Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- Weights and measures
- Jewish nomenclature
- Chronology
- 1 The English Exodus re-examined
- 2 Jewish settlement, society and economic activity before the Statute of the Jewry of 1275
- 3 ‘The King's most exquisite villeins’: the views of royalty, Church and society
- 4 The royal tribute
- 5 The attempted prohibition of usury and the Edwardian Experiment
- 6 The economic fortunes of provincial Jewries under Edward I
- 7 The Christian debtors
- 8 Interpreting the English Expulsion
- Appendix I Places of jewish settlement, 1262-1290
- Appendix II The Statute of the Jewry, 1275
- Appendix III Articles touching the Jewry
- Appendix IV Charles of Anjou's Edict of Expulsion, 1289
- References
- Index
- Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought
2 - Jewish settlement, society and economic activity before the Statute of the Jewry of 1275
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 October 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- Weights and measures
- Jewish nomenclature
- Chronology
- 1 The English Exodus re-examined
- 2 Jewish settlement, society and economic activity before the Statute of the Jewry of 1275
- 3 ‘The King's most exquisite villeins’: the views of royalty, Church and society
- 4 The royal tribute
- 5 The attempted prohibition of usury and the Edwardian Experiment
- 6 The economic fortunes of provincial Jewries under Edward I
- 7 The Christian debtors
- 8 Interpreting the English Expulsion
- Appendix I Places of jewish settlement, 1262-1290
- Appendix II The Statute of the Jewry, 1275
- Appendix III Articles touching the Jewry
- Appendix IV Charles of Anjou's Edict of Expulsion, 1289
- References
- Index
- Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought
Summary
Any attempt to analyse the nature of medieval Anglo-Jewry during the last years of its existence must naturally involve a consideration of the Jewish community before the start of Edward I's reign. Jews had always been a small minority within the Christian population of the realm. Yet it is important to consider how widespread the Jewish community had been throughout the country, how influential, and how closely related to various strata of English society. Such factors will throw light on the Jewish community's internal structure and contacts. They will also reveal how the Jewish community made its living and what kind of business the Jews conducted prior to Edward's reign, and will expose some of the social and commercial consequences of that business.
As is well known, the medieval Anglo-Jewish community was a Norman importation. There can be little doubt that it was the Conqueror himself who first encouraged Jewish immigration from Rouen to England in the late eleventh century. By the twelfth century the Jewish pioneers had begun to inhabit the major trading towns of the country. At the end of that century it appears that the separate Jewish communities in each provincial town had started to conduct business in more rural districts. It is even possible that their moneylending activities and their search for clients made them at least partly itinerant. After the dislocation of Stephen's reign, the chronicler William Fitz Stephen observed that ‘Peace was everywhere and there emerged in safety from the towns and castles both merchants seeking fairs and Jews seeking creditors.’
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- England's Jewish SolutionExperiment and Expulsion, 1262–1290, pp. 16 - 44Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1998