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WARNING: SPECULATION FOLLOWS
I've been reading book reviews instead of working. My excuse is that it's Monday. This review in particular got me thinking about the position of Jews in English law in the Middle Ages and how English legal fictions about Jews have created some assumptions about Jewish history. These are just thoughts. I have not done any research today, after all, I've just read book reviews.
Thought 1:
That the English Medieval status of Jews has nothing to do with human rights and not nearly as much to do with slavery as I keep hearing (sort of like a footnote to wider concerns eg "Jews were the King's slaves/serfs/lacked legal standing").
The status of Jews in England in the Middle Ages was conceived of in relation to known legal entities. The chief known legal entity in this case, was the King. The words used to describe this conception had to be known legal terms and the relationships known relationships for things to stick. That's how new laws tend to work*. If those who have the power to enforce the law don't understand them, they'll not get taken up in practice (why I love reading the Theodosian Code reason #147 – it's curious to see which laws have to be made over and over again because they're being ignored)
In other words, the King's Jews might have resulted in some exceptional abuses of power by certain kings, but the existence of special courts and records don't, in themselves, mean that Jews were without privileges or freedoms or legal support in England in the Middle Ages.
In reality, just as with any rights in any society, those that Jews were entitled to depended on the person at the top of the hierarchy actually doing what they were supposed to do. Simon de Montfort, for instance, abused the Jewish population something awful when he was in revolt. Then he discovered - when he became less revolting and started to run the show - that he was doing himself out of a source of power by continuing with the murder and etc and lo, he changed his mind**.
The more sophisticated a Medieval English ruler was in terms of legal understanding, the more they were likely to defend the Jewish population. It's a power thing.
Thought 2:
Cromwellian Jewishness wasn’t the same, legally, as Plantagenet Jewishness. It defined a legal status, though: it didn't necessarily open closed borders. This means that Jews were recognisable again and all sorts of interesting things could happen to work out what being Jewish meant in England all over again.
What does all this mean? It means that the popular perception of English Jews (1066-1290, Cromwell to present) is itself a construct. It's based on the legal status of Jews, not the physical existence of Jews. Kind of a terra nullius – if the law doesn't recognise Jews then hey, Jews can't possibly exist. Yet there were not only Jews in the Roman Empire (to which parts of Britain belonged) but there were mentions of Jews in England*** between 1290 and 1656.
What this means is I know way less about the history of English Jews than I thought I did. I never quite accepted those assumptions of "Hey presto – we had no Jews and now we have a few and now, look – no rabbit up my sleeve – no Jews again!" but I'd never actually articulated to myself why this was wrong. Simply, this was wrong because the historiography isn't based on an examination of evidence, but on legal assumptions. Legal history is a part of the evidence, not the whole shebang.
The reality may follow the legal status. There's no automatic guarantee that it does. It didn't for Australia, though, with Terra Nullius. It's a guarantee of persecution around 1290, but that's a different story.
If I've missed big studies proving that the legal status of Jews in England exactly matched residential status of Jews in England, I would really love to know****. I did check this out about fifteen years ago and didn't find anything then, but maybe there's something more recent, or maybe I looked in the wrong place.
This leads to another question, of course. Does this mean that there is the possibility of hidden Jews in England the way there were in Spain? And if there were, how many toes would an SF writer step on if they invented an alternate history where the Royal Family turned out to be secretly Jewish?
*I am not a lawyer. I have not formally studied legal history. I've drafted a piece of legislation then had a lawyer from AGs explain what I did wrong (lots) and why my explanatory memoranda were correct, though, in my policy wonk days. All this doesn't help you decide if my thoughts are useful or not, but it makes me happy to have stated it so very clearly.
**SKP – you are not going to like this, but I do not like Simon – and he would absolutely not have liked me
***known individuals – not many, but how many does one expect to find if Jews don't legally exist? Recognition of Judaism appertaining to individuals is going to be quite unusual if one doesn't formally exist, so the interesting thing is that there are any at all.
**** especially big archaeological studies, because if a person is not noted in the written record, the archaeological record is the single best place for finding out whether they were around or not
I've been reading book reviews instead of working. My excuse is that it's Monday. This review in particular got me thinking about the position of Jews in English law in the Middle Ages and how English legal fictions about Jews have created some assumptions about Jewish history. These are just thoughts. I have not done any research today, after all, I've just read book reviews.
Thought 1:
That the English Medieval status of Jews has nothing to do with human rights and not nearly as much to do with slavery as I keep hearing (sort of like a footnote to wider concerns eg "Jews were the King's slaves/serfs/lacked legal standing").
The status of Jews in England in the Middle Ages was conceived of in relation to known legal entities. The chief known legal entity in this case, was the King. The words used to describe this conception had to be known legal terms and the relationships known relationships for things to stick. That's how new laws tend to work*. If those who have the power to enforce the law don't understand them, they'll not get taken up in practice (why I love reading the Theodosian Code reason #147 – it's curious to see which laws have to be made over and over again because they're being ignored)
In other words, the King's Jews might have resulted in some exceptional abuses of power by certain kings, but the existence of special courts and records don't, in themselves, mean that Jews were without privileges or freedoms or legal support in England in the Middle Ages.
In reality, just as with any rights in any society, those that Jews were entitled to depended on the person at the top of the hierarchy actually doing what they were supposed to do. Simon de Montfort, for instance, abused the Jewish population something awful when he was in revolt. Then he discovered - when he became less revolting and started to run the show - that he was doing himself out of a source of power by continuing with the murder and etc and lo, he changed his mind**.
The more sophisticated a Medieval English ruler was in terms of legal understanding, the more they were likely to defend the Jewish population. It's a power thing.
Thought 2:
Cromwellian Jewishness wasn’t the same, legally, as Plantagenet Jewishness. It defined a legal status, though: it didn't necessarily open closed borders. This means that Jews were recognisable again and all sorts of interesting things could happen to work out what being Jewish meant in England all over again.
What does all this mean? It means that the popular perception of English Jews (1066-1290, Cromwell to present) is itself a construct. It's based on the legal status of Jews, not the physical existence of Jews. Kind of a terra nullius – if the law doesn't recognise Jews then hey, Jews can't possibly exist. Yet there were not only Jews in the Roman Empire (to which parts of Britain belonged) but there were mentions of Jews in England*** between 1290 and 1656.
What this means is I know way less about the history of English Jews than I thought I did. I never quite accepted those assumptions of "Hey presto – we had no Jews and now we have a few and now, look – no rabbit up my sleeve – no Jews again!" but I'd never actually articulated to myself why this was wrong. Simply, this was wrong because the historiography isn't based on an examination of evidence, but on legal assumptions. Legal history is a part of the evidence, not the whole shebang.
The reality may follow the legal status. There's no automatic guarantee that it does. It didn't for Australia, though, with Terra Nullius. It's a guarantee of persecution around 1290, but that's a different story.
If I've missed big studies proving that the legal status of Jews in England exactly matched residential status of Jews in England, I would really love to know****. I did check this out about fifteen years ago and didn't find anything then, but maybe there's something more recent, or maybe I looked in the wrong place.
This leads to another question, of course. Does this mean that there is the possibility of hidden Jews in England the way there were in Spain? And if there were, how many toes would an SF writer step on if they invented an alternate history where the Royal Family turned out to be secretly Jewish?
*I am not a lawyer. I have not formally studied legal history. I've drafted a piece of legislation then had a lawyer from AGs explain what I did wrong (lots) and why my explanatory memoranda were correct, though, in my policy wonk days. All this doesn't help you decide if my thoughts are useful or not, but it makes me happy to have stated it so very clearly.
**SKP – you are not going to like this, but I do not like Simon – and he would absolutely not have liked me
***known individuals – not many, but how many does one expect to find if Jews don't legally exist? Recognition of Judaism appertaining to individuals is going to be quite unusual if one doesn't formally exist, so the interesting thing is that there are any at all.
**** especially big archaeological studies, because if a person is not noted in the written record, the archaeological record is the single best place for finding out whether they were around or not