WHEN I had the honour of addressing you from this platform on Tuesday
evening last, I endeavoured to establish, by circumstantial evidence,
the probability that the Jews visited this country at a very early
period of their history. I flatter myself, however, that I have
succeeded in demonstrating that some Jews were certainly in this island
in the very first century of the Christian era. How few, or how many,
is doubtful.
It is not too much, however, to expect that some of your minds, at least,
have been exercised on this important inquiry since we last met together.
It is not at all unlikely that some objections against my arguments
suggested themselves to your minds――objections which may at first sight
seem both plausible and natural. For instance, I know that a question
suggests itself on taking my view of the early introduction of the Jews
into this country――why did not Julius Cæsar make any mention of them in
his history of Britain? I meet it by another question. Did Cæsar omit
nothing else? Read his writings and compare them with the works of later
historians, and then tell me whether his silence on the existence of
the Jews in this country furnishes any argument against their having
really been here. If indeed he omitted nothing else but the Jews, there
would then be some force in the argument, but since we know that Cæsar’s
history of Britain affords us but a bird’s-eye view of the state of the
country in his time, what then is the value of such an argument? Again,
supposing that Cæsar wrote a minute and detailed description of Britain,
would there have been any necessity on his part to mention the existence
of the Jews? Certainly not; he wrote for the benefit of his countrymen,
to give them some information respecting the Britons. The Romans knew
who the Jews were; it would have been a waste of time on Cæsar’s part
to have given them information on a subject they were already acquainted
with. He might as well have described the Roman army; especially since
it is supposed that many Jews accompanied him as soldiers to Britain.
Another argument has been advanced against their establishment in this
country at so early a period, which was――“It is not probable that a
total silence respecting them would have prevailed among the British
writers of those days, had any portion of them been then established
in Britain.” I mention those objections because they are the strongest
which have been produced, and you will find them in the eighth volume of
the “English Archæologia,” page 390.
Now, I must meet this again by another question. To what early British
historians does Mr. Caley refer?――for that is the name of the writer
of the article on this subject in the “English Archæologia.”――England
had no literature for a very long period. Gildas, commonly called the
Wise, is the most ancient British historian now extant. Any one who has
ever taken the trouble to read through his “De Calamitate, Excidio, et
Conquestu Britanniæ” (this is the only work of his printed, and probably
existing), will despair of finding in it any thing of importance. Next
to him comes the venerable Bede, who was, indeed, the brightest ornament
of the eighth century, but he confined himself to ecclesiastical history.
Bede, however, does incidentally mention the Jews, as I shall presently
show, which proves that they must have been here anterior to his time.
I wish, however, first to call your attention to a striking feature in
the history of the Jews in this country. The Jews are never mentioned in
the early history of England, except to record some flagrant persecution,
or horrible massacre; to reckon up the amount of sums extorted from them
by kings in distress, or to detail some story about the crucifixion of
infants, got up by their enemies for the sake of making the objects of
their injustice odious as well as unfortunate. And when these subjects
did not occur to the monkish historians of the time――that is to say,
when the Jews were unmolested, peaceably employing themselves in traffic,
and gradually acquiring wealth which was not demanded from them too
largely or too rudely, in return for their safety and opportunities
of commerce――it would be conceived that they were unworthy of mention
on any other account. Historians always find the most prosperous to
be the most barren periods of history; as the richest and most fertile
country affords but an uninteresting landscape to the poet or the artist,
when compared with the wild rocks, rugged precipices, and unproductive
solitudes of mountain scenery. So we may fairly conclude that, until the
reign of Stephen, they were enjoying, without molestation, the benefits
of their traffic, and increasing in riches and wealth, whilst the peace
of their Gentile brethren was all that time rent asunder by different
invasions and seditions.
The first mention I find of the Jews in English works, is that in Bede’s
“Ecclesiastical History,” in connexion with the ridiculous and absurd
controversies which prevailed between the Romish and British monks, viz.,
about the form of the tonsure and the keeping of Easter. The priests of
all the then Christian churches were accustomed to shave part of their
head; but the form given to this tonsure was different in the Britons
from that used by the Roman monks, who came over to this country with
Augustine. The latter made the tonsure on the crown of the head, and
in a circular form, whilst the former shaved the forepart of their
head from ear to ear. The Romish monks, in order to recommend their
own form of tonsure, maintained that it imitated symbolically the
crown of thorns worn by our Lord in his passion. But as to the Britons,
their antagonists insisted that their form was invented by Simon Magus,
without any regard to that representation. The Britons also celebrated
Easter on the very day of the full moon in March, if that day fell on
a Sunday, instead of waiting till the Sunday following. The Britons
pleaded the antiquity of their usages; the Romans insisted on the
universality of theirs. In order to render the former odious, the latter
affirmed that their native priests once in seven years concurred with
the _Jews_ in the time of celebrating that festival.
This incidental circumstance proves that there must have been Jews here
who had synagogues, and observed the feast of Passover. The Jews must
also have had learned men amongst them to arrange their calendars: and
such an arrangement requires a fair astronomical knowledge, or else the
charge would have been totally unintelligible to the Saxons.
The above charge will account for the edict published soon after by
Ecgbright, Archbishop of York, in the “_Canonical Excerptiones_,” A.D.
740, to the effect, that no Christian should be present at any of the
Jewish feasts,¹ which establishes the fact that Jews must have resided
in this country at the time of the Saxon heptarchy, in tolerable numbers,
and celebrated their feasts according to their own law; and what is
more, they desired to live peaceably with their Christian neighbours.
¹ See Appendix A.
It also appears from a charter granted by Whitglaff, King of the
Mercians, to Croyland Abbey, ninety-three years after the above edict
was issued, that there were Jews in this country at that period, and
possessed landed property; and what is most remarkable, they endowed
Christian places of worship.
Ingulphus, in his “History of Croyland Abbey,” relates that in the
year 833, Whitglaff, King of the Mercians, having been defeated by
Egbert, took refuge in that abbey, and in return for the protection and
assistance rendered him by the abbot and monks on the occasion, granted
a charter, confirming to them all lands, tenements, and possessions,
and all other gifts which had at any time been bestowed upon them by his
predecessors or their nobles, or by any other faithful Christians, or by
Jews.¹
¹ See Appendix B.
The Jews in this country chronicle now in their almanack the following:
――“Canute banished the Jews from England,” A.D. 901.¹ Basnage also
asserts that “they were banished from this country in the beginning
of the eleventh century, and did not return till after the conquest.”
I cannot find the authority upon which these two statements rest,
and moreover it seems to me that some Jews were certainly resident in
England towards the middle of the eleventh century, and prior to the
Norman invasion. By the laws attributed to Edward the Confessor, it is
declared that “the Jews, wheresoever they be, are under king’s guard and
protection; neither can any one of them put himself under the protection
of any rich man, without the king’s license, for the Jews and all they
have belong to the king; and if any person shall detain them or their
money, the king may claim them, if he please, as his own:”² another
proof that the Jews were resident in this country prior to the invasion
of William the Conqueror.
¹ This is decidedly erroneous, for we know that Canute did not
arrive in England before the beginning of the eleventh century.
² See Appendix C.
From the time of the Conquest, the information afforded by your
historians respecting the Jews, becomes gradually more extensive.
William the First, soon after he had obtained possession of the throne,
invited the Jews to come over in large numbers from Rouen, and to settle
in England; and he is reported to have appointed a particular place for
their residence.
Of the name of this town we are not accurately informed. But Peck,
in his annals, relates that many of the Jews who came over in this
reign, took up their residence at Stamford. And Wood, in his “History
of Oxford,” shows, upon the authority of some ancient deeds, that in the
tenth year after the Conquest, the Jews resided already in great numbers
in that university.
It appears that there were two distinct colonies of Jews――the one within
the walls of the city of London, the other in the liberties of the
Tower. I am inclined to adopt the idea that the Jews who came to this
country under the encouragement of the Conqueror, settled within the
jurisdiction of the constable of his Palatine Tower; and that the Jews
who settled in England before the Conquest, and who, according to the
laws published by Edward the Confessor, were declared to stand under the
immediate authority and jurisdiction of the king, were found immediately
adjoining that quarter of the city which appears to have been the court
end under the Saxon monarchs. Mathew Paris, a monkish historian, asserts
that St. Alban’s Church, which stands nearly in the middle of a line
drawn from “the Jewerie” within the city, to the angle of the wall at
Cripplegate, was the chapel of King Offa, and adjoining to his palace.
Mund mentions in his edition of Stow, that the great square tower
remaining at the north corner of Love-lane, in the year 1632, was
believed to be part of King Athelstan’s palace. The name of Addle-street
is derived by the same antiquarian from Adel or Ethel, the Saxon for
noble. The original council chamber of the alderman is known to have
stood somewhere in Aldermanbury, which had its name from it. Without
a certain, a positive belief in any one of these statements, their
coincidence seems to render it extremely probable that the royal
residence was in that quarter, which may account for the king’s men――the
Jews――taking up their residence near it.¹
¹ See Knight’s London.
William the Conqueror, as soon as he got the Jews into this country,
adopted the policy of Edward the Confessor. The chronicler Hoveden
states that in the fourth year of William the Conqueror’s reign, he held
a council of his barons, in which, among other things, it was provided
“that the Jews settled in this kingdom should be under the king’s
protection; that they should not subject themselves to any other without
his leave: it is declared that they and all theirs belong to the king;
and if any should detain any of their goods, the king might challenge
them as his own.”¹
¹ See Appendix D.
The first regular account we meet respecting the Jews in England is
during the reign of William Rufus, who, according to the unanimous
testimony of historians, seemed to have a mind capable of rising above
the superstition and ignorance of the age in which he lived, although
not sufficiently enlightened to receive the glorious light of the
Gospel; and owing to the distorted exhibition of Christianity by the
teachers of the same, he almost fell into infidelity, and from the
consistent conduct of the Jews, he was led to believe that Judaism
was at least as good as Christianity. He went therefore so far as
to summon a convocation at London of Christian bishops and Jewish
rabbies, for the express purpose of discussing the evidences of their
respective creeds; and the king swore by St. Luke’s face――a favourite
oath of his majesty――that if the Jews got the better in the dispute,
he would embrace Judaism himself. The Jewish disputants seemed to stand
their ground with vigour, for the Christian champions appeared rather
apprehensive of the result. At the conclusion, as it is generally the
case in public controversy, both parties claimed the victory. The former
added, however, publicly that they were overthrown more by fraud than by
force of argument. The Christians claimed the victory in consequence of
a tremendous thunder-storm and a violent earthquake. All this, however,
produced but little effect on the king’s mind.
The conduct of Rufus towards the Church, and his frequent disagreement
with the clergy, rendered him an object of dislike to the monkish
writers, who were the principal historians of this period. The following
is recorded of him by Hollingshed, and if true, his conduct was
certainly chargeable with no small measure of guilt:――
“The king being at Rhoan on a time, there came to him divers Jews
who inhabited that city, complaining that divers of that nation had
renounced their Jewish religion, and were become Christians; wherefore
they besought him that, for a certain sum of money which they offered to
give, it might please him to constrain them to abjure Christianity, and
to turn to the Jewish law again. He was content to satisfy their desires.
And so, receiving their money, called them before him; and what with
threats, and putting them otherwise in fear, he compelled divers of
them to forsake Christ, and to turn to their old errors. Hereupon the
father of one Stephen, a Jew converted to the Christian faith, being
sore troubled for that his son was turned a Christian (and hearing
what the king had done in like matters), presented unto him sixty marks
of silver conditionally, that he should enforce his son to return to
his Jewish religion; whereupon the young man was brought before the
king, unto whom the king said――‘Sirrah, thy father here complaineth
that without his license thou art become a Christian: if this be true, I
command thee to return again to the religion of thy nation, without any
more ado.’ To whom the young man answered――‘Your grace (as I guess) doth
but jest.’ Wherewith the king being moved, said――‘What! thou dunghill
knave, should I jest with thee? Get thee hence quickly, and fulfil
my commandment, or by St. Luke’s face, I shall cause thine eyes to be
plucked out of thine head.’ The young man, nothing abashed thereat, with
a constant voice answered――‘Truly I will not do it; but know for certain
that if you were a good Christian, you would never have uttered any such
words; for it is the part of a Christian to reduce them again to Christ
which are departed from him, and not to separate them from Him which
are joined to him by faith.’ The king, herewith confounded, commanded
the Jew to get him out of his sight. But the father perceiving that the
king could not persuade his son to forsake the Christian faith, required
to have his money again. To whom the king said, he had done so much
as he promised to do; that was, to persuade him so far as he might. At
length when he would have had the king dealt further in the matter, the
king, to stop his mouth, tendered back to him the half of his money, and
kept the other himself. All which increased the suspicion men had of his
infidelity.”
The state of the Jews in Oxford at that time became very interesting;
they were so exceedingly numerous and wealthy in that place, as to
become the proprietors of the principal houses, which they let to the
students. Their schools were at this time called, from their Jewish
proprietors, Lombard Hall, Moses Hall, and Jacob Hall; and the parishes
of St. Martin, St. Edward, and St. Aldgate, were designated the Old and
New Jewry, because of the great number of Jewish residents there. In one
of these parishes they had a synagogue wherein their rabbies instructed
not only their own people, but several Christian students of the
university.
When a see or living in the gift of this wary king fell vacant, he was
in the habit of retaining it in his own hands until he became pretty
well acquainted with its revenues, when he sold it to the best bidder.¹
The royal simonist was in the habit of appointing Jews to take care of
the vacant benefices, to farm them, and to manage these negociations
for his benefit; from this mark of confidence, and from the increasing
wealth of the Jews, we may conclude that the reign of Rufus was very
advantageous to the interests of his Jewish subjects. This king, however,
did not enjoy his kingdom for any long duration. His tragical end is
well known.
¹ When Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury, died, William Rufus
appointed no successor for five years after, but kept the
possession of the archbishopric in his own hands.
In the long reign of Henry the First, we hear almost nothing of the
Jews, which I look upon as evidence that they went on prosperously, and
perhaps began to make some progress amongst their Christian brethren.
Prynne, a Puritan writer, and the most virulent enemy of the Jews from
among Protestants, informs us that the Jews were then beginning to
proselytize and even to bribe some Christians with money, in order
to induce them to embrace Judaism, which may account for the incident
mentioned in this reign, that monks were sent to several towns in which
the Jews were established, for the express purpose of preaching down
Judaism.
We read in Peck’s “Annals of Stamford,” that “Joffred, abbot of Croyland,
in the tenth year of Henry the First, sent some monks from his abbey
to Cottenham and Cambridge, to preach against the Jews; and about the
same time some ecclesiastics were sent from other parts to Stamford, to
oppose the progress of the Jews in that place;” where, as we are told
by Peter of Blessens, that “they preaching to Stamfordians, exceedingly
prospered in their ministry, and strengthened the Christian faith
against Jewish depravity.”
It appears from the history of Philip, prior of St. Frideswide, of
Oxford, that the Jews used then to mock publicly the lying fables of
the priests.
The prior, when writing of the miracles performed by the body of
that famous saint (which was preserved in his monastery), tells us
that “whereas people flocked from all parts of the kingdom to worship
St. Frideswide, and were cured by her of all manner of distempers; a
certain Jew of Oxford called Eum Crescat, the son of Mossey, the Jew,
of Wallingford, was so impudent as to laugh at her votaries, and tell
them that he could cure their infirmities as well as the saint herself,
and therefore hoped they would make him the same offerings. To prove
which he would sometimes crook his fingers, and then pretend he had
miraculously made them straight again; at other times he would halt
like a cripple, and then in a few minutes skip and dance about, bidding
the crowd observe how suddenly he had cured himself. Wherefore (the
most devout amongst them wishing some exemplary judgment might befall
him) St. Frideswide, no longer able to suffer his insolence, caused him
suddenly to run mad and hang himself; which he did with his own girdle,
in his father’s kitchen.” Upon which, says the historian, “he was,
according to custom, conveyed in a cart to London, all the dogs of the
city following his detestable corpse, and yelping in a most frightful
manner.”
The Jews having experienced so much favour and protection from the first
three Norman monarchs, were naturally led to hope that they had found
in this country a permanent asylum from their persecutions. Under this
impression, they had employed the season of their tranquillity in the
acquirement of property. They were, however, soon made to experience the
fallacy of their expectations; for with the accumulation of wealth their
security vanished, and as their riches increased, so, in proportion,
did their oppressions. From the period of this monarch’s death to the
time of their expulsion, your histories abound with details of their
hardships. A melancholy monotony pervades the history of those two
hundred years. Indeed, the treatment which they received in this country,
during that period, was of a nature more disgraceful than that they
received in other parts of Europe; for while elsewhere, as in Spain
and Germany, the monarchs generally exerted themselves to repress the
hostility of the clergy and people, the English kings, scarcely one
excepted, manifested as persecuting a spirit as any of their subjects.
It would be as useless as it would be tedious, to notice each particular
instance of cruelty and tyranny which is mentioned to have been
exercised towards them, for there is scarcely a year without some
records concerning them, and hardly a record which relates to them but
furnishes some evidence of their sufferings. Taxes and contributions
to an exorbitant amount, were continually imposed upon them at the mere
will of the crown, and payment enforced by seizure of their properties,
by imprisonment, and frequently by the infliction of the most cruel and
wanton bodily torture. Crimes of every description――many of a nature the
most absurd and groundless――were laid to their charge, and the severest
penalties inflicted for them. Tumults were, on the most frivolous
pretences, excited against them; their houses pillaged and burned, and
hundreds of them massacred by the populace, without regard to either age
or sex. That, under such an accumulation of misfortunes, the Jews should
not only have continued to reside in England, but greatly to increase in
numbers, cannot fail to excite wonder and surprise.
If Jews were the historians who handed down to us the accounts of their
sufferings, we might doubt the veracity of their statements, or believe
them greatly exaggerated. It is not, however, from themselves that
much of my information is derived, for, as I have already stated in my
last lecture, they did not bequeath us any annals of their own in this
country; my information is derived principally from the testimony of
Christian writers――from authorities which admit of no dispute.
With the reign of the usurper Stephen, the Jewish troubles commenced.
He being solicitous to obtain the good-will of the clergy, the best
means to compass such an end in those days was to inflict cruel injuries
on the poor Jews; and as he gave up the sources of income which his
predecessors had enjoyed――viz., the appropriation of the revenues of the
vacant sees and benefices, he therefore fixed his avaricious eye upon
the wealth of the Jews: and in the fifth year of his reign exacted a
heavy fine, amounting to £2000, from the Jews residing in London, under
pretence that some one of their body had been guilty of manslaughter.
The Empress Maud, to whom, as it was well said, “moderation in
prosperity was a virtue unknown,”¹ during the eight months of her
authority in England, compelled the Jews settled at Oxford to pay her an
exchange of money. Stephen, upon coming again to the possession of power,
followed the example of the empress, and required the Jews at the same
place to give him three and a-half exchanges; threatening on default
of immediate compliance to set fire to their houses. The Jews first
attempted to evade the payment; the king, to show that he was in earnest,
ordered the house of one of the richest of their body to be burned, and
this command having been put into execution, the whole sum was forthwith
produced.
¹ Henry’s Britain, vol. v., p. 104.
In the ninth year of this reign, the Jews were for the first time
accused of the crime of crucifying an infant――William by name. The
circumstance in this instance is only shortly noticed by historians, and
is stated to have taken place at Norwich; so that to the England of the
middle ages are the Jews indebted for the many persecutions which they
had to undergo in consequence of that foul calumny in different parts of
the world. Various are the absurd reasons which were advanced to account
for that base and false calumny which was subsequently brought against
the unfortunate Jews, in various countries of their captivity.
Some asserted that the Jews required Christian blood for the celebration
of the Passover. Another set of ignorant fanatics affirmed that they
wanted it to put into their unleavened cakes at Easter. It was also
gravely stated that the Jews used Christian blood to free them from an
ill odour which it was supposed was common to them; others said that of
Christian blood they made love potions; others that with it they stopped
the blood at the circumcision of their children; others that it served
as a remedy for the cure of secret diseases; others that it was required
for the Jewish bride and bridegroom during the marriage ceremony; others
that the Jewish priests were obliged to have their hands tinged with
it when they pronounced the blessing in the synagogues; others that it
helped Jewish women in childbirth, and promoted their recovery; others
that the Jews used blood to make their sacrifices acceptable. But the
most common story was, that the blood was used to anoint dying Jews;
that at the point of death the rabbi anointed his departing brother,
and secretly whispered into his ear these words――“If the Messiah on whom
the Christians believe, be the promised, true Messiah, may the blood of
this innocent murdered Christian help thee to eternal life!” “Pierius
Valerianus assures us that the Jews purchase at a dear rate the blood
of Christians, in order to raise up devils, and that by making it boil,
they obtain answers to all their questions.”¹
¹ See Dr. M‘Caul’s excellent pamphlet, entitled “Reasons for
believing that the Charge lately revived against the Jewish
People is a baseless Falsehood,” p. 23; Appendix E.
Englishmen now regard such tales as but the vestiges of a long passed-by
period; you listen to it with a smile as belonging to the “olden time;”
and because such base calumnies are no more brought against the Jews
in this your highly-favoured and enlightened country, you may think it
ill-timed to rake up acts of fanatics of the dark ages, which have long
since been buried in oblivion. But it is not so in the other countries
of Christendom; the same incredible charges are even now brought against
the Jews, and are also believed. Not longer than five years ago, the
Jews of Damascus suffered greatly because of such accusations. Only
eighteen months since, a poor Jewish blacksmith in Lithuania, in Poland,
was incarcerated in consequence of such a charge, and was on the point
of being transported to Siberia, when the zealous Christians of the
nineteenth century, of that province, who brought the accusation,
quarrelled amongst themselves, which discovered the real culprit, who
was a Christian by profession, and perpetrated the murder on a young
girl, in order to accuse the Jew.
In the annals of the reign of Henry the Second, we read of the same
charge being brought against the Jews twice. In the sixth year of that
reign, the act is stated to have been perpetrated at Gloucester.
The ecclesiastics were already debtors to the Jews, and therefore began
to charge them with usury, which was on all occasions held up by the
clergy to be a crime of the greatest magnitude; though, when the same
ecclesiastics wanted money, they did not scruple to trust those sinners
with the vessels of their churches; for, in the records of this reign
which have come down to us, we find it stated among other things, that
a Jew of Bury St. Edmund’s, Sancto by name, was fined five marks for
taking in pledge from the monks of that place certain vessels dedicated
to the service of the altar. Another Jew of Suffolk, Benet by name, was
fined twenty pounds for taking some consecrated vestments upon pawn.
A curious story is also related by Hoveden and Brompton, respecting
William de Waterville, the Abbot of Bury. He was deposed for having
entered the church at the head of a band of armed men, and taken thence
the arm of St. Oswald, the martyr, to pawn it to the Jews.
One of the claims advanced by King Henry against Archbishop Thomas à
Becket, was in respect of a sum of £500, for which that prince had been
surety for him to a Jew.
All those things coming to light, however, could not fail to swell that
animosity against the Jews which had already existed in the breasts of
the clergy, who even now regarded them with particular abhorrence. They
seized, therefore, every opportunity of prejudicing the people against
them, and rendering them the objects of general detestation. Fox, the
martyrologist, favours us with a list of admonitions which was given
to King Henry the Second, and in that list we find him required by
the bishops “to banish all the Jews, allowing them to take with them
sufficient property to pay their travelling expenses.” What “tender
mercies!”
During the reign of Henry the Second, the Jews were subjected also to
severe exactions from the crown; on one occasion a tallage of a fourth
part of their chattels was levied upon them. When ambassadors were sent
over to the king by the Emperor Barbarossa, to induce him to take part
against Pope Alexander in a schism which then existed in the Church of
Rome, respecting the right of succession to the papal chair, the sum of
5,000 marks was demanded of the Jews, to be applied for the purpose of
enlisting the emissaries to the king’s interest.¹ This sum was directed
to be paid without delay, and those who refused to contribute were
immediately banished from the country. Besides these demands upon the
body of the Jews generally, individuals amongst them were also compelled
to pay sums to a large amount.
¹ Henry II., King of England, and Louis VII., King of France,
held respectively councils of their clergy in July, 1161, for
the purpose of taking into consideration the pretensions of
Alexander III. and Victor IV., both of whom claimed the papal
throne. The monarchs met at a general council in Thoulouse,
in August, and agreed to acknowledge Alexander as Pope.――_W.
Neubrigen_, L. 2, c. 9.
We read of a Jew of Gloucester, Josce by name, who was fined for
supplying the Irish rebels with great sums of money.
However, King Henry, in the twenty-fourth year of his reign, was
pleased to show the Jews some slight indulgence. He allowed them to have
cemeteries at the outside of every town they inhabited, for until that
time they had only one place of interment, which was near London, in the
parish of St. Giles Cripplegate, commonly designated in ancient deeds
“The Jews’ Garden.”
Having experienced such an especial favour from the hands of the king,
their spirits were raised a little, and they even ventured to show
their independence in the presence of their bitterest foes, viz., the
ecclesiastics.
We read in Giraldus Cambrensis of “a certain Jew, who about this time
chanced to travel towards Shrewsbury in company with Richard _Peche_
(Sin), Archdeacon of _Malpas_ (Bad-steps), in Cheshire, and a reverend
dean, whose name was Deville. Amongst other discourse which they
condescended to entertain him with, the archdeacon told him that his
jurisdiction was so large as to reach from a place called _Ill-street_,
all along till they came to _Malpas_, and took in a very wide
circumference of the country. To which the infidel, being more witty
than wise, immediately replied, ‘Say you so, sir? God grant me then a
good deliverance, for it seems I am riding in a country where _Sin_ is
the archdeacon, and the _Devil_ himself the dean; where the entrance
into the archdeaconry is _Ill-street_, and the going forth from it,
_Bad-steps_’――alluding to the French words _peche_ and _mal-pas_.”
It was properly observed, that “it is perhaps too much to judge of the
state and condition of a body of people by a casual jest which fell
from an individual of that body, and yet we would not wish for better
information concerning the actual condition of a small society of men,
dwelling in and at the mercy of an alien country, than the manners and
character of a single person out of the whole community.”¹
¹ Retrospective Review, vol. i., p. 207.
Dr. Jost thinks that the above piece of wit owed its existence to the
French schools, and justly observes that it does not follow from it
that the Jews were prone to abuse their fellow-creatures (as Dr. Tovey
intimates), even if they disregarded the clergy. Truth to speak, _they_
merited nothing else from the hands of the Jews but disregard and
contempt.¹
¹ “_Vor ihren Hange zur Witzelei, der sich bei allen, die
aus der frazözischen Schule entsprossen sind und noch
entspriessen, immer findet, hat uns die Zeit noch eine
Anecdote erhalten, die wir als characteristisch nicht
übergehen können.... Daraus folgt nun gerade nicht, was
der Berichterstatter daraus entnehmen will, dass die Juden
so gerne ihre Nebenmenschen beleidigten, da sie sogar die
Geistlichen nicht geschont hätten._”――Jost’s Geschichte der
Israeliten, vol. vii., p. 114.
The priests, however, did not appreciate the buoyancy of their spirits,
and were not backwards in depressing them, and their indulgence
therefore was but of short duration. They watched every opportunity for
doing so, and the king’s extremity afforded them a convenient season.
The king wanted money, and the monks knew it; they therefore accused
the Jews of crucifying a boy at Bury St. Edmund’s, Robert by name,
which proved a source of great income both to Church and State. Bury
St. Edmund’s had already become famous for its monastic establishments,
and the monks, it seems, who were settled there, did not fail to derive
advantage from the feelings which the belief of the crime excited. They
caused the body of the child to be interred with great ceremony and
every mark of respect; the shrine was declared capable of producing
supernatural effects, and speedily became renowned for the miracles
which it wrought. Persons from all parts, either led by curiosity, or
induced by feelings of superstition, visited the shrine. The offerings
which were made on the occasion could not fail to be productive of
considerable profit to the Church.
The king, on the other hand, took ♦advantage of the supposed crime, and
banished the wealthiest Jews out of this country, and, as a matter of
course, confiscated their properties, and fined heavily those he allowed
to remain.
♦ ‘advanvantage’ replaced with ‘advantage’
This alone was enough to damp their spirits, and make them very low; but
the measure of their sufferings was not as yet full in this reign. The
crusading mania revived; King Henry determined to take an active part
in that affair, together with Philip Augustus, King of France; the want
of cash in such an expedition was inevitable. Though the Jews had by
no means either any desire for, or any interest in, the planting of the
cross at Jerusalem, the king saw fit, however, to assess them at £60,000
towards it, whilst the whole Christian population of England were only
required to furnish £70,000. It is easy to imagine in what a state of
consternation this poor, persecuted race must have been thrown.
I can easily conceive a fast-day proclaimed, and an especial
prayer-meeting announced, that God would avert that impending calamity.
Happy for the poor Jews, however, that the then dispensation was
a quarrelsome one: the harmony between Henry the Second of England
and Philip Augustus, soon came to a termination――the British king is
supposed to have died of grief in consequence, and with his death the
Jewish prospects of prosperity revived; the Jews began to hope that
their apprehended troubles had disappeared, and that an era of better
days was on the eve of being introduced into their British annals.
They began again to apply themselves to commerce, of which they were the
masters: they traded with the south of Europe, and thus accumulated vast
sums, which they transferred from one hand to another by means of bills
of exchange――an invention for which commerce is said to be indebted to
them, and which enabled them to transfer their wealth from land to land,
that when threatened with oppression in one country, their treasure
might be secured in another.
The learned amongst them employed themselves in literature and science,
and promoted the same amongst their Christian neighbours. Whilst the
Christians of that period were groping in the darkness of superstition
and ignorance, the Jews enjoyed and improved the sunshine of intellect
and knowledge. They were honoured in Spain by the appellation of
_sapientissimi_. Whilst the Greek authors were totally neglected by
Christians――and even John of Salisbury, though a few Greek words are
to be found in his compositions, seems to have had only the slightest
possible acquaintance with that language――the Jews, however, were
reading, in their own language, several works of Aristotle, Plato,
Ptolemy, Apollonius, Hippocrates, Galen, and Euclid, which they
derived from the Arabic of the Moors, who brought them from Greece
and Egypt, and employed much of their time in writing dissertations
and controversial arguments upon them. They were the means, therefore,
of the old classics being actively disseminated amongst the western
colleges of Christendom.
The Jews also held the principal chairs of mathematics in the Mahommedan
colleges of Cordova and Seville; they came in contact with many
Christians, and spread themselves into various countries; they taught
the geometry, the algebra, the logic, and the chemistry of Spain, in
the universities of Oxford and Paris, while Christian students from all
parts of Europe repaired to Andalusia for such instruction.¹
¹ See “the Fundamental Principles of Modern Judaism
Investigated,” pp. 238, 239. Also “An Apology for the Study
of Hebrew and Rabbinical Literature,” by the Rev. Dr. M‘Caul.
In this country, the Jews had schools in London, York, Lincoln, Lynn,
Norwich, Oxford, Cambridge, and other towns, which appear to have been
attended by Christians as well as by those of their own persuasion. Some
of these seminaries, indeed, were rather colleges than schools. Besides
the Hebrew and Arabic languages, arithmetic and medicine are mentioned
among the branches of knowledge that were taught in them; and the
masters were generally the most distinguished of the rabbies.¹
¹ Knight’s Weekly, volume xvii., p. 64.
In this reign the celebrated Aben Ezra visited England, and wrote his
work אגרת השבת, _Egereth Ha-Shabbath_, or Epistle on the Sabbath. From the
date the rabbi prefixed to that work, which runs thus――“And it came to
pass in the year 4919 [A.M. 1159, A.D.], in the middle of the night,
even on a Sabbath night, on the fourteenth day of the month Tebath
[corresponding to January], and I, Abraham Aben Ezra, the Sephardy [or
Spaniard], have been in one of the cities of the island called ‘the end
of the earth,’”¹――it is evident that that rabbi visited this country
a great deal earlier than Dr. Tovey fancies, who thinks that it was in
King Richard’s time.²
¹ See Appendix F.
² Anglia Judaica, p. 35.
They practised successfully as physicians in this country; they
possessed a thorough knowledge of the medical science in all its
branches. The monarchs and powerful barons of the time frequently
committed themselves to the charge of some experienced sage amongst them,
when wounded or in sickness; and in consequence of the many cures which
their superior medical skill enabled them to effect, they incurred the
envy of the monks, who pretended to effect cures by the means of sainted
relics. They therefore circulated a report that the Jews were acquainted
with the occult sciences and with the cabalistic art, and therefore
performed their cures by incantations and witchcraft, and a general
belief was soon entertained that the Jews were sorcerers,¹ which proved
a source of no small calamity to them in subsequent reigns. Thus also
the second baseless accusation against the Jews owes its existence to
the British ecclesiastics of that reign, whose morning and evening
delight was to do foul scorn to the poor Jewish nation.
¹ See Appendix G.