"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.

Eleanor's Unpopularity

Eleanor of Castile (1241 - 1290) was not always well-liked by the English. Although she was performing the expected duty of providing children to Edward I, she was a foreigner in an England that was becoming increasingly wary of influence in their politics from the continent.

She also became disproportionately wealthy in the acquisition of land. The lands given to her as dowry provided £4500 annually, and lands she acquired between 1274 and 1290 produced £2600. This was Edward's plan: to make sure she had annual income to support her needs and desires without having to draw from the Exchequer. She had an annual budget of £8000, so the majority came from her rents.

These were rents that would have gone to many other nobles, however, who resented not possessing lands that in the past belonged to their dynasties. After the Battle of Evesham during the Second Barons' War, lands held by the rebels were given to Eleanor.

Some of the lands were confiscated from nobles because they were mortgaged, used as collateral by borrowing money from Jews. Montfort financed the Second Barons' War partially by persecuting Jews and destroying the records of debts his followers owed to them. Canceling Jewish debts or trading bond debts for land required royal permission, however, and so after the War, Henry III (and Edward I later) would take over de Montfort's followers debts and claim them. Much real estate came into the hands of the king cheaply, and was given to Eleanor.

She also benefitted from the execution of hundreds of Jews for the illegal act of coin clipping. Property of the executed was handed over to her.

An argument made against her was that she actually benefitted from usury, the Jewish practice of charging interest on loans which was forbidden to Christians. Of course anyone borrowing from Jews was paying interest, and the king often simply took over the money owed to Jews for his own purposes, but having the queen gain so much wealth through Jewish debts was a step too far. The Archbishop of Canterbury, John Peckham, spoke about this:

A rumour is waxing strong throughout the kingdom and has generated much scandal. It is said that the illustrious lady queen, whom you serve, is occupying many manors, lands, and other possessions of nobles, and has made them her own property – lands which the Jews have extorted with usury from Christians under the protection of the royal court.

The fact that she "benefitted" from this financial connection to Jews' money did not mean she had a close association with Jews. A devout Christian whose family was very involved in the Crusades, there is every reason to believe that she shared the common hostility toward Jews. Some think that her influence inspired Edward to declare the Expulsion of all Jews from England in 1290. The Expulsion allowed Jews to leave with personal possessions and cash, but property was left behind and given to the king. This would simply be a continuation of the previous practice of supporting his queen (and himself).

By the end of 1290, however, Eleanor was dead, and Edward was bereft. He wanted to commemmorate Eleanor, and he did, in a manner which can still be seen. I'll tell you about Eleanor Crosses tomorrow.

The Umma Document

Despite Muhammad's treatment of the Jewish tribe the Banu Qurayza, he was not opposed to tolerance of the Jewish religion. He felt the Qurayza had betrayed him during the Battle of the Trench, and so needed severe punishment.

The Constitution of Medina—more accurately called the Umma Document, since it was not organized as a real constitution—was a series of documents produced during Muhammad's time in Medina that formed the basis of a multi-religion state. Its earliest record is from a few generations after Muhammad's death, but Western and Islamic scholars consider it genuine.

Its supposed origin was this: while Muhammad was still in Mecca, a delegation from Medina approached him. Medina was home to a few large tribes and dozens of smaller tribes. Hostility between the Jewish and pagan Quraysh tribes had been going on for a few generations, and Medina needed a trusted outside arbitrator to come and end the "eye for an eye" style of dealing with disputes. The 12 strongest tribes of Medina offered to protect Muhammad if he came to Medina to help them resolve the ongoing feuds.

Here are some of the points of the document:

(1) This is a prescript of Muhammad, the Prophet and Messenger of God (to operate) between the faithful and the followers of Islam from among the Quraysh and the people of Medina and those who may be under them, may join them and take part in wars in their company.

(12) (a) And the believers shall not leave any one, hard-pressed with debts, without affording him some relief, in order that the dealings between the believers be in accordance with the principles of goodness and justice.

(13) And the hands of pious believers shall be raised against every such person as rises in rebellion or attempts to acquire anything by force or is guilty of any sin or excess or attempts to spread mischief among the believers ; their hands shall be raised all together against such a person, even if he be a son to any one of them.

(14) A Believer will not kill a Believer [in retaliation] for a non-Believer and will not aid a non-Believer against a Believer.

(15) The protection (dhimmah) of Allah is one, the least of them [i.e., the Believers] is entitled to grant protection that is binding for all of them. The Believers are each other’s allies to the exclusion of other people.

In that last point, the word dhimmah literally means "protected person" and was applied to Jews and Christians as well as Muslims—the "People of the Book." I have mentioned it before in its plural form (dhimmi) mostly here and here.

Sharia law allowed Jewish communities to have their own courts in place of some Islamic laws (unless there were a capital offense that violated #s 13 and 14). About 200 years after Muhammad and the Umma Document, one caliph decided tolerance of non-Muslims wasn't to his taste, and he made changes. I'll discuss him tomorrow.

The Banu Qurayza

Once the Confederacy gave up the Battle of the Trench because of discord and mistrust in the alliance, Muhammad turned his attention to the betrayal of the Banu Qurayza.

The Banu Qurayza were a Jewish tribe that settled in an oasis south of Medina. They had offered tools to help Muhammad dig the trench, but wanted no part of the conflict between Muslims and the Quraysh of Mecca. Still, attempts to enlist their support by the Confederacy reached Muhammad's ears, and he felt he could no longer trust them.

They were a potentially powerful enemy, possessing weapons and warriors, and having them so close to him was considered no longer tenable. Muhammad claimed a vision of the angel Gabriel told him they needed to be destroyed. He surrounded them and began a siege. (The illustration is of the siege from a 19th century telling.)

Negotiations began. The Qurayza offered to depart their land, requesting one camel-load of possessions per person. This was rejected, so they offered to depart leaving everything behind. This, too, was unacceptable to Muhammad. Some Muslims—hoping for leniency for the Jews—asked Muhammad for the opportunity to name a judge to handle the situation and decide what was best. Muhammad appointed a loyal Muslim who had been wounded in the Battle and was dying. Sa'd ibn Muadh pronounced that all the Qurayza men should be executed, their possessions distributed among Muslims, and all the women and children given to Muslims as slaves.

Muhammad agreed to this, declaring it to be what God wanted. The Qurayza males who had reached puberty (estimated between 600 and 900) were beheaded. The rest of the population became slaves, some being sent to central Saudi Arabia. (Some of the slaves were bought by Jews and freed.) Some contemporary records state that some men were spared when vouched for by Muslims. Muhammad also chose one of the women, Rayhana, as a companion. (There are conflicting stories about whether she agreed to become his wife or remain a slave and concubine.) Muhammad also personally took 20% of the loot.

Some scholars stress that the Banu Qurayza were not killed for being Jewish, but were an example of collective punishment for treachery. For centuries afterward Muslims and Jews lived on amicable—thought not politically equal—terms. In fact, a multi-religion state was described in the Constitution of Medina, created during Muhammad's time there. Let's take a closer look at religious tolerance in Medina tomorrow.

Canonized Anti-Semitism

The first thing we should establish is that "anti-semitism" is the wrong term for what happened to Jews in Western Europe and elsewhere. This may seem like a quibble, but it was not "semitism" that Christians objected to. The term "semitic" was coined in 1781 by a German scholar to designate a group of languages from the Middle East, namely those spoken by the descendants of Noah's son Shem. The German antisemitisch was coined in 1860 as a label and criticism of those who felt the "semitic races" were inferior to white races.

What Pope Gregory IX did was to formalize anti-Judaism, his objection to their religion, not their race. People cannot change their race, but they can change their religion, and opportunities were available. In neither case, however, did Gregory want them to be abused or killed by their neighbors.

Gregory brought a legal mind to the issue of Jews. As with the Papal Inquisition, where he demanded due process and objectivity over mob rule, with his statements on Jews he also established protections for them. His statements, however, formalized their unequal status in society and made it part of canon law.

He started with a 1233 mandate, that Christians needed to stop persecuting Jews for simply being Jews. A year later, he established the doctrine of perpetua servitus Judaeorum, "perpetual servitude of the Jews." By this he meant that they should never be in positions of political power from now until Judgment Day. This led to the idea of servitus camerae imperialis, "servitude under the emperor," that they would always be subject to the authority (whims) of the Emperor (of the Holy Roman Empire), who at the time was Frederick II.

One of the triggers for Jewish persecution was the Crusades. When the Christian population was stirred up with the idea of "taking back" the Holy Land, the act of mistreating Jews surged. Throughout the 1230s, Gregory heard complaints from Jews and mandated that those religious leaders in whose dioceses the crimes were committed should "force the crusaders of their dioceses who had killed and robbed Jews to provide proper satisfaction for the crimes perpetrated against the Jews and for the property stolen from them." This was not a generic request: the pope deliberately named those bishops and archbishops, etc., whom he required to see things right.

His idea of perpetual servitude of the Jews affected them for centuries, and anti-Judaism/modern anti-semitism are still rampant.

Even though Gregory saw their servitude to the emperor, he did not completely trust this particular emperor. He did, as part of his approach, bring charges against Frederick for mistreatment of Jews. That was not the pope's only problem with Frederick. Tomorrow I'll tell you about the War of the Keys and what the pope does when you say you will go on Crusade, but you keep putting it off.

William of Norwich

The first case in England of "blood libel" (although more precisely it was only child sacrifice) was the case of William of Norwich, who died about 22 March 1144. The Peterborough Chronicle, an attempt to continue the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, had this to report:

In his time the Jews of Norwich bought a Christian child before Easter, and tortured him with all the same tortures with which our Lord was tortured, and on Long-Friday hanged him on a cross for love of our Lord, and afterwards buried him—imagined that it would be concealed, but our Lord showed that he was a holy martyr, and the monks took him, and buried him reverently in the minster, and through our Lord he performs wonderful and manifold miracles; and he is called St. William.

Here is what really happened. William was an apprentice to a tanner, whose body was found on Holy Saturday 1144 in Thorpe Wood, north of Norwich. An accusation was made by William's family against Jews currently living in the city, so Bishop William de Turbeville decided to investigate. He summoned members of the Jewish community to his court to endure trial by ordeal.

Before the bishop could subject his "guests" to trials, however, Sheriff John de Chesney showed up and stopped any proceedings, since the bishop had no legal authority to do so. Jews were considered to be under the king's protection (at that time, Stephen of Blois): the Angevin kings respected the money-lending (and money-taking) opportunities their presence afforded the crown.

Bishop de Turbeville moved the body to the monastery cemetery and tried to declare William a martyr and create a cult around him for the sake of attention and donations to the church, but it was slow going. There was no evidence that Jews were involved, so no great public execution or punishment of any kind that would cause a sensation.

The bishop was not ready to give up, however. He encouraged a Benedictine monk, Thomas of Monmouth, to write a book about the event. Thomas's The Life and Miracles of St William of Norwich contained two chapters on his life and five chapters on miracles performed in his name afterward. Thomas created a story of a converted Jew who became a monk, Theobald of Cambridge, who explains to Thomas that the "ancient writings of his fathers" required an annual killing of a Christian. "Theobald" explains that this killing was ordered by a Jew in Narbonne, France, who claimed to be the Messiah.

Since the Jews at this time in Norwich had been there just under a decade, and came from Normandy, they were French-speaking, so the connection to Narbonne made sense to some. No one, however, seemed to notice that there was no evidence of an annual killing caused by Jews stretching back to the time of "ancient fathers." William's family was Anglo-Saxon, and there were many conflicts between indigenous Anglo-Saxons and the recently arrived Norman folk.

The cult of William of Norwich did not make Norwich rich, but it persisted. The bishop moved the body a few times, each time putting it in a more prominent place, ending up in a chapel built on the spot where the boy's body was found.

But now for a topic a little less grisly: when the bishop wanted to subject the Jews to trial by ordeal, what might that have entailed? There were many possible trial ideas, and I'll share them tomorrow.

Bury St. Edmunds' Darkest Day

Yesterday was Palm Sunday, so let's talk about a terrible Palm Sunday (18 March) event in 1190 in the English town of Bury St. Edmunds. We can probably blame the head of the local abbey for this. Abbot Samson of Tottington wanted to make sure his abbey was financially stable. His profligate predecessor, Hugh, borrowed a lot of money from Jews, and those debts with interest needed repayment. Several years earlier, the incident of Robert of Bury gave the abbey a chance to create a shrine to the martyred boy that would draw visitors and donations.

It was not uncommon that those in debt would stir up anti-Jewish sentiment and through death or false imprisonment of Jews manage to cancel their debts. Samson saw this option, but he also had another "problem" with Jews: by order of the king, Jews were allowed to practice their non-Christianity. The abbot was accustomed to have rights over the town similar to the king's rule over the country. The Jews were a threat to his authority, since they did not fall under it.

On Palm Sunday, preachers spoke out so strongly against the Jews that the congregation went out of the church to the Jewish quarter and dragged out from their homes and killed 57 Jewish men, women, and children. Part of the preacher's instigation was likely the memory of the death of Robert of Bury, whose shrine still exists in the crypt of the abbey church.

Abbot Samson then decreed that all Jews would be expelled from the town.

Later that same year was the massacre at Clifford's Tower in York.

In 2011, a medieval well was found to have 17 skeletons in it, all dating to the 12th or 13th centuries. Eleven of the 17 skeletons were of children. DNA analysis suggests that they were all Ashkenazi Jews and likely part of the massacre in 1190.

The story of Robert of Bury lacks any definitive records that have come down to us—such as arrest records—so it has been suggested that the frequent references to it are part of a growing story that was pushed to help justify Abbot Samson's and Bury St. Edmunds' actions.

In the abbey gardens there is now a memorial to the Holocaust that also specifically commemorates the 57 Jews killed in 1190.

And on the subject of child martyrs, we have not yet discussed the original example of blood libel in England, the story of William of Norwich. After we look at that tomorrow, we will move on to less grisly stories.

Robert of Bury

In the second half of the 12th century there was a monk in the town of Bury St. Edmunds in Suffolk named Jocelyn de Brakelond. He became chaplain under Abbot Samson of Tottington. Jocelyn says he was with Samson "night and day" for six years. Jocelyn left behind some writing about his times, in which he refers to other things he has written that are no longer extant. One is the story of Robert of Bury and his miracles.

Robert was an English boy who died in 1181. The legend says he was kidnapped on Good Friday and killed by crucifixion to parallel Jesus' death. The details—and they are few—have to be cobbled together, but they are another example of blood libel.

In the following century, the chronicler John de Taxter mentions the murder taking place in 1181 (our only source for the date). Jocelyn's only surviving reference to the event tells us "the saintly boy Robert was murdered and buried in our church; many signs and wonders were performed among the people as I have recorded elsewhere." Whatever this other record was, it has not survived.

The story spread, however. Later mentions of it say he was martyred at Easter, or that he was "crucified by the Jews." The monk John Lydgate wrote a poem called Prayer for St. Robert that implies the death paralleled that of William of Norwich, another child saint, and suggests there was a Christian accomplice. An illustration made to accompany the poem in the 15th century has images that might make sense to those who had heard the story, but that we cannot interpret properly.

In the illustration (shown above), a woman is holding a child over a well. The inscription reads "the old woman wished, but was not able, to hide the light of God." Was she the Christian accomplice? Did she later turn the boy over to Jews to get rid of him? Or is this an act post-death, in which she tries to hide the body. Was the 15th century Lydgate conflating the story of Robert of Bury with the 13th century story of Little St. Hugh of Lincoln, found in a well? The illustration also shows an archer firing an arrow into the air while the body of Robert lies behind a tree; the symbolism of this escapes us. (I wonder if there was a story in which someone prays and fires an arrow which leads them to the body.) In another part, a kneeling monk prays.

Some historians believe the story of Harold of Gloucester showed the value of having a child martyr's shrine that would lead to visitors and donations. There are no details about Robert of Bury, his family, or arrests; there is only the public blame put on Jews and a shrine created at Bury St. Edmunds.

Another theory suggests that the cult of Robert the child martyr was enhanced and expanded years later to retroactively justify an action that took place in 1190, referred to as Bury St. Edmunds' Darkest Day. I'll explain tomorrow.

"Blood Libel"

The death of Hugh of Lincoln led to the arrests of so many Jews because of the belief in "blood libel": that the Jews stole/kidnapped/murdered Christians to use their blood in Jewish rituals.

Where this idea started—and why it was readily believed—is hard to pin down. A 10th century Byzantine encyclopedia called the Souda has an entry that "every seven years the Jews captured a stranger, brought him to the temple in Jerusalem, and sacrificed him, cutting his flesh into bits." A 5th century story by Socrates Scholasticus 

Some thought that the Jews were recreating the Crucifixion, but stories of Jews sacrificing non-Jews are older than Christianity. The 1st century Greco-Egyptian writer Apion told the story of Mithridates entering a temple in Jerusalem in the 2nd century BCE and finding a Greek held captive who explained that he was being fattened for sacrifice.

Blood libel accusations in medieval Europe increased at the time of the Crusades, when pro-Christian/anti-Jewish sentiment was spiking. The Crusades also included attempts to force conversion on Jews which were countered by Jews killing their own children to prevent them from suffering conversion. If Jews could kill their own children, the thinking went, then they would have no trouble killing others' children. (In fact, collective homicide/suicide goes back to Masada and was seen more recently—"recent" compared to the Hugh of Lincoln incident, that is—in the Clifford's Tower incident.

There was, of course, a known precedent for Jews to cause children to bleed, and that was the bris, the circumcision ceremony. One such ceremony was tied to another accusation of blood libel. As grisly as the concept is, I want to give some more examples of "little saints" like William of Norwich and Robert of Bury. First, however, let's discuss the case of Harold of Gloucester, where the accusation led to no real action except to...finance a war? I'll try to make sense of that tomorrow.

Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln

The murder of a child is a particularly heinous act that tugs at the heart strings. In the eyes of society, the murderer of a child must be a particularly horrible individual. The death of a small English boy in 1255 created a story that stuck in the cultural memory right up until modern times.

On 31 July 1255, nine-year-old Hugh disappeared in Lincoln. A month later, on 29 August, his body was discovered in a well. The search for the murderer was on, and attention turned to the segment of society that was often blamed for criminal acts: Jews.

John of Lexington, brother to the Bishop of Lincoln, imprisoned a local Jew named Copin, accusing him of the murder and offering him amnesty from execution in exchange for a confession. John supposedly convinced King Henry III to this amnesty deal, even though there was no evidence that Copin actually committed the deed. Henry arrived in Lincoln a month after the arrest of Copin. He ordered Copin executed, and then had 90 randomly selected Jews arrested and taken to the Tower of London for an investigation and trial about the murder. Eighteen of the Jews refused to participate in the trial, claiming it was a sham, and were hanged for their refusal.

As for the remaining Jews: a Dominican friar helped free one, John, who had converted to Christianity. The remainder were condemned to execution, but Dominicans—no doubt understanding that it was highly unlikely that there was actual guilt involved—pleaded for their lives and they were released.

Matthew Paris created a colorful, detailed, and wholly fictitious scene about the death:

This year [1255] about the feast of the apostles Peter and Paul [27 July], the Jews of Lincoln stole a boy called Hugh, who was about eight years old. After shutting him up in a secret chamber, where they fed him on milk and other childish food, they sent to almost all the cities of England in which there were Jews, and summoned some of their sect from each city to be present at a sacrifice to take place at Lincoln, in contumely and insult of Jesus Christ. For, as they said, they had a boy concealed for the purpose of being crucified; so a great number of them assembled at Lincoln, and then they appointed a Jew of Lincoln judge, to take the place of Pilate, by whose sentence, and with the concurrence of all, the boy was subjected to various tortures. They scourged him till the blood flowed, they crowned him with thorns, mocked him, and spat upon him; each of them also pierced him with a knife, and they made him drink gall, and scoffed at him with blasphemous insults, and kept gnashing their teeth and calling him Jesus, the false prophet. And after tormenting him in diverse ways they crucified him, and pierced him to the heart with a spear. When the boy was dead, they took the body down from the cross, and for some reason disemboweled it; it is said for the purpose of their magic arts.

There had been previous "martyrs" whose deaths had been blamed on Jews, but the case of Hugh had royal involvement which elevated it to legendary status. A shrine was built at Lincoln Cathedral to the little martyr and "little saint," drawing visitors and donations. This may well have been Lexington's motivation for turning the child's death into a martyrdom at Jewish hands, acting on his brother's behalf, to increase traffic and money to Lincoln.

Why did Paris' description involve so many Jews? Why were 90 Jews rounded up by the king? Why was it assumed that there was more involvement than just a single murderer? To understand that, we have to talk about one of the most ridiculous accusations against medieval Jewry, the belief in "blood libel." See you tomorrow.

Financing a War

When Simon de Montfort wanted to kick off the Second Barons War, he needed funding. One of the easiest ways for most medieval Europeans to free up money was to force a cancellation of debts to the Jews. Since many of these debts were owed by Montfort's baronial friends, their gratitude would extend to supporting him against King Henry III.

One of the barons' demands of Henry was that he write off the Jewish debts. This he would not do: Henry used occasional tallages (taxes) on the Jews to fund his own endeavors. His healthy balance sheet needed Jews to be able to collect what was owed them so that he could access take it.

In April of 1264, Montfort encouraged his followers and others to begin widespread persecution and even execution of the Jews, destroying their records of debt. One of the main centers of the Jewish population in England was in Canterbury, where about 20 Jewish households accounted for about 100 or so Jews. There had been, in fact, a widespread persecution of the Jews a couple years earlier, when lay and clerical citizens attacked and burned some of their houses, although no one was killed that time.

A member of Montfort's rebellion, the brutal Gilbert de Clare, occupied Canterbury and instigated "The Massacre of the Jews." An unknown number of Jews were killed and their property looted, and several Jewish women were forcibly baptized. Any remaining Jews fled Canterbury. The most prominent member of the Canterbury Jewry was Solomon, son of Josce. When he returned in 1265 (he fled abroad during the troubles), Henry III returned his property to him.

Montfort's son Henry and the 6th Earl of Derby, Robert Ferrers, led a pogrom that killed all the Jews in Worcester. Montfort's son Simon led the attacks in Winchester. In London, a chief Montfort supporter, John Fitz John, led the attacks and is said to have killed two of the leading Jewish figures with his bare hands; a total of 500 Jews in London were killed. In 1264 and 1265, attacks were made in Lincoln and Cambridge, and financial records were destroyed.

Anti-Jewish sentiment was always bubbling just under the surface, looking for a reason to burst forth and lead to atrocities. There were often single incidents that were blamed on the Jews. Even if that blame was proven false, the ill feeling left its mark and was ready to be invoked to justify later attacks. One such that stayed in the public consciousness and could not be expunged was the story of little Saint Hugh of Lincoln, which I will share with you tomorrow.

Casimir III the Great

The king of Poland from 1333 to 1370 was Casimir III, later called "the Great" (the only Polish monarch to be given that title). When he ascended to the throne after Władysław the Elbow High, he was only 23. Poland had been transformed by war into several separate territories, with a depleted economy, and Casimir was derisively referred to as merely "King of Krakow." He was something of an underdog, but he set out to make significant changes.

One of his first moves was to fortify several towns and start a program of castle building; during his reign he built 50 castles, leading to a famous Polish saying: Zastal Polske drewniana a zostawil murowana ("He found a Poland made of wood and left it made of stone.")

Besides rebuilding infrastructure, one year into his reign, he also reformed the culture: he reaffirmed privileges that had been granted to Polish Jews by King Boleslaw V 70 years earlier. He forbade forced baptism of Jewish children under penalty of death. It is said that 70% of Ashkenazi Jews are descended from the Jews of Poland thanks to the welcoming atmosphere created by Casimir. There is also a rumor (unconfirmed) that he had a Jewish mistress, Esterka (Esther).

He invited Dutch, Moravians, and Saxons to emigrate. With the blessing of Pope Urban V, he founded the University of Krakow, still the oldest university in Poland.

He was also willing to relinquish some power, in that previously all land belonged to the Piast dynasty (of which he was the last member), and now Polish lands were independent of the Crown. Casimir reformed the legal code, balancing the privileges and power in law of the three estates: nobility, commoners, and clergy. For this he was nicknamed "the Peasants' King."

Between diplomacy and waging war, he doubled the size of the Poland that he inherited. He married four times, and though he fathered children, none of them survived to be his heir. He named Louis I of Hungary as his heir. Louis was Casimir's nephew, and choosing him as heir made an alliance with Hungary that would be useful to Poland. Louis was of the House of Anjou, however, and therefore with his succession to the throne of Poland the legendary Piast Dynasty was no longer in the center of Polish nobility and politics. Marrying into the Piast Dynasty became a popular pastime in the future to increase your standing in Poland.

What was so special about the Piasts, why were they "legendary," and from where did they originate? Check back here tomorrow and I'll tell you.

Maghreb Jews

When Jews were expelled from England (1290) and Sephardic Jews from Spain (1492) and other locations in Europe, many of them wound up in North Africa, where there were already communities of Maghrebi Jews.  Maghrebi Jews are those who migrated to North African areas that are now Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya. "Maghrebi" or "Maghreb" means "western" and refers to the western Arabic world. Sometimes Egyptian Jews are included, but there were distinct cultural differences between those in Egypt and the Maghrebi to the west.

The illustration is a synagogue off the coast of Tunisia, on an island called Djerba. It was partially built with stones that were brought from Jerusalem, and is still visited by North African Jews.

There were likely Maghrebi Jews living in ancient Carthage (the Carthaginians were also a Semitic people). Simon of Cyrene, mentioned in three of the Gospels as a man chosen to help carry the Cross on the way to the Crucifixion, was Maghrebi: Cyrenaica was a Greek colony in eastern Libya. The Roman general Titus deported Jews to Mauretania (Northern Africa) after the Jewish-Roman War of 70CE, adding to the Jewish population.

The Vandals established kingdoms in Northern Africa early in the 5th century. They were tolerant of the different peoples in their territories. This allowed the Jewish population to grow and thrive, so much so that the Christian churches decided to curtail their influence with restrictive laws. Moreover, when Justinian I's armies overthrew the Vandals, he issued an edict that lumps Jews with Arians and heathens.

Muslim rulers tolerated Jews, but when the Visigothic king Sisebut invaded the Iberian Peninsula and persecuted those he found there, many Iberian Jews fled to Northern Africa. The influx of Sephardic Jews eventually changed the local customs of the Maghrebi Jews to a more Sephardic manner. Fez in Morocco and Tunis in Tunisia became important Sephardic rabbinical centers right up until the 20th century, when many Jews emigrated to Israel, France, and Canada.

Once again I have found that I have referred to Vandals a handful of times without ever explaining who they really were. Let's fill in that gap tomorrow.

The Illustrated Receipt

In the earliest days of this blog, there were no illustrations. I eventually decided there were some posts that would be enhanced by an appropriate image. In some cases, however, there was no image available specific to the subject of the post; for instance, there are some individuals about whom I've written that were no important enough to have an image created in their lifetime that has survived, if it existed at all. In those cases I would find something—a picture of a manuscript, a woodcut of folk doing some related work—that links however tangentially to the subject.

In today's case, however, the illustration is the subject. I have enlarged it at the risk if throwing off the formatting of the web page to let you see it more clearly.

This is a unique document: it is a sketch that was made at the top of a 1233 receipt from the Exchequer, listing tax payments from the Jews of Norwich. Illustrating an Exchequer receipt was unnecessary, but the unknown scribe/accountant was making a point, a point that provides us with the earliest visual caricature of Jews in a negative light.

The top center shows a three-faced figure labeled "Isaac fil jurnet." This is Isaac of Norwich, probably the richest moneylender in Norwich. We know he was owed a lot of money by the abbot and monks of Westminster, taking them to court to force repayment. This was decades after Richard I established the Exchequer of the Jews and the Ordinance of Jewry that should have made his lawsuit easier, but King Henry III was not Richard and did not so carefully protect the Jews in his realm from anti-semitism.

Isaac is shown with a forked beard, a sign of the devil. There are two other Jews represented, one just below Isaac and one to the left. Both have long, hooked noses, and a demon between them is pointing a clawed finger at each of their noses, indicating that they have noses like the demon's. The Jew to the left is labeled Mosse Mokke, who was a collector of debts for Isaac. The one below Isaac is labeled Abigail, who some believe was married to Mosse Mokke and also worked for Isaac.

To the far left is a monk with scales full of coins, representing the money owed by Westminster. A demon behind him has an arrow coming from his mouth to the back of the monk.

To the right of Isaac is a demon in a tower labeled "Dagon," the pagan god of the Philistines from the Old Testament. He is accompanied by a demon with a horn who is summoning several other demons to come to Isaac's aid. All the demons have horns and hooks noses and claws.

Considering that a scribe took the time to indulge in the unusual step of creating such a detailed negative portrayal of Jews in an official document of the Exchequer, the likelihood for anti-semitism "on the street" must have been enormous.

Was it the same everywhere? Jews had scattered all over Europe and on all parts of the Mediterranean Coast. What was going on with other Jewish communities in the Middle Ages. Tomorrow I'll tell you about the Maghreb Jews.

Exchequer of the Jews

In 1194, Richard I of England created a system by which all financial transactions by Jews would be documented by the Crown. This system created an office that was subordinate to the Royal Exchequer, and became known as the Exchequer of the Jews.

His motivation was the Massacre at York, as well as the anti-semitic riots that took place at his own coronation.

I think it would be interesting to see part of the actual (translated) decree (ellipses and italics 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 eliminated 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.

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 made to convert.)

One of these documents, in 1233, has an unusual feature: it is illustrated. The illustration above is part of it. The whole drawing is interesting as one of the earliest examples of Jews shown in a negative depiction. We're going to look at it very carefully next time.

Ordinance of the Jewry

When Richard I of England was kidnapped coming back from the Third Crusade, the ransom was going to be enormous: 100,000 pounds of silver. This was 2-3 times the annual income to the English crown from taxation. Richard's mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, worked hard to raise the money. Churches were taxed for one-quarter of the value of their property. William Longchamp, Richard's chancellor, raised 5000 marks from the Jewish community of England alone, which was more than three times what the City of London was required to offer.

When Richard got back to England, he looked at an anti-semitic massacre that happened in York, and decided to do something about it. That situation seemed to have been started deliberately by Christians who owed money to Jews and chose to start a pogrom to avoid having to settle their debts properly.

To be fair, Richard saw such situations as financial losses for himself. Lost revenue of a citizen meant being able to tax that citizen less. Richard decided that all transactions with Jews needed to be recorded by the Exchequer. His Ordinance of the Jewry in 1194 led to a new division of the Royal Exchequer called the Exchequer of the Jews.

This Exchequer required each transaction to be documented with a chirograph (literally "hand-written"). One part would be kept by the creditor, one part would be kept at the Exchequer. The benefit to the Jewish creditor was that a record of the debt was stored in a safe place and the person to whom the money was leant could not get out of repayment. There was a benefit for the Crown, as well. All transactions were liable to taxation. Moreover, Richard mandated to receive 10% of all debts collected with the aid of his courts. Curiously, with the king acting as "silent partner" to Jewish moneylenders, they had an advantage over Christian moneylenders whose accounts were not protected by the Exchequer. 

The Exchequer expanded beyond just debts, which we can look at tomorrow.

William Longchamp

William Longchamp (or "de Longchamp") achieved success the old-fashioned way: he paid lots of money for it. That's not fair; best to start at the beginning.

Little is known of his background, except that his family came from Longchamp in Normandy. A rival of his, Hugh Nonant, Bishop of Coventry, claimed William's grandfather was a peasant. This seems unlikely, since William's father Hugh held a knight's tenancy in Normandy, also land in England. (Nonant was Longchamp's opposite on many issues, such as the Becket affair and loyalty to Henry II's children.)

Near the end of Henry II's reign, Longchamp entered royal service for Henry's son Geoffrey (not Geoffrey Plantagenet, Duke of Brittany, who would join the rebellion against their father; the illegitimate one, who became Archbishop of York under Richard). That did not last long. Soon he was working in Henry's chancery, writing up documents, and later was working for Richard I, who made Longchamp Chancellor of Aquitaine, of which Richard was then the Duke. During a dispute between Richard and Henry's envoy, William Marshall, Longchamp was sent to Paris to represent Richard at the court of King Philip II.

When Richard became king, it might have seemed inevitable that he made the trusted and competent Longchamp Chancellor for England—once Longchamp paid £3000 for the privilege, that is. Longchamp would manage England's business while Richard ruled. One of those bits of business was the use of the Great Seal to authenticate documents, whose control and use was now in Longchamp's hands. Stamping a chancery document with the Great Seal incurred a fee, paid to the keeper of the Seal. The price of the Seal's use was raised at this time, perhaps to help Longchamp recoup the £3000 pounds.

Longchamp was also made Bishop of Ely, as well as Justiciar, able to act in the king's name in certain matters. He clashed with a co-justiciar, Hugh de Puiset, Bishop of Durham (who paid £1000 for that office), and so Richard split the country, giving Hugh authority over everything north of the Humber. (Hugh was a bit of a problem, exercising too much authority because the position of Archbishop of York had not been filed for awhile; once Richard placed his brother there, Hugh had a higher authority to whom he was forced to submit.)

One of Longchamp's first challenges after Richard left England was the Massacre at York, when about 150 Jews died after seeking refuge in Clifford's Tower. Richard had made it clear after the anti-semitic riot at his coronation that Jews were to be left in peace. Angry at the insult to the king's command, Longchamp marched to York and imposed heavy fine on 52 of its citizens. He banished Richard de Malbis and members of other families who had been leaders of the riot and massacre. Evidence showed that these individuals owed debts to the Jews, giving them motivation for their crimes.

There are some who blame Longchamp for harassment of the Jews, and yes, there was financial inequity because of Richard's kidnapping, but ultimately that led to Richard creating a system that he intended would stop the attempt to eliminate debt by eliminating the Jew to whom one owed the debt. In fact, Richard's plan gave Jewish moneylenders a slight advantage over Christian moneylenders. We'll go into all this next time.

When the King's Away

Anti-semitic riots at the coronation of Richard I cannot really be seen as an anomalous event: anti-semitism—even when not overtly practiced as a matter of policy—was always lying just under the surface, waiting to erupt at a moment's notice.

So even though Richard might have preferred that Jews be left alone, and made a formal statement of this, he was not always present in England to make sure his word was adhered to. It wasn't long after his coronation (3 September 1189) that he left England: not only was his heart never in England, having been raised largely in France, but also he had "taken up the Cross," and the Third Crusade was calling. (For Richard, England was mostly a place he could tax to support his military plans.)

Several incidents took place. At Bury St. Edmunds, 57 Jews were killed on 18 March 1190. There were attacks on Jews at Lincoln, Colchester, Thetford, and Ospringe.

A major incident took place in York on the 16th-17th of March, on the Shabbat before Passover. A contingent from York was preparing to join the Crusade, and with Crusading fever so high, sentiment against non-Christians rose to match it. Richard de Malbis owed a large sum of money to the Jew Aaron of Lincoln; he was slow in paying. He used an accidental house fire as an excuse to incite a crowd to attack the home of the recently deceased Benedict of York, an agent of Aaron of Lincoln. This prompted the leader of York's Jews, Josce of York, to ask the keeper of York Castle to provide safety.

Jewish families were allowed refuge in Clifford's Tower, but a mob surrounded it. The constable went out to speak to the mob, but the Jews inside feared to open the doors again and would not let him back in. The constable called for help from the sheriff, who brought his forces to the castle keep.

Rabbi Yom Tov Joigny, a French-born liturgical poet, advised the Jews inside with him to commit suicide rather than be forced to convert to Christianity. The fathers of the families would (and did) kill their wives and children, before handing the knife to Yom Tov, who stabbed them before killing himself. They also set the wooden keep on fire so their bodies could not be desecrated by the mob.

A handful of Jews who did not kill themselves surrendered at dawn the next day, on the promise that they would be unharmed. When they came out, however, they were killed. In all, about 150 died in the Clifford's Tower incident.

With Richard gone, the Chancellor of England, left to maintain order, had to deal with the aftermath. What was that like? Next we will meet William Longchamp.

Riot at the Coronation

During the coronation of Richard I, many citizens wanted to show their loyalty to the new king (and perhaps gain future favor) by giving him gifts. Not all citizens were welcome, however. Tradition meant not everyone was allowed to be part of or even witness the ceremony; for instance, women and non-Christians.

According to the Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral, Ralph of Diceto (c.1120 - c.1202), when some Jews arrived with gifts, they were stripped, flogged, and thrown from the building. To the people outside Westminster Abbey, the rumor spread that the new king disapproved of Jews and wanted them killed.

Riots began immediately. The Jewish population of London was attacked. Many of the homes in the area called Old Jewry were made of stone, and could withstand attacks by ordinary citizens, but the solution was to set them on fire, killing those within. (Some non-Jewish homes were destroyed by fire as well.) Some Jews were forced to convert to Christianity. Among those killed was Jacob of Orléans, a tosafist or author of commentaries on the Talmud, who had left France to teach in England. Some Jews escaped London, while some fled to the Tower of London to request sanctuary. Some were sheltered by Christian friends.

Richard was furious: no one wants the start of their reign to be marked by a massacre. His desire to punish the perpetrators was curtailed by the fact that there were so many and that some were prominent citizens. He chose to punish specifically the destruction of certain property. Roger of Hoveden describes it thusly:

On the day after the coronation, the king sent his servants, and caused those offenders to be arrested who had set fire to the city; not for the sake of the Jews, but on account of the houses and property of the Christians which they had burnt and plundered, and he ordered some of them to be hanged.

Although Richard seemed not to care about the destroyed Jewish homes, he did allow forcibly converted Jews to return to their chosen faith. He made a royal writ saying Jews should be left alone—he was concerned about what would happen when he left the country, since he had already pledged to go on Crusade.

When he went on Crusade shortly after, however, there were more examples of anti-semitism, which I will share tomorrow.

Female Physicians

We talked here about how women and Jewish women could be physicians in the Middle Ages, but it would be a mistake to think that there was no opposition to this phenomenon, especially after a change in 1220.

Consider that, technically, anyone could practice medicine. No one would object to a mother caring for a family member, or a nun feeding a leper (as in the illustration). More formal, professional medical practice in France, however, required a degree from the University of Paris. This prevented many, women especially, from helping their fellow human beings. There were consequences for treating the sick if you were not "official."

Consider the case of Jacqueline Felice de Almania, a woman from Florence who was living in Paris. Her reputation was excellent: she was known for finding cures for patients who had been treated elsewhere without relief. She did not charge fees unless the patient was cured. 

In 1322, she was brought to trial by the University of Paris. The accusation was treating patients without any "real" knowledge of medicine; that is, she did not have a degree. Seven former patients were brought as witnesses; all testified that she had helped them where male doctors had failed. Her actions involved analyzing urine by sight, taking the pulse of patients, examining their limbs, etc. She was found guilty of practicing without a license, fined 60 pounds, and threatened with excommunication if she ever treated patients again.

The year 1322 was popular for cracking down on unlicensed medical practitioners. In that same year, records show women named Clarice of Rouen (banned for treating men), Jeanne the Convert (likely originally a Jew) of Saint-Médicis, Marguerite of Ypres, and "Jewess Belota" all were banned from practicing medicine.

The University of Paris in 1325 appealed to Pope John XXII to speak out strongly on this issue. He wrote to Bishop Stephen of Paris to forbid women practicing without medical knowledge or acting as midwives, because what they were doing was akin to witchcraft. A bit of a stretch to go from medicine to witchcraft just because the person was female, but then, John was determined to stamp out witchcraft...and a lot of other things, which I'll talk more about tomorrow.

(By the way, women earning medical degrees at the University of Paris was suppressed until the 19th century!)