Reviewing: England’s Jews: Finance, Violence and the Crown in the 13th Century, by John Tolan. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2023.
This scholarly book offers an in-depth look at the Jews’ place in English history during the 1200s. The author has meticulously researched the topic and provided exact dates, names of people and places within the context of the events that it describes. Although that sort of attention to detail makes the book somewhat overwhelming, the comprehensive index makes it easy to find specific topics.
Two major overarching topics that the book delves into are the Jewish involvement in the money-lending industry in England (a topic that has always been controversial) and how the Jews were precariously positioned in the rigid class of medieval England. In discussing the second point, the author stresses how successive kings of England consistently referred to the Jews in the possessive “our Jews,” and sought to assert their direct authority over them. However—as often happened throughout history—the Jews served as pawns in a greater power struggle between the plantagenet kings of England, English and French noblemen, the local English clergy and the Pope in Rome.
Another interesting point emphasized in the book is how the Jews’ situation and treatment in neighboring France was often even worse than in England itself, where anti-Jewish sentiments were even stronger and more official. Throughout the 12th and 13th centuries, Jews were expelled from France multiple times. One of the factions pushing for the expulsion of Jews was the Church officials, who wanted to separate Jews from Christians to avoid social and sexual fraternization between them.
Besides the occasional massacres in which English Jews were actually killed, the author provides detailed accounts of the “punishments” levied against Jews for simply being Jewish, including special taxes called “tallages” and “inheritance taxes” (also known as “death taxes”), making them wear distinct clothing and forbidding Christians from working as maids and nurses in Jewish homes. The book also discusses the aforementioned massacres against Jews, in addition to the various limits placed on the Jews’ ability to lend with interest and outright debt forgiveness for monies owed to Jews. Interestingly enough, this book documents how ordinance that compelled Jews to wear special embroidered tablets to show their Jewishness was, sometimes, enforced by local grocers refusing to sell food to Jews who did not follow those rules, but was also, sometimes, not enforced on certain Jewish individuals or communities who paid for special exemptions.
The author also documents how Church officials commonly made up stories about Jews who were accused of unfair lending practices, insulting the Christian faith (especially desecrating the host and the cross), and even kidnapping Christian babies to circumcise them or kill them (“fake news”).
The book also covers the Jews’ relationship to the Magna Carta and hones in on specific Jews who were active in lending money (such as Isaac of Norwich, David of Lincoln/Oxford and Aaron of York). Although the primary focus of the book is on the reigns of King Henry III and his son, Edward I, other important figures from English history (including Stephen Langton, Robert Grosseteste and Simon of Montfort) are also discussed in the context of their role in the treatment of the Jews.
Overall, this book is an excellent resource for anyone interested in the Jews’ place in English history during the 1100s-1300s. The author has done an outstanding job of meticulously and critically piecing together information from documents and rolls of chancery records, plus other archival sources, to provide a comprehensive account of the Jews’ role in English society during this period. The book ends with the expulsion of the Jews from England in 1290 under King Edward I, bringing the story to its logical, yet unfortunate, conclusion.
Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein is a scholar, author and lecturer living in Beitar Illit, Israel. He has written many scholarly works, including the book, “Lashon HaKodesh: History, Holiness and Hebrew (Mosaica Press).”
