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.
The article can be read at Why the Tower of London holds a paradoxical place in Medieval England’s Jewish story
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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