A thirteenth-century Anglo-Jewish woman crossing boundaries: visible and invisible

Abstract

In 1242, the private life of an Anglo-Jewish couple, Muriel and David of Oxford, became very public when David asked the royal curia to intervene in the Jewish court ( bet din) which had either refused or stalled his divorce from the childless Muriel. The curia not only agreed to force the divorce, but used it as an excuse to ban all betai din, catching the whole Anglo-Jewish community in the growing anti-Judaism of the time. Though David married a fertile widow who bore him a son shortly before his death in 1244, Muriel lived on in growing poverty. David was the most prominent financier of his time but examining the story from Muriel's usually silent point of view allows us insights into the life of a woman in a growing academic town. Her story especially highlights how she might have interacted with both male and female Christians in her daily life as well as in seeking help with her especially feminine problem of infertility.