Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Contributors
- Editor's Preface and Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Introduction: The Moment and Memory of the York Massacre of 1190
- Part I The Events of March 1190
- 1 Neighbours and Victims in Twelfth-Century York: a Royal Citadel, the Citizens and the Jews Of York
- 2 Prelude and Postscript to the York Massacre: Attacks in East Anglia and Lincolnshire, 1190
- 3 William of Newburgh, Josephus and the New Titus
- 4 1190, William Longbeard and the Crisis of Angevin England
- 5 The Massacres of 1189-90 and the Origins of the Jewish Exchequer, 1186–1226
- Part II Jews among Christians in Medieval England
- Part III Representations
- Afterword: Violence, Memory and the Traumatic Middle Ages
- Bibliography
- Index
- York Medieval Press: Publications
2 - Prelude and Postscript to the York Massacre: Attacks in East Anglia and Lincolnshire, 1190
from Part I - The Events of March 1190
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 May 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Contributors
- Editor's Preface and Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Introduction: The Moment and Memory of the York Massacre of 1190
- Part I The Events of March 1190
- 1 Neighbours and Victims in Twelfth-Century York: a Royal Citadel, the Citizens and the Jews Of York
- 2 Prelude and Postscript to the York Massacre: Attacks in East Anglia and Lincolnshire, 1190
- 3 William of Newburgh, Josephus and the New Titus
- 4 1190, William Longbeard and the Crisis of Angevin England
- 5 The Massacres of 1189-90 and the Origins of the Jewish Exchequer, 1186–1226
- Part II Jews among Christians in Medieval England
- Part III Representations
- Afterword: Violence, Memory and the Traumatic Middle Ages
- Bibliography
- Index
- York Medieval Press: Publications
Summary
The York massacre on ‘Shabbat ha-Godol’, whilst by far the most disastrous attack on a Jewish community, did not occur in isolation. The widespread riots in London, following Richard I's coronation on 3 September 1189, led to a series of onslaughts on Jewish communities in the eastern counties of England, the heartland of the late twelfth-century English provincial Jewry.
Ralph de Diceto, dean of St Paul's from 1180 to c. 1200, has little to say about the events in London, probably because, the see being vacant, he took the place of the bishop of London at the coronation and subsequent festivities. For a detailed account of events in London we have to turn to William of Newburgh's Historia, which explains that the riot erupted when the press carried some Jews, who along with women had been forbidden entry, into Westminster Palace. The sources reveal that the London mob was predominant, with a sprinkling of retainers of nobles attending the ceremony, and a number of fire-raisers. Ultimately, as Newburgh points out, in the general desire for plunder ‘neither friends nor companions’ were spared.
Attacks on Jewries spread to the provinces. According to Diceto, the first took place at Norwich on 6 February, followed by assaults at Stamford (Lincolnshire), York and Bury St Edmunds (Suffolk) on 7, 16 and 18 March respectively. What follows is an attempt to trace their path and character, against the background of the emerging provincial Jewish communities concerned.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Christians and Jews in Angevin EnglandThe York Massacre of 1190, Narratives and Contexts, pp. 43 - 56Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2013