Did Attitudes Towards Jews Change During the Angevin Period, and If So, Why?

Did attitudes towards Jews change during the Angevin period, and if so, why?

The presence of Jews in the larger towns of Norman and Angevin England was a distinctive and new feature. There was a common attitude of xenophobia, and as a result of their money lending activities, economic resentment. Although this theme and attitude remained constant throughout the Angevin period, the period is also marked by certain actions and events, which lead to a hardening and sometimes softening of attitudes towards the Jews.  

During 12th Century England, xenophobia and economic resentment were the rule rather than the exception. They did not fit into the usual feudal and social hierarchy, as a non-Christian minority, the only ethnic minority in the country at the time. As a result, they were culturally distinctive. The main occupation of the Jews was money lending, or usury. The lending of money was not banned for Christians, but they would be committing a sin if they made a profit out of the act. This automatically led to hostility towards a certain group if they were seen to be committing sins, although this didn’t stop many people from using the services of the Jews. There had been a long history, since the roman times, of the Jews having a difficult relationship with the Church, which proves that these attitudes were well entrenched into society by the Angevin period.  In 1179, Third Lateran Council warned of the dangers of ‘spiritual contamination’ if too much time was spent with the Jews. The official policy of the Church was to tolerate the Jews, but also to expose their errors and campaign for their conversion, sometimes forcibly. The reality was different. The Jews were seen as ‘bloodsuckers of Christian purses’. The first accusation of ritual murder came from Norwich in 1144, when an apprentice called William was supposed to have been tortured and murdered by the Jews of the city. The charge of ritual murder became standard in England as the level of anti-Semitism increased. This underlying tension between the Jews and the Church continued throughout the Angevin period, but there was no noticeable change in attitudes between the two, although this was very much on an official scale, below that, attitudes hardened throughout the period.

Due to their status as a minority, they needed special protection from the king, which he was willing to offer for a price. This was a precedent set by Carolingian emperors of the ninth century. A law book in twelfth-century England described ‘Jews and all their property are the kings’ and Bartlett says ‘the King would try to protect them from being harmed by anyone else, and he would also feel free to fleece them when he deemed it necessary’.  Between 1186 and 1194, the Jews of England paid several tallages and levies, one of a large unknown amount, with others amounting to a minimum of 20,000 marks, with John’s tallage of 1210 raising as much as £44,000. The Jews were thus more than simply under royal protection; they were the kings property and could be taxed whenever he chose. The best example of this was the Saladin Tax of 1186. It was used to help fund the Third Crusade. Jews were taxed 10,000 marks or 25% of their income and personal property worth, while Christians who were non-crusaders were only taxed 10% of their property share. The fact that Henry failed to treat Jews and Christian’s equally, and the fact that he also saw them as a source of money meant that for the rest of the population Jews could be thought of as lesser citizens. The ‘special treatment’ showed to the Jews by the kings was not popular. William of Newborough proclaimed that ‘Henry’s sponsorship of the Jews had disfigured his reign’. This view was not uncommon, and continued throughout the Angevin period.

The crusading fervour of the early 1190’s led to a period of increased hostility towards the Jews. Early in 1190 attacks took place on Jews in several English towns. This was not unheard of, as large-scale attacks and pogroms began after the First Crusade in 1095, but after the reign of Henry II, which had provided the Jews with considerable royal protection; this was new to the Angevin period. At Stamford, anti-Jewish violence was initiated by a group of young crusaders ‘indignant that the enemies of the cross of Christ had such great possessions’. The fact that in the 1181 Assize of Arms, Henry ordered that all weapons in possession of Jews be confiscated on the grounds that Jews, who were supposedly protected by the King, meant that when they came under attack following the death of Henry, the found themselves unable to defend themselves. They were therefore fully reliant on royal protection, and a king who was prepared to protect them. The coronation riots of 1189 and the York pogrom of 1190, in which 150 Jews were killed, suggests that a combination of underlying tensions, crusading fervour and a king which did not take responsibility of the Jews as seriously as his predecessor, would lead to an outbreak of violence against them. The York Pogrom was the most shocking, and it came only six months after the coronation of Richard, proving that the protection which Henry had been offering the Jews had only sought to increase the hostility, waiting for an opportunity in which to unleash their anger on the Jews, The Royal Government was incensed by the treatment at the treatment the Jews had received, at what they perceived to be an attack on royal property. Richard did not ignore this murder or the loss of royal revenues which ensued. As a result, 50 citizens of the city were fined and there was a change in the law which protected the interests of the king in any similar events.