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The Middle Period of Anglo-Jewish History

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The Middle Period of Anglo-Jewish History The Middle Period ofAnglo-Jewish History (1290-1655) Reconsidered1 By Cecil Roth, M.A., D.Phil. The Jewish Historical Society could have bestowed on me no greater honour than it has done by electing me to preside over its destinies and deliberations, for the eighth time, in thismemorable year when we are to celebrate the Tercentenary of the Resettle? ment of the Jews in this country. The honour is enhanced by the fact that I now succeed in this chair one of themost eminent of British medievalists. It seems tome appropriate therefore that in this Presidential Address I should take Anglo-Jewry of theMiddle Ages as my point of departure and lead up to the period of the Resettlement: that is to say, that I should attempt to reassess, in readiness for the Tercentennial lectures which will be delivered from this platform and others throughout the country,what Lucien Wolf its first investigator?happily termed the 'Middle Period' of Anglo-Jewish history, intervening between the Expulsion of the Jews by Edward I in 1290 and the authorisation of Jewish worship anew, however informally, under Oliver Cromwell in 1656. It was in the eighteen-eighties that Sir Sydney Lee, later to be Editor of the Dictionary of National Biography, began his investigations on the Jews of Elizabethan England, mainly in order to illustrate the possible historical background of Shakespeare's delineation of a Jew in The Merchant of Venice? Simultaneously, Lucien Wolf started his researches along broader lines, embracing the whole of the period in question, his conclusions being summed up in the comprehensive paper which he delivered at the Anglo-Jewish Historical Exhibition in 1887.3 Some fortyyears later,genially exasperated by the emergence in his field of a couple of juvenile parvenus, myself and Mr. Wilfred Samuel, he produced his two remarkable supplementary studies, based on unpublished materials (principally from the Inquisitional archives) on theMarrano community in Tudor England.4 It is on a combination of thismaterial with that which is comprised in his earlier paper that our knowledge of the Middle Period mainly rests, though a number of us have made trivial additions to one aspect or other of the subject. In the sixth chapter ofmy History of theJews inEngland (Oxford, 1941) I tried to give a general picture of the period, taking into account for the first time the latest investigations, and I managed to introduce a few corrections into the second edition (1949). But in a work of this sort I could not high-light the new discoveries, and of course further information has accumulated since then in a number of sources. In the present survey, I will try to call attention to some new, or unfamiliar, or neglected, facets of the subject. The medieval Jewish chroniclers were impressed by the fact that the Jews were expelled from England in 1290 on the national fast-day of theNinth of Ab, anniversary of theDestruction of the Temple : and indeed themelancholy celebration fell that year 1 Presidential address delivered beforeThe JewishHistorical Society of England on 26th October 1955. 2 'Elizabethan England and the Jews', in Transactions of the New Shakespeare Society, I (1888), 143-166. 3 'The Middle Age of Anglo-Jewish History, 1290-1656', in Papers read at the Anglo-Jewish Historical Exhibition, pp. 53-9. 4 'Jews in Elizabethan England', in Trs. J.H.S.E. xi, 1-91 : 'Jews in Tudor England', in his Essays in Jewish History (1934), pp. 71-90 : cf. also 'The Case of Thomas Eernandes before the Lisbon Inquisition, 1556', inMisc. J.H.S.E. ii, 32-56. Jewish Historical Society of England is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve, and extend access to Transactions Jewish Historical Society of England ® www.jstor.org 2 the Middle period of anglo-jewish history on July 18th,when the writ was issued to the Sheriffs instructing them to take action.1 In 1309 there seems to have been an attempt led by a physician or Rabbi named Master Elias to secure readmission : he may or may not be the same person as the 'Magister Elias' who is found in Belgium about this time,2 but what is certain is that he was not (as was once imagined) identical either with the apostate Archpresbyter of English Jewry,Elias le Eveske, who was in office from 1243 to 1257, nor with the eminent Rabbi Elijah Menahem of London, who had died in 1284. That a few Jews eluded the general expulsion, or returned to England subsequently and became converted, was already known from various instances. To thesemay be added Walter ofNottingham (formerly Hagin) who was baptised inNottingham in June 1325 : he subsequently became Chaplain of the Domus Conversorum in London.3 On the other hand, we know of a number of professing Jews who were in England at the close of the fourteenth and beginning of the fifteenthcentury, concerning some of whom new information is now available. I may remind you, because he is generally overlooked, of that enterprising charlatan who professed to be able to detect thieves by magic, was consulted professionally by the Council of the Duke of York in 1390, and was subsequently pilloried and banished.4 Why the learned Solomon Levi (later to become Pablo de Santa Maria, Bishop of Burgos, and a commanding figure in Spanish politics) had to spend a lonely Purim in London one year, while he was still a Jew, has hitherto been a mystery; but it is now suggested that he was one of the hostages sent to England from Castile in 1389, this = hypothesis explaining an obscure term ("WN^n Arrenes, i.e. hostage) in his famous Hebrew letter of complaint.5 Of the Jewish physicians who visited England about this period we now know more than we did. Master Sampson de Mirabeau, who in 1409 attended on the wife of 'Dick' Whittington, Mayor of London, is obviously the same as the physician Sansone di Mirebello whom we encounter at Chieri in North Italy in 1417.6 Elias Sabot or Elijah ben Sabbetai, on the other hand, was a major figure in Italian medicine at this time, being in service on numerous Popes and local rulers, even as far afield as Ragusa, teaching at the University of Pavia, and being raised to the Knighthood by one of his eminent patients. It seems as though the famous and enigmatic 'Medal of Fourvieres', one of the most remarkable Jewish relics of the Renaissance period, which bears a cryptic reference to Benjamin, son of the physician Elijah Be'er, was struck in commemoration of one of his family.7 1 Cf. my article in Chronicle, 1934. 2 Jewish July e.g. G. Ullmann, Histoire des Juifs de Belgique, p. 28 ('maistre Elie'). 3 Testamenta Eboracensia, i. 418-9 : for his later career, see M. Adler, Jews ofMediaeval England, pp. 315-6. On the Domus Conversorum and its inmates &c. there is some important new material in the admirable Catalogue of the Public Record Office Tercentennial Exhibition, The in England, ed. D. L. Evans (1956). 4 Jews H. T. Riley, Memorials of London (1868) pp. 518-9; R. R. Sharpe, Letter Books of London H., p. 351. 5 F. Cantera, fSelomo ha-Levi, rehen en Inglaterra en 1389', inHomenaje a Millas-Vallicrosa, i. 301-7. 6 (1954) G. B. G. Montu, Memorie storiche del gran in Piemonte, 1630-1 p. 53. 7 contagio (1830) The name of Elijah ben Shabbetai (to use the Hebrew form) recurs constantly in various historical sources throughout Italy at this period, and a monograph on his life and activity by L. M?nster figures in the volume of essays in commemoration of S. Mayer (Jerusalem-Milan 1956) pp. 224-258. This, however, overlooks his period of activity as physician and secret agent of John the Fearless, which brought him to Paris in 1410 and to Bruges in 1411. (Revue des Etudes : see Juives, xlix. 259 for the medal, Catalogue of Exhibition of Anglo-Jewish Art and History, 1956, n. 44.) A figure hitherto overlooked is Charles le Convers, physician and surgeon?probably a THE MIDDLE PERIOD OF ANGLO-JEWISH HISTORY 3 The most remarkable of the persons of Jewish stockwho found theirway to England in theMiddle Period was, I venture to suggest, Sir Edward Brampton, subject of my firstpaper before this Society in 1920 and subsequently ofmy first historical publication, who, born in Portugal as a Jew, was baptised, became a soldier of fortune, attained distinction in England during theWars of theRoses, was knighted and created Governor ofGuernsey, and in the end was somehow associated with Perkin Warbeck's preposterous bid for the throne of England. My original account of this intriguing personality, the substance of which was questioned at this time bymy elders and betters, was confirmed in a remarkable fashion by later investigations, which I presented before the Society after an interval of some twenty-five years and were published in volume XVI of our Transactions. Hardly had this appeared when I received a communication from Lisbon from theMarquis de Sampaio, who is descended from Brampton in the female line, was most excited to hear ofmy discoveries, which confirmed his own, and gave me much further information which he has since published in an impressive monograph,1 this affordingme the opportunity for a lecture inGuernsey itself2 combining the new material and the old. As a result, Brampton's coat-of-arms has now been emblazoned among those of the other formerGovernors of the bailiwick in Castle Cornet at St. Peter Port: meanwhile, the Holborn Borough Council, though quite ignorant of the details of his adventurous career, decided to call by the name of Brampton House a new block of flats in Red Lion Square, where according to the muniments he once owned some property.
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