The Status of Jews in England

The UK economy, followed by the war in Normandy, in 1066, was greatly troubled and backward and deals were mostly done by exchange. On the other hand, the first William (Guillaume), the conqueror of the country was willing to receive his benefits in cash. Therefore, he decided to change Britain's economic context by inviting a group of investors to the country's business. He found the solution to his problem in the Jewish element.
To this end he urged Jews to immigrate to Britain and provide the country's commercial boom. Jews accepted his invitation and came to this country under the special protection of the king and settled in London, Bristol, and Canterbury and began trading and taking usury. Hence, English Jews are not originally from this country, but their roots come from German and French. Most of them had French names, and even their dialogues were in French.
At the beginning of the twelfth century, with attacks by the church and the aristocracy and people’s apposition to them, they faced difficulty and deterioration. Because they had special relationship with the king, as agents of the court, they were despised classes of people. They are one of the main causes of disputes and conflicts between administrations with the society, in medieval Europe.
In the year 1144, following the disappearance of a child named William whom the Jews were accused to kill him and use his blood in a ceremony, a huge riot against Jews took place and many of them were killed.
During the first and second phase of the Crusades, the British Jews were attacked and killed and looted.
Hearst, an English rabbi, in the book Jewish thought writes:
In 1189 on the day of the coronation of Richard I (Richard the Lionheart), the Jews of this country came to London from across the UK to present their tribute and ransom him to draw his support, but once they gathered in the main square, "West Abbey ", people thought that Jews had a plot in their heads. Hence, a rumor quickly spread which emphasized the killing of Jews in London to celebrate the beginning of the reign. This rumors agitated people so hard that they attacked Jews, killed many of them and burned their houses burned.
In 1190 Richard the Third was participating in the Crusaders and his absence from the homeland gave the Jewish opponents the opportunity, and in many places the Jews attacked.
Especially in the sixteenth and seventeenth day of March, the most fearsome killing of Jews took place in the town "York" because of their indulgence in usury. In this incident, the attackers burned Jewish homes and destroyed financial documents and records of their indebtedness and gave them two choice: either they should convert to Christianity or they would die. The Jews gathered by their religious leader, Yumetov and eventually committed a collective suicide
Richard wanting to take revenge on the perpetrators of the incident, sent a priest to York and confiscated the assets of those involved in riots and dismissed the ruler. When he came back in 1194, studied and scrutinized the subject with accuracy and attempted at the normalization of relations between people and Jews. He established a regular organization for registration of debt to Jewish moneylenders.
Richard the first with the aim to implement these objectives, boxes were placed in the most important areas in the municipality of Britain, which was totally 27 - and the responsibility and supervision was given to four people - two Christian and two Jewish in each of them a copy of the documents the demands were placed on Jews. Four of the trustees of the funds under the supervision of officials or judges of the Jews, and it is in turn supervised by the Director of Treasury of Jewish property.
Between the years 1199 - 1216 when Jean Santer gained to reign, differences and conflicts between him and the men of the church and nobility reached to its peak. Jean, in command rejected of any control of the nobility and the church on the Jews and put them directly under his authority and local authorities. Under this decree, many of the Jews were taken into account. They were obliged to wear white ribbon as a sign on their garments to be supported. This will improve the situation of the Jews, so that despite the small number of those who did not exceed four thousand people, property and so had a lot of 8 to 12% of the total collected taxes from the government by them.
But the supremacy of this tribe was short-lived and declined due to following reasons:
1. The growing influence of Jews, caused too much hatred of aristocrats.
2. At that time, the authority in the UK cities was increasing and their share of the royal treasury was also increasing and this would reduce the dependency of the population to Jewish people.
3. Jews' greed and too much effort in collecting their demands, raised the hatred and anger of the general public. At the same time, they suffered anxiety and distress because the taxes had become heavier. 4. This period coincided with the emergence of Italian and French funds, such as Lombardy and Kuharson which deviated people of economic dependence on the Jewish people.
These factors led the Jews be considered as ineffective and unpopular elements. Therefore, legislation was enacted to limit freedom and requiring them to reside in specific areas. On the other hand, the nobility and church involvement and continuous conflicts with Jean easier, finally in 1213 to defeat Jean and his deference to the sovereignty of the church and led to the recognition of the rights of the nobility.
Jean's misery meant Jews' misery. Gradually this tribe found themselves so helpless and miserable that in 1255 they requested to migrate from England, but the king did not approved it. Baron's War (the war of nobilities) against Henry III during the years 1264-1267, Jews were repeatedly attacked.
Something that provoked most people's hatred and anger towards the Jews was that they saw them doing ugly things such as filing around a common gold coins, which reduces the value of the deal. Therefore, because it was revealed in 1278, the king issued a decree to audit Jewish homes and they were imprisoned and 239 of them were hanged, so that in 1290 he commanded the expulsion of all Jews from England. The number of Jews is estimated from four thousand to sixteen thousand people.
Thus, by the end of the sixteenth century England was empty of Jews, but from the beginning of the seventeenth century a Christian-Zionist thought emerged in Britain that stressed the necessity of the presence of Jews in all parts of the world.
The aforementioned thinking was based on the legend of the return and resurgence of Jesus Christ being subject to the guidance and believing of Jews of the world to Christianity.
Jewish traders who were called "Marano" (immigrants from Portugal and Spain) economically played a decisive role in the war against Spain. Antonio Fernandez provided British officials with valuable information from the Spanish army. It was here that in the English community, the idea of using international business expertise of Jews came.
Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658) was one of the major proponents of this view. Especially that he considered Jews very convenient to carry out spying operations. Therefore, he ordered officials to London to provide any facility for Jewish settlement in the UK. His appeal to the parties, allowing them to build a temple and a cemetery was dedicated. During the reign of Charles II, in 1664, Jews were recognized and confiscation of their property during the war they are also to be extradited to Spain.
Since then, the economic situation of the Jews in England became better and this led to many groups of Jews living in Amsterdam, Spain and Portugal immigrate to this country.
With the gradual development of London and the expansion and scope of its business in the world, the Jews also became more and more wealthy even were active as major representatives of Great Britain's colonial empire, especially in New York and Mumbai and the islands of the West Indies.
In 1720, John Toland, reformer English published an essay titled "The grounds of giving nationality to Jews in Great Britain and Ireland". He expressed his belief that Jews should enjoy the same rights as other British citizens. In the next century Jews won these rights.
In 1753 a plan was delivered to British Parliament based on which Jews born outside England can enjoy British citizenship. But the act was not passed and this led many wealthy Jews leave their religion and convert to Christianity. Some statistics have shown that in the nineteenth century more than 29 thousands English Jew (about one third of Jews in that country) have converted to Christianity.
Napoleon's campaigns resulted in the fact that some Jewish families in Britain, such as Rothschild and Goldsmith, due to their conspicuous financial services gain reputation and dignity in particular in the community of Great Britain, and that of course was a critical value for them.
In the third decade of the nineteenth century, Jews were allowed to be active in social work and in 1835 for the first time a Jew was introduced as a Baron (nobleman) until the end of 1858 when Lionel de Rothschild found its way to the Parliament, this movement reached its peak.
In this case, Hilaire Bolloc in the Jewish book writes:
... Jews realized that all they want is provided in the UK. The hatred that they had already faced was gone. Government offices opened their doors on a large number of tribes who have been in power. The prevalence of marriage between former British aristocrats and wealthy Jewish community in Britain incorporated and integrated them so much that rarely an English family was found that its blood was not mixed with Jews.
Since then, any government that came to power reserved the Jewish share of seats. Thus, the Jews entered the world of diplomacy and the House of Lords, House of Commons, universities, and then occupied seats took press and trading centers under their control.
Humson in the book History of Judaism believes that all these happened during last century. He quotes Encyclopedia of World History that the last bondages of English Jews was broken in 1858 at the time of Disraeli premiership.