The Medieval York Jewry Reconsidered

Abstract

Thanks to the notoriety of their massacre on the site of Clifford's Tower in March 1190, the Jews of York remain the subject of more attention than any other provincial medieval English Jewry. This article begins with a brief account of how the massacre has become central to contemporary perceptions of Jewish-Christian relations during the last two decades. It continues by considering more recent research. Although the famous Jewbury excavation of 1982–83 produced fewer revelations than one might have hoped, the number of recent studies of other urban Jewries in Plantagenet England as well as the publication of important judicial and financial sources now makes it possible to recapture the environment of the York Jew in more detail than ever before. Illustrating this point, the article concludes with a discussion of Jewish wives and widows in York, especially during the final decades of their history (before 1290) when they were often persecuted as well as bereaved by the untimely deaths of their husbands, sons and brothers.