenship in thirteenth century England, p. 116.
53 Coss, P. R. (1975), ‘Sir Geoffrey de Langley and the crisis of the knightly class in
thirteenth century England’, Past and Present, 68, 19.
54 Trehearne, R. E. and Sanders, I. J. (eds) (1973), Documents of the Baronial
Movement of Reform and Rebellion 1258–67, p. 87.
55 Coss, P. R. (1975), ‘Sir Geoffrey de Langley and the crisis of the knightly class in
thirteenth century England’, Past and Present, 68, 34.
56 Meekings, C. A. F. (1981), Studies in thirteenth century justice and administration,
pp. lxiv–v.
57 Harding, A. (1993), England in the thirteenth century, p. 242.
58 Highfield, J. R. L. (1964), The Early Rolls of Merton College Oxford, Oxford
Historical Society, 43, 34–6.
59 Roth, C. (1957), ‘Oxford Starrs’, Oxoniensia, 22, 65.
60 Tawney, R. H. (1937), Religion and the rise of capitalism.
61 Mannix, P. (2001) A topography of the medieval Jewry in Oxford, with particular
reference to the transfer of Jewish real estate into non-Jewish hand 1262–1290,
MPhil thesis, University of Cambridge, pp. 92–3.
62 Highfield, J. R. L. (1964), The Early Rolls of Merton College Oxford, Oxford
Historical Society, 43, 34–6.
63 Roth, C. (1957), ‘Oxford Starrs’, Oxoniensia, 22, 68.
64 Highfield, J. R. L. (1964), The Early Rolls of Merton College Oxford, Oxford
Historical Society, 43, 35. Howell, M. (1998), Eleanor of Provence: queenship in
thirteenth century England, p. 208. Williams, G. A. (1963), Medieval London: from
Commune to Capital, p. 224.
65 Rigg, pp.  xlviii–li. Denholm-Young N. (1947), Richard of Cornwall, p.  143.
Prestwich, M. (1988), Edward I, p. 62.
66 Rigg, pp. l–lv.
202 N O T E S T O PA G E S 1 0 9 – 1 1 5

67 Salzman, L. F., (1968), Edward I, p. 55.

68 Harding, A. (2004–5), ‘Burnell Robert (d.1292), administrator and bishop of Bath
and Wells’, in Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford Online.
69 Ibid. See also T. F. Tout’s entry in the old Dictionary of National Biography, vol. 7,
edited by Stephen L. (1886) pp.  386–9. Calendar Inquisitions Post Mortem, 3,
44–51.
70 CPR 1266–1272, p. 67. PREJ1, p. 162. Burnell also bought up two debts owed to
Jews Isaac de Provyns and Aaron de la Rye by Master John de la Lade, deceased
(CPR 1275, p. 98).
71 Rokeah, p. 100.
72 Ibid., p. 111.
73 CPR 1276, p. 142.
74 PREJ3, pp. 141–6. It is clear that Burnell retired from court on 7 September 1276.
CPR 1276, p. 160.
75 Mundill, R. R. (1997), ‘Rabbi Elias Menahem: a late thirteenth-century English
entrepreneur’, JHS, 34, 170–1.
76 Ibid., p. 173.
77 Rokeah, Z. E. (2000), Medieval English Jews and Royal Officials: entries of Jewish
interest in the English Memoranda Rolls, 1266–1293, pp. 94–8.
78 Brand, P. (1985), ‘Edward I and the Judges: the “State Trials” of 1289–93’, in Coss,
P. R. and Lloyd, S. D. (eds) (1985), Thirteenth Century England: Proceedings of the
Newcastle upon Tyne Conference, 1, 31–40.
79 Denholm Young, N. (1937), Seignorial Administration in England, p. 84, note 4,
gives various estimates and the sum of £12,666 17s 7d in cash alone.
80 The Red Book of the Exchequer (1896), 3 (RS 99), p. cccxxiii and following.
81 Calendar of Ancient Deeds, 4, 92, No. 6876.
82 Calendar of Ancient Deeds, 4, 92, No. 6920.
83 Mundill, R. R. (1990), ‘Anglo-Jewry under Edward I – Credit agents and their
clients’, JHS, 31, 1.
84 Mundill, R. R. (2002), ‘Christian and Jewish lending patterns and financial
dealings’, in Schofield & Mayhew, pp. 52–3.
85 McNall, C. (2002), ‘The business of statutory debt registries, 1283–1307’, in
Schofield & Mayhew, p. 82.
86 Bowers, R. H. (1983), ‘From rolls to riches: kings clerks and moneylending in
thirteenth-century England’, Speculum, 58, 63.
87 Statutes of the Realm, 1, 53.
88 Hyams, P. R. (1970), ‘The origins of a peasant land market in England’, Economic
History Review, 23, 30. Postan, M. M. (1972), The medieval economy and society,
pp. 152–3.
89 Mundill, R. R. (2002), ‘Christian and Jewish lending patterns and financial
dealings’, in Schofield & Mayhew, pp. 42–5. Mundill, R. R. (1997), ‘Rabbi Elias
Menahem: a late thirteenth-century English entrepreneur’, JHS, 34, 179.
90 Elman, P. (1936), Jewish finance in thirteenth century England with special reference
to royal taxation, MA thesis, University of London, pp. 112–13. Hillaby, J. (1985),
 N O T E S T O PA G E S 1 1 5 – 1 2 0 203

‘Hereford Gold: Irish Welsh and English land – the Jewish community at Hereford
and its clients 1179–1253: Four Case studies’, 2, 45, Transactions of the Woolhope
Naturalists Field Club, 1, 193–270. Mundill, p. 216.
91 Kaueper, R. W. (1973), Bankers to the Crown: the Riccardi of Lucca and Edward I,
pp. 28–9, 34, 60–5.
92 The Works of Giraldus Cambrensis, vols I–VIII, ed. Brewer, J. S., Dimmock, J. F.
and Warner, G. F. (RS 1861–91), 6, 146. Mundill, R. R. (1993), ‘The Jewish entries
from the Patent Rolls’, JHS, 32, 63.
93 Mundill, R. R. (1997), ‘Rabbi Elias Menahem: a late thirteenth-century English
entrepreneur’, JHS, 34, 166.
94 Mundill, pp. 160–1, 191, 195, 207, 235. Mundill, R. R. (2003), ‘Edward I and the
Final Phase of Anglo-Jewry’, in JMB, pp. 64–5.
95 Mundill, R. R. (2003), ‘Changing fortunes: Edwardian Anglo-Jewry and their credit
operations in late thirteenth-century England’, Haskins Society Journal, 14, 85.
96 Mundill, pp. 244–6.
97 TNA E/101/250/12. Mundill, R. R. (2003), ‘Changing fortunes: Edwardian Anglo-
Jewry and their credit operations in late thirteenth-century England’, Haskins
Society Journal, 14, 84.
98 Ibid.
99 Mundill, R. R. (2003), ‘Edward I and the Final Phase of Anglo-Jewry’, in JMB, p. 67.
100 See Chapter One above.
101 Mundill, R. R. (2003), ‘The medieval Anglo-Jewish community: organisation and
royal control’, in Jüdische Gemeinden und ihr christlicher Kontext in kulturräumlich
vergleichender Betrachtung von der Spätantike bis zum 18. Jahrhundert Hrsg. Cluse
C., Haverkamp A., Yuval I. J., Forschungen Zur Geschichte Der Juden, Abteilung
A: Abhandlungen: Band 13, 275.
102 Mundill, p. 131.
103 See Chapter One above.
104 Froude, J. A. (1959), ‘A Bishop of the Twelfth Century’, Lincoln Minster Pamphlets,
1, 32.
105 Lincoln Record Office MCD.501 (a copy of TNA C/85/99).
106 Trachtenberg, J. (1943), The Devil and the Jews, p. 212. Jacobs, p. 199.
107 Episcopal Registers of Richard de Swinfield Canterbury and York Society, 6,
120–1.
108 TNA E/101/250/12. Roth, C. (1957), ‘Oxford Starrs’, Oxoniensia, 22, 66–7.
109 Adler, M. (1942), ‘Benedict the Gildsman of Winchester’, Misc JHSE, 4, 1–8.
110 Jacobs, J. (1896), ‘Aaron son of the Devil’, in Jacobs, J., Jewish ideals and other
essays, pp. 225–33.
111 Dobson, R. B. (1993), ‘The Jews of Cambridge’, JHS, 32, 13.
112 Rokeah, Z. E. (1984), ‘Crime and Jews in late thirteenth century England: some
cases and comments’, Hebrew Union College Annual, 55, 117.
113 Ibid., p.  119. Rokeah, Z. E. (1982), ‘The Jewish Church-robbers and Host
Desecrators of Norwich (ca.1285)’, Revue des Etudes Juives, 141, 348–51. Much
of what follows is drawn from the work of Dr Z. E. Rokeah.
204 N O T E S T O PA G E S 1 2 0 – 1 2 8

114 Rokeah, Z. E. (1984), ‘Crime and Jews in late thirteenth century England: some
cases and comments’, Hebrew Union College Annual, 55, 108.
115 Ibid., 107.
116 Ibid., 122. Mundill, R. R. (1997), ‘Rabbi Elias Menahem: a late thirteenth-century
English entrepreneur’, JHS, 34, 163.
117 Rokeah, Z. E. (1984), ‘Crime and Jews in late thirteenth century England: some
cases and comments’, Hebrew Union College Annual, 55, 126–7.

Notes to Chapter 6: Church and Synagogue

1 Ross, J., Annales Lincolniensis, 3, 248–9. Wilkins, D. (1837), Concilia Magnae

Britanniae, 2, p. 180.
2 Edwards, L. (1958), ‘Some examples of the medieval representation of church and
synagogue’, TJHSE, 8, 63–77.
3 The three Es – Evangelism, Encouragement, Education – are still used today by the
Church Mission to the Jews, an organisation inspired by Wilberforce and Shaftesbury.
4 Malmesbury, Gesta, 1, p. 563.
5 Resnick, I. M. (1996), ‘The falsification of scripture and medieval Christian and
Jewish polemics’, Medieval Encounters, 2, 346–8. Abulafia, A. S. (1995), Christians
and Jews in the twelfth-century Renaissance, pp. 63–6.
6 Jacobs, pp. 7–12. Abulafia, A. S. (1984), ‘An attempt by Gilbert Crispin, abbot
of Westminster, at rational argument in the Jewish-Christian debate’, Studia
Monastica, 26, 55–74.
7 Hunt, R. W. (1948), ‘The Disputation of Peter of Cornwall against Symon the
Jew’, in Hunt, R. W., Pantin, W. A. and Southern, R. W. (eds), Studies in Medieval
History presented to Frederick Maurice Powicke, pp. 143–6.
8 Resnick, I. M. (1996), ‘The falsification of scripture and medieval Christian and
Jewish polemics’, Medieval Encounters, 2, 349. Abulafia, A. S. (1995), Christians
and Jews in the twelfth-century Renaissance, pp. 87–6, 91–2.
9 Resnick, I. M. (1996), ‘The falsification of scripture and medieval Christian and
Jewish polemics’, Medieval Encounters, 2, 349.
10 Hunt, R. W. (1948), ‘The Disputation of Peter of Cornwall against Symon the
Jew’, in Hunt, R. W., Pantin, W. A. and Southern, R. W. (eds), Studies in Medieval
History presented to Frederick Maurice Powicke, p. 147.
11 Chazan, R. (1989), Daggers of Faith: thirteenth-century Christian missionising and
Jewish response, p. 33.
12 Abrahams, B. L. (1894), ‘The Expulsion of the Jews from England in 1290’, JQR,
7, 432. Grayzel, S. (1966), The Church and the Jews in the XIIIth Century, p. 243.
13 Cohen, J., (1982), The Friars and the Jews: the evolution of Medieval anti-Judaism,
pp. 68–9.
14 Abrahams, B. L. (1894), ‘The Expulsion of the Jews from England in 1290’, JQR,
7, 432. Cohen, J. (1982), The Friars and the Jews: the evolution of Medieval anti-
Judaism, p. 63.
 N O T E S T O PA G E S 1 2 8 – 1 3 3 205

15 Grayzel, S. (1966), The Church and the Jews in the XIIIth Century, New York,
pp. 250–3.
16 Cohen, J., (1982), The Friars and the Jews: the evolution of Medieval anti-Judaism, p. 76.
17 Grayzel, S. (1962), ‘The Papal Bull Sicut Judeis’, in Ben-Horin, M., Weinryb, B.
D. and Zeitlin, S. (eds), Studies and Essays in Honor of Abraham A. Neuman,
pp. 243–79.
18 Stow, K. R. (ed.) (1989), The Church and the Jews in the XIIIth Century (1254–
1314), p. 122.
19 Cohen, J. (1982), The Friars and the Jews: the evolution of Medieval anti-Judaism,
pp. 48–9.
20 Friedman, L. M. (1934), Robert Grosseteste and the Jews, p. 11.
21 Paris, M., Chronica Majora, 4, 233. Friedman, L. M. (1934), Robert Grosseteste and
the Jews, pp. 8, 22.
22 Friedman, L. M. (1934), Robert Grosseteste and the Jews, pp. 12–18.
23 Roth, C. (1951), The Jews of Medieval Oxford, pp. 130–1.
24 Friedman, L. M. (1934), Robert Grosseteste and the Jews, pp. 12–18.
25 Grayzel, S. (1966), The Church and the Jews in the XIIIth Century, p. 83.
26 Much of what follows comes from the magisterial work of Solomon Grayzel.
Grayzel, S. (1966), The Church and the Jews in the XIIIth Century, pp. 1, 25.
27 Chazan, R. (1979), Church State and Jew in the Middle Ages, p. 198.
27 Ibid., pp. 32, 307, 309, 331, 344–5.
28 Parkes, J. (1938), The Jew in the Medieval Community, pp. 281–7.
29 Roth, C. (1951), The Jews of Medieval Oxford, p. 19.
30 Maitland, F. W. (1912), ‘The deacon and the Jewess: or apostasy at common law’,
TJHSE, 6, 269.
31 Paris, M., Historia, 2, 254.
32 Paris, M., Chronica Majora, 3, 71.
33 Annals of Dunstable, Annales Monastici, 3, 76.
34 Maitland, F. W. (1912), ‘The deacon and the Jewess: or apostasy at common law’,
TJHSE, 6, 266.
35 Watt, J. A. (1987), ‘The English episcopate, the state and the Jews: the evidence of the
thirteenth century conciliar decrees’, in Coss, P. R. and Lloyd, S. D. (eds), Thirteenth
Century England: Proceedings of the Newcastle upon Tyne Conference, 2, 139.
36 Roth, p. 40. Wilkins, D. (1837), Concilia Magnae Britanniae, 1, 591. Watt, J. A.
(1987), ‘The English episcopate, the state and the Jews: the evidence of the
thirteenth century conciliar decrees’, in Coss, P. R. and Lloyd, S. D. (eds), Thirteenth
Century England: Proceedings of the Newcastle upon Tyne Conference, 2, 140.
37 Watt, J. A. (1987), ‘The English episcopate, the state and the Jews: the evidence
of the thirteenth century conciliar decrees’, in Coss, P. R. and Lloyd, S. D. (eds),
Thirteenth Century England: Proceedings of the Newcastle upon Tyne Conference,
2, 141.
38 Abrahams, B. L. (1894), ‘The Expulsion of the Jews from England in 1290’, JQR,
7, 436. Grayzel, S. (1966), The Church and the Jews in the XIIIth Century, p. 315.
39 Watt, J. A. (1987), ‘The English episcopate, the state and the Jews: the evidence
206 N O T E S T O PA G E S 1 3 3 – 1 3 7

of the thirteenth century conciliar decrees’, in Coss, P. R. and Lloyd, S. D. (eds),

Thirteenth Century England: Proceedings of the Newcastle upon Tyne Conference,
2, 139.
40 Cohen, J. (1982), The Friars and the Jews: the evolution of Medieval anti-Judaism,
pp. 37–40.
41 Bartlett, R. (2000), England under the Norman and Angevin Kings, p. 441.
42 Friedman, L. M. (1934), Robert Grosseteste and the Jews, p. 11.
43 Stokes, pp. 113, 144.
44 CCR 1234–7, p. 383.
45 Sonder-Seckondorff, E. M. F. (1937), Studies in the life of Robert Kilwardby, O.P.,
p. 59. Cohen, J. (1982), The Friars and the Jews: the evolution of Medieval anti-
Judaism, p. 42.
46 Little, A. G. (1922), ‘Friar Henry of Wodstone and the Jews’, in Collectanea
Franciscana, 2 (British Society of Franciscan Studies, 10), pp. 150–6.
47 Vincent, N. C. (1996), Peter des Roches: an alien in English politics, 1205–1238,
p.  289. Fogle, L. (2007), ‘The Domus Conversorum – the personal interest of
Henry III’, JHS, 41, 1–7. Hillaby, J. (2009), ‘A Domus Conversorum at Bristol?’,
JHS, 42, 1–5.
48 Vincent, N. C. (1996), Peter des Roches: an alien in English politics, 1205–1238,
pp. 179–80, 241.
49 Ibid., p. 289.
50 Adler, M., (1903), ‘History of the Domus Conversorum from 1290–1891’, TJHSE,
4, 279, 282, 340.
51 Stacey, R. C. (1992), ‘The Conversion of Jews to Christianity in Thirteenth-
Century England’, Speculum, 67, 268.
52 Adler, M. (1903), ‘History of the Domus Conversorum from 1290–1891’, TJHSE,
4, 283. Adler says des Roches bequeathed this sum but Vincent apparently says
he did not; see Greatrex, J. (1992), ‘Monastic charity for Jewish converts: the
requisition of corrodies by Henry III’, in Wood, D. (ed.), Christianity and Judaism
(Studies in Church History, 29), p. 136, note 14. Gerald of Wales (RS 7), p. 227.
53 Adler, M. (1903), ‘History of the Domus Conversorum from 1290–1891’, TJHSE,
4, 284, 286, 291.
54 Ibid., pp. 285–6, 290. Stacey, R. C. (1992), ‘The Conversion of Jews to Christianity
in Thirteenth-Century England’, Speculum, 67, 267.
55 Greatrex, J. (1992), ‘Monastic Charity for Jewish converts: the requisition of
corrodies by Henry III’, in Wood, D. (ed.), Christianity and Judaism (Studies in
Church History, 29), pp. 136–7. Roth, C. (1951), The Jews of Medieval Oxford, p. 25.
56 Adler, M. (1903), ‘History of the Domus Conversorum from 1290–1891’, TJHSE,
4, 343–4.
57 Ibid. pp. 292–6.
58 Roth, C. (1951), The Jews of Medieval Oxford, p. 148.
59 Brand, P. (2000), ‘Jews and the Law in England, 1275—90’, English Historical
Review, 115, 1151–2.
60 Roth, C. (1951), The Jews of Medieval Oxford, pp. 151–4. Cluse, C. (1995), ‘Stories
 N O T E S T O PA G E S 1 3 7 – 1 4 2 207

of breaking and taking the cross: a possible context for the Oxford incident of
1268’, Revue d’Histoire Ecclesiastique, 90, 396–7.
61 Cluse, C. (1995), ‘Stories of breaking and taking the cross: a possible context for
the Oxford incident of 1268’, Revue d’Histoire Ecclesiastique, 90, 397.
62 Ibid., p. 400.
63 CCR 1264–8, pp. 553–4.
64 Cluse, C. (1995), ‘Stories of breaking and taking the cross: a possible context for
the Oxford incident of 1268’, Revue d’Histoire Ecclesiastique, 90, 422–3.
65 CCR 1275, p. 207.
66 Mundill, p. 292.
67 Logan, F. D. (1972), ‘Thirteen London Jews and conversion to Christianity’,
Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, 45, 221, 223–4.
68 Mundill, R. R. (1993), ‘The Jewish entries from the Patent Rolls 1272–1292’, JHS,
32, 68–9.
69 Adler, M. (1903), ‘History of the Domus Conversorum from 1290–1891’, TJHSE,
4, 300.
70 Logan, F. D. (1972), ‘Thirteen London Jews and conversion to Christianity’,
Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, 45, 215.
71 Pecham, Epistolae, 1, 212–13.
72 Pecham, Epistolae, 2, 407.
73 Logan, F. D. (1972), ‘Thirteen London Jews and conversion to Christianity’,
Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, 45, p. 217.
74 Ibid., pp. 215–16, 226.
75 Stow, K. R. (ed.) (1989), The Church and the Jews in the XIIIth Century (1254–1314),
pp. 155–64. Abrahams, B. L. (1894), ‘The Expulsion of the Jews from England in
1290’, JQR, 7, 440–2. Prestwich, M. (1988), Edward I, pp. 233, 257.
76 Parkes, J. (1952), ‘Church and synagogue in the Middle Ages’, TJHSE, 25, p. 31.
77 CCR 1236, pp. 323, 383. Roth, C. (1951), The Jews of Medieval Oxford, pp. 24–5.
78 Logan, F. D. (1972), ‘Thirteen London Jews and conversion to Christianity’,
Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, 45, 217, 223. PREJ2, pp. 209–10.
79 Rotuli Parliamentorum, 1, p. 46, no. 7.
80 Lipman, pp. 59–62.
81 Cal. Inq. Misc, p. 171.
82 Lipman, pp. 59–61.
83 Roth, C. (1951), The Jews of Medieval Oxford, p. 45. PREJ3, pp. 311–12.
84 PREJ3, pp. 311–12.
85 Mundill, R. R., 1993, ‘The Jewish entries from the Patent Rolls 1272–1292’, JHS,
32, p. 60.
86 Calendar of Charter Rolls 1257–1300, p. 213.
87 Roth, C. (1949), The intellectual activities of medieval English Jewry, (British
Academy Supplemental Papers, 8), p. 74.
88 Ibid., p. 7.
89 Rabinowitz, p. 85.
90 Parkes, J. (1962), A history of the Jewish people, p. 73.
208 N O T E S T O PA G E S 1 4 3 – 1 4 9

91 Mundill, pp. 113–14.
92 Kaufmann, D. (1896), ‘Informers in the Middle Ages’, JQR, 8, p. 217.
93 Rabinowitz, pp. 104–5.
94 Katz, J. (1961), Exclusiveness and tolerance: studies in Jewish-Gentile relations in
medieval and modern times, pp. 67, 68, 93–7.
95 Dobson, R. B. (1993), ‘The Jews of Cambridge’, JHS, 32, p. 15.

Notes to Chapter 7: Dissolution and Diaspora

1 Denholm-Young, N. (1946), ‘The merchants of Cahors’, Medievalia et Humanistica,

4, 39–42.
2 Langmuir, G. I. (1980), ‘Tamquam Servi: the change in Jewish status in French
law about 1200’, in Yardeni, M. (ed.), Les Juifs dans le’histoire de France, pp. 27, 31.
3 Ibid., p. 34.
4 Baron, S. W. (1962), ‘Medieval nationalism and Jewish serfdom’, in Ben-Horin,
M. et al. (eds), Studies and essays in honor of Abraham A. Neuman, p. 32.
5 Friedman, L. M. (1934), Robert Grosseteste and the Jews, p. 18.
6 Prynne, W. (1656), A short demurrer against the Jews, p. 128.
7 Dubnow, S. (1967–73), A History of the Jews, 3, 134–5.
8 Jacobs, p. xix. Gross, C. (1887), ‘The Exchequer of the Jews of England in the
Middle Ages’, Papers given at the Anglo-Jewish Historical Exhibition, pp. 192–4,
205. Roth, pp. 96, 38–67.
9 Arkin, M. (1955), ‘When the Jewish goose stopped laying the golden eggs’, Jewish
Affairs, 10, part 3, 16–20.
10 Langmuir, G. I. (1980), ‘Tamquam Servi: the change in Jewish status in French
law about 1200’, in Yardeni M. (ed.), Les Juifs dans le’histoire de France, p. 37.
11 Mundill, p. 291.
12 Rigg, p. xi.
13 Brand, P. R. (2000), ‘Jews and the law in England 1275–90’, English Historical
Review, 115, 1138–9. Richardson, pp.  109–11. Hillaby, J. (2003), ‘Jewish
Colonisation in the Twelfth Century’, in JMB, pp. 25–9.
14 William of Newburgh, Historia rerum Anglicarum, ed. Howlett, 1, 280.
15 Jacobs, pp. 134–7. Rigg, p. xii.
16 See Chapter Three above.
17 Baron, S. W. (1962), ‘Medieval nationalism and Jewish serfdom’, in Ben-Horin,
M. et al. (eds), Studies and essays in honor of Abraham A. Neuman, p. 33.
18 Clanchy, M. T. (1979), From Memory to written Record: England 1066–1307, p. 69.
19 Jacobs, pp. 206–7.
20 Jacobs, p. 215.
21 Holt, J. C. (1961), The Northerners, pp. 164–8.
22 Roth, p. 34.
23 Holt, J. C. (1961), The Northerners, p. 167. Adler, M. (1928), ‘The Jews of Bristol
in Pre-Expulsion days’, TJHSE, 12, 141.
 N O T E S T O PA G E S 1 4 9 – 1 5 5 209

24 Roth, p. 35.
25 Holt, J. C. (1961), The Northerners, p. 165.
26 Adler, M. (1928), ‘The Jews of Bristol in Pre-Expulsion days’, TJHSE, 12, 141–3.
27 Roth, p. 35. Hillaby, J. (2003), ‘Jewish Colonisation in the Twelfth Century’, in
JMB, p. 35.
28 Roth, pp. 33–4.
29 Adler, M. (1928), ‘The Jews of Bristol in Pre-Expulsion days’, TJHSE, 12, 144.
30 Ibid. CCR 1215, p. 186.
31 Roth, pp. 35–6. Hillaby, J. (2003), ‘Jewish Colonisation in the Twelfth Century’, in
JMB, p. 35. Jordan, W. C. (1989), The French Monarchy and the Jews, p. 69.
32 Stacey, R. C. (2003), ‘The English Jews under Henry III’, in JMB, pp. 43–4.
33 Richardson, p. 294.
34 Stacey, R. C. (1985), ‘Royal Taxation and the Social Structure of Mediaeval Anglo-
Jewry: The Tallages of 1239–1242’, Hebrew Union College Annual, 56, 175–249.
Stacey, R. C. (1988), ‘1240–1260: a watershed in Anglo-Jewish Relations?’, Bulletin
of the Institute of Historical Research, 61, 135–50.
35 Rigg, pp. xxix, xlviii–xlix.
36 Brand, P. R. (2000), ‘Jews and the law in England 1275–90’, English Historical
Review, 115, 1139.
37 Rigg, pp. xlviii–xlix.
38 Paris, M. Chronica Majora, 5, 487 and following. Baron, S. W. (1962), ‘Medieval
nationalism and Jewish serfdom’, in Ben-Horin, M. et al. (eds), Studies and essays
in honor of Abraham A. Neuman, p. 34.
39 Paris, M., Historia Anglorum, 3, 334. Tovey, D’Bloissiers (1738), Anglia Judaica,
pp. 133–4.
40 Rigg, pp. xlviii–lv.
41 CCR 1272–1279, p. 144.
42 CCR 1272–1279, p. 130. TNA SC 8/219/10901.
43 Mundill, R. R. (2003), ‘Edward I and the final phase of Anglo-Jewry’, in JMB,
pp. 57–8.
44 Mundill, p. 124. Originally termed as such by V. D. Lipman.
45 Watt, J. A. (1991), ‘The Jews, the Law, and the Church: the concept of Jewish
serfdom in thirteenth-century England’, Studies in Church History, Subsidia, 9,
pp. 159–61. Mundill, pp. 119–21.
46 Mundill, pp. 291–3.
47 See Chapter Six above.
48 Mundill, p. 252.
49 Pecham, J., Registrum Epistolarum Archiepiscopi Cantuariensis, 2, 454.
50 Triveti, N., Annales, pp. 312–13.
51 Morris, M. (2008), A Great and Terrible King, p.  208. Salzman, L. F. (1968),
Edward I, pp. 84–5.
52 Wilkins, D. (1737), Concilia Magnae Britanniae, 3, 155.
53 Rokeah, Z. E. (2001), ‘An Anglo-Jewish assembly or “mini-parliament” in 1287’,
in Prestwich, M. et al. (eds), Thirteenth Century England VIII, p. 79.
210 N O T E S T O PA G E S 1 5 5 – 1 6 2

54 Rokeah, Entry 1134, pp. 346–7.

55 Ibid., Entry 1175, pp. 363–4.
56 Morris, M. (2008), A Great and Terrible King, p. 221.
57 Mundill, pp. 280–1.
58 Richardson, p. 228.
59 TNA C/255/18 Numbers 9–12 are writs which were sent out on 11 June telling
the sheriffs to close the archae on 28 June 1290.
60 CPR 1281–1301, pp.  95–6. Jordan, W. C. (2008), ‘Administering Expulsion in
1290’, Jewish Studies Quarterly, 15, 241–4.
61 TNA E/101/250/11. TNA E/101/250/12.
62 BL Ms Cotton Nero D. II, f.183v Chronica Roffense.
63 CPR 1281–1301, p. 378.
64 CPR 1281–1301, p. 381.
65 CPR 1281–1301, p. 382.
66 The register of John Le Romeyn 1286–1296 (1913), 1, Surtees Society, 21–2. Rapin,
T. P. (1733), Acta Regia, 1, 364. CCR 1288–1296, p. 295.
67 CPR 1281–1301, pp. 379, 381. Rokeah, Entries 1210–12, pp. 376–7.
68 Walter of Hemingburgh, Chronicon (1848), English Historical Society, pp. 21–2.
Rapin, T. P (1733), Acta Regia, 364. CCR 1288–1296, p. 295.
69 Prestwich, M. C. (1988), Edward I, p. 346. Rokeah, Z. E. (1984), ‘Crime and Jews
in late thirteenth century England: some cases and comments’, Hebrew Union
College Annual, 55, 131–2. Rokeah, Entries 1236 and 1244, pp. 393–4, 398–9.
70 Adler, M. (1939), The Jews of Medieval England, p. 306. Stacey, R. C. (1992), ‘The
conversion of Jews to Christianity in thirteenth century England’, Speculum, 67, 283.
71 Elman, P. (1937), ‘The economic causes of the Expulsion of the Jews in 1290’,
Economic History Review, 8, 145–54. Stacey, R. C. (1987), ‘Recent work on
Medieval English Jewish History’, Jewish History, 2, 67–8. Stacey, R. C. (1997),
‘Parliamentary Negotiation and the Expulsion of the Jews from England’, in
Britnell, R. H., Frame, R. and Prestwich, M. (eds), Thirteenth Century England
VI, pp. 77–101.
72 Tout, T. F. (1920), Edward I, pp.  162–3. Powicke, F. M. (1962), The thirteenth
century, 2nd edn, p. 513. Stacey, R. C. (1987), ‘Recent work on Medieval English
Jewish History’, Jewish History, 2, pp. 67–8.
73 Morris, M. (2008), A Great and Terrible King, p.  228. Morris relies much on
Huscroft, R. (2006), Expulsion: England’s Jewish Solution, passim.
74 Stow, K. R. (1992), Alienated minority: the Jews of medieval Latin Europe, p. 290.
Mundill, pp. 260–8.
75 Huscroft, R. (2006), Expulsion: England’s Jewish Solution, p. 160. Mundill, R. R.
(1998), England’s Jewish Solution: Experiment and Expulsion 1262–1290, p. 260.
76 TNA E/101/250/2-12.
77 Statutes of the Realm, 1, 255.
78 TNA E/101/250/1. BL Additional MS 24,511 fos. 48–9.
79 Condition, p. 105. BL Lansdowne 826, 4, fos. 28–64. These streets are quite close
to Coney Street, Fetter Lane and New Street.
 N O T E S T O PA G E S 1 6 3 – 1 6 6 211

80 Details of the properties are taken from TNA E/101/249/ 27 and 30. Playford,
Rotulorum, 1, 73–6.
81 Dobson, R. B. (1979), ‘The decline and expulsion of the medieval Jews of York’,
TJHSE, 26, 48.
82 BL Additional MS 24,511 fos. 48–9.
83 TNA E/401/115, TNA E/401/117, TNA E/401/119.
84 Canterbury Cathedral Archive Eastry Correspondence, 4, 13. CCR 1288–1296,
p. 368.
85 BL Lansdowne MS 826, 4, fos. 28–64.
86 Fortieth annual report of the Deputy Keeper of Public Records (1879), p. 474.
Ashbee, J. (2004), ‘The Tower of London and the Jewish expulsion of 1290’,
Transactions of the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society, 55, 35–7.
87 Loeb, I. (1880), ‘Le role des Juives de Paris’, Revue des études Juives, 1, 60–74.
88 Jordan, W. C. (1989), The French monarchy and the Jews, pp. 183–4.
89 Dobson, R. B. (1979), ‘The decline and expulsion of the medieval Jews of York’,
TJHSE, 26, 45. Chazan, R. (1973), Medieval Jewry in northern France, pp. 183–4.
90 Shatzmiller, J. (1990), Shylock reconsidered, pp. 16, 47–8.
91 Roth, pp. 87–8.
92 Adler, E. N. (1921), Catalogue of Hebrew Mss in the collection of E. N. Adler,
pp. v–vi.
93 Chronicles of the Reigns of Edward I and Edward II, Commendatio Lamentabilis,
2, 14.
94 Wilkins, D. (1737), Concilia Magnae Britanniae, 2, 180.
95 Guide to St Michael’s Church, Hackthorn (1979).
This page intentionally left blank
 Manuscript sources

Cambridge University Library

Pembroke College MS 59

King’s College, Cambridge, Archives

KCA BAR/11, KCA BAR/76

Canterbury Cathedral Muniments

Charta Antiqua manuscripts A 68, A 90, A 93, A 770
Eastry Correspondence, 4, 13

Hereford Cathedral Library

MS 110, 334, 335, 1635

Hereford Record Office

Bailiffs Accounts 1272–91

Lincoln Public Library

Ross Collection Annales Lincolniensis

Lincoln Record Office

Dean and Chapter Mss (ii) 75/2/36, (ii) 75/2/37, (ii) 75/2/15

Foster Library Transcripts

MCD.501 (a copy of TNA C/85/99)

London: British Library

Additional MS 24,511 fos. 48–9
Cotton Nero D.II f.183v
Lansdowne 826, 4, fos. 28–64
214 MANUSCRIPT SOURCES

London: The National Archive

Chancery
C/255 Tower and Rolls Chapel Series Miscellanea
Exchequer
E/101 Kings Remembrancer, Accounts Various
Exchequer of Receipt
E/401 Receipt Rolls
Justices Itinerant
Just.Itin./1 Assize Rolls
Special Collections
SC.1 Ancient Correspondence
SC.8 Ancient Petitions
SC.11 Rentals and Surveys

Nottinghamshire County Record Office

MS M 24/182-8 The Lassman Papers

Salisbury Cathedral Library and Muniments

MSS 165 fos. 177a/b

Westminster Abbey Muniments

6719, 6720, 6722, 6723, 6724, 6744, 6783, 6784, 6795, 6797, 6799, 6800, 6831, 6838,
6844, 6846, 6847, 6849, 6859, 6860, 6866, 6869, 6870, 6888, 6889, 9002, 9015, 9074,
9076, 9079, 9081
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 Index

Aaron fil Vives 53, 106, 158 Aaron of York 46

Aaron of Lincoln 8, 21, 22, 23, 42, 79, 81, 114, Elias le Eveske 46
147, 148, 149, 159 Hagin fil Deulecresse 47
attorneys of 26 Hagin fil Magister Moses 46
death 27 Jacob 45, 46
debtors 26 Josce fil Copin 46
debts to 21–2 Josce of London 46
estate 26 Arlette (Mother of William Duke of Normandy)
House 29 4
lending to Jews 26 Ashkenazi 50, 55, 63
lending to monasteries 25 Ashover (Derbyshire) 107
Lincoln debtors 24–5 auto da fe 127–8
treasure 27 Avegaye wife of Isaac fil Jurnet of Norwich 70
Aaron of Sittingbourne 88
Aaron of York 81, 100, 108 Bacon, Roger 134, 136, 140
Aaron son of the Devil 119 Bakewell Hall (London) 53
Abigail, Dame (wife of Salle fil Josce) 44 Baldwin (Archbishop of Canterbury) 6, 27, 117
Abraham fil Deulecresse (Norwich) 115, 117, 142 Bartholomew of Exeter 127
Abraham Mouton 120 Barton (Cambridgeshire) 102
Abraham of Berkhamstead 69, 104 Bath 17
Acaster Malebis (Yorkshire) 81 beast of the chase 34, 118
Adam of Bristol 92–5 Bede’s House (Cambridge) 51
Adler, Michael 60 Bedford
Alphonsi, Petrus 126 disposal of property in 1290 161
Amesbury, Convent of 16 Bek, Anthony and Thomas 108
Andover 17 Belasset of Lincoln 90
annuities 109 house 29
Anselm 5 Bending, Peter de 99, 100
Antichrist 70 Benedict of Winchester 39, 40, 110, 112, 118,
Archa 12, 13, 15, 19, 20, 41, 47, 48, 88, 89, 90, 119
92, 100, 104, 105, 111, 112, 114, 115, 118, 122, Benedict of York 8, 29, 81
150, 152, 156, 157 death 79
Bedford 88 heirs 82
Bristol 88 Berengar 125
Canterbury 88 Berkhamstead 15, 104
confinement to 18 Berkshire 15
London 34, 46 Beth din 8, 59, 60
movement of archa towns 16, 105, 153 Bigod family 9
non-residence in 17 blasphemy 126, 141–2
Northampton 89 Blois 10, 65
system 28 Bodleian Ewer 65
Worcester 89 Bonamy of York 158, 160, 164
Archpresbyter of the Jews (Presbyter omnium bonds 28, 30, 31
Judeorum) 44, 45, 106 different types of 35–6
234 INDEX

Bonn, Ephraim of (Chronicler) 75, 76, 82 archa stolen from 47

Bourges, The Glassblower of 69 attacks during Baron’s wars 88
Bowers, Richard 114 Cathedral Priory 98, 99, 100, 117
Brakelond, Jocelin de (Chronicler) 77 disposal of property in 1290 160
Braybroc, Henry (Justice of the Jews) 47 early settlement 7
Braybrooke family 107 Eastbridge Hospital 52
Bread Street (Gloucestershire) 18 Heathenman’s Lane 52
Bridgenorth 16, 153 Herem ha yishuv 60
Bridport 90 Saracen’s Head 52
Bishop Giles of 133 Statute of 1233 15
Bristol Stour Street 52
Adam of 92 Castile, Eleanor of (Queen Mother) 47, 106,
Brandon 51 114
early settlement 8, 51 buying up manors 106
Jacob’s well 51 land in York 56
movement of Gloucester archa to 17 robe maker 52
Quay Street 51 Caversham 18
ritual murder at 74 cereal 39, 40, 102, 116
St Giles Church 51 Chancellors 109, 110, 111, 114, 118
St Mary Redcliffe 92 see also Burnell, Robert
Small Street 51 Longchamp, William de
tallage 12 Merton, Walter de
Winch Street 51 Walter, Hubert
Brittany, expulsion from 131 Chancery clerks 111
Buckinghamshire 15 Charoseth 62
Bungay 9 Chenduit, Stephen de 108
burial grounds 50, 53, 54, 56, 57, 147 Chirograph 30
Burnell Acton, Statute of 114 Chirographers 47, 48, 111, 112
Burnell, Robert (Chancellor) 109, 114, 118, 139 Cambridge Chirographer 51
Bursa Communis 59 Church Triumphant 123
Burton on Trent, Annals of 84 Civil War 42, 53, 57, 88
Bury St Edmunds 57, 77, 82 attacks on Jews 88–9
Abbot Sampson of 77 Baron’s wars 53, 57
assaults on Jews in 1190 77 burning of archae 88–9
expulsion from 77 post 90
ritual murder at 74, 77 Clare (Suffolk) 18
Clifford’s Tower 148
Cade, William 149 Cobham, Reginald of (Sheriff of Kent) 48
Cahorsin moneylenders 145 Cohn, Norman 43
Cambridge 17, 20, 51–2, 102, 134 Cohn-Sherbok, Daniel 60
All Saints 51 coin clipping 91–2
Bede’s House 51 allegations of 90, 92
Butter’s Row 51 Cok fil Cresse 49
disposal of property in 1290 160–1, 163 Cok, Hagin 109, 158
Domus Benjamin 51 Colchester 117, 119
Granchester Mill 109 assaults on Jews in 1190 77
Guildhall 51 disposal of property in 1290 160
Holy Sepulchre 51 High Street 52
Hospital of St John the Evangelist loan chest Pelham’s Lane 52
37–8, 51 property 29
Nuns of St Radegund 102 St Runwald’s 52
St John’s Lane 51 West Stockwell Street 52
St Peter without Trumpington 102 Coleworth, Richard de 110
Tolbooth 51 commodities 40, 116
Canterbury conversion 123, 132, 133, 138, 143, 153
All Saints 52 Jewish attitude to 143
 INDEX 235

stopping 140 Dominicans 87, 105, 127, 129, 134, 138, 141,
to Judaism 133–4 144, 154, 155
converts 46, 77, 79, 87, 127, 135 Domus Conversorum 134, 135, 138, 139, 144,
relapsed 139 150, 154
taking Christian names 136, 139 gifts to 135–6
Theobald of Cambridge 72 Donin, Nicolas 127
Copin 87 Dorchester 18
Cornhill family 23 Dunwich 18
Cornwall, Edmund of 106, 158
Cornwall Richard, Earl of 15, 87, 104, 152 Eck, Johann 125
Cornwall, Peter of (Prior of Holy Trinity Edward the Confessor 146
London) 126 Edward I 89, 90, 105, 108, 109, 112, 118, 137,
corrodies 102 138, 145, 147, 152, 153, 154, 155
Council Church visit to mother 16, 195
Exeter 155 Edwardian Experiment 40, 153, 156, 159
Fourth Lateran 48, 131 Elias Menahem 63, 64, 110, 115, 118, 139
London 166 Elias of Colchester 29
Lyon 132 Elias, Rabbi 152
Narbonne 131 Evesk, Elias le Archpresbyter 46
Oxford 133 Evesque family 105, 146, 158
Third Lateran 133 Exchequer of Aaron 21–2
Crespin, Aaron 111, 112 Exchequer of the Jews 28, 41, 44, 46, 110, 111,
Crespin, Benedict 113, 115 148
Cricklade 18,165 excommunication, Jewish 47
crime 119–22 Exeter 39, 117
Crispin, Benedict 99 Expulsion of the Jews 42, 64, 112, 123, 156–9
Crispin family 99 reasons for 159
Crispin, Gilbert (Abbot of Westminster) 5, 126
Crispin, Jacob 99 Farningham (Kent) 18
Cross, breaking of 137–8 Fawkes de Breauté 132
Crusades 48, 67, 75, 76, 78, 90, 101, 104, 130, fee debts 34, 109
131, 138, 147, 153, 155 Ferrant, John 120
Second Crusade 125 Ferrun, John de 111
Fisherton Anger 18
Darlington, John of 134 Fitz, John John 89
d’Aubigny family 107 Fitz, Nigel Richard 27
David of Oxford 56, 115 Fitz, Stephen William (Chronicler) 9
library of 142 Flanders, Count of 110
Dayville, John 89 Foliot, Richard 34, 118
debtors to Jews 115–6 forgery 112
Derby 16 Fossard family 81
Deulecresse fil Moses of Wallingford 69 Foxe, John (Book of Martyrs) 69
Devizes 17 France 128
disposal of property in 1290 160 exiled Jews in 164–5
Devizes, Richard of (Chronicler) 67, 76, 83 expulsions in 10
Devon 8 settlement in 13, 15
Diaspora 14, 125, 144 Franciscans 87, 127, 129, 134, 141, 142, 144, 156
Dieppe 27 in Cambridge 51
diet 62–3 French 83
Dieulecresse 4 King 127, 128
Digneuton, Hugh de 17 merchants 145
disinherited 89, 90 spoken 61
Disputation 124, 125, 126, 127 Fulham, Robert de (Justice of the Jews) 111
of a Jew with a Christian 5
Diss, Ralph of (Chronicler) 7, 76, 80 Gabbay 59
Dobson, Barrie 1, 43, 82, 144 Gascony 112, 140, 145, 154–5
236 INDEX

Gervase (Chronicler) 7, 88 Herem ha yishub 54, 60

Ghent, Gilbert de 149 Highworth 18
Ghent, Robert de 81 High Wycombe 15
Ghetto 12 Hillaby, Joe 9, 53
Gilbert de Clare 18, 88 Holt, James 148–9
Glanville, Ranulph 27 Honorius IV (Pope) 140
Gloucester Howell, Margaret 105
Earl of 47 Hyams, Paul 13
Jews of 17, 20 Hyamson, Albert 59
ritual murder 74
Golb, Norman 4–5 Ibstone Manor 109
Great Paxton (Lincolnshire) 103 Innocent III (Pope) 128, 131, 133
Gregory IX (Pope), Decretrals of 146 instrumenta 28
Gross, Charles 146 interest 29, 47
Grosseteste, Robert (Bishop of Lincoln) 14, 37, rate 35
129, 130, 136, 144, 153 types of 31, 35–7
Guildford 17, 57 Ipswich 18
Isaac fil Jurnet of Norwich 70, 150
Hackthorn 18, 116, 166 Isaac Gabbay 18, 116
Haggadah 61 Isaac of Southwerk 120
Hagin fil Deulecresse (Archpresbyter) 46, 106 Italian moneylenders
Hagin fil Magister Moses (Archpresbyter) 46, Florentines 145
106, 113 Lucca 110
Hagin fil Master Benedict 34, 118 Sienese 145
Hagin of Lincoln 62, 63, 109, 110, 161 societas 115
Hagin’s Tower 90
Hakkodosh 88 Jacob (Archpresbyter) 45, 46
Hak le Prestre 51 Jacob Cok of Andover 17
Hamo of Hereford 9, 52, 115 Jacob fil Magister Moses 108
hangings 1279 38, 90, 91, 92 Jacob of Bedford 38
Harcourt, Saer de 109 Jacob of Brancegate 115–6
Kibworth 109 Jacob of Oxford 5, 4, 64, 106, 137
hawks 34, 118 Jacob’s House 29
Hebrew 84, 93, 128, 129 Jacob’s Well 51–2
Bible 37, 44, 58 Jacobs, Joseph 53
inscription at Winchester 155 Jesus 93, 132
literature 63–4 Jewbury, Le 7, 53, 56, 57
Plea Roll 62 Jew hatred 67–9, 71, 75–83, 95–6, 97
Prayer book 65 Jewish
tallies 62 “Mongol plot” 71–2
tombstones 55, 56 nursemaids 117
Hemingburgh, Walter of (Chronicler) 89 Parliament 1240 41, 46
Henry I 157 physicians 117
Henry II 21, 27, 98, 147, 148 ritual 65
Henry III 16, 46, 47, 53, 54, 85, 87, 89, 90, 98, Jewries, Dissolution of 160–3
104, 134, 135, 138, 145, 150, 151, 152 beneficiaries 164
Hereford 117 Jews and blood 71
Bewell Street 52 Jews’ Court 52
disposal of property in 1290 160, 162 Jew’s Daughter (Ballad of) 85
Jewish wedding at 118 Jews’ Garden
Ledbury Road 52 London 54
Maylord Street (Malierestreet) 52 Northampton 55
movement of Worcester archa to 17 Norwich 55
St Giles Hospital 52 Jews’ status 145–7, 153–4
St Owen Street 52 John, King 12, 97, 98, 148, 159
selling of meat of the Jews 63 Josce fil Aaron of Colchester 18
 INDEX 237

Josce fil Copin (Archpresbyter) 46 archa 46

Josce of London (Archpresbyter) 46 assaults on Jews 75, 80
Josce of York 8, 80 attack on during civil war 89
Josephus 80 Bishop of 53
Juliana (convert) 140 body found at 84
Jurnet’s House 29 burial ground 53
Justices of the Jews 36, 44, 111 Colechurch Street 120
early settlement 6, 23
Kashrut 62, 118 forced baptism 140
Keeper of the Rolls 44 Gresham Street 53–4
Kelling (Norfolk) 117 Milk Street 47, 54
Kendal, Hugh of 38, 160, 163 St Giles Cripplegate 54
Kent St Lawrence Jewry 53
early settlement 6 Stow’s survey 53–4
sheriff of 48 Tower of 46, 48, 65, 87, 89, 90, 91, 92, 104,
Ketubboth/a 37, 57, 62 139, 164
Longchamp, William de (Chancellor) 81
Lanfranc 125 lucrum 31
Langley, Sir Geoffrey de 107 Luther, Martin 125
Langton, Stephen (Archbishop of Canterbury)
126, 132, 133 Magna Carta 42, 97, 149, 150
laving stone (Winchester) 57 Maldon, Essex 18
Laxton (Lincolnshire) 87 Malebisse, Richard 130
Leicester 14, 16, 130 debts to Aaron of Lincoln 81
expulsion from 88 Malmesbury, William of (Chronicler) 24
Leipzig Debate 125 Mandate of the Jews 1253 12, 135, 151
Leo fil Preciosa 102 Mapledorham (Oxfordshire) 112
Le Taylleur, William (Eleanor’s robe maker) 52 Marchaunt, Peter le 112
Lewes, Prior of 73 Margoliouth, Moses 1
Lexington, Henry (Bishop of Lincoln) 87 Marlborough 17, 20, 49
Lexington, John of 84, 85, 87 Manser 4
Licoricia of Winchester, murder of 121 Manser fil Aaron 109
Lincoln Margaret de Quincy (great aunt of Simon de
Aaron’s property 23, 24 Montfort) 14, 129
Annales 123 Martyrs 88, 96
assaults on Jews 79 Mary the Virgin 69, 93, 95, 133
attacks during Civil War 89 Masada 80
Bishop Hugh of 79 Matzah 71
Brancegate 53, 104, 161 Mazzuzah 71
Canwick 87 Meir of Norwich 64, 166
citizens involved in assaults 79 Merchants, Statute of 114
disposal of property in 1290 160–1 Merton, Walter de (Chancellor) 108, 152
High Street 53 attacks on 109
Hungate 53 see also Chancellors
Jewish community 38 Mikveh 50–1, 53
Jews Court 50 Gresham Street, London 54
Michaelgate 104 Milk Street, London 54
Minster debts to Aaron 25, 37 Oxford 56
St Hugh 84–7 Monasteries 114
St Martins 104 Canterbury Cathedral Priory 100
Step Hill 52 Durford Abbey 100
Lipman, Vivian 9, 40, 55, 59 Durham Priory 100
Little Chart (Kent) 99, 100 Hospital of Worcester 101
loan chest, Christian 37–8 involved in Jewish debts 98
loans, inter Jewish 36–7, 61 Pershore Abbey 101
London St Mary’s Kirkstead (Lincolnshire) 103
238 INDEX

Monasteries (continued) Nottingham

St Peter’s (Gloucester) 101 archa officials 47
Tewkesbury Abbey 101 disposal of Jewish property in 1290 162
Monmouth, Thomas of 72 St Mary on the Wall 55
Montfort, Simon de 14, 88, 130 Wall Street 55
Montfort, Simon de (junior) 89 Nutsted (Sussex) 100
mortgages 18, 98
Anglo-Jewish gage 33 Ospringe (Kent) 48
Jewish gage 32–3 assaults on Jews in 1190 77
mort gage 34 Oxford 49, 130, 134
repossession of 98 breaking of the cross incident 137
sale of 103 Castle 120
vif gage 34 Deulecresse 69
Moses Anglicus 165 disposal of Jewish property in 1290 162
Moses, Crispin 99 Great Jewry 56
Moses Magister 46 Jewry 29
Moses Mokke (debt collector) 70 loan chest 37
Moses of Dogstreet 121 Magdalen Bridge 56
Moyse’s Hall (Bury St Edmunds) 29, 57 Merton College 108, 138
St Aldate’s 56, 108
Nadiv 55 St Frideswide 37
Newcastle 15 Oxnead, John of (Chronicler) 90, 150
Newburgh, William of (Chronicler) 8, 11, 76, 77
Newbury 15 Paris, exiled Jews 164
Norman French 48 Paris, Matthew (Chronicler) 46, 67, 84, 132
Normandy, Jews in 5 Parkes, James 50, 143
Normanton (Nottinghamshire) 26 Pasket, William 111, 112
Northampton 15, 55 Passover 61, 62, 73
Barrack Road 55 Pawnbroking 21, 37
community of 59 items held by Jews 38–89
Corn Row 55 Pecham, John (Archbishop of Canterbury) 53,
disposal of property in 1290 161 106, 110, 139, 140, 144, 154, 159
Fish Market 55 Peter des Roches (Bishop of Winchester) 15,
North Gate 55 135
Princes Street 55 Peter of Blois 127
Red Lion Inn 55 Petition of the Barons 107
Northallerton (Yorkshire) 100 Pictavin Le Fort 112
Northamptonshire, Sheriff of 48 Pollard Starrs 98
Northwood, John of (Under-constable of population, Jewish 44
Canterbury) 48–9 Pre-Conquest, evidence for settlement 1–3
Norwich Premonstratensian Order 81, 100
assaults in 1190 77 Property
Bishop Eborard of 73 buy to let 29
Castle Gate 55 development 23, 29
enforced circumcision 141 moveable 33
Haymarket 55 Provence, Eleanor of (Queen) 16, 17, 20, 104,
Jewish boy missing 83 105, 106, 107, 114, 153, 158
Lamb Inn 55 Provisions of the Jewry 1269 33
Lister Gate 55
movement of Cambridge archa to 17 Queenborough, massacre of Jews at 158
Orford Hill 55 Queen’s Gold 48, 105, 106
ritual murder 72–4 quitclaim 32
St Peter’s Church 55–6
St Stephens 55 Rabbis 127
Star Inn 55 Benedict of Lincoln 63
Thorpe Wood 72–4 Benjamin of Canterbury 62
 INDEX 239

continental Rabbis 62–3 St Harold of Gloucester 74

Elias Menahem 63, 64 St Hugh of Lincoln 117
Elijah of Warwick 64 St Hugh of Lincoln (Little) 84, 104, 105, 134
Jacob of Oxford 64 shrine of 87
Joseph of Bristol 64 St Mary 128
Moses of London 62–3 see also Mary
Peytevin the Great of Lincoln 53, 58 virgin birth 125
Yomtob of Joigny 63, 80 St William of Norwich 72, 75
Rabinowitz, Louis 50, 60 Vita 72
recognisance 29, 114 Salle fil Josce 48
rent charges 21 Salzman, Louis 109
responsa 54, 142 Sampson fil Samuel of Northampton 142
Retford 18 Sampson of Norwich 18
Richard I 11, 147, 148 Samuel of Bristol 92–5
coronation of 75, 80 Scola 57
reaction to massacre 81 Selston (Nottinghamshire) 26
Richard de Clare 69, 101, 108 settlement of Jews 13, 20
Richardson, Henry 13, 98 Shabbat ha Gadol 11, 28, 41, 65, 75–82, 76, 79,
ritual bath 50, 51, 53 80, 82
Gresham Street London 54 perpetrators of 81
Milk Street London 54 post 82
Oxford 56 see also York
ritual murder 14, 132 Shatzmiller, Joseph 165
Bristol 92–5 sheriffs 47, 48, 112, 113, 156
Bury St Edmunds 77 Shoreham 27
Gloucester 74–5 Shropshire 16
Lincoln 83, 84–7 Shtadlan 59
London 83 Sittingbourne (Kent) 88
Norwich 72–4 Southampton 15, 18, 26
Stamford 83 Speenhamland 15
Winchester 83 Stacey, Robert 49
ritual prayer 61 Stamford
Rochester 18, 157 assaults on Jews in 1190 77, 78
Castle 88 Jewish community 55, 59
Roger de Estreby 26–7 synagogue at 57
Romney Marsh 18, 115 Stannaries 8
Romsey 16 Starr 32, 100, 102, 103, 107, 109, 110
Rose of Dorking (Jewess) 140 Starra 98
Ross, John 123 Statute of the Jewry (Statutum de Judeismo)
Roth, Cecil 17, 36, 52, 108, 142, 146 1275 17, 18, 20, 40, 90, 138, 147, 153, 154,
Rouen 4, 5, 8, 147 156
Royal Jews 104, 118 Stichivall 107
Jew of the King’s consort 106 Stillington (County Durham) 108
see also Aaron fil Vives stone houses 8, 29, 52, 57
Abraham of Berkhamstead Strapeston (Nottinghamshire) 18
Evesk family Stratton, Adam de 18, 112–3
Hagin fil Deulecresse estate of 113
Hagin fil Magister Moses Studium Generale 124
Jacob of Oxford Sturt family (of Norwich) 72
Royston 18 synagogues 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57
attacks on 89
Sacholim 51 broken 123
St Augustine 125, 128, 130 officials 58–9
St Bernard 125 Toledo 53
St Frideswide 37, 56, 69 Worms 53
Priory 137 Synod of Worcester 131
240 INDEX

tabula 70, 133, 151, 155, 157 Wendover, Roger (Chronicler) 12, 150
illustration of 17, 157 Westminster 44, 105, 113, 156
Tahara 51 Westwell, manor of 99, 100
Tallage 151 Wickham 18
Bristol 1210 149 William, Duke of Normandy (Jewish
collection 41, 42 connections with) 4
1241 49 William I 147
talliator 49 William II 125, 147
tallies 28, 30, 100 Willougby family 107
Hebrew 62 Winchelsea 16
Talmud 33, 38, 58, 126, 127, 128, 129, 140, 142, Winchester 15, 57, 76, 83
143, 144 castle 110
Talmudic Law 50 disposal of property in 1290 160
Tewkesbury 101 Henry of (Converted Jew) 136–7 see also
Solomon of 69 converts/conversion
Theobald of Cambridge 72 inscription at 155
Thetford, assaults on Jews in 1190 77 Royal Oak passage 57
tin industry 8 St James 57
Torah 50, 53, 58, 142, 147 Westgate 57
Tovey de Bloissiers 1, 12 Windsor 17
Trachtenberg, Joshua 67, 71 castle 46
travel abroad 64 wool 24, 39, 40, 116
Turnham, Robert de 81 Worcester 17, 20
debt to Aaron of Lincoln 81 ritual murder at 74
Tutbury 89 Wrotham, William de (Warden of the
Stannaries) 8
Under Constable 48
usury 97, 106, 110, 130, 131, 132, 134, 143, 144 Yeshivah 58
usury avoidance 32, 33 York 65
Abbot of St Mary 49
Vincent, Nicholas 15 assaults on Jews 79
Vintners, Jewish 63 Coney Street 8, 79, 160
disposal of property in 1290 160, 162
Wak, Baldwin 18 Feltergate 162
Walerand, Robert 16 fines for Shabbat ha Gadol 82
Wales, Gerald of (Chronicler) 115 massacre 80
Wallingford 15, 104 mayor 49
Walter, Hubert (Chancellor) 8, 11 Metsgate 162
Wandering Jew, Ahasuerus or Joseph perpetrators of massacre 81
Cartaphilus 67, 71 property in 29–30
Warminster 18 St Crux 81
Warwick 15 Spen lane 8, 29, 79, 81
Watford, William de (Exchequer clerk) 111, 112 Yorkshire, Sheriff of 48