Edict of Expulsion
The Edict of Expulsion was a royal decree expelling all Jews from the Kingdom of England that was issued by Edward I on 18 July 1290; it was the first time a European state is known to have permanently banned their presence.
Jews were allowed to leave England with cash and personal possessions but outstanding debts, homes, and other buildings—including synagogues and cemeteries—were forfeit to the king.
The expulsion edict remained in force for the rest of the Middle Ages but was overturned more than 365 years later during the Protectorate, when in 1656, Oliver Cromwell informally permitted the resettlement of the Jews in England.
The first Jewish communities in the Kingdom of England were recorded some time after the Norman Conquest in 1066, moving from William the Conqueror's towns in northern France.
[6] Capital was in short supply and necessary for development, including investment in monastic construction and allowing aristocrats to pay heavy taxes to the crown, so Jewish loans played an important economic role,[7] although they were also used to finance consumption, particularly among overstretched, landholding Knights.
[8] The Church's highest authority, the Holy See, had placed restrictions on the mixing of Jews with Christians, and at the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 had mandated the wearing of distinctive clothing such as tabula or Jewish badges.
Church leaders made the first allegations of ritual child sacrifice, such as crucifixions at Easter in mockery of Christ, and the accusations began to develop into themes of conspiracy and occult practices.
[13] Leaders like Simon de Montfort then used anger at the dispossession of middle-ranking landowners to fuel antisemitic violence at London, where 500 Jews died; Worcester; Canterbury; and many other towns.
[14] In the 1270s and 1280s, Queen Eleanor amassed vast lands and properties through this process, causing widespread resentment and conflict with the Church, which viewed her acquisitions as profiting from usury.
[16][c] The first major step towards expulsion took place in 1275 with the Statute of the Jewry, which outlawed all lending at interest and allowed Jews to lease land, which had previously been forbidden.
This right was granted for the following 15 years, supposedly giving Jews a period to readjust;[18] this was an unrealistic expectation because entry to other trades was generally restricted.
[21] In late 1286, Pope Honorius IV addressed a special letter or "rescript" to the Archbishops of York and Canterbury claiming Jews had an evil effect on religious life in England through free interaction with Christians, and calling for action to be taken to prevent it.
[24][d] While it is unclear how impoverished the Jewish community was in these last years, historian Henry Richardson notes Edward did not impose any further taxation from 1278 until the late 1280s.
[31][g] In 1287, Edward I was in his French provinces in the Duchy of Gascony while trying to negotiate the release of his cousin Charles of Salerno, who was being held captive in Aragon.
[35] His immediate motivation may have been the need to generate funds for Charles' release,[36] but many historians, including Richard Huscroft, have said the money raised by seizures from exiled Jews was negligible and that it was given away to mendicant orders (i.e. friars), and therefore see the expulsion as a "thank-offering" for Edward's recovery from his injury.
The link between these seems certain given the evidence of contemporaneous chronicles and the speed at which orders to expel the Jews of England were made, possibly after an agreement was reached.
On 10 October, a ship of poor London Jews had chartered, which a chronicler described as "bearing their scrolls of the law",[h] sailed toward the mouth of the Thames near Queenborough en route to France.
[56] Another incident occurred in Portsmouth, where sailors received a pardon in 1294,[57] and a ship is recorded as drifting ashore near Burnham-on-Crouch, Essex, the Jewish passengers having been robbed and murdered.
The title deeds to an English monastery have been found in the wood store of a synagogue in Cairo, where according to Roth, a refugee from England deposited the document.
William Burnell received property in Oxford which he later gave to Balliol College; for example, Queen Eleanor's tailor was granted the synagogue in Canterbury.
The reasons for this could include the death of Queen Eleanor in November 1290, concerns over a possible war with Scotland, or an attempt to win political favour by providing benefit to those previously indebted.
Most prominently, he continued personal veneration of Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln, a child who whose death had been falsely attributed to ritual murder by Jews.
[71] Other efforts to justify the expulsion can be found in the Church, for instance in the canonisation evidence submitted for Thomas de Cantilupe,[72] and on the Hereford Mappa Mundi.
[73] The permanent expulsion of Jews from England and tactics employed before it, such as attempts at forced conversion, are widely seen as setting a significant precedent and an example for the 1492 Alhambra Decree.
It was named alongside his wars of conquest in Scotland and Wales in the Commendatio that was widely circulated after his death, saying Edward I outshone the Pharoahs by exiling the Jews.
[83] In May 2022, the Church of England held a service that the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby described as a formal "act of repentance" on the 800th anniversary of the Synod of Oxford in 1222.
