Jews and The Documentary Culture of Medieval England

The collective Western mind still today erroneously sees “the Jews” of medieval England as moneylenders. It is generally accepted that the Jews functioned to create a more liquid economy and to provide the crown with much needed financial support. However, while it is true that a select handful of Jews did operate as professional moneylenders, I will argue that the vast majority of Jews could not, and did not, operate as professional financers. The method I have employed to prove this thesis is to conduct a close economic analysis of the document E. 101/249/4. This document is the result of an archa scrutiny (an archa was a chest, held in each major town, within which were deposited any and all loans contracted within the town) that King Henry III ordered in preparation for the collection of his 1241-42 tallage of 20,000 marks. It is composed of two sections. The first section is found on membrane one recto. It is a summary of the returns of the aforesaid tallage and is especially valuable because it provides the names of every adult Jew in Lincoln in 1241-42. The second section provides the actual results from Henry III’s archa scrutiny. It contains eight hundred and eighty-six loans and takes up the vast majority of the document. The results of this economic study convincingly refute the idea that all Jews lent money and that all moneylenders were Jews. Of the one hundred and fifteen Jews listed in the first section (membrane one recto) only thirty-eight had loans in the Lincoln archa; the remaining seventy-seven Jewish residents of Lincoln simply did not lend money. Further, by carefully analyzing the loans found in the archa, one finds that a full seventy-four percent of all loans found in the archa were held by only ten men, and thirty-two percent were held by Aaron of York alone! The remaining seventy-five Jews with loans in the archa collectively held only twenty-six percent of the value of all the loans contained in Lincoln’s archa. These results are significant, for they overturn the nearly ubiquitous assumption that “the Jews” functioned only as moneylenders in medieval England. It is an assumption that is well entrenched in even academia today, and one that I hope to begin to dissolve with this thesis.

Palgrave, 2018

his book challenges a common historical narrative, which portrays medieval Jews as moneylenders who filled an essential economic role in Europe. Where Volume I traced the development of the narrative in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and refuted it with an in-depth study of English Jewry, Volume II explores the significance of dissolving the Jewish narrative for European history. It extends the study from England to northern France, the Mediterranean, and central Europe and deploys the methodologies of legal, cultural, and religious history alongside economic history. Each chapter offers a novel interpretation of key topics, such as the Christian usury campaign, the commercial revolution, and gift economy / profit economy, to demonstrate how the revision of Jewish history leads to new insights in European history.

Cambridge Companion to Antisemitism, ed. by Steven Katz, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022

The trope of the Jewish moneylender has taken different forms over the centuries: the Jewish "usurers" of medieval England and France, the "Shylocks" of Renaissance Italy, "Jud Süss" and the Court Jews of Central Europe, and the "Rothschilds" of 19th-century international banking. There is little empirical evidence for Jewish preeminence in moneylending. 1 Yet the association of Jews with money has been pervasive, figuring in anti-Jewish accusations from medieval expulsions to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, from the Holocaust to Le Happy Merchant memes. This essay will trace the emergence of the stereotype in medieval Europe. The trope of the Jewish moneylender also has its philosemitic versions. For well over a century, liberal historians, sociologists, and political economists have described medieval Jews as modernizers fulfilling a special economic function: Jews provided creditthe ingredient necessary for economic developmentat a time when Christians could not or would not. Jews, in consequence, suffered a tragic antisemitic backlash. The liberal-economic narrative counters antisemitic economic stereotypes by inverting them, making the "Jewish predilection for moneymaking" a contribution to the nation. Antisemitic or philosemitic, the assumption of an association between Jews and money remains a dangerous trope, a stereotype disconnected from economic realities. Jews were neither medieval Europe's chief moneylenders nor the credit engine for emergent commercial capitalism. Jews did loan money, but the majority of professional moneylenders, money changers,

Ajs Review-the Journal of The Association for Jewish Studies, 1986

PALGRAVE STUDIES IN CULTURAL AND INTELLECTUAL HISTORY, 2017

This book challenges a common historical narrative, which portrays medieval Jews as moneylenders who filled an essential economic role in Europe. It traces how and why this narrative was constructed as a philosemitic narrative in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in response to the rise of political antisemitism. This book also documents why it is a myth for medieval Europe, and illuminates how changes in Jewish history change our understanding of European history. Each chapter offers a novel interpretation of central topics, such as the usury debate, commercial contracts, and moral literature on money and value to demonstrate how the revision of Jewish history leads to new insights in European history.

Jewish Daily Life in Medieval Northern Europe 1080-1350: A Sourcebook, 2022

Designed to introduce students to the everyday lives of the Jews who lived in the German Empire, northern France, and England from the 11th to the mid-14th centuries, the volume consists of translations of primary sources written by or about medieval Jews. Each source is accompanied by an introduction that provides historical context. Through the sources, students can become familiar with the spaces that Jews frequented, their daily practices and rituals, and their thinking. The subject matter ranges from culinary preferences and even details of sexual lives, to garments, objects, and communal buildings. The documents testify to how Jews enacted their Sabbath and holidays, celebrated their weddings, births and other lifecycle events, and mourned their dead. Some of the sources focus on the relationships they had with their Christian neighbors, the local authorities, and the Church, while others shed light on their economic activities and professions. With introduction by Tzafrir Barzilay, Eyal Levinson and Elisheva Baumgarten. Entries by the editors and also by Neta Bodner, Adi Namia-Cohen, Nureet Dermer, Aviya Doron, Miri Fenton, Etelle Kalaora, Albert Kohn, Andreas Lehnertz, Hannah Teddy Schachter, Amit Shafran.

EDITED BY GAVIN MCDOWELL, RON NAIWELD, AND DANIEL STÖKL BEN EZRA This volume is dedicated to the cultural and religious diversity in Jewish communi� es from Late An� quity to the Early Middle Age and the growing infl uence of the rabbis within these communi� es during the same period. Drawing on available textual and material evidence, the fourteen essays presented here, wri� en by leading experts in their fi elds, span a signifi cant chronological and geographical range and cover material that has not yet received suffi cient a� en� on in scholarship.

Jews in Medieval England, 2017

The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.

Wirtschaftsgeschichte der mittelalterlichen Juden, 2008

Trade in the 10 th-11 th Centuries The Jews first attracted to German lands were primarily merchants, as succinctly stated by Gershom ben Jehudah "Light of the Exile" of Mainz, the foremost religious authority of his time (ca. 960-1028): Because their (the Jews') livelihood *1 This essay is the fruit of long years of research in the history of German Jews as well as in the economic history of European Jews, both topics for which a book each is in preparation. See also my collection of articles: