Download PDF | Robin R. Mundill - England's Jewish Solution_ Experiment and Expulsion, 1262-1290-Cambridge University Press (2002).
365 Pages
ENGLAND'SJEWISH SOLUTION
This is a detailed study of Jewish settlement and of seven different Jewish communities in England between 1262 and 1290, offering in addition a new consideration of the prelude to the Expulsion of the Jews in 1290. The book estimates the extent of Jewish residence and settlement; it evaluates the tallage payments made by those communities; and finally by a close discussion of prevailing attitudes towards usury and moneylending it considers the Edwardian Experiment of 1275.
The impact of Edward I's legislation and Jewish policy on his Jewish subjects is then examined. Changes are measured on a local level by a detailed study of seven Jewish communities. It is possible to follow the business transactions of Jewish financiers in these different provincial communities over a period of almost thirty years; and a thorough and detailed study is made of the type of people who borrowed from the Jews. Finally a survey is made of the possible motives and continental parallels which influenced the Expulsion in 1290 and the subsequent dissolution of the Jewries.
PREFACE
When I embarked on the study of medieval Anglo-Jewry in late 1980 it seemed that I had come across a comparatively quiet backwater. Much research had been done on the topic by members of the Jewish Historical Society of England (JHSE). This work was dominated by the studies of Michael Adler, Cecil Roth, Vivian Lipman, Canon Stokes, James Parkes and Sir Hilary Jenkinson. This had been augmented by the works of H. G. Richardson in 1961 and 1972 and more recently of Professor Barrie Dobson who published two papers on the York Jewry in the 1970s. The latter finally brought the Anglo-Jew more clearly into mainline medieval history.
I hope that this book will strengthen the bridge across the divide between what has been traditionally considered Jewish history on one side and medieval British history on the other. As my own work progressed I found that the study of medieval Anglo-Jewry had a much wider appeal and interest than I had believed. I encountered much research and scholarship. Sometime in late 1981 I met Dr Zefira Rokeah in the small dark coffee bar at the Public Record Office, Chancery Lane, London.
It is fair to say that as we sat there we thought ourselves not only to be kindred souls in search of a small community of some seven hundred years standing, but also somewhat alone! We have been in touch ever since and I not only am indebted to Dr Rokeah's work but have also benefited from her enthusiasm and advice. As my thesis came to a conclusion in 1987, I made the aquaintance of Vivian Lipman. He was a gentle and careful scholar. His death in March 1990 was a great loss to students of Anglo-Jewish history. I was privileged to be invited by the JHSE to give a lecture in his honour in June 1990. Ten years after I commenced my studies it had become clear to me that there had been many different local studies of Edwardian AngloJewry but little had been done to pull the work together and to view the medieval Anglo-Jews as a single community.
The records of the actual Expulsion had not been closely examined; the Receipt Rolls and records of tallages had been neglected for too long. The debtors of the Jews had not received enough attention and the actual procedures of the Expulsion itself had not always prompted the right sorts of questions. From 1990 the study of medieval Anglo-Jewry seems to have opened up and is now maturing at such a pace that even as this book goes to press there are many other studies about to be published.
The JHSE has continued to try to finish the editing of the Plea Rolls of the Exchequer of the Jews under the distinguished editorship of Dr Paul Brand. In America Dr Paul Hyams, Professor Gavin Langmuir and more recently Professor Robert Stacey have all contributed immensely to our knowledge of the subject. In Israel Zefira Rokeah has continued her important researches and in particular her magisterial efforts to produce an edition of the Jewish entries in the Memoranda Rolls. Other contributions have been made by Professors Kenneth Stow and Sophia Menache of the University of Haifa. In England Professor Barrie Dobson was honoured by the JHSE and became its president for 1990-1.
The subject has also attracted the attention of Professors Jack Watt and Colin Richmond and more recently of Dr Nicholas Vincent. Archive work and research has been forthcoming from Joe Hillaby, and Volume v of the Plea Rolls of the Exchequer of the Jews is a testimony to the patience and efficiency of Dr Paul Brand. In Germany, under the guidance of Professor Alfred Haverkamp of the University of Trier, important contributions have been made by Drs Gerd Mentgen and Christoph Cluse; interest in the Jews and their history has accordingly started to blossom there. On all these influences I have drawn. It is hoped that what follows will stimulate both debate and interest within this fascinating field. However before passing to the study there are several points which are worthy of mention.
The very fact that I take 1262 as a starting point has a significance. First, I believe that this is the start of Edward I's real contact with his Jewish subjects and the roll of Jewish debts dating from 1262 gives a view of the Jewish community just before the Baronial rising, a decade before Edward I's accession. Second, although chapter 6 considers nine separate Jewish communities the fact that Norwich has been ommitted is due partly to the vagaries of the records but mainly to the fact that Vivian Lipman's study of the Norwich Jewry was so thorough. I hope that he would have approved of this present work.
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