LECTUREII.WhenI 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—objectionswhich 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 hiscountrymen, 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 doesMr.Caley refer?—for that is the name of the writer of the article on this subject in the “English Archæologia.”—England hadno 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 bytheir 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 theJewsin 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 Jewishfeasts,1which establishes the fact that Jewsmust 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– SeeAppendix 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 predecessorsor their nobles, or by any other faithful Christians, or byJews.11– SeeAppendix B.The Jews in this country chronicle now in their almanack the following:—“Canute banished the Jews from England,”A.D.901.1Basnage 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 theyhave belong to the king; and if any person shall detain them or their money, the king may claim them, if he please, as hisown:”2another 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– SeeAppendix 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 afterthe 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 thatSt.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 ofStow, 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 nearit.11– 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 settledin 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 hisown.”11– SeeAppendix 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 Londonof Christian bishops and Jewish rabbies, for the express purpose of discussing the evidences of their respective creeds; and the king swore bySt.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 youngman 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 bySt.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 notpersuade 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 ofSt.Martin,St.Edward, andSt.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 instructednot 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 bestbidder.1The 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, andstrengthened the Christian faith against Jewish depravity.”It appears from the history of Philip, prior ofSt.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 worshipSt.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 howsuddenly 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 theiroppressions. 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 byseizure 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 derivedprincipally 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 virtueunknown,”1during the eight months of her authority in England, compelled the Jews settled at Oxford to pay her an exchangeof 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 whichwas 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 sacrificesacceptable. 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 theirquestions.”11– 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 upacts 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 tothe 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 BurySt.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 ofSt.Oswald, the martyr, to pawn it to the Jews.One of the claims advanced by King Henryagainst 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’sinterest.1This 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– HenryII., King of England, and LouisVII., King of France, held respectively councils of their clergy in July, 1161, for the purpose of taking into consideration the pretensions of AlexanderIII.and VictorIV., 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 ofSt.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 RichardPeche(Sin), Archdeacon ofMalpas(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 calledIll-street, all along tillthey came toMalpas, 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 whereSinis the archdeacon, and theDevilhimself the dean; where the entrance into the archdeaconry isIll-street, and the going forth from it,Bad-steps’—alluding to the French wordspecheandmal-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 wholecommunity.”11– 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 (asDr.Tovey intimates), even if they disregarded the clergy. Truth to speak,theymerited nothing else from the hands of the Jews but disregard andcontempt.11– “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 BurySt.Edmund’s, Robert by name, which proved a source of great income both to Church and State. BurySt.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, sooncame 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 superstitionand ignorance, the Jews enjoyed and improved the sunshine of intellect and knowledge. They were honoured in Spain by the appellation ofsapientissimi. 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 contactwith 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 suchinstruction.11– See “the Fundamental Principles of Modern Judaism Investigated,”pp.238, 239. Also “An Apology for the Study of Hebrew and Rabbinical Literature,” by theRev.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 therabbies.11– Knight’s Weekly, volumexvii.,p. 64.In this reign the celebrated Aben Ezra visited England, and wrote his workאגרת 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 theearth,’”1—it is evident that that rabbi visited this country a great deal earlier thanDr.Tovey fancies, who thinks that it was in King Richard’stime.21– SeeAppendix 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 weresorcerers,1which 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– SeeAppendix G.
WhenI 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—objectionswhich 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 hiscountrymen, 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 doesMr.Caley refer?—for that is the name of the writer of the article on this subject in the “English Archæologia.”—England hadno 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 bytheir 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 theJewsin 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 Jewishfeasts,1which establishes the fact that Jewsmust 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– SeeAppendix 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 predecessorsor their nobles, or by any other faithful Christians, or byJews.1
1– SeeAppendix B.
The Jews in this country chronicle now in their almanack the following:—“Canute banished the Jews from England,”A.D.901.1Basnage 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 theyhave belong to the king; and if any person shall detain them or their money, the king may claim them, if he please, as hisown:”2another 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– SeeAppendix C.
1– This is decidedly erroneous, for we know that Canute did not arrive in England before the beginning of the eleventh century.
2– SeeAppendix 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 afterthe 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 thatSt.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 ofStow, 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 nearit.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 settledin 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 hisown.”1
1– SeeAppendix 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 Londonof Christian bishops and Jewish rabbies, for the express purpose of discussing the evidences of their respective creeds; and the king swore bySt.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 youngman 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 bySt.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 notpersuade 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 ofSt.Martin,St.Edward, andSt.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 instructednot 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 bestbidder.1The 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, andstrengthened the Christian faith against Jewish depravity.”
It appears from the history of Philip, prior ofSt.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 worshipSt.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 howsuddenly 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 theiroppressions. 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 byseizure 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 derivedprincipally 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 virtueunknown,”1during the eight months of her authority in England, compelled the Jews settled at Oxford to pay her an exchangeof 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 whichwas 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 sacrificesacceptable. 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 theirquestions.”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 upacts 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 tothe 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 BurySt.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 ofSt.Oswald, the martyr, to pawn it to the Jews.
One of the claims advanced by King Henryagainst 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’sinterest.1This 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– HenryII., King of England, and LouisVII., King of France, held respectively councils of their clergy in July, 1161, for the purpose of taking into consideration the pretensions of AlexanderIII.and VictorIV., 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 ofSt.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 RichardPeche(Sin), Archdeacon ofMalpas(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 calledIll-street, all along tillthey came toMalpas, 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 whereSinis the archdeacon, and theDevilhimself the dean; where the entrance into the archdeaconry isIll-street, and the going forth from it,Bad-steps’—alluding to the French wordspecheandmal-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 wholecommunity.”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 (asDr.Tovey intimates), even if they disregarded the clergy. Truth to speak,theymerited nothing else from the hands of the Jews but disregard andcontempt.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 BurySt.Edmund’s, Robert by name, which proved a source of great income both to Church and State. BurySt.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, sooncame 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 superstitionand ignorance, the Jews enjoyed and improved the sunshine of intellect and knowledge. They were honoured in Spain by the appellation ofsapientissimi. 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 contactwith 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 suchinstruction.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 theRev.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 therabbies.1
1– Knight’s Weekly, volumexvii.,p. 64.
In this reign the celebrated Aben Ezra visited England, and wrote his workאגרת 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 theearth,’”1—it is evident that that rabbi visited this country a great deal earlier thanDr.Tovey fancies, who thinks that it was in King Richard’stime.2
1– SeeAppendix F.2– Anglia Judaica,p. 35.
1– SeeAppendix 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 weresorcerers,1which 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– SeeAppendix G.
APPENDIX TO LECTUREII.A.The146thparagraph of the “Canonical Excerptiones” of Archbishop Ecgbright runs thus:—“A Laodicean act.—That no Christian presume to Judaize, or be present at Jewish feasts.” To which Johnson, in his collection of ecclesiastical laws and canons, adds, “By this one would suppose there were in this age Jews in the north of England.”—Johnson’s Collection of Ecclesiastical Laws.The following is the149thparagraph of the same “Canonical Excerptiones:”—“A canon of the saints. If any Christian sell a Christian into the hands of Jews or Gentiles, let him be anathema: for it is written in Deuteronomy, ‘If any man be caught trafficking for any of the stock of Israel, and takes a price for him, he shall die.’”—Johnson’s Collection of Ecclesiastical Laws.B.“Omnes terras, et tenementas, possessiones, et eorum peculia, quæ reges Merciorum, et eorum Proceres, vel alii fideles Christiani, vel Judæi dictis Monarchis dederunt.”C.22.De Judæis.—“Sciendum quoque quod omnes Judæi ubicunque in regno sunt sub tutela et defensione Regis ligea debent esse, nec quilibet eorum alicui diviti se potest subdere sine Regis licentia. Judæi enim et omnia sua Regis sunt. Quod si quispiam detinuerit eos vel pecuniam eorum, perquirat Rex si vult tanquam suum proprium.”—Spelman’s Concilia Decreta,&c.,vol. i.,p. 623.D.“Sciendum est quoque, quod omnes Judæi, ubicunque in regno sunt, sub tutela et defensione Domini regis sunt; nec quilibet eorum alicui diviti se potest subdere, sine Regis licentia. Judæi, et omnia sua Regis sunt. Quod si quispiam detinuerit eis pecuniam suam, perquirat Rex tanquam suum proprium.”E.Dr.M‘Caul goes on to say—“Wagenseil gravely undertakes to disprove most of these charges; but it is to be hoped that the mere mention of them together is sufficient to show their falsehood. It is rather too bad to reproach the Jews, on the one hand, with unbelief, hatred, and contempt for Christians, and then to charge them with such faith in the wonder-workingand soul-saving power of Christian blood, that to obtain it they expose themselves to the fury of their enemies. The enormous lying, profound ignorance of Judaism and the Jews, as well as the degrading superstition involved in some of these charges, throws discredit upon all. The mere recital of these follies shows that they are the offspring of an unbelieving imagination, if not the invention of a malignant heart.”—Reason,&c.,pp.23, 24.F.ויהי בשנת ארבעת אלפים ותשע מאות ותשע עשרה שנה בחצי הלילה בליל השבת בארבעה עשר לחרש טּבת ואני אברהם ספררי אבן עזרא הייתי בעיר אחת מערי האי הנקרא קצה הארץ.This work has been published in Prague in 1839, in a learned Hebrew periodical, calledכרם חמדKerem Chemed. In the thirty-fifth volume of the “Quarterly Review,” in an article headed Hurwitz’s Hebrew Tales,”p. 113, the following passage is to be met with:—“It may astonish the inquirer into the literary productions of our country, to be informed that one of the earliest books written here after the Conquest, was by one of the most eminent of the rabbies, Aben Ezra. In 1159, the sixth year of HenryII., he wrote from London a letter on the proper time of keeping the Sabbath, in verse; and in the same year his Jesod Mora (the Foundation of Fear), a treatise in twelve sections, on the various requisites for the study of Scripture and science,&c....We are afraid that there is not a copy of it in the British Museum, and yet it ought to be there as a national curiosity. It would be amusing to speculate on what were the opinions of the critical and scientific Jew on the state of civilization and literature which he saw about him.”G.“Die Gelehrten unter ihnen trieben die Arzeneiwissenschaft, doch mehr als Kunst, und sie sind durch Bekanntschaft mit geheimen Heilmitteln so berühmt gewesen, dass die Geistlichkeit in ihrem Wunder-Kuren gestört ward, und nur dadurch einen Ausweg suchte, dass sie die Juden für Zauberer verschrie. Daher hat das gemeine Volk sich geängstigt Juden ans Krankenbette zu rufen.”—Jost’s Geschichte der Israeliten,vol. vii.,pp.113, 114.Dr.M‘Caul, after dilating on the Jewish knowledge of astronomy, writes thus:—“Their attention to medicine is a matter of equal notoriety. Their medical literature is considerable, and would, no doubt, throw much light on the history of that science.... For a long list of Jewish medical writers, see Barlolocii, partiv.; Repertorium libr. per Materias,p. li.; and the Catalogue of the Oppenheim Library,pp.171, 497, 645.”—An Apology for the Study of Hebrew and Rabbinical Literature,p. 6.
APPENDIX TO LECTUREII.
A.
The146thparagraph of the “Canonical Excerptiones” of Archbishop Ecgbright runs thus:—“A Laodicean act.—That no Christian presume to Judaize, or be present at Jewish feasts.” To which Johnson, in his collection of ecclesiastical laws and canons, adds, “By this one would suppose there were in this age Jews in the north of England.”—Johnson’s Collection of Ecclesiastical Laws.
The following is the149thparagraph of the same “Canonical Excerptiones:”—“A canon of the saints. If any Christian sell a Christian into the hands of Jews or Gentiles, let him be anathema: for it is written in Deuteronomy, ‘If any man be caught trafficking for any of the stock of Israel, and takes a price for him, he shall die.’”—Johnson’s Collection of Ecclesiastical Laws.
B.
“Omnes terras, et tenementas, possessiones, et eorum peculia, quæ reges Merciorum, et eorum Proceres, vel alii fideles Christiani, vel Judæi dictis Monarchis dederunt.”
C.
22.De Judæis.—“Sciendum quoque quod omnes Judæi ubicunque in regno sunt sub tutela et defensione Regis ligea debent esse, nec quilibet eorum alicui diviti se potest subdere sine Regis licentia. Judæi enim et omnia sua Regis sunt. Quod si quispiam detinuerit eos vel pecuniam eorum, perquirat Rex si vult tanquam suum proprium.”—Spelman’s Concilia Decreta,&c.,vol. i.,p. 623.
D.
“Sciendum est quoque, quod omnes Judæi, ubicunque in regno sunt, sub tutela et defensione Domini regis sunt; nec quilibet eorum alicui diviti se potest subdere, sine Regis licentia. Judæi, et omnia sua Regis sunt. Quod si quispiam detinuerit eis pecuniam suam, perquirat Rex tanquam suum proprium.”
E.
Dr.M‘Caul goes on to say—“Wagenseil gravely undertakes to disprove most of these charges; but it is to be hoped that the mere mention of them together is sufficient to show their falsehood. It is rather too bad to reproach the Jews, on the one hand, with unbelief, hatred, and contempt for Christians, and then to charge them with such faith in the wonder-workingand soul-saving power of Christian blood, that to obtain it they expose themselves to the fury of their enemies. The enormous lying, profound ignorance of Judaism and the Jews, as well as the degrading superstition involved in some of these charges, throws discredit upon all. The mere recital of these follies shows that they are the offspring of an unbelieving imagination, if not the invention of a malignant heart.”—Reason,&c.,pp.23, 24.
F.
ויהי בשנת ארבעת אלפים ותשע מאות ותשע עשרה שנה בחצי הלילה בליל השבת בארבעה עשר לחרש טּבת ואני אברהם ספררי אבן עזרא הייתי בעיר אחת מערי האי הנקרא קצה הארץ.
This work has been published in Prague in 1839, in a learned Hebrew periodical, calledכרם חמדKerem Chemed. In the thirty-fifth volume of the “Quarterly Review,” in an article headed Hurwitz’s Hebrew Tales,”p. 113, the following passage is to be met with:—“It may astonish the inquirer into the literary productions of our country, to be informed that one of the earliest books written here after the Conquest, was by one of the most eminent of the rabbies, Aben Ezra. In 1159, the sixth year of HenryII., he wrote from London a letter on the proper time of keeping the Sabbath, in verse; and in the same year his Jesod Mora (the Foundation of Fear), a treatise in twelve sections, on the various requisites for the study of Scripture and science,&c....We are afraid that there is not a copy of it in the British Museum, and yet it ought to be there as a national curiosity. It would be amusing to speculate on what were the opinions of the critical and scientific Jew on the state of civilization and literature which he saw about him.”
G.
“Die Gelehrten unter ihnen trieben die Arzeneiwissenschaft, doch mehr als Kunst, und sie sind durch Bekanntschaft mit geheimen Heilmitteln so berühmt gewesen, dass die Geistlichkeit in ihrem Wunder-Kuren gestört ward, und nur dadurch einen Ausweg suchte, dass sie die Juden für Zauberer verschrie. Daher hat das gemeine Volk sich geängstigt Juden ans Krankenbette zu rufen.”—Jost’s Geschichte der Israeliten,vol. vii.,pp.113, 114.
Dr.M‘Caul, after dilating on the Jewish knowledge of astronomy, writes thus:—“Their attention to medicine is a matter of equal notoriety. Their medical literature is considerable, and would, no doubt, throw much light on the history of that science.... For a long list of Jewish medical writers, see Barlolocii, partiv.; Repertorium libr. per Materias,p. li.; and the Catalogue of the Oppenheim Library,pp.171, 497, 645.”—An Apology for the Study of Hebrew and Rabbinical Literature,p. 6.