The Jews in England, 1272-1290

Edward I's Jewish policy attempted to curb usury and transform the lives and financial practices of the Jews. Historians have claimed that the policy, which is embodied in the Statutum de Judeismo of 1275, was a failure and resulted in the Expulsion of 1290. Although the Expulsion has received some attention from historians, very little work has been done on Edwardian Jewry as a whole and therefore it has not been possible to discern the exact effect of the Statutum within a general context. The best account and examination of the source material for the Expulsion still remains that of B.L.Abrahams. In the light of his work, the majority of historians have seen the Statute as an end to Jewish moneylending, a curtailing of Jewish livelihoods and an anti-semitic prelude to the Expulsion. It has not, however, always been clear how such historians have reached such conclusions. This thesis re-examines the Statutum de Judeismo and analyses, from the records of over 2000 bonds, the shift in Jewish financial interests that it brought about. In doing so, it highlights the way in which, in Edward's reign, certain Jews tempered their moneylending activities with commercial concerns. The method used to illustrate this change is tripartite. Firstly, Anglo-Jewish society and its relationship with the host community in the late thirteenth century is examined. Secondly, the specific histories of the three Jewish communities of Canterbury, Hereford and Lincoln are scrutinised. Finally, a discussion of Jewish financial practices after 1275 attempts to identify the changes brought about by the Edwardian Experiment

They Come over Here … 300 Years of Xenophobic Propaganda in England

England's rulers, merchants, and organized labor in the early modern period (from the 16th to the 18th centuries) were all actively using what today we would call propaganda. Each group appreciated the need to get popular opinion on its side, or at the least to convince other groups it was in the public interest to act in a particular way. This study focuses on the use of xenophobic narratives by these actors in order to further their political, economic, or cultural objectives. The targets were economic rivals including the Dutch, but most particularly ethnic and religious outgroups, including Roman Catholics, Muslims, and Jews. Although there were public relations win-wins for anyone who was able successfully to demonize foreigners, racist and xenophobic propaganda was often more pernicious than the tellers realized, in many cases extending its influence over several generations. In addition, it is clear that many narratives failed to engage with public opinion, for reasons that were not always clear to the groups responsible for them

From the Persecuting to the Protective State? Jewish Expulsions and Weather Shocks from 1100 to 1800

What factors caused the persecution of minorities in medieval and early modern Europe? We build a model that predicts that minority communities were more likely to be expropriated in the wake of negative income shocks. We then use panel data consisting of 785 city-level expulsions of Jews from 933 European cities between 1100 and 1800 to test the implications of the model. We use the variation in city-level temperature to test whether expulsions were associated with colder growing seasons. We find that a one standard deviation decrease in average growing season temperature in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was associated with a one to two percentage point increase in the likelihood that a Jewish community would be expelled. Drawing on our model and on additional historical evidence we argue that the rise of state capacity was one reason why this relationship between negative income shocks and expulsions weakened after 1600