Maeve Silver
To what extent were the Jews expelled from England in 1290 because they
were no longer economically useful to the Crown?
On 18 th July 1290, Edward I of England issued the Edict of Expulsion, expelling all Jews by 1 st
November. Historians like B. Lionel Abrahams consider why “at a time when trade and the
need for capital was growing” he exiled them especially as he was in debt due to his
campaign in Wales and France. 1 Jews were once useful, Harold Pollins maintains, to the
Crown and to Christians as money-lending was their means of survival. 2 The Jews who
arrived as William I’s “Norman imports” were outside of the feudal system and tallaged at
the will of the monarch as second-class subjects. 3 To procure payment for his hefty military
debt Edward needed Parliament’s authorization for a new tax. In exchange, he agreed to
expel the Jews who were unpopular due to the blood-libels, which claimed they were
responsible for the murders of Christian children. They were also disliked for their dealings
with Eleanor of Castile – Edward’s wife – and were subjected to Papal discrimination, which
reached Edward. His edict came when other expulsions for Jews were taking place across
Europe; was it a coincidence? It will be found that the expulsion of approximately three-
thousand Jews – who had faced years of antisemitism and inferiority – happened due to
aforementioned reasons and because they were no longer economically useful to the Crown
as their presence stopped Edward from procuring the tax from Parliament. 4
1 B. Lionel Abrahams, ‘The Expulsion of the Jews from England in 1290’, The Jewish Quarterly Review, 7.1 (1894), 75-100 (p. 75). 2 Harold Pollins, Economic History of the Jews in England, (Rutherford: Madison: Teaneck Fairleigh Dickinson University Press: London and Toronto: Associated University Press, 1982), p. 16. 3 Pollins, p. 15. 4 nationalarchives, Jews in England 1290, (2000s), <https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/jews-in-england-1290/> [accessed 14 th November 2023] (para. 7 of 7).
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