About Jewish History at the Tower
This project concluded in May 2022
World-famous as a royal fortress and prison, the Tower of London is also one of the most substantial standing remains of medieval England’s Jewish history. From the mid-twelfth century to the expulsion of the Anglo-Jewry in 1290, the Tower was both a place of imprisonment and of refuge for hundreds of Jews.
The Constable of the Tower had sole authority to arrest and imprison the London Jewry and even Jews arrested elsewhere in the country were normally transferred to the Tower. Yet, the Constable was also charged with protecting the city’s Jews during pogroms and the Jewish community even helped defend the castle from a siege by rebel barons in 1267. This two-year project, which ran from 2020-2022, explored the Tower’s central place in this complex story of coercion and coexistence.
Principle Objective
The principal objective of the project was to create two major research resources based on in-depth archival investigation. Now complete, the first of these is a catalogue of over 700 manuscripts for the Jewish history of medieval London and the Tower.
The second is a dataset of Jewish prisoners, refugees, and staff at the medieval Tower from c.1189 to 1290, including the biographies of over 150 named individuals, and hundreds more unnamed. It presents a wide spectrum of the medieval Anglo-Jewish experience and has uncovered many new stories, as well as enhancing our knowledge of known individuals.
Both the catalogue and dataset are available to download in the Outputs and Findings section.
Image: St Thomas’s Tower was built by Edward I who expelled the Jews from England in 1290. © Historic Royal Palaces.
Research questions
The project addressed the following key research questions:
- How many Jews were imprisoned at the Tower? How were they treated and where were they held?
- What was the Jewish community’s relationship with the Tower?
- What was the nature of the Constable of the Tower’s relationship with London’s Jewish community?
- Did any Jews work at the Tower?
Image: From the manuscript accounts of the Constable of the Tower of London from 1288 to 1301. © The National Archives, E 101/4/25, m. 3.
The passage here is from the account for 1289 to 1290, which records the Constable receiving £23 6s in customs from 1335 Jews crossing from London to Wissant at the Expulsion in 1290, each Jew paying 4d, and a further 126 poor Jews, each paying 2d.
Research findings
Outputs
The catalogue
Standing at over 700 manuscripts, the catalogue of archival material for the Jewish history of medieval London and the Tower is now available.
The dataset
The dataset of Jewish prisoners, refugees, and staff at the medieval Tower, which includes biographies of over 150 named individuals, and hundreds more unnamed is now available.
Journal article
MacLellan, R., ‘Prisoners, Sanctuary Seekers, and Workers: Jews at the Tower of London, 1189-1290', Journal of the Historical Association, 107 (2022), 815-35.
Podcast
Listen to the Podcast: Jewish Medieval History at the Tower of London
Downloads
The catalogue and dataset are available to download as PDFs.
Image: Statue of Licoricia of Winchester, one of the individuals identified in the project dataset. Photograph by Lategatsby23 used under CC BY-SA 4.0 licence
Research team
Project Leads: Prof. Anthony Musson (HRP) and Dr Laura Tompkins (HRP)
Postdoctoral Research Associate: Dr Rory MacLellan (HRP)
Advisory Panel Member: Professor Anthony Bale (Birkbeck College, University of London)