"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.