charged. 10 Jews were also forced to wear a yellow badge in the shape of the two tablets that
hold the Ten Commandments in Judaism. This was peculiar, considering how reliant Edward
was on the Jewish community, who could levy interest and then pay those in taxes.
Edw ard’s conquests and campaigns in Wales and Gascony were costly, resulting in his debt.
In order to settle up he needed to create a new tax but would need Parliament’s permission
and so “the expulsion of the Jews was the price he agreed to pay”. 11 Parliament gave him
£116,000. It was the single largest tax collection in medieval Britain. 12 It is claimed that the
Jews were no longer financially useful to the Crown as their presence meant he would not
procure permission for the new tax, hence their expulsion.
It can be asserted that the Jews were also expelled because of the blood-libels.
These were anti-Semitic fabrications that originated in England and accused the Jewish
community of murdering Christian children to use their blood to make matzah, unleavened
bread. 13 People believed that Jews drank their blood too. 14 Lori Perry reflects that this libel
was “perfidious” because it resulted in tension between Christians and Jews and was “most
often the catalyst for mass murder”. 15 There are a few key, infamous examples of these
blood-libels in England at this time, that intensified delusions that Jews were somehow not
human. This fueled hatred of the Jewish community. James Arieti recounts the notorious
blood-libel case of Norwich in 1144 where the Jews allegedly “purchased a Christian child”
(William of Norwich) and “tortured him”. 16 However, it was discovered he had had a
10 Brand, p. 1140. 11 nationalarchives, para. 2 of 7. 12 Marc Morris, A Great and Terrible King, (London: Windmill Books, 2009), p. 228.
13 Robert Weinberg, ‘The Blood Libel in Eastern Europe’, Jewish History, 26.3/4 (2012), 275-285 (p. 275). 14 James Arieti, ‘Magical Thinking in Medieval Anti - Semitism: Usury and the Blood Libel’, Meditteranean Studies, 24.2 (2016), 193-218 (pp. 195-196). 15 Lori Perry, ‘Satirizing the Blood Libel’, Rocky Mountain Review, 73.2 (2019), 119-141 (p. 121). 16 Arieti, p. 196.
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