Additional Notes

 I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X XI

CHAPTER I

(a) The passages of the Penitential of Archbishop Theodore of Canterbury (d. 690) which seem to indicate the existence of Jews in England in the seventh century (cf. Jacobs, J.A.E., pp. 1-2) are absent from the authentic text of that code as edited by P. W. Finsterwalder, Die Canones Theodori Cantuarensis (Weimar, 1929). The two allusions in the 'Excerptiones' ascribed to Archbishop Egbert of York (d. 766) are completely academic, and would signify nothing even if (as is improbable) that compilation were of English origin. A spurious charter of Witglaff of Mercia to the monks of Croyland (833), one of the fictitious 'Laws of Edward the Confessor', probably belonging to the reign of Stephen, and an unsubstantiated allusion by a sixteenth-century Hebrew chronicler, Joseph haCohen to the immigration into England in 810 of Jewish refugees from Germany, need not be given serious consideration. There remains only a clause in the Lain-paraphase of a law of Aethelred of c.1010 which condemns the selling of Christians into slavery outside England, lest they fall into pagan or Jewish hands; but even this insignificant allusion is absent in the Anglo-Saxon original (see F. Liebermann, Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, i. 251, ii. 527-8). Jacobs (J.A.E., p. 5 &c.) calls attention to various biblical names in the Domesday Book, but there is not the slightest reason to imagine that those who bore them were Jews. It may be mentioned that St. Florinus, who worked in Switzerland and the Tyrol some time between the seventh and ninth centuries, is said to have been the son of a Jewess married to an Englishman ('Vita S. Florini' in Analecta Bollandiana xvii. 199 ff.). (2)

(b) William of Malmesbu Gesta Regum Anglorum iv. 317, states incidentally that the Jews of London had been brought thither by William the Conqueror. Since this author died c. 1146, this represents a very old tradition. So, too, in a recently discovered petition of 1275, the Commonalty of the Jews of England speak of their establishment in England 'pus le conquest de la terre' (Select Cases in Court of King's Bench, Edward I (Selden Society, 1939), iii. cxiv). An often-repeated statement of Anthony Wood (Annals, i. 129) fixes the settlement of the Jews at Oxford about 1075, but this is based on nothing more solid than a misinterpretation of the spurious charter now printed in the Oseney Charters, iv. 5. Fuller (Church History of Brittain 1655) states that they arrived in Cambridge two years earlier, but this too can hardly be more than approximate, and in his History of Cambridge University he gives the date as 1106. (4)

(c) See H. W. C. Davis, 'London Lands of St. Paul's, 1066-1135' in Essays Presented to T. F. Tout. The date 1115, to which this record was previously ascribed, is now abandoned, and the preliminary reference to the Ward of Haco is recognized to have nothing to do with the vicus judaeo­rum, which was clearly in the neighbourhood of the later 'Old Jewry'. It appears that the Jewry was mainly, but not exclusively, inhabited by Jew's at this period: the parcel of land described in the Terrier was in Christian hands. For grants of land in London in 1152 by the Canons of St. Paul's to Benedict the Jew and Abraham fil' Simon see M. Adler, Jews of Medieval England (J.M.E.), pp. 255 sqq. (The medieval term fil' will be used in these chapters in preference to the longer 'the son of or the exotic Hebrew 'ben'. Abraham was probably spoken of in his day as 'Abraham fitz Simon'.) (7)

CHAPTER II

(a) Ephraim of Bonn's Hebrew account of the York Massacre, published in Neubauer and Stern's Hebräische Berichte uber die Judenverfolgungen während der Kreuzzüge (Berlin, 1898), and incorporated in Joseph haCohen's sixteenth-century chronicle Emek haBakha ('Valley of Tears'), has not yet been published in an accurate translation in English. One is therefore subjoined:

Afterwards, in the year 4551 (1. 4550 = 1190) the Wanderers came upon the people of the Lord in the city of Evreques in England, on the Great Sabbath [before Passover]: and the season of the miracle was changed to disaster and punishment. All fled to the house of prayer. Here Rabbi Yom-Tob stood and slaughtered sixty souls, and others also slaughtered. Some there were who commanded that they should slaughter their only sons, whose foot could not tread upon the ground from their delicacy and tender breeding. Some, moreover, were burned for the Unity of their Creator. The number of those slain and burned was one hundred and fifty souls, men and women, all holy bodies. Their houses moreover they destroyed, and they despoiled their gold and silver and the splendid books which they had written in great number, precious as gold and as much fine gold, there being none like them for their beauty and splendour. These they brought to Cologne and to other places, where they sold them to the Jews.

Elijah of York is not mentioned in the sources as having been a victim of the massacre, but is referred to (Tosaphoth: Yoma, 27a) as Elijah the Martyr, of Evréques. Possibly he is to be identified with the French religious polemist, 'the martyred R. Elijah' (R.E.J. i. 245-6), whose uncle, R. Joseph of Chartres, composed an elegy on the victims of the English massacres of 1189-90 (L. Zunz, Literaturgeschichte der synagogalen Poesie, p. 470). Among the martyrs whom he mentions by name are Elijah (of York?), Jacob (of Orleans? see above, p. 59), Joseph (of York? see pp. 22-3), Yomtob (of Joigny? see p. 23) and Moses (of Norwich? see Davis, Shetaroth, p. 4 &c.). (24)

CHAPTER III

(a) The following table (mainly from Patent and Close Rolls, with amplifications from lists published by Elman in Economic History Review, 1933, pp. 153-4, and by Jenkinson in Trs. J.H.S.E. viii. 32 sqq.) summarizes the exactions of the reign so far as they can be ascertained; but it is not easy to trace in the Rolls some of the levies mentioned by the chroniclers, or to distinguish is some cases between arrears and new levies. The total between 1230 and 1255 seems to be at least one-quarter of the 950,000 marks which the king is said to have wasted in this period. After the middle of the century (by which time the worst spoliations were over) an annual tallage of 5,000 marks was regarded as moderate, that amount being paid by the Jews of the realm in 1253 on condition that they should be exempt from any fresh levy until the following Easter.

Note: List of individual sums not scanned

(b) Since the case at Winchester in 1192 there had been numerous indications that, in this city especially, the atmosphere was unchanged, but in each case hitherto a judicial inquiry averted serious consequences. In 1225, for example, a child whom the 'King's Jew', Deulesault fil' Soleus, was accused of murdering was discovered to be alive (C.R. 1225, p. 53b. That same year two other Winchester Jews were found guilty of the murder of a boy, but as three others implicated in the charge were acquitted, it is probable that no ritual object was alleged: ibid., pp. 5o, 51). Seven years later another charge ended similarly, the mother of the alleged victim being imprisoned in place of the persons accused (C.R. 1232, p. 80). In 1236 many leading members of the Oxford community, imprisoned on a charge of forcibly 'rescuing' a boy who had been converted to Christianity, were released when the lost infant was traced at Exeter (C.R. 1232, p. 383; Adler, J.M.E., p. 287). About this time two persons were sent from England to attend the assembly of converts convened at Fulda by the Emperor Frederick II, which resulted in the publication of an imperial rescript exonerating the Jews from the Blood Accusation (Graetz, Geschichte der juden, vii. 44o), but there is no record or echo of this in the English sources. (55)

(c) C.R. 1250, p. 263; P.R. 1250, p. 59. The subsequent career of Abraham of Berkhamsted (for whom see Caro, Social- and Wirtschaftsgeschichte der juden, ii. 17, 282; E.J.. i. 58, 60, 61, &c.; C.R. and P.R. for these years, passim) was chequered. Before many months were over he offended the king again in some way and was released from prison only on condition of forfeiting his entire property, and keeping out of the royal sight for a twelve­month (C.R. 1250, pp. 339, 375). In the following year he got into trouble, with Gamaliel of Oxford, on a charge of clipping the coinage (C.R. 1251, p. 418). In 1255, however, he was sufficiently re-established to be granted to Richard of Cornwall, and empowered to lend money under favourable conditions (P.R. 1255, p. 396), an archa being opened at Wallingford to register his transactions. After Richard's death the grant was confirmed to his son, Edmund of Almain, for two and a half years (P.R. 1272, p. 654). (56)

CHAPTER IV

(a) Cf. the lists of assets of English Jewry printed in Trs. J.H.S.E. ii. 87-105 and the documents in E.J. ii. 293, 299, 303, &c. Bonami fil' Josce of York, who was granted a licence to trade in 1278, similarly dealt in wool (Bibl. A.10. 28) and Jacob fil' Hagin of London, in cloth. It is, however, possible that at this period credits in terms of commodities often conceal clandestine moneylending operations, as the prices are so often in round figures, the quality is seldom specified and there is frequently an option for cash payment (Elman, Hist. Jud., 1939, p. 97). No Jews are in fact included among those to whom licences for exporting wool were granted by Edward I, and the documents concerning the Expulsion specify as the main charge against the Jews the fact that they lent money, notwithstanding the prohibition, 'under colour of trading and good contracts and covenants'. (73)

(b) It was presumably in response to the Papal appeal that the clergy of the Diocese of York were instructed at this time (April 21st 1287) to preach against the Jews, who were henceforth forbidden to set foot within the walls of certain monasteries - e.g. Bridlington (Register of John le Romeyn, Surtees Society, i. 22, 201). It is possible that the brutal imprisonment and tallaging of the Jews in May 1287 was a further consequence of the Papal Intervention. At this period it would seem that popular feeling was exacerbated from above. The sequence of events is sometimes highly suggestive. In 1276 the Justices in Eyre at the Tower of London were instructed to inquire not only about those who had purchased Jewish property and debts in contravention of the recent legislation, but also regarding the martyrdom of Christian children by them (they reported that there had been two notorious recent cases: for one, see above, p. 78). When almost immediately afterwards the Mayor proclaimed peace in the City, the phrase 'between Jews and Christians' is significantly cancelled in the original record. Not long after, the London authorities, going beyond the recent governmental regulations, forbade houses to be let to Jews or hired from them, and ordered that they might live henceforth only in the Jewry (M. Weinbaum, London unter Eduard I and II (Stuttgart, 1933) ii. 134; R. R. Sharpe, Calendar of Letter- Books of the City of London, A, 215-9). (78)

(c) Cf. the Winchester inscription published by Selden, De lure Naturali, p.215, and by Schwab, Inscriptions hèbralques de la France, p. 162. The translation runs: 'On Friday, eve of the Sabbath in which the pericope Error [Leviticus, caps: xxi-xxiv] is read, all the Jews of the Land of the Isle were imprisoned. I, Asher, inscribed this.' Selden's reading, notwithstanding a slight error in spacing, does not require emendation: the date corresponds with May 2nd, 1287, the day indicated by the English chroniclers, e.g., J. de Oxenedes, p. 268, or Wykes in Ann. Mon. iv. 308-9. The writer is presumably Asher, or Sweteman, of Winchester, son of Licoricia of Oxford. This was probably the occasion when the London Jews were imprisoned at the Guildhall: Price, Historical Account of the Guildhall, p. 21. (79)

(d) For the original Norman French text, see Rigg, P.E.J., pp. liv sqq. Contrary to the general view, it does not seem that this measure was ever put into effect: for in his communication of November 5th, 1290, to the Barons of the Exchequer (ibid., p. xli) Edward specifically stated that he had been compelled to banish the Jews from England because they persisted in levying clandestine usury, in contravention of his measure of fifteen years before. Moreover, fictitious loans in terms of commodities seem to have been continued until the Expulsion, and this would have been unnecessary had moneylending been reauthorized. The document represents therefore the draft of a law which was never enacted. Since it refers to the fact that the chirograph chests 'have long been closed and sealed by command of our Lord the King' it is between January 28th, 1284, on which date a royal mandate for the general closing of the archae was issued, and February 28th, 1286, when commissioners were appointed to reopen that of London (ibid., p. lxi)-i.e. at the close of the ten-year experimental period envisaged in the Statute of 1275.(81)

(e) The Jewish sources almost unanimously, place the expulsion of the Jews from England in the year 5020: so Ibn Verga, Shebet Jehudah, § xvii, Who brings it into relation with the false accusation of clipping the coinage: Don Isaac Abrabanel quoting from a lost work of Profiat Duran in his Yeshuoth Meshiho (p. 46); and others who derive from them. It is to be imagined that Samuel Usque in his Consolacam as Tribulacoens de Israel (Ferrara, 1553) iii, xii, concurs in this date, though through a misprint 5002 is given as the year instead of 5020. The reason for this equivocation is not easy to understand, unless exaggerated rumours of the persecutions at the time of the Barons' Wars reached the ears of the continental communities. It has been plausibly suggested, however, that *(= [5o]2o, i.e. 1260) was read for *(= [50]50, i.e. 1290). In order to bring this date into accordance with the known historical facts it was necessary for Usque and, following him, Verga, to introduce a recall, and a final expulsion, in the reign of the successor of the original monarch.

The ancient Jewish chroniclers associate the Expulsion with the conversion to Judaism of a certain friar. It has been thought that this was due to a confusion with the famous case of the converted Deacon, who was burned at Oxford in 1222. However, the Jewish account is confirmed by the continuer of Florence of Worcester, who gives a circumstantial report of the conversion of the Dominican, Robert of Reading, in 1275. It is obviously to this episode that the Hebrew chroniclers refer: thus Usque (loc.cit.) states specifically that the central figure in the episode was a frade pregador: i.e. a Dominican friar. This did not immediately precede the Expulsion; but it may well have been responsible in part for the reaction of 1275.

On the whole, therefore, the account of the Jewish chroniclers is not so fantastic as it seems. Even Usque's tale of the existence of crypto-Jews in England is paralleled by the complaints of contemporaries regarding the insincerity of the converts from Judaism. Certain of the old synagogues were in fact standing in his day, as he asserts. The story of the pavilion over the sea, into which those who adhered to the Law of Moses were enticed to be drowned, may be (as suggested above) a garbled account of the episode of the ship-master on the sand-bank near Queenborough. (87)

CHAPTER V

(a) 15,060 (Walter of Hemingburgh, ii. 22); 17,511 (J. de Oxenedes, p. 277) ; 16,511 (Flores Historiarum, iii. 70). The close identity of these figs figures is persuasive. Nevertheless though this would represent only 1% 0f the total population, it would be something nearer 10% of the urban population, which is manifestly excessive. The annual poll-tax was paid in 1280 on behalf of 1,179 persons above the age of twelve years, of 1,153 in 1281, of 1,133 in 1282, and of 1,151 in 1283: it is not certain, however, whether anything is to be deducted for the expenses of collection, or whether the pauper proletariat, now comparatively numerous, was actually included. On the other hand there are said to have been 680 Jewish householders in England in 1278. The figure given by the contemporary chroniclers may have been based on a rough computation on the basis of the grant of £202. 0s. 4d. to the Domus Conversorum by which the poll-tax of threepence per head was ultimately replaced, without taking into account the fact that it was not levied on children. Caro (Sozial - und Wirtschaftsgeschichte der Juden ii. 63-4) maintains that the total Jewish population during the last phase (i.e. after the wholesale banishments, conversions and executions (over 300 of Edward's reign) cannot have exceeded 2,500 or 3,000.

The following is an approximately complete list of all Anglo-Jewish settlements of the medieval period, places where communities or archae are known to have existed being printed in capitals:

(b) The variety of the pledges specified in contemporary records is bewildering. Cf. E.J. i. 42, where a Jew is sued for the return of a psalter, a book of medicine, and a saddle: or Oseney Cartulary, i. 335, where an Oxford financier records in Hebrew a loan in 1182 on the security of fifteen cows and twelve weys of suet. The London Jewry received in pledge even furs, cushions, and silks from the royal wardrobe (Lib. R. 125o, p. 271). Mendaunt of Bristol, hanged in 1278, seems to have specialized in jewellery and armour, according to the inventory of his property, which included four coats of mail and 86 silver brooches, in addition to two silk cushions and a Rheims carpet (Adler, J.M.E., pp. 224-5). According to the 'Assize of Jewry', however, jewels of high value could not be accepted as pledges or purchased without royal licence (P.R. 1267, p. 154). (105)

(c) The Chronicle of Meaux (i. 173-8) reports a typical transaction of the twelfth century. A son of one of the great benefactors of this Cistercian Abbey was ward of the Earl of Aumale, whose daughter he seduced. It thus became necessary for him to leave the country. Finding his affairs greatly embarrassed on his return, he borrowed some 1,800 marks on mortgage from various Jews. The Abbot of Meaux reluctantly consented to assume responsibility for these debts on good security, and applied to Aaron of Lincoln, 'the first and greatest of the Jews', for assistance. The latter assumed the entire obligation, cancelled 500 marks of the debt, and bought out the other creditors. When he died not long after, the Crown, a less obliging creditor, claimed immediate payment of the balance and even of the amount that had been remitted.

Only a small number of capitalists could engage in operations on this scale. It is estimated (Trs. J.H.S.E. ii. 82) that at the time of the Expulsion, in eleven out of seventeen Anglo-Jewish communities, two-thirds of Jewish wealth was concentrated in the hands of 82 persons belonging to 18 families. One family in Oxford owned more than half, and one in Norwich two-thirds, of the entire capital of the community. (106)

(d) See the excursus on Adam de Stratton by W. Page in Starrs, vol. ii. For instances of William of Valence's activities, cf. C.R. 1259, p. 446; P.R. 1257, p. 543, and for those of Gilbert Clare, Rigg, P.E.J., p. 48; the latter's father Richard had been so little trusted by the Jews that when he went on his crusade in 1249 he could only borrow money from them through the medium of the monks of Tewkesbury (Ann. Mon. i. 137; 139: 5o per cent. interest was charged—whether by the Jews or the Abbey is not clear). Not all non-Jews, however, worked through Jewish intermediaries. At Lichfield, in 1254, the justices in Eyre were instructed to investigate what property had been left by Christian usurers, while in 1275 an inquiry was made in Norfolk concerning Christians who were acting as Jews (judaizantes) in lending money to the indigent (P.R. 1275, p. 172). Aaron of York (Adler, .M.E., p. 153) was certainly not the only medieval English Jew who borrowed from Gentiles. (109)

(e) H. Jenkinson, in Trs. J.H.S.E. viii. 19 and elsewhere, showed that the revenue from Jewish sources was handled (contrary to what had hitherto been believed) through the ordinary machinery of the Exchequer, and drew the conclusion that the Exchequer of the Jews was primarily a judicial body. There are, however, many records of receipts at the Scaccarium Judae­orum; and under Henry III (supra, p. 50) the justices at its head were able to deflect to their own pockets a considerable proportion of a tallage levied on the communities of the realm. A. C. Cramer, 'The Jewish Exchequer: an enquiry into its fiscal functions', in American Historical Review, xlv (1940), pp. 327-32, has arrived independently at this conclusion, and shows that the Jewish Exchequer was regularly concerned with the various processes of receipt and audit involved in the handling of revenue from Jewish sources. (111)

(f) Supra, pp. 48, 101. Cf. P.R. 1272, p. 606, where there are listed eleven properties of Jacob of Oxford (some consisting of more than one dwelling-house) in that city, York, and two different London parishes. Of these only two were apparently acquired from Christians, and might have been forfeited pledges: the rest passed into his hands from Jewish property- owners. The extent of the real estate held by Jews in the thirteenth century is vividly illustrated by the Norwich deeds published by Davis in his Shetaroth (and commented in theEast Anglian, n.s., vols. iv and v) and by the long lists of escheated property inRot. Orig. in Scaccario,pp. 73-6. Five centuries later, at the time of the 'Jew Bill' of 1753 (see pp. 21 1-21), a considerable body of material bearing upon this was brought together by 'A Gentleman of Lincoln's Inn' (P. C. Webb): ' The Question whether a Jew, born within the British Dominions, was, before the making the late Act of Parliament, a Person Capable, by Law, to purchase and hold Lands' (London, 1753). (114)

(g) e.g., The 'School' of Peitevin the Great at Lincoln (Trs. J.H.S.E. ii. 99, 134: Jacobs is in error in interpreting the term literally); that of Mocke at Hereford (Cal. Inq. Misc. i. 62); of Abraham Pinch at Winchester (C.R. 1236, p. 271); of Elias at Warwick, (E. J. i. 104). The principal London synagogue at one time belonged to Abraham fil' Rabbi (Jacobs, J.A.E., p. 343) and was afterwards constructed on a parcel of land granted by Aaron fil' Vives (Charter Rolls, ii. 253); and when the community was reduced to a single place of worship it was in the house of the Arch-presbyter Cok Hagin (supra, p.30). The Cambridge synagogue was maintained by 'Magister' Benjamin. Hence, after it was made over to the Franciscans, the latter found themselves sharing a common entrance with the town jail, to which use Benjamin's private house had been turned, until they were permitted to incorporate this too in their friary (A. G. Little, Studies in English Franciscan History, p. 12). (118)

(h) G. Cambrensis, Itin. Camb. ii, c. xiii. The passage is sufficiently illuminating to deserve quotation in full:

'We set forth thence towards Wenloch through a narrow and steep way which they call Malam plateam. Here it happened in our days that a certain Jew was journey­ing towards Shrewsbury with the archdeacon of the same place, whose name was Peche, and the deacon whose name was Dayville. When he heard the archdeacon by chance saying that his deaconry began at this place, which is calledMalam plateamand lasted till Bad-pass in Chester, considering and reflecting upon the name of the archdeacon and the name of the dean, he made rather a witty and neat remark. "It will be a wonder" said he, "if chance brings me back safe from this country whose archdeacon is sin, whose deacon is the Devil, which you enter by a Bad-Place and leave in a Bad-Pass." ' ( 119)

(i) Adler, J.M.E., pp. 34-6, 193-5, 209-10, 213, 223, cites some instances. Cf. also C.R. 1225, pp. 7b, sob. Particularly graphic details are given of a case at Gloucester. One day in 1220 a group of persons approaching the castle gate saw something fall from the top of the tower. The porter went to investigate and found Solomon Turbe, a prisoner, terribly maimed. He had enough strength left to affirm that he was tired of life and wished to kill himself like King Saul. However, he was overheard to say to his wife, Comtissa: 'Flee hence, for it is by thy plot that I am slain'. It was rumoured afterwards that he had not fallen, but had been pushed, and Abraham Gabbay was accused by her of having conspired with Andrew, a beer-server, to bring about his death, in revenge for a former brawl in which he himself had been wounded. For an unruly episode in London in 1278, graphic details of which are given, see H. T. Riley, Memorials of London (London, 1868), pp. 15-16. (122)

(j) Cf. the account in Giraldus Cambrensis, Opera, viii. 65. 'Master Robert, the Prior of St. Frideswide at Oxford - was a man of letters and skilled in the Scriptures, nor was he ignorant of the Hebrew tongue. Now he sent to diverse towns and cities of England in which Jews have dwelling, from whom he collected many Josephuses written in Hebrew, gaining them with difficulty, since they were acquainted with him because of his knowing the Hebrew tongue. And in two of them he found this testimony about Christ written fully and at length, but as if recently scratched out; but in all the rest removed earlier, and as if never there - 'Robert Eisler, in his recent The Messiah Jesus, and Marmorstein, in Trs. J.H.S.E. xii. 106-7, attempt to identify the passage in question and draw conclusions which, if substantiated, would be of great importance. (125)

(k) The identity of the two (the names mean precisely the same) was championed with characteristic vigour by Jacobs (J.A.E., pp. 165-73, 196-9, 278-80), but strenuously contested by A. Neubauer. However, in the addendum to his Notes on the Jews in Oxford, the latter admitted that Berechiah visited England, and this would seem to vindicate Jacobs's conjecture in this case at least. The fact that Berechiah is cited by the English scholar Moses ben Isaac (for whom see p. 127), that his Fox-Fables follow the lines of those of his contemporary Alfred Anglicus, and that he trans­lated a work by Abelard of Bath, all go to support the theory. Alternative explanations of 'Pointur' are (i) Point-maker—i.e. Tailor or Lace-maker; (ii) Painter; (iii) Tax-collector - perhaps the most reasonable. Adler, J.M.E., p. 199, cites an unidentified Vives le Pointur of Bristol. (126)

(1) Particularly Jacobs, in his Jews of Angevin England, and the articles listed in Bibl. A.4. 43-5o and A.' 59-61; later, he was able to secure ostensible endorsement of his views in the Jewish Encyclopaedia, of which he was an editor. Neubauer's case for the English origin of certain translations of Abraham ibn Ezra's works (Bibl. A.i. 90 and Romania, 1876, pp. 129 sqq.) falls short of that rigidly scientific standard which he demanded from others: cf. on this point now R. Levy, The Astrological Works of Abraham ibn Ezra (Baltimore, 1927), p. 23.

There remain a few Anglo-Jewish scholars mentioned in the secular records of whom no literary relics survive—e.g. Magister Josce fil' Magister Hel' (E.J. i. 19), perhaps identical with Rabbi Joseph ben Elijah of Melun (Gross, Gallia Judaica, p. 353); and Magister Samuel of Bolum (1.Lohun), whose marriage was discussed before a rabbinical court in 1267 (E. J. i. 152). [For the subject generally see now Trs. J.H.S.E. xiv. 187-205.] (128)

CHAPTER VI

(a) Annales Paulini (Chronicles of Edward I and Edward II, vol. i), p. 269; also (from former Hargrave MS.) in preface to Johan. de Oxenedes, ed Ellis p. xiii, with the additionunus eorum fuit medicus. The view this Master Elias is identical with the former Arch-presbyter Elias le Eveske is fantastic, in view of the fact that the latter was appointed in 1243, and had been converted to Christianity in 1257; nor can he be equated with the physician-scholar Elijah Menahem of London who was dead by the autumn of 1284. E. N. Adler, in his History of the Jews in London, p. 70, identifies him with the contemporary French financier Heliot of Vesoul, who had been forced to leave France with his co-religionists in 1306, though he was neither physician nor Rabbi. (132)

(b) For Master Dionysius see Sousa Viterbo Noticia sobre alguns medicos portugueses (Lisbon, 1893), pp. 15 sqq.: his identity with the physician of the same name who practised in England is clear from a comparison of the data. He left London for Antwerp before the break-up of the Marrano settlement and (according to Wolf: this does not tally with Sousa Viterbo's information) died in Ferrara in 1541. [See now also H. Friedenwald in Bulletin of the History of Medicine, vii (1939), pp. 249-56]. His son, Manuel Brudo, is a more important figure in the history of medicine. His Liber de ractione victus in singulis febribus - Ad anglos (Venice, 1544), contains (pp. 8, 81, 92, 94, 97-100, 128, 148, 152) repeated references to his career and clientele in England, the latter including Sir Thomas Audley, Lord Chan­cellor, and Sir William Sidney, Lord Chamberlain; the importance of these allusions for the social history of the period is considerable. He subsequently settled in the Levant and wrote a Hebrew polemical tractate, now lost (Tarbiz vi. 162). (137)

(c) Wolf's account of Nuñez's career, in Trs. J.H.S.E., vol. xi, is to be supplemented from J. R. Dasent, Acts of Privy Council, viii (1571-5) and ix (1575-7), passim. The references are perhaps equalled in number in the case of no other London merchant of the period. His importance to the government was so great that the Privy Council intervened with his creditors when he found himself in difficulties (viii. 128), while in 1573 he was specially exempted from the reprisals against Spain (viii. 92). He had dealings with the Earl of Desmond in Ireland (viii. 20). In 1576 he was made a member of a special commission for the trial of insurance cases, in conjunction with Gresham, the Master of the Rolls, and a Spaniard named Spinola (ix. 168, 230). (In this year Henrique Rodriguez, also probably a Marrano, petitioned for a monopoly of brokerage insurances, promising to pay the Crown one-half of the penalties imposed on interlopers: Select Pleas of Admiralty, Selden Society, ii. xvi.)

'Corsina the Jew' referred to in a letter to Cecil of 1592 in H.M.C., Cecil, iv. 244 is clearly identical with Philip Corsini (Acts of Privy Council, 1591, p. 125, &c.), his judaism being a purely malicious attribute. (140)

(d) This legend is recorded in De Barrios, Casa de Jacob (Amsterdam, c.1683), pp. 5-6, and Uri Levi, Memoria Para los siglos futuros (ibid., 1711). S. Seeligman, in his Bibliographie en Historie (Amsterdam, 1927), discredits the story entirely, but it probably embodies a certain element of truth.

Another Marrano notable in England at this period was a reputed descendant of Gonsalvo de Cordova named Alonso Nuñes de Herrera, who was captured by the Earl of Essex in 1596 at Cadiz (where he was acting as Moroccan resident). After being ransomed he retired to Amsterdam: here he spent his last years under the name of Abraham Cohen de Herrera, in Cabbalistic study. (The account given by De Barrios may be reconciled with a little difficulty with the details in H.M.C., Hatfield, vi. 536.) (142)

(e) The full details of the expulsion of the Marranos from England in 1609 have never been published. On August 20th 1609, Marcantonio Correr, Venetian ambassador in London, wrote home to his government (R. Archivio di Stato di Venezia, Dispacci Ambasciatori, Inghilterra, busta viii: cf. the abstract in S.P.V. 1609, p. 320):

“Sono stati scoperti molti mercanti Portoghesi, che vivevano in questa città secretamente all' Hebraica, et peró alcuni sono di già partiti, et gli altri hanno havuto qualche commodo per riserar li loro negotii, non ostante le leggi molto severe in questo proposito. Mi viene affermato esser questi cosi scellerati che per meglio coprirsi non solo intervenivano molte volte alla messa nella Casa d'Amb. ri, ma che habbino anco ricevuta la santissima Eucaristia.”

The parallel dispatch from the Tuscan envoy, Ottaviano Lotto of August 12th, 1609 (R. Archivo di Stato di Firenze; Mediceo, Piincipato) adds further details:

“Qui son molti portoghesi che negoziano, et essendo ultimamente venuti in discordia fra loro, una parte n'e stata accusata d'ebraismo, et e stata pero coman­data di sgombrare it Regno, et con molta agevolezza perche la legge di essa gli fa rei di morte.”

In the Nicholas Papers, iii. 51, reference is made to the fact that King, James granted a patent to the Earl of Suffolk (Lord Chamberlain 1603-14), for the discovery of the Jews 'which made the ablest of them fly out of England'. The allusion is plainly to the same event. (144)

(f) Another means by which the Jew was familiarized to Englishmen at this period was through inquisitive, bible-loving travellers who did everything possible to become acquainted abroad with those whom they had such slight opportunity of observing at home. One Elizabethan traveller after another—Peter Wendy, Laurence Alderney, William Lithgow, William Davis, Richard Tockington (and, later on, George Sandys, Philip Skippon, John Evelyn, Richard Lassels, &c.) gave their compatriots intimate glimpses of the Italian Ghettos or the teeming Jewries of the Levant. John Gordon, later Dean of Salisbury, held a Public disputation with the Rabbi o Avignon in 1574; Immanuel Aboab, a famous Marrano scholar and controversialist, entered into a theological discussion with an argu­mentative Englishman at Pisa in 1597; Francis Smith painted fair Jewesses from the life at Istanbul; and Thomas Coryat above all lost no opportunity of making Jewish contacts. At Venice in 1608, the latter came across Rabbi Leone da Modena, upon whom he forced a discussion regarding the fundamental tenets of Christianity; and being hustled out of the Ghetto was rescued by the English ambassador, Sir Henry Wotton, who happened to be passing in his gondola. Subsequently Modena made the latter's acquaintance and compiled at his request, for presentation to James I, his famous treatise on the Rites and Ceremonies of the Jews. Modena's English correspondents ultimately included Sir William Boswell and John Selden (Bibl. A.11. 95).

Similarly, English sailors, merchants, and adventurers frequently came into contact with Jewish dragomen: thus the first English expedition to the East Indies in 1601 was accompanied by a Moroccan Jew, who knew Arabic and negotiated a satisfactory treaty with the Sultan of Achin (Bibl. A.5. 1-2). On the Dalmatian coast the local Jews were in close relations with English traders from the sixteenth century (Jorjo Tadic, Jevrei u Dubrovniku, Ragusa, 1938, pp. 149, 182-4, &c.), while those of Venice and Salonika dealt in English cloth. The merchants of London even exported Hebrew Bibles for the use of the Jews of Morocco, notwithstanding Portuguese pro­tests (c.1574: Cambridge History of British Empire, i. 42). In 1616, Jews were importing English cloth into Bohemia from Poland (? Danzig: Bondi, Juden in Biihmen, Prague 1906, § 1090). (148)

CHAPTER VII

(a) In 1624 James Whitehall of Christ Church, Oxford, was prosecuted for teaching ‘Judaism' (S.P.D. 1624, p. 435). Eleven years later (ibid, 1635, pp. 111, 122, 132) Mary Chester a prisoner at Bridewell, was ordered by the Court of High Commission to be set at liberty under bond upon acknowledgement of her errors in holding certain Judaical tenets, such as teaching the Sabbath and distinction of meats. Major Thomas Harrison the regicide, publicly advocated. government by a council of seventy members, in imitation of the Sanhedrin (E. Ludlow, Memoirs, London, 1751, p. 176). More than one Baptist minister (e.g. Sellers Jesse, Tillan) observed the seventh-day Sabbath, and John Smyth led his secession from the main body party through: his conviction that the Hebrew text of the Old Testament should be used in worship. (149)

(b) The Jewish associations of the Traskites have been dealt with in an unpublished paper by Mr. H. E. I. Harris who identifies the English proselytes to Judaism recorded D. Henriques de Castro, Keur van Grafsteenen – te Ouderkerk (Leyden, 1882) with the Traskites hamlet and Jackson (another of the body, Christopher Sands, became a demi-convert). Evelyn (Diary for 1641) mentions a proselyte Englishwoman whom he met at Amsterdam, and Sandys (Purchas. viii. 95) one at Zante: while a Guer from England was assisted by the Hamburg Synagogue in 1653 (Jahrbuch d. Jud-lit. Gesellschaft, Frankfort-on-Main, x.248). Most significant of all was the case of Alexander Cooper, the most distinguished English miniaturist of the seventeenth century, who settled in Stockholm, and whose profession of Judaism there is clear evidence from the documents published in G. C. Williamson’s, History of Portrait Miniatures (1904), vol.1, chapter 7. (Dr. Williamson, in a private communication, agrees with my interpretation, as it is out of the question that Cooper was born a Jew and there is no evidence that other members of the family shared his beliefs.) (149)

(c) Notwithstanding these negative results the readmission of the Jews to England was spoken of abroad at this time as an accomplished fact. Royalist publicists openly stated that the real aim of the Republicans was 'to plunder and disarme the City of London - and so sell it in bulk to the Jews, whom they have lately admitted to set up their banks and magazines of Trade amongst us contrary to an Act of Parliament for their Banishment'. It was alleged that the Jews had made an offer for St. Paul's Cathedral, which they desired to convert into a synagogue. A Marrano at Rouen, asked what he thought of the recent developments, diplomatically replied that he believed that 'none of his Religion would ever adventure themselves among such bloody traitors as had murdered their own King', but saw no reason to doubt the reports that were current.

The purchase by Parliament in 1647-8 of a collection of Hebrew books for the Library of the University of Cambridge (Trs. J.H.S.E. viii. 63-77) illustrates the trend of public opinion at the time. (154)

(d) It is probable that Menasseh was influenced by Nicholas's Apology for the Noble Nation of the Jews, which also appeared in a Spanish edition (London, 1649), and the sentiments of which he sometimes echoes in his book. The reception of this in Puritan circles is illustrated from the Rev. Ralph Josselin's Diary (ed. E. Hockliffe, Camden Society, 1908), p. 95 (December 10th, 1650): 'Released from going to Halsted, saw Manasseh ben Israel, on the hope of Israel. Lord, my heart questions not the calling home the nation of the Jewes: thou wilt hasten it in its season, oh my God; oh, thou God of the ends of the whole earth, hasten it, Amen.' From the entry (p. 113) of December 16th, 1654 (?5) it seems that the diarist's interest was essentially conversionist: 'Great rumors of the Jewes being admitted into England; hopes thereby to convert them; the Lord hasten their conversion and keep us from turning.' (155)

CHAPTER VIII

(a) Sasportas Kizur Zizath Nobel Zevi (Odessa, 1867), p. 36 sqq.; S.P.D. 1655-6, pp. 50 (letter from H.O.—presumably Henry Oldenburg), 232; A. Wolf, Correspondence of Spinoza, p. 217; Pepys, Diary, February 19th, 1666. The invitation to New Christians to join the community is based on oral information from the late Lucien Wolf, who derived it from an unpublished Inquisitional denunciation. The curious aftermath, when devotees through­out the world persisted in belief in a False Messiah who had not only failed, but also apostatized, had its echoes in London, where various polemics on the subject were published (Bibl. B.5. 5a, 6, 7). Solomon Ayllon, Rabbi to the community from 1689 to 1700, was heavily tinged with the Sabbataean heresy, this causing serious dissension in the community and hastening his resignation. (M. Caster, History of the Ancient Synagogue of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews, London, 1901, pp. 22 sqq.; B.M. Records, i. 27-8.) (176)

(b) The Case of the Jews Stated: Wolf, Essays, pp. 112-13. The account-books of Alderman Backwell, the outstanding London goldsmith, with whom the majority of the well-to-do members of the community banked, vividly illustrate the extent of their commercial operations, the turnovers of some amounting to tens of thousands of pounds each half-year. Fernando Mendes da Costa had in 1664 four separate accounts, which give details of many large-scale transactions and numerous items relating to bills of exchange and the import of bullion. Other important names are those of Alfonso Mendes, Joao da Costa, Henrique Alva, and Alfonso Rodrigues—probably the most affluent of all. The financial transactions of the London Jews at this period were, however, completely eclipsed by those of the English goldsmith-bankers. (R. D. Richards, Early History of Banking in England, pp. 27-8.) In the evolution of English banking as such, indeed, the Jews played no part. (193)

(c) Treasury Books, 1690,passim.It seems that this was in the nature of a forced loan: cf. C. Dodsworth's Proceedings against the exportation of Silver by the Jews (Bibl. B.i. 35): 'The Earl of Monmouth told the said Mr. Levy; that their Majesties wanted Mony, and that he believed the Jews to be a wealthy people, and could lend them a considerable sum - and that if ever they expected Favour from the present Government, then was the time to deserve it. In reply, Levy (who apparently acted as official agent or 'solicitor' for his co-religionists in public affairs: Bibl. B.6. 39) stated that there were only seventeen or eighteen Jews of considerable estate in the country. In the same year six Jews contributed upwards of £3,000 to the loan on the 2s. aid (Treasury Books, ibid.). (193)

(d) The Barbados community had been established by refugees from Brazil c. 1650, this being the first English possession in which Jews were formally authorised to settle (Council Minutes of Barbados [Typescript in P.R.O., London] i. 46; Bibl. A.9. 115-18, 129). Jews are reported to have collaborated in the conquest of Jamaica and had formed an open community there before 1671 (ibid., A.9. 120, &c.). there were small settlements in Nevis and Tobago also by the end of the seventeenth century. Surinam received Jewish settlers from Cayenne c. 1644. When it was attacked by the Dutch in 1668 the Jews rallied to the defence, and several lost their lives in the course of the operations (H.M.C., Portland, iii. 308) subsequently, when the colony was surrendered, the English authorities specifically reserved the right of removing with them to Jamaica those who desired (Pub. Am. J.H.S. vi. 9-23). In New Amsterdam [New York] the settlement formed in 1654 was undisturbed after the English occupation, by which time a community had also been established at Newport, Rhode Island; and there were traces in other parts of the American plantations. Jews came under British rule also at Tangiers in 1662, but were cruelly expelled by Colonel Kirke: cf. G.P., The Present State of Tangiers (London, 1676), 42–51; Pepys, Second diary, October 23rd, 1683; Trs.J.H.S.E.v. 198-201.(194)

(e) This profession received its greatest development during the War of Spanish Succession, at the beginning of which Harley was accused of ruining the English in order to enrich Jews and other foreigners (H.M.C., Portland, viii. 96). During Peterborough's campaigns in the Peninsula the commissariat was in the hands of Joseph Cortissos, formerly of Amsterdam, claims by whom on the Treasury to the amount of £90,000 were argued interminably before the courts (MSS. in the Jewish Museum, London). John da Costa was one of the three London financiers who provided bills for £300,000 in a single transaction in 1710 to provide for the needs of the army in Flanders (Luttrell, Brief Relation, vi. 622). But the most important figure by far was Solomon de Medina, formerly of Leghorn, whom William III visited and who was principal contractor to the forces under Marlborough. Like Rothschild a century later, he established a system of expresses, so that his agents were often in the possession of important news before it reached the Ministers of the Crown. In recognition of his services he was knighted, being the first professing English Jew to receive that distinction. He was, however, implicated in the outcry against Marlborough, to whom he paid by way of commission £5,000 annually, ostensibly for Secret Service purposes. Summoned to England for examination before the special commission in 1711, he alleged that he had given the Captain General in the last four years nearly 350,000 guilders for his own use on the bread and various other army contracts, besides providing him with twelve or fourteen wagons. This evidence was partly responsible for Marlborough's disgrace, and occasioned the epigram:

A Jew and a G-n-l both join'd a Trade,

The Jew was a Baker, the G-n-l sold Bread.

Cf. The Examiner, April 14th, 1712; Bibl. A.7. 85, B.3. 4; Luttrell, Brief Relation,vi. 718; W. S. Churchill, Marlborough, iv (1938), pp. 483, 525-6; S.P.D. 1696, p. 320. Later on, during the continental wars under George II, Abraham Prado, of Twickenham, took a considerable part in the commissariat organization (cf. Roth, Anglo-Jewish Letters, pp. 136-40) : the diary and letter-book of one of his subordinates, David Mendes da Costa, is in the British Museum, MS. Eg. 2227. (194)

CHAPTER IX

(a) This system was extended owing to the common use in Germany, &c., of an animal 'agnomen', based upon the similes used in the Blessings of Jacob and of Moses (Genesis xlix and Deuteronomy xxxiii). Naphtali thus became Hart, and Naphtali's son would use that as his surname; Benjamin was Wolf; Judah was sometimes (through the German Loewe) Levi and so on. Of Hebraic surnames the tribal patronymics Cohen and Levi persisted. Often surnames which were already in use on the Continent were dropped when the bearers came to England: though a few (e.g. Waag or Wagg, Heilbuth, Gompertz, &c.) persisted. But very often more than one surname ran concurrently. Thus Ze'eb Wolf, son of Isaac Margulies of Jungbunilau, was known in the Hambro' Synagogue as Wolf Prager, but figured to the outside world as 'Mr. Benjamin Isaac, Jew merchant, of extensive charity’ (Gentlemen’s Magazine, xx.139) (200)

(b) There was a case in 1726 which attracted attention even in the non-Jewish world—that of Jose da Costa Villareal, formerly Comptroller General to the armies of the King of Portugal. In 1726 it came to his ears that his arrest on a charge of Judaizing was imminent. Profiting by the confusion caused by an outbreak of fire at Lisbon, he embarked for England on one of his own ships, together with as much of his property as he could collect and seventeen members of his family. The total value of the fortune which they brought with them was said to exceed £300,000 (Daily Journal, 26. viii. 1726; Trs. J.H.S.E. xiii. 271 sqq.). Another noteworthy case was that of Diego Lopez Pereira (d. 1759), who had farmed the tobacco revenue in Portugal, established branches of his banking house in London and Amsterdam, and after the War of the Spanish Succession followed Charles VI to Vienna to administer the tobacco retie. Immediately on his arrival he declared his allegiance to Judaism, adopting the name of Moses and proving a constant champion for his brothers in faith at an time when persecution threatened. The emperor created him Baron D'Aguilar; Maria Theresa made him a privy councillor; and he was responsible for the rebuilding of the imperial palace at Schonbrunn. Ultimately the Spanish government requested the extradition of this wealthy renegade for trial by the Holy Office. He then settled in London with his fourteen children and his retinue of servants and slaves. His son, Ephraim Lopez Pereira (d.1802), succeeded to his title and his fortune, and became notorious as the miserly proprietor of 'Starvation Farm' at Islington. (R.E.J.xcvii. 115 sqq.; Wilson, Wonderful Characters, ii. 92-7.). (200)

(c) For the fullest accounts of the 'Jew Bill', see Bibl. A.7. 28, 31a, and 65; Henriques, Jews and English Law, pp. 240-5; and Picciotto, Sketches, chapters ix and x. Other details are added here from British Museum, Add. MSS. 33053, ff. 56, 69; L. Dickins and M. Stanton, An Eighteenth Century Correspondence(London, 1910), pp. 200, 227; H.M.C. viii. App. 2196, and vi. App. 207; H.M.C., Carlisle, p. 207; B.M. Records, i. 41 sqq.; contemporary periodicals; and the pamphlets listed in Bibl. B.1. That the nervousness of the government was not unjustified is shown by the fact that General Oglethorpe, who had supported the Bill, was unseated at the general election, after sitting for Haslemere for thirty-two years without a break (Misc. J.H.S.E. 1. ii–iii). In London, too, the anti-ministerial livery turned against Sir William Calvert for the same reason, in the most excited election in living memory (Maitland, London, ed. Entick, 1756, i. 703-7) (221)

(d) That the repeal of the Naturalization Act was responsible for a wave of conversions among the upper class of the Jewish community, as is generally stated, lacks foundation. These conversions had already been in progress for some time (an outstanding case was that of Moses Mendes, the poet and they continued after 1753 without any perceptible increase in momentum other than what may be ascribed to the growing anglicization. That Samson Gideon's estrangement from 'Judaism was because of the failure of the ‘Jew Bill’ is incorrect. Being English-born it did not affect him: he had married outside the Jewish community long before and his children were brought up as Christians; and his quarrel with the Synagogue—not accompanied by conversion—was due not to the failure of the Bill, but took place before its repeal, owing to his disapproval of the steps which had been taken to procure it: see his fetter of September 5th, 1753, in Anglo ­Jewish Letters, pp. 130-2.

The incidental question regarding the legality of landowning by Jews continued to be discussed, notably in a celebrated work of P. C. Webb, writing under the name of' A Gentleman of Lincoln's Inn' (Bibl. B. i. 114) replied to by Joseph Grove (ibid., 120). The legal ability of Jews to hold land in fee remained open to question as late as 1846, though generally admitted and acted upon (Henriques, op. cit., pp. 192-3). (221)

CHAPTER X

(a) The Great Synagogue was reconstructed in 1766 (when Handel's music was used at the dedication) and again, drastically, in 1790. The first Hambro' Synagogue building was dedicated in 1725. In 1761 the so-called 'New Synagogue' was established, notwithstanding the opposition of the older congregations. These, with the Spanish and Portuguese synagogue in Bevis Marks, constituted the kernel of London synagogal organization until late in the nineteenth century: all, however, were independent, the most elementary rudiments of co-operative action appearing only at the close of the reign of George III. Apart from these bodies a small congregation was already in existence in Westminster at the beginning of the reign, and probably another in Rosemary Lane near the Tower of London, the nucleus of which went back to 1748. In the last decade of the century two minor congregations, following the Polish variation of the Ashkenazi rite, were founded in the East End. (225)

(b) The Jewish occupations are partially enumerated by M. D. George, London Life in the 18th century (London, 1925), pp. 125-32, and by J Rumney in J.C. Supplement, December 1935. The engraver, Abraham d'Olivera, was registered as silversmith in 1725, and from that date the record is continuous. Clockmakers occur from 1730 (C. E. Atkins, Register of Apprentices, London Clockmakers Company, London, 1931). As early as 1760, a London Jewish milkman is encountered (MS. records of Great Synagogue) and a Jewish wine merchant in fiction earlier still (A Frolic to Horn Fair, 1707). Jewish artists figure from 1720 (D’Olivera, followed in 1727 by David Estevens), and towards the end of the century they excelled in miniature-painting. The father of Hannah Norsa, the actress, kept the Punch-Bowl tavern in Drury Lane, c. 1732. Several printers emerge simultaneously (possibly in consequence of the abolition of some craft-restriction) in 1770. The lay head of the Bristol community in 1786 was the much-appreciated glass-worker, Lazarus Jacobs, who founded a dynasty. (225)

(c) It was naturally to the dealer in second-hand commodities that house­breakers and highwaymen turned to dispose of the proceeds of their crimes. Accordingly, as the century advanced, Jews began to figure as receivers. The abuse was no doubt exaggerated; and the community did its best to dissociate itself from the criminals, the Great Synagogue advertising a reward in 1766 for information which might result in the prosecution of the receivers of stolen goods.

Jews were also found in various borderline professions. They kept many of the sponging-houses, as the eighteenth-century novelists were abundantly aware; Abraham Mendes was the runner responsible for the arrest of Jack Sheppard in 1724; while a Mrs. Levy kept a Fleet Marriage Parlour. The Phrase'Cheap as Jew Bail', and the figure of 'Beau Mordecai' in Hogarth's Harlot's Progress and contemporary stage-pieces, suggest other eighteenth-century reproaches. (226)

(d) Cf. the accounts of some of these centres listed in Bibl. A.8. The agreement concerning King's Lynn is preserved among the archives of the United Synagogue: the early date in this relatively unimportant centre is significant. A group of Italian Jews had been settled in Exeter from c. 1735 (Bibl. B.4. 10-11, B5.9), and there is an account of Jews in Plymouth in A Picture of Plymouth, 1740. Magoliouth, The Jews in Great Britain, vol. iii (1851), dates the foundation of the community of Birmingham in 1720, Liverpool before1750, Canterbury and Ipswich 1730, Falmouth 1740, Dover 1770; but he gives no authority for his statements. Some data regarding the early history of various provincial communities (in most cases stated to be about one hundred years old) may be found in a series of articles in J.C., 1842. The dates given in the text within brackets are those by which there is certain proof of the existence of organized Jewish life. (228)

(e) Emanuel, A Century and a Half, p. 7. Wills of Jewish sailors in the Navy are to be found from 1759. Soldiers can be traced only half a century later; but Jews found in the Honourable Artillery Company - the oldest London volunteer organisation – as early as the reign of Charles II, and the Spanish and Portuguese synagogue sent three persons to serve in the City Train-bands in and after 1684. In the roll of the White Regiment of the City Militia, in 1773, there are twelve Jewish names among a total of 200. At Waterloo, as Wellington admitted in the House of Lords in 1833, fifteen Jewish officers served under him. These were presumably in the Dutch and allied forces, but there were in addition some (e.g. Albert Goldsmid, later Major-General) among the English, though professing Jews could not obtain commissions. (237)

CHAPTER XI

(a) The most recent account is M. F. Modder, The Jew in the Literature of England (Philadelphia, 1939); see also the authorities in Bibl. A.12, and the various works listed ibid. B.I9. Before Cumberland (e.g. in Smollett's Count Fathom of 1753, the year of the 'Jew Bill') the Jew is occasionally depicted in a favourable light, but only as an incidental character. The change of attitude at the close of the century was probably due in some measure to personal intercourse with such persons as the art-patron David Alves Rebello, or Isaac Mocatta, the friend of Landor, as well as with the Jewish authors mentioned above. William Cobbett, writing in 1810 to deplored the fact that on the contemporary stage the part of the moralist and virtuous sage was so often given to a Jew (Political Register, 1818 p. 522). (242)

(b) Bibl. A.10.31-2, B.17. In one of these proto-Zionistic works, An Attempt to remove prejudices concerning the Jewish Nation (London, 1804), the enthusiastic Thomas Witherby pleaded that the sufferings of the Jews were the best evidence of their moral integrity, and that they should be honoured as the benefactors of mankind rather than persecuted on account of their opinions. Equally significant was the plea of the popular novelist who wrote under the name 'Deborah': 'the ardent wish of being in any degree useful to that sacred nation is constantly near to my heart'; while Anselm Bayly, sub-Dean of the Chapel Royal, had declared in words which a generation before would have-been considered preposterous: 'Jews and Christians should look one another as brethren’ (idem, Vindication of Jews, London 1819). (243)

(c) This was explicitly laid down in a ruling of Lord Brougham in 1833: 'His Majesty's subjects professing the Jewish religion are born to all the rights, immunities and privileges of His Majesty's other subjects, excepting so far as positive enactments of law deprive them of those rights, immunities, and privileges.'

As against the advances mentioned in the text (for which see Henriques, op. cit., pp. 32-3; idem, Jewish Marriages and English Law, pp. 45-9; Picciotto, Sketches, pp. 108, 181-2, 214) is to be reckoned the decision in 1819, in connexion with Harper's Charity at Bedford, that Jews, though rate-payers, could not claim admission to parish schools. Yet seven years later Lord Chancellor Eldon admitted the abstract right of Jews to vote in the election of a vicar, while refusing it to Roman Catholics. (Henriques, Jews and English Law, pp. 34-48, 247.)

In 1818, a London vestry had admitted proxies in order to enable Jews to record their votes on their holydays (E. N. Tomlinson, History of the Minories, London, 1907, p. 310). (246)

(d) This feeling was accentuated by the fact that the presence in Parliament of persons of Jewish birth was now no longer exceptional. When a baptized member of the Villareal family had tried to become government candidate Nottingham in 1758 his request had been ignominiously rejected (Trs. J.H.S.E. xiii. 285). But in 1802 Sir Manasseh Lopes, (afterwards to be associated with a notorious scandal the unreformed-Parliament) was returned for Romney, remaining a member for one constituency or another for about a quarter of a century; while Ralph Bernal whose father had left the synagogue out of pique, was returned for Lincoln in 1818, and David Ricardo, already famous as a political economist, for Portarlington in the following year. About 1830 Bernal, some of whose family were still contributing members of the synagogue, became Chairman of Committees. At least one half-Jew had preceded these—Pitt's Jew', Samson Gideon, the younger (later Lord Eardley)., elected for Cambridge in 1770. The objection to the presence of Jews in the House at this time was thus frankly religious. (249)

(e) In the colonies emancipation proceeded more speedily than in the mother-country. Jamaica had been the most intolerant of British possessions. In the eighteenth century its numerous and prosperous Jewish community had been subjected to special taxation, excluded from public office and even from juries, forbidden to exercise the franchise, and heavily fined by their indignant fellow-residents of the Christian faith when they dared to request it. Civil restrictions went further still, preventing them under fantastically heavy penalties even from having Christians in their employment. But it was not easy to maintain this attitude after toleration had become firmly implanted on the mainland of North America, and in 1831 all Jewish legal disabilities were abolished, Jamaica leading the entire Empire in this respect. In Barbados the process followed rather different lines. Special taxation was abolished in 1761, and political disabilities were removed by an Act of the local government of 1802, confirmed by Parliament in 1820; but for some years to come the Jewish community enjoyed a special status, being entitled to elect five representatives to apportion their share of taxation. In Canada, where Jewish commissary officers had accompanied, and Jewish traders followed, the British conquest, a congregation had been established as early as 1768 at Montreal. In 1808 a Jew, Ezekiel Hartt, was elected to the legislature, but was refused permission to take his seat. In 1831-2, however, a Bill was passed extending the same rights to Jews as to Christians. In the Antipodes, the first community was established at Sydney in 1817, to be followed within a few years by others at Melbourne, Hobart, Auckland, and so on. In this new country the Jews were from the outset on terms of equality with their neighbours (Jacob Montefiore was one of the original commissioners for the colonization of South Australia), and religious discrimination could not very well find a place. The same was the case in South Africa, where scattered Jews had settled even before the British occupation, and a community was organized at Cape Town in 1841. The unquestioned success of the colonial precedent was frequently cited among the arguments for political emancipation at home.

It is curious that, while Jews were excluded from full rights in England, they were permitted to act on behalf of the government abroad: John Jacob Hart was Consul General in Saxony, c. 1836-42. (251)

(f) As if to point the moral, in the same year James Joseph Sylvester had been placed second wrangler in the mathematical tripos at Cambridge, but was unable to graduate owing to the statutory declaration which had to be taken by every person on proceeding to his degree (at Oxford the declaration had to be made on matriculation, Jews being thus excluded from the university from the outset). The University of Edinburgh had, however, graduated a Jewish physician as early as 1779, and in 1836 Trinity College, Dublin, admitted a Jew to a degree for the first time, being the first Anglican university to do so. It was only in 1871 that the University Tests Act threw the universities open to all persons, including Jews, on equal terms.

Addendum. The following medieval Anglo-Jewish settlements may be added to the list on pp. 27-45: Bath,. Bread Street (Glos.), Bridater, Burford, Chesterton, Dunwich, Graham, Hendon, Honiton, Rayleigh, and Sonning.

Previous · Index ·