Jewish history

Some posts on Jews in Edward I's reign. I'm not too familiar with the subject, and will mostly be quoting from the late Robin Mundill's thesis on the Jewish community in England 1272-1290 (unless stated otherwise).

Some of Mundill's (edited) thoughts on contemporary attitudes towards Jews: "Joshua Trachtenberg observed in 1943 that 'the most vivid impression to be gained from a reading of medieval allusions to the Jews is of a hatred so vast and abysmal, so intense that it leaves one gasping for comprehension. What has been correctly termed 'Jew hatred' rather than anti-semitism had many aspects. In the records of chroniclers, deep odium was reflected by constant references to Jews as 'perfidious'.

The Jew was also commonly referred to as the 'Devil's disciple' and this association had not died out by Shakespeare's day. Was not Mephistophiles the Jew's master and the destruction of Christianity his mission? News of Joseph Cartaphilus, the Wandering Jew, and of strange happenings inthe East reached England in 1228 when an Armenian archbishop visited St Albans. Such news only confirmed the worst suspicions of Gentiles.

Then, as news of Mongol invasions reached the west, panic broke out and the belief that the Jewish legions were at hand was rife. Was not Antichrist to be born of Jewish parents and Armageddon ushered in by the Jews? The ritual murder allegations that first manifested themselves in medieval England are symptomatic of the vast, abysmal and intense hatred that the host majority had for the Jewish minority. As well as unpopular moneylender, the Jew was sorcerer, murderer, cannibal, poisoner, blasphemer, international conspirator and Devil's disciple."