Jews in Medieval England (1070-1290) 

Are you a king who need highly educated financiers, introducing import-a-Jew

In the age of print it is hard to conceptualize the impact of book burning, but 12,000 copies of the Talmud... damn. By the way, we still mourn this destruction of the Talmud with laments on the 9th of Av

11:37 Looking at the maps of France, northern Italy, and Germany is painful. Attention to detail 10/10

Describing the different between Anglo-Saxon and Norman Administration along with the import of a Jewish population simply blew my mind.

I just found this channel and I am so happy! I have wanted to learn the history of the Jewish people for so long, but since they didn’t teach it in school it was hard to find a good source. Thanks for this channel! It means so much to learn the history of my ancestors

What a way to welcome in Shabbat later in the day!

For those of us who not even amateur historians, but who are fascinated by great stories from history, I thank you!

Also, that ending there...I wonder if there will be a video on Jewish people in the Mongol Empire and the Mamluk Sultanate.

Great video, but surprised you glossed over the massacre of the 150 Jews of York in 1190. The pogrom was started due to a noble owing money to Aaron of Lincoln. The Jews fled to the castle (Clifford's Tower) and like Masada chose to take their own lives instead of being killed by the mob. Seems like a defining event of medieval english jewry.

So interesting! My family is Jewish and from Mashhad, Iran, and we have been told that Jews were also 'imported' there to manage a treasury. Random thing to have in common though...

I’m a Jewish Anglican and one of my dad’s paternal Jewish ancestors had been the first Jewish family to settle in Ulster in the 1600’s where he owned a clothing and tailoring business as part of that initial English emigration that set the foundation for the Northern Ireland we have today, even though neither of my parents are Irish, their families have lived in Ulster for centuries.

Hey, Sam! Just wanted to mention that, if you post the thumbnail as a twitter image post and still link the video within the same post, we all get to admire your beautiful thumbnails on twitter as well! My apologies for the unsolicited input!

I'm not even Jewish, but this content is great!

I absolutely love your videos. It is fascinating to experience history through great Jewish people and see their influence over the world. I feel like it paints a picture of the Medieval world in such a concrete way. Keep up the good work👍

This was really short and yet very informative.

Very interesting, informative and worthwhile video.

Sam, thanks for the amazing body of work that you made. Kudos

Thanks! Great information for a subject that has been pretty vague and mysterious. Well done!

Brilliant! My son (a keen history student) and I were discussing Jewish persecution in the car today and then I find this. I've shared this with him as it explains perfectly what we were talking about. Thank you.

You got some great videos bro

The Normans are not the only ones to import jews. In the 1700s the king of Denmark also imported Sephardic Jewish merchant families to help bail out his failing economy.

This filled a lacuna I never knew I had. Thank you.

Pope Innocent III, the most ironic of names....

0:57 *Didn't the king of Poland encouraged Jews, and particularly Jews that fled because of the Spanish expulsion, to settle in Poland for the exact same reason at one point?*

As I understand it the services of Jews as bankers was used in the early Middle Ages because of a Christian ban on usury. Christians could not defile themselves with money so it was handy if non-believers (who were going to hell anyway) could do it for them. But if Medicine was the only other profession Jews could practise in England back then, was that because there were similar factors involved. Like say church prohibitions around touching or cutting into the body? Or something else?

Well done, sir!

I really like your channel the topics itself is very fascinating i will be really happy if someone could make a history cinematic series on the Jews in the different empires very interesting channel!

Well done 👏

Can you make a video about the Jewish life in persia until 1979?

Actually, Jews were imported into Poland 1,000 years ago. They were invited in by the Polish king, I heard, to help the local economy.

the City of London avoiding tax? I am shook

I’m 75% Jewish 25% English sad Jews were expelled by a king im related to on my English side:( Long shanks is 23 great grandfather according to my tree.

Fascinating video as always. I know you have a policy about giving names in their original language, but I wonder if you would consider mentioning their "Jewish" acronym names as well so that they are recognizable to those who study in yeshiva.

I hope you one day will cover the jews in Scandinavia - especially considering how little antisemitism there was, with at least one pogrom "Jødefejden" in Denmark in 1819.

i learnt more about normans from u than those british "animated history of UK" shorts.

Bro how do you use all these bomb ass Zelda songs without getting hit with copyright strikes? I swear I’ve heard at least two or three ocarina of time songs in your videos. Love those songs.

How much death 💀 and destruction has been done in the name of a Jesus…. Shame on those who even think there was even one reason.

Hey Sam! the part when you explain that the 5 mentions of Jesus isn't actually him solved a debate in my yeshiva I didn't understand how Jesus can be the student Joshua be parchia if there is 100 years between them (also you wrote Judah be parchia and not Joshua)

(so I am a quick reader, but the titlecards do not stay up long enough ! Had to scroll back or screenshot to read... .)

Sam, in one if the videos you mentioned the "Radhanim" and apart from what is written in Wikipedia there is very little mention in other sources. Do you speak in depth in a video clip that I may have missed? They sound to be very interesting and was the Rambam's brother one and he traded internationally? Thanks

Why are the photos or backdrop, an inside of a mosque? The arches with the red stripes on the arches. Looks nice. Completely makes no sense?

I love your videos, but please have text up a bit longer so we dont have to pause.

Where did you get those maps? Looks like they were drawn from memory by a 10y.old.

Are you using LoZ songs? Sounds like the forest temple or something like that

The Torah is a term used to describe the first 5 books of the Holy Bible.

Might I ask what you source is for there being 16,000 Jews at the date of the expulsion? I've always had the impression that by that point at least there was only 2-3,000 Jews in England. Thanks.

Poland imported Jews to make their country function. Then spent hundreds of years resenting us for it. It’s happened a few times in history. Other than that cracking video

Wonderful stuff as usual. I really do love and appreciate this channel and everything you do to make it, Sam. I suppose during the Norman period it might have been Jews and the King who were fluent French speakers with little or no Middle English. But I think that would also have applied to many of the higher nobles and churchmen too. Also a significant number of Flemings came over with the Normans and were involved in the conquest of England and latterly of Wales and Ireland. My understanding is that most of these Flemish speakers were usually also fluent in French since they came often from bilingual regions but also because they were often in military service to French speaking kings and nobility. I think the polite term for their role might be soldiers of fortune.

Happened upon this video today. Your channel is criminally underrated!

I've heard about the Disputation of Paris before but this video made it much clearer. Imagine the confused clerics going "What do you mean there were multiple Jesuses?". Also, since you referenced Jack Rackam, I suddenly want the see his take on that prick Longshanks.

I learned alot from this! (I'm a moderately-but-increasingly-read member of the Tribe.) But I don't understand the point of the guy in the visual, who's mostly static and straight-faced.

I’m a history teacher in England and I’ve made a number of lessons on England’s Jewish population. I’ve just finished the lesson on Oliver Cromwell reigniting them back into the country against most peoples wishes. Wondering how you done a video on the event or covered it previously?

Can just all agree that yeah the hats were a symbol of oppression but, i mean caaaaammmmmoooon who doesn't want an oppression hat. The drip is straight 🔥🔥

Props for pronouncing the place names correctly

Wait so if Jewish testimony represented 12 gentiles, did that effectively give a jew the power to decide if someone was guilty of a crime? They would need more than 12 people to contradict his claim I imagine.

they're always the scapegoat :( wish them even more success after watching this. people can be so evil its always shocking.

Absolutely fascinating and horrifying at the same time to see what the Jewish people have faced throughout their storied history. I can't imagine what it would be like to try to build a life for your family somewhere and to know it could come crashing down at any second unto death for no other reason than because of how you worship God...the same God as your neighbors, no less. Your videos are a great historical tool that are truly desperately needed. However, they are also a testimony to the strength and the faith of the Jewish people throughout the generations that allowed them to survive and to somehow thrive under such terribly difficult circumstances. Please keep your outstanding videos coming and God bless you, my friend. From all the way over here in the great Lone Star State of Texas, a stalwart Christian friend and admirer of the Jewish people and the great State of Israel 🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

"...and King John was quick to drag his feet...." - "Hurry up and slow down, man!"

Usury banned ?

great!

"merchant guilds, which were much more like cartels than modern labor unions" you must be new in Israel :)

Brilliant

I would greatly appreciate a transcript of this video.

Black sheep Jew here who knows nearly nothing about my ancestry culture I thank you for this …

I got stuck on the "Forest Temple" theme from Ocarina of Time, during "The First Jews in England"

0:51 why is dublin in the south?

(IMHO) The Normans were very quick learners, and very savvy about making treaties and laws 1:00

8:16 You literally just described the first half of 'Life Is Beautiful', one of the greatest films ever made.

Hey, FYI, the hebrew title of the video is spelled really weird ("The jews the Englad from the middle ages"). It'd be more accurate to say "יהודי אנגליה" or "היהודים באנגליה" (right now "היהודים האנגליה" is just grammatically wrong, youtube is literally giving me those zig-zag red lines when I type it), and either "בימי הביניים" or "של ימי הביניים" (instead of "מימי הביניים").

Is that Zelda: ocarina of time I hear in the soundtrack? 😅

Wasn't Louis the 9th , the same French King Louis who had the Templars executed, banished, and their property seized for the Crown?

I'm from the UK and this certainly isn't a commonly known subject here. For most English people I would say, what they have learned about Jews in mediaeval Europe has been mostly focused on Germany, unless you're from one of the cities mentioned such as York, Norwich or Lincoln which saw large pogroms, and are interested in local history.

I think you accidently dropped the HRE and broke it

I hope next will be "Jews in Medieval Poland"

Sounds like Jews back then really could have used distributed ledgers.

10:24 you spelled “independent” wrong :)

Muchas gracias Hermano !

Would yoy talk in the corrections & facts about the new scripts founded in israel.

7:32 - who's up for a treasure hunt?

תעשה סרטון על האם דרך המשי הייתה גם ברומא

What a sad story of persecution!! :(

My grandfather was a Jewish atheist whose family had been living in Lancashire and Cheshire for centuries. I'd assumed they'd always been there but now I know different. Thanks.

0:58 didn't you say the ottomans imported Jews?

I live in England London and it's amazing 😊😊😊😊.

I think there was Jews in Roman Britain too. As for Anglo-Saxon England who knows. The Anglo-Saxons would of killed and assimilated and deported any Jew from Roman Britain like they did to Celtic people. However what interests me is the lack of Jewish presence in Wales before the Norman conquest. Maybe a few minor individuals historians ignored and didn't document do to their irrelevancy but still.

YES WOO i mean Merchant of Venezia

Yoooo CITY IN THE SKY

I mean, I get it, because of the issues going on at the time, but I feel like Guide For The Perplexed was a step backwards, and snuffing out the mystical elements of Judaism wasn't a great thing. But it's not really my place, it's not my culture, my tradition, I just feel like it has been a general trend in abrahamic faiths to strip out the mysteries of God and I dunno it feels like a mistake. I know this video isn't about Maimonodes but he came up and I had to run my mouth ofc

There must have been some inter marriage bettween jews and christians in the period between 1070 and 1290 . Also , proobaly more convversions to chrstianity. Why was the oath of one jew equal to that of 6 christians in a medieval court of law ?

1144 or 1244?

10:26 it's yehoshua Ben perachiya not yehudah

England to France, France to Spain, Spain to who knows where. What a bunch of bastards we are in the name of religion (politics).

interesting history.

As a Jewish student of history all of the restrictions and prejudice makes me so sad!

If Jews thought as early as the beginning of the 14th century that Palestine was the answer, what stopped them from going there? I'm sure plenty of things. After all, the Jews had no army to fight the Saracens. I'd just like to hear more about it.

I just wonder whether Abraham Lincoln a jew of Lincoln or not..

There absolutely were Jews in Roman Britain.

I'm an ethnic Lego person, but still very interested in the content of this video

Same sad old tune in medieval era

9:22 - Technically, Cathars were accused of being gnostics by the Pope and the Catholic Clergy; however prominent scholars (René Nelli, Jean Duvernoy, Michel Roquebert among others) on the question argue that they were likely were not gnostics and that this was only a strategy by the Clergy in order to defame the Cathars and worsen their public image (and the English wikipedia page on Cathars is likely wrong on the question; although the French page seems not to make this mistake).