'Reasons ... Theological, Political, and mixt of both': A Reconsideration of the 'Readmission' of the Jews to England

Abstract

In I 655, Rabbi Menasseh ben Israel travelled to London in a bid to persuade Oliver Cromwell to readmit the Jews to England, more than 350 years after their expulsion by Edward 1. His mission gave rise to a heated debate, but it did not produce any conclusive results. Nevertheless, 'the readmission of the Jews' continues to have a ghostly afterlife in accounts of the history of Jews in England; in fact, it is often referred to as if it actually happened. Anglo-Jewish historians explain that although the Jews were not given formal legal status as English citizens, an informal readmission nonetheless occurred. They argue, moreover, that this was the culmination of Protestant philosemitism which had developed during the first half of the seventeenth century.This essay places the readmission debate in the context of a wider print controversy played out in an underexplored network of pamphlets and tracts. Commentators such as William Hughes and William Prynne argued about whether it was parliament or king that expelled the Jews in the thirteenth century, and consequently which body had the authority to readmit them now. Thus the readmission debate, traditionally regarded as an expression of Christian enthusiasm for Jews, is here placed in the broader context of the constitutional politics of the mid-seventeenth century.The debate is revealed, furthermore, to be a test case for arguments about different styles of law. Opponents of readmission who favoured common law such as William Prynne and Rice Vaughan presented their version of the history of the Jews in England as an example of good legal methodology, in opposition to supporters of readmission and canon law such as Hugh Peters. Common law was closely associated in the period with both parliament and a nascent sense of English national identity, and indeed this is the third factor considered here in relation to the issue of readmission. Ultimately, this essay suggests that 'the Jews' referred to in this Christian political and legal controversy were as much a symbolic argumentative tool as a literal people.