Daily Medieval

Article One of King Henry III's 1253  Statute of Jewry allowed Jews to stay in England so long as they served the king in some capacity...

Queen Isabella of Castile had a reputation for harshness when it came to crime and corruption. A Spanish writer and contemporary, Hernando...

The other day I mentioned that King Alfonso of Portugal in the 15th century had a Jewish treasurer. He was a statesman and scholar as well,...

A secret seder [ source ] Yesterday I alluded to a third option available to persecuted Jews in the Middle Ages who were forced into t...

The Inquisition in Portigal [ source ] When the Alhambra Decree gave Jews the choice of converting to Christianity or leaving the kingd...

[ source ] There is an ethnic subdivision of Jews called Sephardic Jews. "Sephardic" comes from the Hebrew  Sepharad , which r...