1 FROM EXPULSION TO EMANCIPATION Jews in England from the Middle Ages to the Victorian Era by Lionel Gossman Foreword The original impetus for the present essay was an invitation from Professor George Landow of Brown University, the learned founder and director of the website www.victorianweb.org to write an account of the so-called “Jew Bill” of 1753, which I happen to have mentioned in one of three earlier essays published on that extraordinary, richly documented website. In view of the website’s focus on the Victorian era, however, I thought it was essential to contextualise the 1753 Bill by situating it in the gradual evolution of the status of Jews in Britain until the achievement of full emancipation in the reign of Queen Victoria. The aim of the book-length study which grew out of this project is thus not to add further material to the history of the Jews in England or to offer a new perspective on it but, while locating the 1753 Bill in the history of the Jews in Britain, to pull together the existing, outstanding scholarship on the history of the Jews in England -- infrequently utilized or even referred to in many fine histories of England – and make it readily accessible to all readers. In addition, however, at a time of increasing anti-Zionism (anti-Semitism?) and uncertainty, among so-called diaspora Jews themselves (for how many generations is it usual for people to think of themselves as part of a diaspora?), as to whether “the people of God” refers to a nation (or, as Benjamin Disraeli put it, a “race”), or to a religious community, or to the inheritors of a tradition, it seems not inappropriate to reconsider the evolving place of Jews in one society, which, in its turn, has defined itself, at various times, by religion, by descent and inheritance, and by a shared history and shared values and interests. Finally, I wish to acknowledge and express my appreciation of Professor Landow’s unstinting and invaluable editorial input. Lionel Gossman, Princeton, August, 2020. 2 Contents Part I From the Middle Ages to the “Jew Bill” of 1753 1. The Middle Ages until Expulsion (1290). 2. Gradual Return of the Jews in the early modern period. 3. The Reformation – Cromwell and the Commonwealth – Readmission. 4. Restoration – Glorious Revolution – Enlightenment. 5. The “Jew Bill” of 1753. Part II Social Integration of the Jews in England 1 . The Jewish Population of England in the later Eighteenth and the first half of the Nineteenth century. 2. The Acculturation of the Jews and their participation in English musical culture: the Abrams sisters, Hanna Norsa, John Braham, Isaac Nathan, John Barnett. 3. The Acculturation of the Jews and their participation in English artistic culture: Catherine Da Costa, Solomon Alexander Hirt, Abraham Solomon, Rebecca Solomon, Simeon Solomon. 4. The Acculturation of the Jews and their participation in English literary culture: Isaac D’Israeli, Benjamin Disraeli, Charlotte King (a.k.a. Dacre), Sophia King, Celia and Miriam Moss, Grace Aguilar. 5. Evolving Views of Jews among English Clergy and Theologians. 6. Representations of Jews in English Literature: Tobias Smollett, Richard Cumberland, William Hazlitt, Charles Lamb, Lord Byron, Henry Mayhew, Maria Edgeworth, Sir Walter Scott, Edward Bulwer-Lytton. Part III Towards Full Emancipation in the Victorian Age *** Post-Script: After 1858 Appendix A. Sir Edward Sandys, A Relation of the State of Religion, 1605 Appendix B. Letter of Daniel O’Connell to Sir L. Goldsmid, 11.19. 1829 Appendix C. Opening paragraphs of the 1830 Bill for the Emancipation of His Majesty’s Subjects of the Jewish Religion 3 PART I. FROM THE MIDDLE AGES TO THE “JEW BILL” OF 1753 1. The Middle Ages until Expulsion in 1290 There is not much hard evidence concerning Jews who may have been residents of or visitors to the British Isles prior to the Norman Conquest of 1066. It is certain, however, that in 1070 William the Conqueror encouraged (or ordered) a group of well-to-do Jews from Rouen to cross over to England, in the expectation that their commercial skills and capital would enhance the prosperity of his new realm by injecting capital into a hitherto undeveloped economy (Jacobs, xiii-xiv)*, while also helping to sustain his own power and authority. These early immigrants spoke a form of medieval French in their daily life and studied Torah with the help of French translations. They also frequently had French or French-based names, such as Jurnet, Le Brun, Quatrebuches (Richardson, passim; Abrams, passim). As legislation introduced in the twelfth century prohibited Jews from owning arable land, however, except temporarily as a pledge on a loan of money (Egan, 8-12), or to engage in crafts, most of which were subject to the regulations of religious and monopolistic guilds, they were restricted on the whole to finance and trade – though as pawnbrokers, a favoured occupation among the less well-to-do, they had to have enough skill to repair and refurbish jewellery and plate, clothing and armour, in order to make them saleable. In addition, some Jews have been identified as physicians, goldsmiths, soldiers and even vintners, fishmongers and cheesemongers (Richardson 26-27. Usury (borrowing and lending at exorbitant and abusive rates) being considered sinful by the Church, which severely punished Christian clerks and laymen caught practising it on the sly, this area of activity lay open to Jews and their mostly poor clients. Substantial money-lending, however, was distinct from small-time abusive usury -- in many respects bonds by both Jewish and Christian money-lenders took a form similar to that of the modern mortgage (Richardson 70, 83-86) – and had become an increasingly important instrument for sustaining and promoting both commerce and the state. It was an area in which Jews, excluded from landowning and agriculture, played a prominent role. Contrary to popular belief, however, it was not, the medievalist H. G. Richardson has argued, an exclusively Jewish activity. There were many well-to-do Christian merchants who were also money-lenders. William Trentegeruns of Rouen * To avoid footnote clutter, references have been incorporated into the text. Page numbers are given in parentheses. Author’s name and/or work title, as listed in the bibliography at the end of each section, are also provided wherever needed for clarity. 4 and William Cade of Saint-Omer both lent large sums to the future Henry II of England when, as Duke of Normandy, he contested King Stephen’s right to the English throne and organised a military expedition to the island in 1153. Cade, Richardson writes, “a man of immense wealth, with agents in every region of the Western world,” also “lent money to earls and barons, bishops, abbots and archdeacons and to many much humbler folk in all parts of the kingdom.” Indeed, “much the same clients went to a Jewish as went to the Flemish money-lender. [. .] In essentials, Flemish -- and we may guess, all Christian – money-lending and Jewish money-lending were identical” (55; see also Palliser 67-71). With the passage of time Christians were even trafficking in Jewish bonds. Money-lending was almost always complemented by trade. Thus William Cade traded in wool and corn, as did the wealthy Jew Aaron of Lincoln. In general, Richardson argues, “to pursue their callings, even money-lending, with success, the Jews must necessarily have cultivated good relations with the community in which they were a small and unassimilated minority” – to the point, he proposes, that, though their neighbours knew them by their practices, “it is unlikely that many Jews could be readily distinguished from Gentiles by their appearance. The order given in England in 1218 and repeated in 1253 that Jews should wear a badge (tabula) on the breast, so that they might be plainly recognized was the outcome of an openly discriminatory decree of the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215; nevertheless it does point to the difficulty, throughout all the lands of Latin Christendom, of distinguishing Jew from Christian by their physical traits” (6). Not surprisingly, Richardson suggests that the number of converts to Christianity among the Jews was probably larger than is usually assumed: “There were [. .] compelling reasons to persuade those who were not strong in the Jewish faith to throw in their lot with the Gentile community around them, from which they differed by so little, and the marvel is perhaps, not that there seems to have been a steady flow of converts to Christianity, but that the Jewish community stood steadfast as a whole through good times and ill” (28). Not all scholars, no doubt, would find this extremely positive view of Jewish- Gentile relations convincing. An earlier writer on the Jews in England held that, since birth, marriage, death, inheritance and all human and state activities fell within the sphere of Church influence, the Jews could not be fitted into existing social arrangements. Hence William the Conqueror’s appointing them “a place to inhabit and occupy” in London and Oxford -- so-called “Jewries.” These are not to be confused with the ghettos to which continental Jews were later forcibly confined, the same writer insists. They were areas within the built-up urban scene in which the community synagogue, in proximity to which most Jews preferred to live, could be located. All in all, with their peculiarities of custom, dress, and speech and their extremely limited mingling with the native population, the Jews were seen as strangers in a strange land, living in the country not by common right but by the 5 special consent of the king, under his protection, and subject only to his regulation (Hyamson, History 12).