Once I was a clever boy learning the arts of Oxford... is a quotation from the verses written by Bishop Richard Fleming (c.1385-1431) for his tomb in Lincoln Cathedral. Fleming, the founder of Lincoln College in Oxford, is the subject of my research for a D. Phil., and, like me, a son of the West Riding. I have remarked in the past that I have a deeply meaningful on-going relationship with a dead fifteenth century bishop... it was Fleming who, in effect, enabled me to come to Oxford and to learn its arts, and for that I am immensely grateful.


Friday 17 March 2023

The trials and tribulations of Jewry in medieval England and France


The Times of Israel has an interesting article about the place of the Tower of London in the life of the thirteenth century Jewish community in England. It is based on a study for Historic Royal Palaces of the evidence of material in the National Archives.


Coincidentally there is an article on the Medievalists. net website about the Jewish community in France in the wider medieval period, but which touches on similar themes. It can be seen at Hostility Against the Jews in Medieval France

Like much of the material in the article about England it does, as the title states, concentrate on discrimination and hostility towards Jews and only at the end allows that for much of the time there was coexistence and indeed collaboration. That aspect of the situation is made more clearly in the article about England. The Christian-Jewish relationship was often a strained or chafing one in both medieval England and France but it was, I think, more complex and indeed more positive for much of the time than many presentations suggest. It did not take much for mobs to form in response to claims of ritual murder for example, or in hostility to money lenders, but equally much of the time it was the ability of Jews to finance the activities of the Crown, the Church and landowners that made for wary collaboration.


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