In 1255, Louis IX of France was seeking a suitable gift for Henry III of England. And what better, thought Louis, than to bestow an elephant on his brother king?
One can only imagine the sheer horror of the English court at having to deal such a present, but they did, by building a dedicated Elephant House for the animal in the Tower of London.
And when, in 1257, the elephant died, the resourceful Tower officials decided to utilise the space. Where better, they reasoned, than to keep a Jewish woman prisoner?
This story, and scores of others which bring mediaeval English Jewry to life, came to light as part of two years’ worth of groundbreaking research by curators past and present of Historic Royal Palaces. For the first time, in a landmark digital project now online, it’s possible to learn much about mediaeval Jews, with the Tower of London at the heart of their daily lives.

42186 High Res

The mediaeval Tower (Photo: Historic Royal palaces)

Licoricia-IW--6 statue

The statue of Licoricia on display in Winchester, created by sculptor Ian Rank-Broadley

Jews were imprisoned in the Tower — the now-better known Licoricia of Winchester, honoured with a statue only recently unveiled, was imprisoned there twice before being released — but they also sheltered there, rescued by the mayor and law officers from antisemitic pogroms.
Ninety-two Jews were imprisoned there in 1255 — falsely accused of the notorious ritual murder of “Little St Hugh of Lincoln” — and 18 of them were hanged, though the rest were freed. In 1277 around 600 Jews were incarcerated in the Tower, accused of the serious and repeated crime of “coin-clipping” (filing off small pieces of coin to melt down and sell), though at least four of them paid the Sergeant of the Tower 53 shillings and four pence, so they could celebrate Rosh Hashanah while they were there.
And Jews also defended the Tower, in April 1267, after a civil war between Henry III and his barons, Gilbert de Clare, earl of Gloucester, attacked London. He had previously attacked the Canterbury Jewry in 1264. So, accompanied by the papal legate, Ottobuono, London’s Jews ran to the Tower for sanctuary. As de Clare was attacking from one side, another rebel baron, John de Deyville, was gathering troops in Southwark for a pincer attack. The Jews were assigned a part of the Tower’s walls to defend, probably on the north-west of what is now the inner curtain wall. Some of their houses were even torn down to build barricades in the Tower’s defence.
Four kings affected the lives of mediaeval Jews in England: Richard I, who reigned from 1189-1199; John, 1199-1216; Henry III, 1216-1272; and Edward I, who reigned from 1272-1307, and expelled the Jews in 1290.
As Dr Rory McLellan, who took over the research from previous curators, explained, the Jews mainly came to England from Rouen, in Normandy, in the late 11th century. They lived primarily in London but spread to other centres such as Norwich, Canterbury, Oxford, Lincoln and Winchester. In 236 separate biographies, we meet Jews who were landowners and money-lenders, archers and thieves, rabbis — known as “Masters” — and converts.

42189 High Res

The mediaeval Tower (Photo: Historical Royal Palaces)

Almost all the mini-biographies, beginning in 1189, emerge from court cases or reports of the officers of the Tower. It comes as quite a surprise to discover that even in the 13th century Jews were able to become jurors — and, indeed, it was frequently open to Jews who were accused of crimes to refuse to be tried by a court unless an equal number of Jews could sit on the jury with their Christian counterparts.
“There are a lot of dark stories to be found”, says Dr McLellan. But he also discovered hitherto unremarked links between Jews and Christians, in which Christians, defying contemporary expectations, came out in support of Jews whom they believed had been unjustly accused. And Jews, for their part, did not always support their fellow Jews against Christian complaints.
For example: “By 1281 it was illegal for Jews to lend at interest. There was a Jewish woman called Bona, and her husband, Moses, who seem to have been involved in small-scale money-lending. Bona is approached by a friend called Belasez”.
“So Belasez tells Bona that a Christian woman wants to borrow money from her, but she doesn’t have enough to make the loan herself. She asks if they can join forces and lend her the money. It’s a small amount, only six shillings; anyway, they lend it to this Christian woman. But then when it comes time to repay it, Bona demands interest, and refuses to give back the security that the Christian woman has given her”.
The Christian woman goes to court and Bona insists that the amount of money in dispute was “always the amount we were going to ask to be repaid”. She summons Belasez to testify in her defence. Unhappily for Bona, Belasez sides with the Christian woman — and Bona and her husband end up in the Tower. For Dr McLellan, this is an illustration of “street level interfaith relations”.
Contrary to what is generally believed, only about 10 per cent of mediaeval Jews were professional moneylenders — but Dr McLellan reckons that about 50 per cent did so “on the side”. In the mass round-up of 600 Jews over alleged coin-clipping, in 1277, at least two rabbis and one chazan ended up in the Tower. “There are about five cases where a Jew is accused of having a Christian accomplice, and this normally means that the Jew is acting as a fence for stolen goods. Which does suggest that they do sell things as well, perhaps as merchants.”
One of the most curious stories is that of Jurnet, son of Abraham, believed to have been the only unconverted Jew ever to have worked officially at the Tower of London. Dr McLellan says that Jews were very restricted as to the occupations they could have. “When we do find them working in royal circles, it’s at places like the Exchequer of the Jews (the division of the Treasury which dealt with specific taxation of the English Jews). They use their skills to write up (or translate) Hebrew documents. So it was odd to find a Jewish person working at the Tower, as a sergeant. It could have been as an administrator or as a man-at-arms. There are no records of Jewish people working at castles in England, so it is quite unusual to find Jurnet working there”. Judging by the court records which refer to him, he may have been responsible for moving, to the Jewish cemetery in Cripplegate, the bodies of those Jews who died in the Tower.
Jurnet (apparently derived from Joseph) is just one of the odd-sounding — to us — names of Jews in the 13th century. But Dr McLellan says: “Jewish names in these sources are often really garbled, because they are written down by people who don’t speak Hebrew”. There are about five different renderings of the name Isaac, ranging from Hake, to Cok or Cokerel. Few had surnames — but among those who did was a family known as Levesque, mediaeval French for “bishop”.
That, and the fact that one of the official posts for Jews was known as the “archpresbyter”, is, says Dr McLellan, the result of the community “being seen through a Christian lens”. Apparently this would have been the equivalent of chief rabbi, but it was a Crown appointment.
Henry III, who even by the standards of the day, was fairly pious, was keen on conversion and in 1232 established the Domus Conversorum, or House of Converts, which handily allowed for the confiscation of the convert’s goods and lands. After the Expulsion in 1290, it was the only way for Jews to remain in England. The building was in Chancery Lane in the City of London: in the 19th and 20th century it became part of the Public Records Office.
Oh, and that woman imprisoned in the former Elephant House? Apparently she twice paid the Sergeant of the Tower eight shillings, perhaps for better food, or maybe just to be moved to a place that no longer smelled of its previous occupant.

Go to hrp.org.uk and download the database for more details