Anti-Jewish prejudices were expressed in some of the "earliest and most elaborate" devotional artworks to do so, at Lincoln Cathedral and the Cloisters Cross, for example,[5] or, more recently identified, the Hereford Mappa Mundi.

The sixth clause of the charter was especially important: it granted Jews the right of movement throughout the kingdom, as if they were the king's own property (sicut res propriæ nostræ).

Within five years of his accession, Jews are found at London, Oxford, Cambridge, Norwich, Thetford, Bungay, Canterbury, Winchester, Newport, Stafford, Windsor, and Reading.

[22] All property obtained by usury, whether Jewish or Christian, fell into the king's hands on Aaron's death; his estate included £15,000 of debts owed by some 430 debtors scattered around the English counties.

[15] In this era, Jews lived on good terms with their non-Jewish neighbours, including the clergy; they entered churches freely, and took refuge in the abbeys in times of commotion.

[15] On his return, Richard determined to organise the Jewish community in order to ensure that he should no longer be defrauded of his just dues as universal legatee of the Jewry by any such outbreaks as those that occurred after his coronation.

[15][32] Though John squeezed as much as he could out of the Jewish community, they were an important element on his side in the triangular struggle between king, barons, and municipalities which makes up the constitutional history of England during his reign and that of his son.

[37] The value of the Jewish community to the royal treasury had become considerably lessened during the 13th century through two circumstances: the king's income from other sources had continually increased, and the contributions of the Jews had decreased both absolutely and relatively.

By the contraction of the area in which Jews were permitted to exercise their money-lending activity their means of profit were lessened, while the king by his continuous exactions prevented the automatic growth of interest.

[39] Jewish bonds were purchased and used by richer Barons and members of Henry III's royal circle as a means to acquire lands of lesser landholders, through payment defaults.

[40] Licoricia of Winchester is an example of a Jew who was forced to contribute £2,500, towards the construction of the Edward the Confessor shrine in Westminster Abbey, in addition to 5,000 marks taken from the estate of her husband David of Oxford on his death in 1244.

[46] In August 1255, a number of the chief Jews who had assembled at Lincoln to celebrate the marriage of a daughter of Berechiah de Nicole were seized on a charge of having murdered a boy named Hugh.

The king had mortgaged the Jewish community to his brother Richard of Cornwall in February 1255, for 5,000 marks, and had lost all rights over it for a year,[15] Henry thus receiving no income from it except in the case of executions.

The Jewries of London, Canterbury, Northampton, Winchester, Cambridge, Worcester, and Lincoln were looted (1263–1265), and the archæ (official chests of records) either destroyed or deposited at the headquarters of the barons at Ely.

In Lincoln, Henry III ordered for a man by the name of Jopin, who was accused of murdering and torturing an 8/9 year old Christian boy in a witchcraft ceremony, to be killed along with another 91 Jews and all to be sent to London.

[61] Other questions of controversy include whether Edward's attempts to convert Jews to Christianity or provide them with alternative employment to money lending when usury was banned were genuine.

Edward's restrictions on Jews took place in an environment where Church leaders, including figures like Thomas de Cantilupe and his successor as Bishop of Hereford, Richard Swinefield, were campaigning for harsher measures against Jewish communities.

In this, they were supported by the Holy See, which through his reign, introduced progressively tougher calls to separate Jews from gentiles, through enforcement of the wearing of Jewish badges, and restrictions on social contact.

The Church laws against usury had recently been reiterated with more than usual vehemence at the Second Council of Lyon (1274), and Edward in the Statutum de Judaismo (Statute of the Jewry) absolutely forbade Jews to lend on usury (their primary business), but granted them permission to engage in commerce and handicrafts, and even to take farms for a period not exceeding ten years, though he expressly excluded them from all the feudal advantages of the possession of land.

[15] By depriving the Jews of a resort to usury, Edward was practically preventing them from earning a living under the conditions of life then existing in feudal England; and in principle the "Statute of the Jewry" expelled them fifteen years before the final expulsion.

Threats were made to defaulters, including exile and loss of their property, but this meant little to the vast majority of Jews who were poor and unable to pay the sums demanded by the state.

Continued excessive tallages[b] would force Jewish lenders to sell their bonds very cheaply to release their capital, which would be bought by courtiers, Edward and, most prominently, his wife Eleanor of Castile.

Concerns were also picked up by the church, with the Archbishop of Canterbury, John Peckham, writing to her to warn her against acquiring "lands which the Jews have extorted with usury from Christians under the protection of the royal court".

[77] In Easter 1285, the Prelates, (senior church leaders) of the Province of Canterbury under Peckham's leadership drew up complaints to Edward, two of which were regarding what they saw as lax restrictions on Jews.

They complained about converts lapsing back to Judaism, and called for a crack down on usury, which although banned since 1275 under the Statute of the Jewry, they believed was still being practiced, asking that "the Jews' fraud and malice be vigorously opposed".

[79] Whether related to Swinefield's complaints or not, in late 1286, Pope Honorius IV addressed a special rescript to the Archbishops of York and Canterbury claiming that the Jews had an evil effect on religious life in England through free interaction with Christians and called for action to be taken to prevent it.

[84][85] Others believe that the amounts raised were in fact small and note that they seem to have been distributed to mendicant orders in Aquitaine, and conclude it is more plausible to see the expulsion as a "thank-offering" for Edward's recovery from illness.

[94] On the Hebrew calendar, this date was 9 Av (Tisha B'Av) 5050, commemorating the fall of the Temple at Jerusalem; it is unlikely to be a coincidence,[95] and was noted "with awe" by Jewish chroniclers.

There are Anglo-Jewish names and documents recorded in France, Germany, Italy and Spain; including the title deeds to an English monastery found in the wood store of a synagogue in Cairo.

[107] Longer term, it is often believed that English identity after the Expulsion held a strong strand of antisemitism, developing negative ideas of what Jews were, and what dangers they posed.