point of view of a devoted son of the Church”. 43 It is possible that Edward I heard of this
event and decided to emulate it, in England. His father, Henry III – in the 1230s – as Karen
Barkey and Ira Katznelson maintain, enabled for individual English towns to “develop robust
urban government, distinct laws, representative bodies of aldermen, and a sense of proud
local identity’’. 44 They continue that these communities utilized these new abilities to expel
their Jews. 45 Edward feasibly drew inspiration from his father and mother. Other key
European expulsions of Jews occurred in 1288 and 1289. They were from Naples, Anjou, and
Maine, by Charles II, King of Naples, Count of Anjou, and Maine. After Dominican priests
spread anti-Semitic feeling in Naples the Jews were exiled. Any Jewish person that remained
had to convert. Jessica Elliot writes that around 8,000 were baptized, and that this was the
“earliest description of a mass conversion of Jews” in Naples, under Charles. 46 She confirms
that the expulsion of Jews in Anjou and Maine followed in 1289. 47 This of course happened
the year before Edward introduced the Edict of Expulsion. Thus, it can be propounded that
he did so as he was following Charles’s actions and that his were not a coincidence. He was
inspired to be rid of his Jews.
It can conclusively be argued therefore that Edward I issued his infamous edict for
multiple reasons, not just because the Jews were no longer financially useful to him. He
followed his fathers’ actions and was influenced by the vicious and increasing storm of
antisemitism across England, which was caused by the untrue blood- libels and his wife’s
usurping activities. Edward was most definitely influenced by Pope Honorius IV and the
43 Marcus and Saperstein, p. 99. 44 Karen Barkey and Ira Katznelson, ‘States regimes and decisions: Why Jews were expelled from Medieval England and France’, Theory and Society, 40.5 (2011), 475-503 (p. 488). 45 Barkey and Katznelson, p. 488. 46 Jessica Elliot, ‘“For those who have been made worthy of favour by new conversion: Angevin Policies Toward Jews and Converts in Naples and Povence, 1285- 1309”’, Viator, 52.1 (2021), 279-317 (pp. 279-280). 47 Elliot, p. 281.
45
Made with FlippingBook HTML5