Keeping Track of Jewish Debts

The catalyst for the 1189 tragedy in York after the coronation of King Richard I was three men who wanted to criminally erase the debts they owed to the Jewish moneylender Aaron of York. Richard Malbysse, Robert de Turnham, and Robert de Gant instigated the massacre in order to destroy the records of their debts and avoid paying them. (By the way, "Malbysse" may have been a real surname but more likely the nickname that has come down to us. William of Newburgh, a historian who was alive at the time of the massacre, referred to Richard as Ricardus vero agnomine Mala Bestia, homo audacissimus. ("Richard truly named Evil Beast, the most audacious man.")

Richard, like kings of England before and after him, understood the financial value of keeping Jews safe under the Crown's protection. He created the Exchequer of the Jews (Scaccarium Judaeorum), an institution separate from the Royal Exchequer, designed to keep track of debts so that the incentive to free oneself from repaying money by destroying the records was no longer an option. And since this repository of financial records was being created, why not include anything and everything owed to and owned by Jews?

Following is part of the actual (translated) decree (ellipses and emphasis are mine):

All the debts, pledges, mortgages, lands, houses, rents, and possessions of the Jews shall be registered. The Jew who shall conceal any of these shall forfeit to the King his body and the thing concealed, and likewise all his possessions and chattels, ..., and there shall be appointed two lawyers that are Christians and two lawyers that are Jews, and two legal registrars, and before them and the clerks of William of the Church of St. Mary's and William of Chimilli, shall their contracts be made.

And charters shall be made of their contracts by way of indenture. And one part of the indenture shall remain with the Jew, sealed with the seal of him, to whom the money is lent, and the other part shall remain in the common chest: wherein there shall be three locks and keys, whereof the two Christians shall keep one key, and the two Jews another, and the clerks of William of the Church of St. Mary and of William of Chimilli shall keep the third. And moreover, there shall be three seals to it, and those who keep the seals shall put the seals thereto. 

... For every charter there shall be three pence paid, one moiety thereof by the Jews and the other moiety by him to whom the money is lent; whereof the two writers shall have two pence and the keeper of the roll the third. 

And from henceforth no contract shall be made with, nor payment made to, the Jews, nor any alteration made in the charters, except before the said persons or the greater part of them, if all of them cannot be present. And the aforesaid two Christians shall have one roll of the debts or receipts of the payments which from henceforth are to be made to the Jews, and the two Jews one and the keeper of the roll one.

Moreover every Jew shall swear on his Roll, that all his debts and pledges and rents, and all his goods and his possessions, he shall cause to be enrolled, and that he shall conceal nothing as is aforesaid. And if he shall know that anyone shall conceal anything he shall secretly reveal it to the justices sent to them, and that they shall detect, and shew unto them all falsifiers or forgers of the charters and clippers of money, where or when they shall know them, and likewise all false charters.

The three sets of locks and keys reduced the chance of tampering, since the chest holding the official documents could only be opened if all three possessors of the keys were present.

There were two major benefits to this decree: one to the Crown, and one to the Jewish population. The Crown would have records of every transaction and could use them to tax the Jews involved. The Jewish moneylenders also benefitted, because any debtor wishing to accuse the moneylender of unfairness, or who tried to get out of repayment, now had to deal with a moneylender with the full weight of the Royal Exchequer behind him.

An additional benefit to the Crown was that the death of a moneylender without heirs meant a faithful accounting of all the moneylender was owed was known and therefore could be collected ... by the Crown, of course. Note the recent posts on David of Oxford, who was so in need of an heir that he divorced one wife precipitously, and how his second wife was put in the Tower while his accounts were examined after his death, until everything was settled.

Documents from this office are extant for 1219-20, 1244, 1253, and 1266-87. (In 1290, all Jews were expelled from England by Edward I, or forced to convert, which forced many into the Domus Conversorum.)

It would be inefficient to have every record kept in a single vault in Winchester. There were Jews and moneylenders all over England. I'll talk a little more about the organization of the Exchequer tomorrow. 

David's Wives

When David of Oxford declared that he was divorced from his wife, Muriel, little did he know the furor it would cause. In Jewish law, a wife must consent to a divorce, which Muriel did not do. She reached out to relatives, who contacted the beth din (rabbinical court) in France, who authorized an ad hoc beth din in England. That group of three told David he was still married. David turned to an authority he was certain would help: the king.

King Henry III benefitted from David's vast wealth and ability to organize special taxes from Jews, so was inclined to keep David happy. Henry forbade anyone from interfering with David's choice of wife. So David had his freedom. This was taking place in 1242. David settled Muriel in a house he owned around the corner from St. Aldate's, and went looking for another wife. He found one in Licoricia of Winchester. (The illustration shows Muriel's post-divorce house in the red box.)

Licoricia had been married before. Her first husband, Abraham son of Isaac, had died, and she was living in Winchester with their three sons, Isaac, Benedict, and Lumbard, and a daughter, Belia. Licoricia had money, and as early as the 1230s there are records of her lending money. By the time David was looking for another wife—one with a proven track record of fertility—she was one of the richest Jews in Winchester.

They were married, and she became pregnant with a son, named Asher after David's father. She also helped expand David's money-lending business with her own resources.

Sadly, David died in February 1244. Because he was one of the wealthiest Jews in England, and because English law allowed the king to claim one-third of all his assets, the king wanted a full accounting of David's worth. All records of his debtors across the country were taken to the Jewish Exchequer in London to be examined.

Also taken to London was Licoricia herself, and imprisoned in the Tower. To prevent this savvy businesswoman from interfering in the assessment process, or attempting to hide any assets, Henry had her confined until the process was complete. Once Henry's people were done, he charged Licoricia 5000 marks (a mark was two-thirds of a pound) to purchase all of David's debts so that she could continue to collect on them. David's house in Oxford plus all its contents were claimed by the king to benefit the Domus Conversorum, the House of Converts created by Henry in 1232 to support Jews who converted to Christianity.

Licoricia had no trouble paying the 5000 marks (equivalent in today's buying power to over two million dollars), because she knew she would be able to make plenty from continuing the moneylending business, which is exactly what she did. She was a very capable woman, and we'll give her her own entry next time.

Old Jewry

In the City of London there is a street still called Old Jewry, currently dominated mostly by financial offices. In 2001 the remains of a mikveh (ritual bath, requiring fresh flowing water) was discovered in the area, attesting to its former Jewish occupation. It would have been abandoned when the Jews were expelled in 1290 by King Edward I.

(The illustration shows Old Jewry on the Agas Map, a woodcut made of London probably in the 1560s. It shows Old Jewry [in yellow] linking Poultry Street to Gresham Street. The street is still called Old Jewry, as you can see in the illustration to this 2012 post.)

Although Jews could travel anywhere and any time, they likely came to England in larger numbers from Rouen after 1066, when William invited them to take up residence. By that time Jews were well-known as money-lenders, and William knew he would need money to finance his consolidation of his new country.

Because of their financial importance to the Crown, London Jews were given rights by some kings. William's son William Rufus even brought rabbis and priests together in London to debate religion, teasing his priests that if the Jews won then Rufus would convert.

After the suspicious death of Rufus, Henry I continued the royal policy of giving the Jews privileges unavailable to regular subjects. Jews were a valuable source of financial support; the king would occasionally tax them to raise money quickly. Henry issued a royal charter giving Jews certain protections and freedoms. Jews were given freedom of movement without having to pay the king's tolls, the right to be tried by their Jewish peers, and the right to swear on the Torah in a court of law.

Besides the mikveh, Jewry street also contained the Great Synagogue, which was closed in 1272 after the death of Henry III—who "supported" the Jews with his charity institution, the Domus Conversorum ("House of Converts") placed on the western edge of London far from Jewry, possibly to help prevent apostasy—and the rise to power of Edward I.

One of the other chief locations of Jews in England after they came from the continent in the 11th century was Oxford, and we'll look at their presence there tomorrow.

Eleanor the Queen

A queen can have several duties, one of which is to produce heirs that can either succeed their parents or be used to make politically advantageous marriages. Eleanor of Provence was one of four sisters each of whom became a queen. Eleanor was married to King Henry III of England, and exercised a great deal of influence in England, even if she was disliked by the citizens of London.

Her relationship with Henry was very strong, and he did his best to care for his young wife (they were married when she was not yet a teenager and he was 28). He embarked on a campaign of updating and decorating royal apartments. They had their own rooms, but he made sure they were next to each other. If the queen's apartments were in a separate building or other part of the palace, he made sure the distance between them had covered walkways so she could visit his apartments in comfort.

The two often appeared in public in matching outfits, and Henry made sure her residences had furniture and trappings equal to his. For the wedding of their daughter, Margaret, to King Alexander III of Scotland, they wore matching cloth of gold.

Eleanor also matched her husband in religious devotion. Henry had a special love of King Edward the Confessor, and instilled in Eleanor the same religious fervor. In 1250 she and Henry vowed to go on Crusade, and she vowed that after his death she would enter a nunnery.

She had close relationships with some of the greatest English minds of that era: Adam Marsh, Robert Grosseteste of London (the bishop, not the Oxford scholar), and royal physician and Bishop of Durham Nicholas Farnham.

Part of that religious devotion expressed itself in an act of anti-semitism shortly after Henry died. Henry had created in 1232 the Domus Conversorum ("House of Converts") in the west of London, a place where Jews who converted to Christianity would be housed, fed, given a stipend, and instructed in their new faith and made to pray for the king, his ancestors, and his descendants. Henry died in 1272, succeeded by his eldest son, Edward. In 1275 Eleanor sought, and received, permission from King Edward I to expel Jews from the lands given to her, in Marlborough, Gloucester (told to go to Bristol, but choosing Hereford since Bristol was known to have plenty of anti-semitism), Worcester (told to go to Hereford), and Cambridge (told to flee to Norwich).

Edward was raised by his mother to be hostile to Jews, and used the crime of coin-clipping as an excuse to punish them. This was a prelude to 1290, when Edward expelled all Jews from England.

Eleanor retired after Henry's death to Amesbury Priory, where two of her granddaughters were already nuns. She died in June 1291 and was buried at the Priory in a location that is now unknown—the only English queen whose grave is unmarked (except for her heart, which was buried at the Franciscan priory Greyfriars in London).

Of her children, Edward became king, Margaret became queen of Scotland, Beatrice became Duchess of Brittany, and Edmund became Earl of Leicester and Lancaster. Edmund had a nickname, "Crouchback," which sounds like something worth discussing. See you tomorrow.

Second Barons' War Against the Jews

In February 1264, after the Mise of Amiens, the fighting between the forces of Simon de Montfort and King Henry III began in earnest. One of the biggest moves made by the rebels was the attacks on the Jews.

Part of the Provisions of Oxford created by the barons was demanding the cancellation of Jewish debts. Attacks on Jewish communities were devastating. Henry de Montfort and Robert Earl Ferrers led an attack that killed most of the Jews in Worcester. Robert had borrowed heavily from the Jews of Worcester. He plundered homes and religious houses and stole the records of loans.

Another of the rebels, John fitz John, was part of the attack on Jews in London where 500 were killed.  John fitz John was said to have killed two of the leading Jewish figures, Isaac son of Aaron and Cok son of Abraham, with his bare hands. There was no offering to the Jews the choice of converting to Christianity as was sometimes offered in the past (such as the story of Clifford's Tower, although that was a cruel lie). The records of the Domus Conversorum ("House of Converts") established by Henry for converted Jews show no Jews were admitted in that year. A few were sent to the Tower of London for incarceration.

Simon the Younger extended his anti-Jewish pogroms to Winchester, Lincoln, and Cambridge. Gilbert de Clare, the 7th Earl of Gloucester whose father had been a royalist but who decided to join the rebels once he gained the title, led the attacks on Jews in Canterbury (where a few Jewish women were forced to convert) and Northampton.

The chief goal was less religious than financial. Since the incident at Clifford's Tower, the Crown had established a method for keeping track of Jewish debt. It was easier for the king to tax the Jews whenever he needed money than to get it from the barons. The Crown therefore desired to have accurate records of who owed what to whom. Cities and towns with large Jewish populations maintained archa, chests in which records were kept that the king could check on any time. The attacks not only killed Jews, they destroyed the archa to erase any records of debt.

The tide for the Barons was starting to turn, however. See you tomorrow.

"Taking Care of" the Jews

"Know that we, in the sight of God, and for our souls, and for the sake of our predecessors and heirs, have granted and confirmed by this our charter, for us and our heirs, eternally to God and to the glorious Virgin Mary, and to the church, the house of the converts which we founded in the suburbs of London. Namely, a village called New Street, in honor of the same Virgin, and to the converts who reside there and who will reside in the future, seven hundred marks to support those converts and to make the construction of their church and their buildings, to be received every year to our treasury, that is to say, one half to the Easter treasury, and another half to the treasury of St. Michael, until we or the heirs of the same converts shall provide more abundantly in lands or rents, assigned to them in a certain place, from which they can competently support themselves and their families to the honor of God and the aforesaid glorious Virgin."

This was the beginning of a charter by King Henry III (1207 - 1272) in January of 1232. It established a building to house Jews who were willing to convert. This was the Domus Conversorum, or "House of Converts." It was also referred to as the "Converts' Inn." A Warden was established to oversee the place and disburse funds.

As part of their conversion, they gave up all property except personal possessions such as clothing, and moved into the building. They were paid pauper's wages that amounted to 1.5 pence/day for a man, and 1 pence/day for a woman. They were required to attend Mass each day and pray for the king, his ancestors, and his descendants.

Complete records exist of the converts who entered. In 1232, there was one, Roger de Parton. In 1233, John of Lincoln entered. In 1234, for reasons unknown, there was a sudden influx of converts: William the Clerk; Matilda; Adam and Leticia of Norwich (who transferred from Shaftesbury Abbey, where supposedly they had converted and were living); Hugo of Norwich (he was baptized after entering); Emma of Ipswich; Mariota; Isabella of Canterbury; Johanna the Convert; Isabella of Bristol & son; siblings John and Johanna from Bristol; Alexander with his wife Goduse & their sons.

The last-named Alexander and family were ejected by the will of the converts themselves, for what transgressions we will never know. It shows, however, that the converts retained some agency. In fact, in later years, records show that the converts brought successful complaints to the king of their wages not being paid.

What did they do all day? They could work jobs outside the Inn, but if they made more than their weekly sum, the weekly sum was withheld. They could, therefore, treat their new situation as a life of leisure.

Some of the land for the site was taken from the gardens (more an outdoor area or yard than formally planted beds of flowers) of the Bishop of Chichester, whose manor was a couple minutes' walk up the road and on the opposite side of the street. I want to tell you about the then-current Bishop of Chichester, and illegitimate man who rose to some of the highest offices in England.

Gilbert de Clare

Gilbert de Clare, Tewksbury Abbey
Unknown if this is "our" Gilbert,
his son, or his grandfather

Gilbert de Clare, 7th Earl of Gloucester (1243 - 1295), was mentioned in the post on the Battle of Evesham, switching support from the treasonous Simon de Montfort to King Henry III. Though very young, he had already managed some significant accomplishments.

His father died in 1262, when Gilbert was still in his teens, and so Gilbert was made a ward of Humphrey de Bohun, the 2nd Earl of Hereford (whose son would also have experience with a traitor), but came into his own a year later. So it was that, in spring of 1264 (as part of the uprising against King Henry), he captured Canterbury and attacked the Jews.

He went on to sack the Jewry perhaps with the main intention of destroying all the evidence of debts [...]. The result was that the Jewry was dispersed. It is unclear if there were fatalities. What is known is that two years later, in 1266, the community had returned to Oxford and 18 leading local Jews signed a treaty of self-defence, in which they sought to protect themselves against, 'liars, improper persons, or slanders'. [link]

He may have been emulating Simon de Montfort, who had expelled Jews from Leicester in 1231 (one year before Henry established the Domus Conversorum to give English Jews an option for co-existence). The older Montfort's parents had been extremely hostile to Jews in the past. Clare might have been operating simply because he could, and wanted to impress Montfort, who was the focal point of the barons' uprising against Henry and looked like he would be the next king.

Eventually, however, Clare's sympathies shifted back to Prince Edward in 1265, after Edward escaped his guardians and began to rally supporters against the rebellious barons. Years later, when Henry died, Clare swiftly and openly declared loyalty to the new King Edward I. Clare was named Guardian of England whenever Edward was out of the country.

He died on 7 December 1295 and was buried in Tewksbury Abbey. A stained glass window in the abbey represents him...or his son Gilbert, the 8th Earl...or his grandfather Gilbert, the 5th Earl.

The Limits of Canon Law

Since I've been looking into canon law lately (here and here), I thought I would share an interesting facet of Medieval era canon law: its self-imposed limits.

Although canon law borrowed a great deal from the jurists and civil law decisions of the Classical Era, it was grounded in church teachings. Therefore, from early jurists up until at least 1200, it was agreed that canon law did not apply to non-Christians. The rules of consanguinity adhered to by the church, for instance, forbidding the marriage of those who were related too closely by blood or legal ties (such as in-laws), did not apply to Jews or pagans. Nor was it legal for Jews or pagans to be made to tithe or be baptized against their will.

Of course, Christianity's goal was to spread the Gospel and convert the world, so it would be only a matter of time (it was thought) before canon law would apply to everyone. (The second post ever on DailyMedieval was about the Domus Conversorum, established in 1232 in England by Henry III to provide a home and daily stipend for Jews who wished to convert to Christianity, making their decision an easy one.)

Christianity ran into an unexpected obstacle to its ultimate goal, however, especially during the era of the Crusades. Whereas Jews were found in small and non-violent communities, Muslims were far more numerous and warlike; moreover, they were on their own mission to convert the world. This led—outside of the Crusades themselves—to border skirmishes where newly acquired Middle East Christian territories brushed up against Muslim lands.

The debate that followed will be looked at in the next post.

Jews in London

One street is all that remains of the Jewry

Jews had followed William the Conqueror to England* and established a significant presence in London in an area still called Old Jewry. Their business and money-lending practices were efficient, such that their homes were made of sturdy stone more often than their Gentile neighbors' houses. William II (1087-1100) seems to have been tolerant of the Jews; Henry II (fl.1154-1189) as well. Life in London was considered amenable enough to Jews that the well-known Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra visited London, where in 1158 he wrote his Iggeret ha-Shabbat (Epistle on the Sabbath), which can still be found in print today.
Of course, life was never "good" for the Jews in medieval Europe. In England, for instance, there were laws designed to harass the Jews, like that which required every Jew who died in England to be buried at a special cemetery set up at Cripplegate in London—which forced every Jewish family to pay a fee for the burial.

King Henry III of England was first mentioned here in my second-ever blog post. In 1232 he established the Domus Conversorum (House of Converts), meant for Jews who converted to Christianity, giving up their possessions in exchange for a home and a daily stipend for food and necessities.

Henry was devout, certainly, but not always charitable. In the words of one scholar:

If Henry III, despite being constantly broke, managed to find enough money to keep work at [Westminster] Abbey in progress, that was partly because he was at least a devout enough Catholic to be able to rob the Jews with a good conscience. [A History of London, Robert Gray]

Henry, always in need of money, was fond of borrowing from the Jews and simply not paying them back. Jews were seen as being a tool for the King's pleasure, and the Barons and others resented the Crown's control over them. For the Coronation of Richard I Lionheart in Westminster Abbey, a Jewish group tried to crowd in the Abbey to show support and bring gifts for the new king. Their presence touched off riots. Londoners rushed to the Jewry and set fire to houses, killing those who tried to escape.

Thirty were reported killed. The conviction rate afterward: three. Two of those had accidentally torched a Christian home, and one had robbed a Christian home in the confusion.

*No evidence exists of a Jewish presence in England prior to 1066.

That's "Positively Medieval!"

It is not uncommon for the term "medieval" to be used negatively, to connote an action or opinion that is primitive or uncivilized, or that displays outright savagery. There is, of course, much discussion among medievalists who feel this does a disservice to a time that, to borrow from C.S. Lewis, was "not a matter of having no manners, as having different manners."*

There is a recent story in the U.S. political realm, however, whose medieval roots are difficult to ignore. It's time, therefore, to take a brief look at some early law books at the beginning of Western Civilization to see if we can explain some of the modern attitudes that some of us would call "positively medieval."

Fleta was published not earlier than 1290, and probably shortly after. It is a 557-page Latin book of English laws found in the Cotton Library. It seems to be largely a re-write of the De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliæ (On the Laws and Customs of England) of Henry Bracton (c.1210-1268). Fleta contains some early laws that support ideas that are still with us. For instance, in one place, it says:

Those who have dealings with Jews or Jewesses, those who commit bestiality, and sodomists, are to be buried alive after legal proof that they were taken in the act, and public conviction.**

It should be noted that the penalty of burial alive is not known to have been carried out at any time. Fleta also contains the following clause while discussing rape, which has become a very popular topic this week:

If, however, the woman should have conceived at the time alleged in the appeal, it abates, for without a woman's consent she could not conceive.

The claim is that if a woman conceives during intercourse, she cannot claim rape. The belief was that part of the mechanism for conception of a child was the love between the husband and wife, and their enjoyment of the act. If the pleasure were missing, conception could not occur.

I mention Fleta because it is being quoted this week in public forums. In fact, more than one compendium of laws existed early on. One of them, called Britton, was contemporaneous with Fleta. Britton was written in French, was very similar to Fleta (having drawn from the same sources), was more organized and codified, and was probably turned to more over time because French was a more accessible language to a majority than Latin. Like the U.S. Constitution, which denied equality to women and blacks, these works are interesting historical documents that deserve to be discussed but need to be amended if we expect to actually apply them to the modern world.

*From That Hideous Strength, when describing the eating methods of the recently-revived 6th century Merlin.
**The 1290 date can be surmised because that is the year Jews were declared "outlaw" in England, and given the choice of Expulsion or conversion and a kind of "house arrest" in the London "Converts' Inn." Prior to this, "dealings with Jews" would have been typical.

Updates

My research (or just day-to-day life) sometimes bring me details that I wish I'd known when I wrote a certain blog post, or that I think are interesting tidbits that tie into posts. Occasionally, I will throw these updates together with links to the originals.

May 19
The Domus Conversorum, the "House of Converts" in London for Jews who converted to Christianity (or else be banished from England). A picture of what is on the modern site is here. (The photographer's caption is a little misleading.)
Also, there was a building called "Domus Conversorum" in Oxford, and for awhile it was thought that Oxford (which had a large Jewish population pre-Expulsion) had its own Converts' Inn. It is accepted now, however, that the property was called thus because the rents from it went to supporting the Domus in London.

July 2, 3, and 5
John Wycliffe was a fascinating character for many reasons, but I may have been remiss in "finishing him off" by not giving you the whole story (one of this blog's followers commented on this on Facebook).
Wycliffe died 31 December, 1384, after suffering a stroke a few days earlier while saying Mass. It wasn't until 4 May 1415 that the Council of Constance declared him a heretic (prior to this, only some of his writings were proscribed). His books were to be gathered and destroyed. The Church—never one to do things by halves when defending the faith was involved—exhumed his body in 1428, burned it, and scattered the ashes in the nearby River Swift near Lutterworth.

July 21
Update on the Greenland/Medieval Warm Period topic
Just this week it was reported that satellites have seen a sudden and massive melting of the ice on Greenland. The specific/immediate cause is unknown. This may make archaeological digs for Erik the Red's settlements easier to examine. The report is here.

(Also, I want to say "hi" to any visitors from reddit.com. Yesterday saw a large influx of visitors from that site to yesterday's post on vocabulary first found in Chaucer's writings. Thanks for visiting anc creating a pleasant spike in my site traffic!)

Domus Conversorum

from a sketch by Matthew Paris

 In 1232, King Henry III of England established the Domus Conversorum, the "House of Converts" or "Converts Inn." Jews who wished to convert to Christianity were encouraged to give up all their possessions and enter the Domus, where they would have their needs met and would be instructed in their new religion. A tax was laid on all Jews in England aged 12 and above for the upkeep,  and several religious houses made contributions as well. Men in the Domus received 1.5p (pence) per day, women received 1p.

In 1290, when Edward I expelled all the Jews from England, the Domus contained only about 80 converts. A chaplain and a warden attended to the spiritual and material needs of the converts. Over the centuries, as the number of converts waned, the building (situated on Chancery Lane on what was originally the western border of London) became used for storage of public records, and the warden was put in charge of keeping the records.

From the mid-14th century until the early 1600s, only a few dozen Jews entered the Domus, having arrived on England's shores for one reason or another. An act of Parliament in 1891 finally eliminated the official purpose of the Domus Conversorum. The Records Office in London occupies the site today.