The expulsion of Jews from England

The permanent Jewish population of England appeared only after the conquest of the Normans. Medieval England was characterized by extreme anti-Semitism , which was associated with the usurious activity of a small (about 2,000 inhabitants) Jewish diaspora. Christians, except for Lombards, Flemings (they increased the borrowed amount by the amount of interest) and legal entities (knights' orders and monasteries) were forbidden to give money in growth, and therefore all the negativity associated with the accumulation of debts by ordinary English fell on the Jews , although they the interest rate was lower than that of competitors.

In 1144, for the first time in the history of Jews in England, a blood libel was erected on Jews, Norwich Jews were accused of crucifying a Christian boy .

In 1218, England became the first country where Jews were required to wear a distinctive sign . In the period from 1219 to 1272, representatives of this nationality were taxed with fifty taxes and fees. Finally, in 1290, an official ban on the residence of Jews in England was established. In the fourteenth century, the example of England was followed by several other European countries, for example, France and Hungary .

Most English Jews meekly obeyed the decree and emigrated, mainly to Poland , where the Kalish Statute was favorable to them. After the expulsion of the Jews, the royal authority confiscated their premises and movable property, although those who left the country were allowed to take cash with them and everything that they could carry in their hands. The persecution of the Jews did not extend to Scotland, because at that time it was a separate state from England with a different monarch and its laws. Despite the strict enforcement of the royal decree, for a long time there was a small community remaining in England and operating semi-legally. There were houses in the cities for Jews who converted to Christianity - which means there was someone to convert. The Jewish community increased significantly after the expulsion of Jews from Spain, apparently hiding their religion or converted to Christianity. The most famous of them was Rodrigo Lopec, Queen Elizabeth’s physician. London Marranes , who entered as Spaniards and Catholics, but secretly conducted Jewish services, conducted extensive trade with the Levant, with both India, with the Canary Islands, with Brazil, mainly with the Netherlands, Spain and Portugal.

The ban was lifted by Oliver Cromwell 365 years later, in 1656, when the national economy was trying to recover from the terrible consequences of the Civil War . Trade policy created by the “ Navigation Act ”; the act allowed the import of colonial goods only on British ships and was aimed at weakening Dutch maritime trade), led Cromwell to the idea of ​​the desirability of distracting large Jewish merchants from Amsterdam to London in order to master trade through them with Spain and its colonies . In addition, thanks to the Jews of Amsterdam, Queen Henrietta in 1641 managed to sell part of the jewelry exported from England and use the money received to fight her husband Charles I with the English and Scottish Revolution and for the wedding of her daughter Maria and William of Orange . But King Charles I was executed in 1649, and he was replaced by the dictatorship of Oliver Cromwell . The republican government hoped to stop the Jewish funding of royalist conspiracies abroad, expand its social base (ruling independents made up 5% of the population), prove that the British are the chosen people of Israel , able to take over the world and the Holy Land, for which they need to be mixed with Jews, convert Jews to the faith of the independents and thereby prove that it is true, as well as attract entrepreneurial Jewish merchants to England, as their commercial activities could contribute to the revitalization of economic life in war-torn country. But the Republicans were unable to bring Jews and lower the interest rate: Jews were resettled to England under the government of Charles II , the son of Queen Henrietta. At the same time, Jews did not move from Holland, Marrans and others who ceased to hide their faith, and immigrants from other countries became Jewish merchants ^[1] .

• Domus Conversorum
• Expulsion of Jews from Spain
• Expulsion of Jews from Austria

• Adler, Michael (1939), Jews of Medieval England , Edward Goldston  
• Glassman, David (1975), Anti-Semitic Stereotypes Without Jews: Images of the Jews in England 1290–1700 , Wayne State University Press, ISBN 0-8143154-5-3  
• Parkes, James (1976), The Jew in the Medieval Community , Hermon Press, ISBN 0-8720305-9-8  
• Powicke, Sir Maurice (1953), The Thirteenth Century, 1216–1307 , Clarendon Press  
• Prestwich, Michael (1997), Edward I , Yale University Press, ISBN 0-3000715-7-4 , < https://books.google.com/books?id=uIaE_uoSPngC >  
• Rubenstein, WD (1996), A History of the Jews in the English-Speaking World: Great Britain , Macmillan Press, ISBN 0-3335583-3-2  

• England related articles in the Jewish Encyclopedia