Oxford Medieval History

Welcome to one of the oldest Jewish communities in England and to one of the best
documented medieval Jewish communities in the world.

The Jews first came to England from William the Conqueror's

Norman capital of Rouen. Excluded from the trade guilds, but

highly literate and numerate, they were financiers and
immensely important the Norman economy. Their role was to
lend money at interest, something which Christians at the time
were not allowed to do by the Church, and to finance the King's
projects. They were under the direct protection of the King and
the King received one third of the estate of each Jew who died.
The Oxford community is thought to date back to 1075.

Both William the Conqueror and his sons William Rufus and
Henry I had great respect for the Jews, who
prospered during their reigns.
Unfortunately. Henry I's daughter Matilda
engaged in a 19-year war with her cousin
Stephen and both ran out of money at
around about the same time in 1141.
Matilda first demanded money from the
Jews of Oxford and two weeks later, after
her miraculous escape from Oxford castle,
Stephen demanded money from the already
taxed community, who objected. In
response, Stephen burned down the house
of a local Jew called Aaron and threatened
to do the same to the rest of the community unless they paid up.
Henry II, who succeeded Stephen, found that the country's finances
were in disarray because there was no reliable system of record-
keeping, so he set up a centralized Special Exchequer to keep track
of all financial activities. His son, Richard ‘the Lionheart'
transformed this into the ‘Jewish Exchequer'. All transactions were
written on rolls of parchment and kept in chests in 25 English
towns, including Oxford. These chests were called ‘archae' and
each had four keys, two kept by Christians and two by Jews. If
Jews did not put copies of their transactions into the archa, they
were fined. The Oxford archa was kept at Oxford Castle.
 Oxford Castle was a royal castle and hence
both a place of protection for the Jews and the
royal tax point. The Jewish quarter of the city of
Oxford was not far from the castle, on the street

which is today called St Aldates. In the

12th and 13th Centuries it was called Old
Jewry and a plaque on the side of the
current town hall attests to this fact.

For the most part, the Jews in Oxford

prospered until the reigns of King Richard and King John. There were anti-Jewish riots in
London at King Richard's coronation, but these did not directly affect the Jews of Oxford.
However, when King Richard was kidnapped, the Jews from across England had to pay ‘the
Northampton donum', a vast sum of money to buy his freedom. The first real tallage (or
impromptu tax) was that exacted by King John in 1210 after he lost his battles with France and
bankrupted England.

His son, Henry III, inherited his father's financial

mess and because he needed to placate the barons
(who at one stage imprisoned both him and his son,
the future King Edward I) he frequently ‘forgave' the
debts owed by high-ranking debtors, thus
impoverishing the Jews. In its most prosperous
period, the Jewish community of Oxford would still
only have numbered around 200 people, though it
must also be remembered that the population of Oxford was itself only around 5,000.

In the 13th century, life became tough for England's Jews and in Oxford there were a number
of riots and a lot of legislation which made it difficult for them to continue their business. The
Catholic Church's fourth Lateran Council of 1215 decreed that Jews should wear a
distinguishing symbol, usually yellow tablets of the law, and the Council in Oxford decided
that locally this should take the shape of a yellow star. In 1222 a deacon who had married a
Jewess and converted to Judaism was burned at the stake at Osney. In 1244 the students rioted
and burned several Jewish houses. Prince Edward, together with the Chancellor Walter de
Merton, took control of administering the Jewish Exchequer and fixed a very high interest rate
(which had previously been variable, dependent on the perceived risk of the transaction). He
also made it illegal for Jews to secure loans against property i.e. to mortgage and also to buy
property which they did not live in. He also outlawed ‘usury' (lending at interest) and told the
Jews to engage in agriculture and crafts,
difficult for those with no experience or
contacts. In 1268 the entire Oxford Jewish
community was briefly imprisoned because
one of their number had supposedly broken
the crucifix being carried in Oxford's
Ascension Day parade. As a result, the Jews
had to pay for the erection of a stone crucifix
near Merton College. (The base of this crucifix
is thought to reside currently in the Museum
of Oxford). Many of the Jews left England
because they were unable to continue their
business and it was around this time (in 1264)
that Jacob of Oxford sold two buildings to
Walter de Merton for the establishment of
Merton College. (The original documents
detailing this transaction still exist in Merton's
Muniment Tower). Queen Eleanor of Castile,
Edward I's wife, claimed the entire estate of Jacob of Oxford, the most important Jewish
financier of the mid-13th century.

The quarter's synagogue was located on the site of what is today the left-hand tower of the
college of Christ Church fronting onto St Aldate's. The Jews' houses were usually long and
thin, with small frontages onto the streets and deep cellars where money and other items were
kept. They were made of stone, in contrast to the largely wooden or wattle and daub houses of
the rest of the population. This was for
security but also because stone houses
were typical of Normandy from whence
they had come.

The Jewish cemetery was outside the

city, as prescribed by both Jewish and
Christian law. It was initially on the site
of today's Magdalen College, but
subsequently moved across the road to
what is now the Oxford Botanic
Garden. It is thought to have existed from 1177 to 1290. Prior to 1177, Jews were not allowed
to bury their dead outside London, so all bodies had to be transported after their death.

In 1290, Edward I issued a decree of expulsion and the first wholesale expulsion in history of
an entire Jewish population took place. By this time, thanks to the punitive measures already
imposed by the King, there were very few Jews left in Oxford. Those who stayed were mainly
elderly widows and they probably converted as they disappear from the sources, having had
their names changed to Christian names.

The last mention of an Oxford Jew is from Paris a few years after the English expulsion, though
he and his contemporaries were also to disappear, when they
were expelled from France in 1306. The Jews were allowed
to leave with their chattels only, so any outstanding property
was confiscated. Much of it went to the Bishop of Wells and
subsequently became the property of Balliol College. Both
Balliol and Magdalen Colleges have 13th century deeds from
formerly Jewish houses in their library collections complete
with their original seals.

VBA 2009

Sources:

Cecil Roth The Jews of Medieval Oxford

David M. Lewis The Jews of Oxford

The Dictionary of National Biography

The Jewish Journey BBC Radio 4