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When Bernard of Clairvaux integrated the Celtic church into the Cistercian order andСтр 1 из 21Следующая ⇒
When Bernard of Clairvaux integrated the Celtic church into the Cistercian order and Scotland got its first Templar king, David I (1124-1153)
Contents
Preface page 1
CHAPTERS
1. The Origins of Scotland 3
2. DNA and Population Studies: “But Why Do You Think They Were Jewish? ” 24
3. Genealogies of the First Wave of Jewish Families, 1100-1350 C.E. 44
4. Genealogies of the Second Wave of Jewish Families, 1350-1700 C.E. 71
5. The Early Jews of France, 700-1200 C.E. 79
6. When Did Jews Arrive in Scotland? 88
7. To Scotland’s Stirling, Ayr, and Glasgow 97
8. The Knights Templar, Freemasons and Cabala in Scotland 131
9. The Judaic Colony at Aberdeen 152
10. The Religions of Scotland: Did Presbyterianism Have Crypto-Jewish Origins? 192
11. Jews in the National Consciousness of Scotland: Scott’s Ivanhoe 205
Appendix A: Raw Scores for Participants in Melungeon DNA Surname Project 215
Contents
Appendix B: Naming and Jewish Priest-Kings 218
Appendix C: Early Jewish Names in France and England 220
Appendix D: Davidic Jewish Genealogies 229
Appendix E: Border Reiver DNA 232
Chapter Notes 233 Bibliography 247 Index 253
Preface
All research inquiries worthy of the name are voyages of discovery. Initial ventures set sail for terra incognito, while those which follow usually must be content to map more precisely the exact dimensions of the intellectual locale, noting minute details of mental flora, fauna, minerals and climate. Along these latter explorations exacting meas- urements are taken, objects and phenomena carefully categorized and labels affixed according to the earlier theoretical structures already in place. Gradually an imposing edifice of agreed-upon understanding is constructed; overlaying topographical interpre- tations become concretized into dogma and no one bothers to re-examine the underly- ing structure itself.
Very commonly, these accreted Received Views are zealously guarded by their cre- ators, because they serve important social, political and ideological agendas. Such theo- retical edifices have become naturalized features of the cultural landscape and serve to support and perpetuate the prevailing world-view. To challenge this knowledge struc- ture, in whole or in part, is seen as a threat to the larger ideological narrative of “This is the way the world is” in which it is embedded. Received views, therefore, are defended vigorously and those challenging them do so with full awareness that they will likely be attacked by those stakeholders vested in maintaining the status quo.
The present work, brazenly titled When Scotland Was Jewish, is a privateering jour- ney into heavily traveled waters. We propose that much of the traditional historical account of Scotland rests on fundamental interpretive errors. Further, we believe that these errors have been perpetuated in order to manufacture and maintain an origin story for Scotland that affirms its identity as a Celtic, Christian society. While pursuing Scot- tish nationalism is likely a noble goal, the equation of Scotland with Celtic culture in the popular (and academic) imagination has obfuscated, indeed buried, a more accurate and profound understanding of its history.
As the title suggests, we believe that much of Scotland’s history and culture from the 1100s forward is Jewish. We believe that much of her population, including several national heroes, villains, rulers, nobles, traders, merchants, bishops, guild members, burgesses, and ministers were of Jewish decent. We describe how the ancestors of these persons originated in France and Spain and then made their way to Scotland’s shores, moors, burgs and cas- tles from the reign of Malcolm Canmore to the after-throes of the Spanish Inquisition.
We anticipate that our claims will be vigorously disputed, especially by those who hold most dear the notion of Scotland as a Celtic heartland. We expect that anti-Semi- tes will be incensed that we have dared to co-opt one of the principal archetypes of WASP iconography and graft it to Judaism. We expect also that Jews and philo-Semites will be bemused and confused — does this mean that they should stop by to reconnoiter Edin- burgh on their next trip to Jerusalem? We hope that Muslims will be pleased to learn that we have also identified remnants of Islamic culture in Scotland.
Our research proposals, as unlikely as they may seem, are founded upon documen- tation available to scholars for centuries— census records, archeological artifacts, castle carvings, cemetery inscriptions, religious seals, coinage, burgess and guild member rolls, noble genealogies, family crests, geographic place names and oil portraits. Indeed, the blatancy and bulk of the evidence was so overwhelming that we were amazed no one had presented the thesis before we did.
How — or perhaps why — were surnames such as Izatt, Hyatt, Abell, Oliphant, Elphinstone, Isaac, Sharon, Lyon, Mamluke and Yuell not recognized as Judaic and Islamic by prior investigators? How could the presence of the Tetragrammaton — emblazoned on the title page of a Glasgow psalter dating from 1623 — be overlooked for almost 400 years? Why did no one question the presence of Islamic crescents and stars engraved throughout Fyvie Castle? Why was the presence of Stars of David on Scottish coins dat- ing from the 1200s not commented upon previously? Did the fact that the Marquis of Argylle’s castle is located in the village of Succoth (a major Jewish holiday) not seem odd to prior historians? Were not other onlookers puzzled by the dark, Semitic and Mediter- ranean appearances of the royal Stewart family — especially the Earl of Moray, James Stew- art — or of John Knox, Archibald Campbell or Allen Ramsey as their portraits hung in the National Portrait Gallery of Scotland? Put bluntly, why were these marked inconsis- tencies with a presumed Celtic past not interrogated forcefully, or indeed at all?
Despite our drawing attention to these uncomfortable pieces of the historical record, however, we knew that advocates of the traditional story of Scotland would remain uncon- vinced. Thus, we also made use of an evidentiary source not available to prior scholars: DNA testing. Beginning in 1998 commercial testing of paternal and maternal DNA hap- lotypes became publicly available. In 2000, we availed ourselves of this new technology and began examining the lineages of some of the major “clans” in Scotland which we believed, based on historical evidence, were of Jewish descent. As is discussed in detail in the present work, all of the lines we examined do show evidence of Mediterranean origins and do have matches to present-day practicing Jews. Further, independent DNA testing conducted by other researchers on Scottish populations has confirmed the pres- ence of Mediterranean and Middle Eastern genes in Scotland’s population.
It is our great hope that readers will embark on this journey with an open mind and a willingness to entertain the possibility that Scotland’s origins may indeed require revi- sion. We believe that you will find, as we did, that there is ample evidence of a strong Jewish presence in Scotland and that you will never again view Scotland — her people or her history — as you once did.
Chapter 1
The Origins of Scotland
Scotland today is a country smaller than the state of South Carolina, with about 5 million inhabitants, two-thirds of whom live in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee, Aberdeen, Inverness and Stirling, its Six Cities. Half the size of England, it has a higher standard of literacy and education, and as many'urban centers and universities, as its southern neigh- bor. Scotland is located on the same northern latitude as Labrador, Norway and Mos- cow; the average summer temperature registers a brisk 57 degrees. It has been said, “There are two seasons in Scotland, June and winter.”
Although Scotland is home to one of the oldest continuous kingdoms and parlia- ments in existence, its political standing as a part of the United Kingdom remains ambigu- ous. “The sense of national identity seems to have emerged much earlier here than elsewhere in Europe, ” according to a leading authority (Cunliffe 2001, p. 546). The national tourism board captures this distinction very delicately when it says that Scot- land’s civic culture and nationhood are “not readily defined, but readily identifiable. So the question arises of why the influence of this rather small, inclement and remote nation should loom so large.
Significantly, the pursuit of its native history was long prohibited in Scotland. Elit- ist English authorities excluded Scottish history from the national curriculum as a mat- ter of educational policy. In 1949, Lord Cooper complained to the Scottish Historical Society that it was possible for a Scottish student to take a degree in history without any knowledge of Scottish history. “There was a subject called British History, ” he said, “which proved on examination to be English history with occasional side glances at Scotland through English spectacles whenever Scotland crossed England’s path” (L. Kennedy 1995, pp. 7-8). 1
If the modern history of Scotland is unsettled, there is even less agreement about the medieval period that preceded it. As one American historian comments, “Scottish history suffers from a profusion of very general surveys, a multitude of specialized stud- ies and monographs, and not enough good books in between” (Herman 2001, p. 431). This appraisal applies with particular aptness to the early period of Scottish history, where both specialists and generalists find it difficult to come to terms with the emergence of
Modern Scotland and its major cities. Map by Donald N. Yates.
Scotland against the backdrop of European history. The Stewart dynasty remains partic- ularly mystifying. Until the appearance of an “official” genealogical compilation in the 1990s (and some would say even after it), the origins of the Scottish royal family were simply not known.
1. The Origins of Scotland
The authors of an Encyclopaedia Britannica article on Scotland (1911 edition) sug- gest that the historical causes which kept England and Scotland separate for 700 years were mainly racial, though they then somewhat contradictorily go on to state that from a very early period, the majority of the people of Scotland were, if not purely English by blood, anglicized in language and, to a great extent, in institutions.” More riddles occur as we delve into Scotland’s earlier periods of development:
In A.D. 78-82 Agricola, carrying the Eagles of Rome beyond the line of the historical border, encountered tribes and confederations of tribes which, probably [emphasis added], spoke... varieties of the Celtic language. That the language had been imposed, in a remote age, by Celtic-speaking invaders, on a prior non-Celtic speaking population, is probable enough, but is not demonstrated. There exist in Scotland a few inscriptions on stones, in Ogam, which yield no sense in any known Indo-European language. There are also traces of the per- sistence of descent in the female line, especially in the case of the Pictish royal family, but such survivals of savage institutions, or such a modification of male descent for the purpose of ensuring the purity of the royal blood, yield no firm ground for a decision as to whether the Piets were Aryans or non- Aryans.
The authors conclude that it is “unnecessary here to discuss the Pictish problem, ” about which, as we shall see, no satisfactory solution has gained acceptance even to this day. 2
Curiously, we also are informed that European scholarship, centered around the revival of letters in the reign of Charlemagne (768-814), was, in large part, inspired by an international elite of Irish and Scottish scholars (Moss 1998, pp. 249-50, 288; Laist- ner 1957). It was Irish and Scottish monks who rescued the flame of civilization from the collapse of Rome and carried arts and sciences to the Continent during the Dark Ages. The Celtic Church was responsible for founding Luxeuil, Fontenelle and Corbey in France; Bobbio and Susa in Italy; St. Gall, Fulda, Salzburg and Wurzburg in Germany, and most of the other seats of learning that, in turn, generated the efflorescence of culture of the Carolingian age and, later, the twelfth-century renaissance, with its “discovery of the individual” (Southern 1961; Haskins 1957). The Scottish mathematician Michael Scot (? 1175-1234) was regarded as the most brilliant mind of his era. He studied philosophy and science at Oxford, Paris, Bologna and Rome, acquired knowledge of Arabic in Spain and Italy, and produced a fresh translation and commentary on the philosophy of Aris- totle, as well as influential works on science and medicine ( J. W. Brown 1897). His coun- tryman John Duns Scotus, who died in 1308, was the founder and leader of the famous Scotist School (T. Williams 2003). Who were these Scottish culture-bearers?
Into this scholarly and historical breach arrive two researchers with purportedly Scottish ancestry and a thesis that seems, on the face of it, absurd: Scotland was Jewish. This assertion not only flies in the face of “received history (what little of it there is), but also assaults two longstanding cultural stereotypes of what Scots are like and what Jews are like. In the popular imagination, Scots are large, red- or blond-haired persons of fierce demeanor, who wear plaid wool kilts, brandish swords and war axes, drink copious amounts of ale and whiskey, and eagerly seek out forums in which to exhibit their prowess as warriors. They are unschooled, wild marauders, loyal to clan, kith, and kin.
Jews, on the other hand, are seen commonly as originating in shtetls in Eastern
Europe, timid, bookish, dark-haired, clad in dark apparel, and usually hunkered down over ancient Hebrew manuscripts. Except for the juxtaposition of, let us say, Eskimos and Parisians, it is hard to conjure up two more opposite ethnic stereotypes. 3
So why are we proposing that many of Scotland’s people were Jewish? For the sim- ple reason that is true. In the chapters that follow, we present evidence from several empirical sources— DNA, public records, anthropological observations, architecture, archeological excavations, family and clan genealogical records, censuses, cemetery inscriptions, burgess and guild membership rolls, ethnographic reports, and synagogue membership rolls. These document the seemingly incredible claim that Scotland was, and remains, a country populated largely by persons of Jewish descent.
The evidence presented does not suggest some ancient Jewish visitation based on a “lost tribes” theory, in other words, that a Jewish tribe dispersed from Judea/Palestine in antiquity and somehow wandered its way to Scotland, morphing over time into a pop- ulation of Gaelic warriors. No; our argument is grounded upon documented historical migrations into Scotland from various European countries, primarily France, the Low Countries, Hungary, and Germany. These migrants, we propose, were persons of Jewish ethnicity whose descendants now comprise the majority of the present population of Scotland. Further, we also argue that the greater part of the estimated 4 million Scots and Scots-Irish who immigrated to the New World were drawn from this same ethnic ancestry.
The Melungeons
Our story begins with an ethnic group to which both authors belong. The Melun- geons are a people who have been dwelling in the Appalachian Mountains of the south- eastern United States for between 300 and 500 years. Their origins have been the subject of intense speculation for at least three centuries (Ball 1984; Bible 1975; Elder 1999; Gal- legos 1997, 1998; Mira 1998). 4 Typically, they are described as having dark skin, black or dark-brown straight hair, brown or blue eyes and European features (Ball 1984; Bible 1975). A popular culture book written by a self-identifying Melungeon (N. B. Kennedy 1996) renewed interest in investigation of the group’s origins and stimulated an abun- dance of scholarly research. A detailed biogenetics study undertaken by the present authors supported what Kennedy had earlier proposed: The Melungeons were, in large Hungary.
Edgar and his sisters... in 1068 escaped to Scotland where Margaret became the second wife of Malcolm Canmore. A deeply pious lady, she found Scottish society crude and uncivilised, and conceived a mission to convert the Scots from their northern barbarism and Celtic custom.... [Malcolm Canmore] forsook Gaelic for her language, substituted wine for mead, and welcomed to his court the strangers of her choice. These included a number of Thus perished the Celtic And Moors from Spain due to the Spanish Inquisition. Sig- nificantly, the bagpipe origi- nated in ancient Mesopotamia.
In this portrait, Allan Ramsay (1686-1758), the poet, is shown and Greece and was popuIar in to have a Mediterranean complexion. He wears an orange silk turban and brown Middle-Eastern or Moroccan style coat and Spain and southern France shirt. Courtesy Scottish National Portrait Gallery.. before it entered or re-entered
Then to Ireland and Scotland. It is a Middle Eastern and Central Asian musical instrument, not one indigenous to the British Isles.
The CanmoreSy Richard Oram (2002)
From Williams’ account, we now turn to a shorter work by Oram (2002), focused on the Scottish ruling family of primary importance to our thesis. The Canmore Dynasty began in 1058 with the ascension of Malcolm Canmore to the Scots throne and lasted until the end of Alexander Ill’s reign in 1286. The connections are depicted in Figure 1 on page 13.
Examining the genealogy in Figure 1 provides some indication of just how Euro- pean and Mediterranean the Scottish royal family became. Malcolm and Margaret’s son Alexander I not only carried a Greek given name previously unused by Scotland’s nobility, but he also married Sybilla, the ille- gitimate daughter of England’s King Henry I. Alexander’s brother, David I, who ruled from 1124 to 1153, married a French noblewoman, Matilda de St. Liz (Senlis, a town in Normandy), granddaughter of William the Conqueror. This king’s given Douglas
This noble Scots family first appeared in Britain around 1300 and settled on the Scottish border (Brown 1998). One standard reference book observes that the “Douglases were one of Scotland’s most powerful families [and] it is therefore remarkable that their origins remain obscure” (Way and Squire 1998, p. 384). We have seen in chapter 2 that the Douglases have many branches, but all seem to agree in being originally Gothic, with the majority of DNA matches turning up in the Iberian peninsula. The name Douglas means “dark stranger” in Gaelic and may have originated from the Mediterranean com- plexions of the family’s founders (M. Brown 1998).“ The Black Douglases (so named for their dark coloring) were the dominant force on the borders between England and Scot- land from 1300 to 1455 (M. Brown 1998). Family portraits attest to their ancestral Mediter- ranean physiognomy.
Septs associated with the Douglas clan include Blackstock, Blalock, Brown, Drys- dale, Forrest, Inglis, Kilgore, Kirkpatrick, Lockerbie, McGuiffie, Morton, Sandilands, Soule, Symington, Troup and Young. The following genealogy is based on The Black Dou- glases (1998):
William of Douglas is the “first of [the Douglas name] for which any certain record has been found.” He is thought to have been born in or before 1174. “William was surely related to [probably brother-in-law of] Freskin the Fleming, who came to Scotland before the end of the reign of David I.” It is believed that both William of Douglas and Freskin the Fleming came with their families from Flanders, “perhaps connected with the Flouse of Boulogne.”
Other than the possible connection with the Fleming, the wife of William of Doug- las is unknown. He did however have one known son:
1. Archibald of Douglass, who was given lands at Hermiston in Lothian.
Archibald of Douglas was born sometime prior to 1198 and died ca. 1240. While his mar- riages are unknown, he had two known sons:
1. Sir William of Douglas
2. Sir Andrew of Douglas, ancestor of the Douglases of Morton
Sir William of Douglas, known as “Longleg, ” was born ca. 1200 and died sometime after 1274. He had two sons:
1. William “le Hardi” Douglas
2. Hugh of Douglas
Sir William “le Hardi” Douglas was born ca. 1240.
While governor of Berwick he was captured when the town was besieged by the English and spent time in an English prison. He was released later only after agreeing to accept English King Edward I as overlord of Scotland. However, he later fought alongside William Wallace. He first married Elizabeth Stewart, and later married Eleanor de Louvaine. He had one child by each, and one of uncertain maternity:
1. Sir James Douglas, “the Good, ” by Elizabeth Stewart. James was a lifelong friend and supporter of Robert the Bruce, King of Scots. After the Bruce’s death, Sir James was the Black Douglas charged to take the heart of Robert the Bruce to Jerusalem. Sir James died in battle in Spain during the crusade against the Moors. He had one known (illegitimate) son:
a. Archibald Douglas, “the Grim, ” who fought in the defense of Edinburgh castle against English King Henry IV in 1400, and achieved the rank of Lieutenant Gen- eral of Scotland. Was killed in action along with his son while fighting the English in France.
2. Sir Archibald of Douglas, child by Eleanor de Louvaine
3. Hugh Douglas (Lord of Douglas)
Sir Archibald of Douglas was born ca. 1297. He married ca. 1328 Beatrice Lindsay, and they had two known children:
1. Eleanor Douglas
2. William of Douglas
Sir Archibald of Douglas defeated Edward de Baliol, King of Scotland, in 1332 and was appointed Regent of Scotland during the minority of King David II. He was killed on 19 July 1333.
William of Douglas, 1st Earl of Douglas, was born ca. 1323. His first marriage was to Margaret, Countess of Mar (daughter of Donald, 8th Earl of Mar). Whether through death, affair, or divorce, either before or after Margaret of Mar, he was also associated with and possibly married to Margaret Stewart. He also had at least one other child by marriage or affair. Children by Margaret of Mar:
3. Genealogies of the First Wave of Jewish Families, 1100-1350 c.E.
1. James Douglas of Drumlanring
2. unknown (m. Alexander Montgomerie)
Child by Margaret Stewart:
3. George Douglas Child by unknown:
4. Margaret Douglas (m. Sir Herbert Herries)
George Douglas, 1st Earl of Angus, and born ca. 1376, is credited with being the found of the “Red Douglas” branch of the Douglas family. He married on 24 May 1387 Lady Mary Stewart (daughter of King Robert III of Scotland). They had three children:
1. Elizabeth Douglas (b. ca. 1397; m. Alexander Forbes)
2. William Douglas
3. Mary Douglas, m. Sir David Hay (1421/34 — before 1 Mar. 1478); son: a. John Hay (1st Lord Hay of Yester)
Sir William Douglas, 2nd Earl of Angus, was born ca. 1399. In 1425 he married Margaret Hay and had two children:
1. George Douglas
2. Helen Douglas, m. by 1460 William Graham (ca. 1448-1472)
George Douglas, 4th Earl of Angus, was born after 1425. He was married to Isabel Sib- bald, and they had two known children:
1. Archibald Douglas
2. Jane Douglas, m. David “the Younger” Scott, who d. 1492
Archibald Douglas was born ca. 1454, and was the 5th Earl of Angus. He married on 4 Mar. 1467/8 Elizabeth Boyd and had three children:
1. George Douglas
2. Sir William Douglas
3. Lady Marjory Douglas (b. after 1467/8, m. Cuthbert Cunningham)
George Douglas, Master of Angus, was born ca. 1469. He was married by March of 1487/8 to Elizabeth Drummond (b. ca. 1460) and had five children:
1. Alison Douglas
2. Archibald Douglas, 6th Earl of Angus, b. after 1488, m. 1. Margaret Hepburn, affair with Stewart (first name unknown), m. 2. Princess Margaret Tudor, m. 3. Margaret Maxwell
3. Elizabeth Douglas, b. ca. 1489, m. John Hay
4. George Douglas, ca. 1490-Aug. 1522, m. Elizabeth (Isabella) Douglas
5. Janet Douglas, ca. 1495-17 Jul. 1537, m. John Lyon
Notable in this genealogy are the relatively frequent marriages with the Royal Stew- art family (which regarded itself as being of Jewish ancestry), marriage to cousins of the same name (Douglas), and alliances with other families believed to be of Jewish descent (for instance, Forbes, Hay and Lyon). We might also draw attention to the perpetuation of the Greek name George, a name drawn from the orbit of late antiquity and the Byzan- tine world.
Gordon
The Gordons first distinguished themselves in south central Scotland during the 1300s; the family then moved to Aberdeen on the northeast coast of Scotland (Smout 1969). Here they entered several guilds normally occupied by persons of Jewish ancestry, e.g., gold and silver smithing, banking, international trading, tin working and leather tanning (McDonnell 1998). The Gordons seem to have originated in France, where the name was probably Jardine, meaning “garden” or “gardener, ” which was perhaps later conflated with the name Jordan. 12
However, there is a strong family tradition of origination in Macedonia (northern Greece), a sojourn in Spain and subsequent immigration to southern France. If this is the case, then the family probably came to Britain with William the Conqueror in 1066. Their clan septs include the surnames Jardine, Gardner, and Gardener in addition to Gor- don. Additional surnames associated with this clan are given below. Several of these are common to Sephardic and Ashkenazic Jews (e.g., Blair, Davidson, Hay, Lyon, Napier, Hebron, Pollack).
Aiken
Henderson
Bisset
Hepburn/Hebron
Blair
Jardine
Broun/Brown
Lyon/Leon
Burnett
MacBean/Bean
Carnegie
Mhoir
Chisholm
Moubray
Davidson
Muir
Eaken
Napier
Fleming
Oliphant
Gardyne
Pollock/Pollack
Glass
Wemyss
Hay
Wier/Weir
As with the other families we have studied, Gordon portraits show them to be dark- skinned with Mediterranean features. Moreover, we have remarked on the fact that poet Lord (George Gordon) Byron’s uncle openly practiced Judaism in England during the 1700s (see chapter 2, note 18).
Stewart
We have already discussed the Stewart family in some detail in chapter 1. The Clan Stewart (Stuart) Web site states the following 13:
The Stewarts descend from the seneschals of Dol in Brittany (France). They came to England with William the Conquerer; Walter the Steward came to Scotland with King David I. Walter
3. Genealogies of the First Wave of Jewish Families, 1100-1350 c.E.
was created Steward of Scotland and given estates in Renfrewshire and East Lothian....
James, 5th High Steward, swore fealty to Edward I of England, but later joined William Wal- lace in his quest for Scottish Independence. On Wallace s death, he joined the cause of The Bruce. Walter Steward married the Bruce’s daughter, Marjorie, thus securing the Kingship for his son on the death of Bruce’s only son, David II. Sir Walter s son and Bruce s grandson, Robert Stewart, became King Robert II.... The Royal line continued with male heirs until Mary, Queen of Scots. The Stewarts held the Scottish (and later the English) throne from Robert II until 1714.
Among the septs allied with the Stewarts are several having Sephardic ties, these include Lombard/Lumbard, Lyle, DonLevy, Leay, Levack, Lay, Lea, Lew, Lewis, Robb, Mitchell, Glass, Jameson, and Jamieson. The Lev surnames derive from the Hebrew tribe of Levi, Robb from Rueben, Mitchell from Michal, Jameson from Chaim, and Glass from glass-production, a Sephardic skill. Lombard/Lumbard (from Langobardi, the 6th cen- tury invaders of Italy) was an early medieval name for money-changers from Italy, many, if not most of them, Jewish; in England, it became synonymous with “banker” and left its heritage in the name of the main street in the City of London where the stock exchange took shape (Adler 1939, pp. 211-12). In medieval Oxford, Lombard Hall was named after its Jewish proprietor (Tovey, p. 8). 14
As we explored in chapter 1, HRH Prince Michael Stewart (2000) claims to be of Davidic Jewish descent. 15 In chapter 5 we will present documentation concerning Jewish communities dwelling in France prior to the arrival of the Normans. To complete the picture of Scots-Jewish families, however, it is probably most appropriate to include in this chapter several Stewart-connected genealogies which suggest a strong Jewish ances- try feeding into those Norman, Frankish, French, Hungarian and Flemish families that made their way to England — and onward to Scotland — during the 1050-1150 time period.
Figure 4, Hungarian Descent of the Kings of the Scots, shows the descent to Mar- garet, the wife of Malcolm Canmore (1058-1093 ), who became King of Scots at the time of the Norman conquest of England. Notably, Margaret descends from several persons who would appear to be Jews: among them Zoltan, his consort, the daughter of Maroth, Prince of Bihar, Geza, Prince of the Magyars, whose first daughter was named Judith (= female form of Judah) and whose second daughter married a king of Hungary named Samuel Aba (Fig. 5).
The genealogy of Maud (Matilda) de Lens shows that Malcolm and Margaret s son, David I of Scots, also appeared to marry a woman of Jewish descent, Maud de Lens. Her ancestors included Louis the Pious, King of the Franks (d. 840), who was married to a Judith. The same genealogy also indicates that the grandmother of William the Con- queror was a French woman named Judith — and further, that Maud de Lens mother was also named Judith. Although it may seem odd to place so much emphasis on the female given name Judith, keep in mind that this was the Middle Ages, a time when the ethnic identity of given names was of critical importance. It is very unlikely that a woman of noble birth would be named Yehudah unless she was, indeed, a Jewess, and it was wished by her parents that she be recognized as such.
The degree of consanguinity in the family of the Conqueror also becomes apparent from this genealogy. The Vatican tried to prevent his marriage to Matilda of Flanders, his 8th cousin twice removed, related to him within a forbidden eleven degrees of canon
First Prince of Hungevy
Figure 4. Hungarian Descent of the Kings of the Scots. Figure by Donald N. Yates. Geza II
Figure 5. Davidic Descent from Charlemagne to the Kings of Jerusalem. Figure by Donald N. Yates. Gruffyd ap Lelewelyn d.
Senena
Richard Comyn of
Hextilda
1282
Badenoch
Llewelyn II (the Last) Prince of Wales
mistress
William Great Chancellor of
Marjorie Countess of
1246-82
Scotland
Buchan
William 5th Earl of
Elizabeth
Mar
Helen widow of Malcolm 7th Earl of
Donald 6th Earl of
Fife
Mar
Gartnait
Isobel of
King Robert 1 the Bruce of
Marjorie
John of Strathbog Eart of
(Gratney)
Christiane Bruce sister of
Marjorie
Walter 6th High Steward of
Isabel
Edward Bruce brother of
Robert 1
Bruce
Scotland Robert
Robert II Stewart
Steward of Scotland and King of Scots
Figure 6. Descent from Iago (Jacob), King of Wales, to Isobel of Mar. Figure by Donald N. Yates.
3. Genealogies of the First Wave of Jewish Families, 1100-1350 C.E.
law. Maud de Lens was also his cousin, within the same degree. His children went even farther: Henry Beauclerc’s second wife was Adelicia, daughter of Ida and Geoffrey of Bra- bant. She was a 3rd cousin through one parent and a 4th cousin through the other. 16 Albert II of Namur and his wife Princess Regulinde were 4th cousins, clearly illegal (hav- ing a 7th degree of consanguinity).
Figure 6 shows the descent path to Isobel of Mar, who married Robert I Bruce and was the mother of Marjorie Bruce and grandmother of Robert II, the first Stewart monarch. Through Isobel’s mother, Helen, her lineage continues back to Iago (Jacob) ap Idwal, king of Gwynedd (Wales). By the same reasoning used with Judith, we can infer, given the historical context, that the name Jacob marked one as a Jew.
Figure 7 shows the ancestry of Mary of Guise, wife of James V of Scotland. Here we see the extensive entry of Middle Eastern and Mediterranean ancestry into the Royal Stewart lineage. Persons such as Isaac Angelos, Hasan Artsume, Stephen of Armenia, John (Isaac) Comnenos, Isabella of Cyprus, Esther, Judith Bonne of Bohemia, and Louis the Duke of Saxony are certain to have contributed not only Judaic, but also Central Asian and Mediterranean heritage to the Scottish Royal Family.
And finally we arrive at figure 8, the piece de resistance. It shows the ancestry of the House of Boulogne and kings of Jerusalem, to which many of our Scottish clans are linked. We start out with Dagobert I, King of the Franks and a Merovingian (rumored by various Biblical conspiracy theorists to be of Jewish ancestry, possibly Davidic). We follow this line down to Theodoric, named Makir Theodoric, whom we will discuss presently when we turn to St. Machar of Scotland in chapter 5. In the same line, just below him, we find William de Toulouse de Gellone, the Davidic-descended head of the Jew- ish state of Septimania in southern France and founder of the Judaic Academy at Gel- lone (791-828 c.E. ). We will also discuss him at some length, in a future chapter.
Significantly we see Judaic naming patterns among the Merovingians and Carolin- gians. Charlemagne names one of his daughters Dhuada (= Davida, feminine form of David), 17 and one of his sons, Louis the Pious (d. 840), as we have already noticed, mar- ried Judith of Bavaria. Poignantly, these lineages continue onward until they reach the Bouillons and Baudouins (Baldwins) who served as the kings of Jerusalem during the Crusades.
Figure 7. Ancestry of Mary of Guise
Descent to Marie de Guise-Lorraine, wife of James V of Scots Khachi’k Artsruni Manuel Comnenos
Prince of T’ornavan
Hasan Artsruni John Comnenon
d 1067
= Anna Dalassena
Abulgharin Artsruni Governor of Tarsus
Alexis I Comnenos
Eastern (Byzantine) Emperor 1081-1118
\L = Irene, dau of Andronikus Dukas
daughter = Oshin I Prince of Lambron
John (Ioannes) II Comnenos Isaac Comnenos
Eastern Emperor 1118-43 Hetum II = Prisca (Irene), dau of
Prince of Lambron King Ladislaus I of Hungary & Tarsus
Smbat I John (Isaac) Comnenos
Prince of Paperon d 1153 d 1174
Rita dc 1210
= Stephen of Armenia son of King Leo I
Maria Theodora = Andronikus I Comnenos
= Amuary I (Amalric) Eastern Emperor
King of Jerusalem d 1174 1183-5
Doleta = Bertrand I Lord of Giblet,
Cyprus
Hugh de Giblet BalifF of Cyprus d 1233
Isabella I
of Jerusalem dc 1208 = Henri I
Count of Champagne King of Jerusalem 1191—
Alice of Champagne— =— Hugues I
of Cyprus d 1219
Amalric I of Cyprus Amuary II of Jerusalem d 1205
Irene
= Isaac II Angelos Eastern Emperor 1203-4 Irene = Philip
of Swabia d 1208 Bertrand II de Giblet
Isabella of Cyprus
Henry I
d 1258
d 1264
of Cyprus
= Henry of Antioch
d 1253
Margaret
Hugues II
= Baudouin d’lbelin of Cyprus
of Vitzada
Hugues III of Cyprus King of Jerusalem d 1284
d 1267
Kunigunde = Wenzel III (Vaclav) King of Bohemia 1230-53
Premsyl Otakar II King of Bohemia 1253-78 = Kunigunde dau of Rostislav Prince of Halitch
Isabel ________
= Guy d’llelin
Seneschal Jean I of Cyprus of Cyprus Jean II of Jerusalem
1284-5
sL * Guy of Cyprus d 1303
Wenzel IV (Vaclav II) King of Bohemia 1278-1305 King Waclaw I
Alice
Henri of Jerusalem 1285-91
Henri II of Cyprus 1291-1324
= Hugues IV
King of Cyprus 1324-59 of Poland 1296-1305 = Jutta, dau of Rudolf of Habsburg
Elizabeth d 1330 = John (Jan) of Luxembourg King of Bohemia 1310-46
James (Jacques), King of Cyprus 1382-98 (Titular King of Armenia) = Esther
Judith (Bonne) of Bohemia 1315-49
= King John II of France 1350-64
Janus
King of Cyprus 1398-1432
King Charles V of France 1364-80
= Joanna, dau of Peter I Due de Bourbon
Charlotte de Bourbon — = — John (Jean) II dau of John I King of Cyprus
Count de la Marche 1432-58
1 Guilhelm Makir b. Babylon +Guibourg 2 Prince Bernard of Septimania +Princess Dhuada (Davida)
3 Guilhelm d' Aquitaine d.s.p.
3 Bernard Master of Aquitaine 4 Louis II Emperor of Italy 855-75 5 Irmengarde +CountBoso of Vienne 6 Kunigund +Sigebert of Verdun 7 Gozelo I Duke of Lower Lorraine 1023-44
8 Godfrey II Duke of Upper Lorraine d. 1069 +Doda (Davida)
9 Ida (Saint Ide d' Ardennes) 1040-1 1 13 -HEustache II Aux Grenons Comte de Boulogne 10 Eustache III Comte de Boulogne +sisterof David I King of Scots 1124-53 Mary 11 Matilda=Stephen of Blois 10 GODEFROI DE BOUILLON c. 1060-1 100 10 Baudouin I King of Jerusalem 1 100-18 8 Gozelo II Duke of Lower Lorraine 1044-6 +(mistress)
8 Geoffroi III d. 1098 illegitimate
9 Baldwin of Le Bourg Count of Rethul +Ida 10 Hugues I de Rethul +Melusine
11 Baudouin II King of Jerusalem 11 18-31 +Morfia of Armenia
12 Melisende Queen of Jerusalem 1131-52 +Fulques V d' Anjou King of Jerusalem 1131-43 13 Baudouin III King of Jerusalem 1 143-62
13 Amaury I (Amalric) King of Jerusalem +Maria of Byzantine Comnenos emperors 14 Baudouin IV the Leper King of Jerusalem 1 174-85 1 4 Sybille Queen of Jerusalem 1186-90
15 Baudouin V King of Jerusalem 1 183-6 14 Isabella I of Jerusalem d. 1208 +Henri I Count of Champagne
15 Alice of Champagne +Hugues I of Cyprus son of Almaric II King of Jerusalem 16 Isabella of Cyprus d. 1264 +Henry of Antioch 17 Hughes III of Cyprus King of Jerusalem d. 1284 18 Guy of Cyprus d. 1303
19 Hugues IV King of Cyprus 1324-59 +Alice 20 James (Jacques) I King of Cyprus +Esther 18 Jean I of Cyprus (II of Jerusalem)
21 Janus King of Cyprus 1398-1432
22 John (Jean) II King of Cyprus +Charlotte de Bourbon 23 Charlotte Queen of Cyprus 1458-60 23 Anne +Louis Due de Savoy d. 1465
ancestor of Mary of Guise & Mary Queen of Scots
Figure 8. Ancestry of the House of Boulogne and Kings of Jerusalem. Figure by Donald N. Yates.
Chapter 4
Genealogies of the Second Wave of Jewish Families, 1350-1700 C.E.
The families discussed in this chapter are known to have arrived in Scotland after 1350. Most came from the Mediterranean and have been found to have Sephardic- matching DNA.
Caldwell
The Caldwells are believed to have arrived in southwestern Scotland from France around 1550. Their somewhat jumbled origin story is given below. Despite some obvi- ous inaccuracies, what is instructive about it is the report of long-term religious harass- ment by the Catholic Church in Spain and of the dark, Mediterranean complexions of the Caldwells upon their arrival in Scotland.
Before the name Caldwell came into existence, our ancestors were part of two groups of peo- ple living in Italy who called themselves the Albigenses and Waldenses. Both these groups were Protestant in their beliefs and are mentioned often in historical accounts. At this time (i.e., early 1200s), 1 those of Protestant belief were being subjected to heavy persecution by the Roman Catholic Church. Eventually, because of these persecutions, they were forced over the mountainous border that separates Italy from France and settled in a small village called Toulon, near the foot of Mt. Aud (also called Mt. Arid in some accounts). It was here that three brothers, John, Alexander, and Oliver, were born....
The three brothers were originally aligned with the Barbarossa brothers, generally considered pirates of much note at the time. The Barbarossas were of Algerian birth and became the dominant power in Algeria. The name “Barabarossa” is a European one mean- ing “red beard, ” which the leader of these pirates (Khaii-ed-din by his Algerian name, who died in 1546) apparently had. Nonetheless, these pirates were themselves defeated by the Governor of Aran when he made a massive effort to end the dominance of the Bar- barossas. John, Alexander and Oliver escaped without being captured by the Aranian Governor and returned to Toulon for a short time....
[The Caldwell brothers] put their years of experience on the sea to good use and amassed a naval fleet of their own, one rivaling the defeated Barbarossa’s in force. Now, however, Spanish merchants hired John, Alexander and Oliver to do away with the remaining pirates on the Mediterranean. Though hired by the Spanish, King Francis I of France was so pleased with their success that he rewarded the brothers, as well. They decided from that time forward to abandon the high seas and returned to their home in Mt. Aud, France. But on their return there, they found France in a state of turm- oil as a result of the persecutions suffered by the Huguenots and Piedmontese, as the Protestants in France were called. They, being Protestant themselves, returned at once to Spain. 2
From Spain, they took a merchant ship bound for the coast of Scotland. They landed at a place called Solway Firth. And finding the country (Scotland) in peace under the Protestant reign of King James VI (approx. 1567-1603) who then became King James I, King of England (1603-1625), they determined to settle there. After finding a large landholder, he being a wealthy bishop of the place, they purchased from him a large estate. [They then] sent back to their native land for other relatives and friends and in a few years became numerous and prosperous. But in order to acquire full title to this land, it was necessary that they should gain the consent and signature of the King to their purchase.... The King, upon signing their titles, imposed the following condition; that the three brothers should, when the King required it, each send a son with a troop of twenty men to aid in the wars of the King.
Our forefathers were... of dark skin, with deep penetrating eyes, [and] high... foreheads. Although naturally of dark complexion, in mingling with the blue-eyed belles of Scotland through thirteen generations, the younger generations have shown many instances of the fair hair and blue eyes of the mother’s family. Thus the blue eyes and the black eyes appear in almost every family. 3
What is evidenced by this account, despite some obvious historical inaccuracies, is a basically credible story of a French-Iberian family fleeing the Inquisition across Italy and France, becoming pirates during the mid-1500s, and then seeking safe haven with other Iberian refugees in the southwest of Scotland. The story takes pains to portray the family’s founders as Protestants, which is possible, yet unlikely. Few Iberian Protestants served as pirates in the Mediterranean during the 1500s, while many Sephardic Jews and Moors did (Benbassa and Rodrique 1995; Fletcher 1992). It also omits mention that at least one branch of the Caldwell line settling in Philadelphia prior to the American Rev- olution opened a goldsmith and silversmith shop. These skills were usually passed from father to son through apprenticeships and were almost exclusively controlled by Jews and Moors (Fletcher 1992).
Further, paternal DNA tests have matched the Caldwells with known Sephardic fam- ilies, such as Rodriguez and Cooper. This fact, coupled with the prevalence of Caldwells in Melungeon settlements in the Appalachians, suggests that they were most probably of French-Iberian Jewish, not French-Iberian Protestant, origin.
The entire territory over which the Caldwells purportedly roamed was the same as the land awarded after the fall of Rome to the Visigoths 4 in 419 C.E. It became the Reg- num Tolosanum and later the Kingdom of Toulouse (Gibbon II, p. 214). At its center, Toulon is an important naval port on the Cote d’Azur between Marseilles and St. Tropez with the Monts de Maures (Moorish Mountains) looming behind it on the French Riv- iera. Until the Spanish secured Lombardy and the Duchy of Milan, this area belonged, variously, to Provence, Languedoc, Anjou, and the German Empire. At different times, it also was part of Savoy, Lorraine, Aquitaine, and the Papal State of Avignon.
Significantly, an edict of expulsion against the Jews of Provence was first issued in 1500. Jews in the Kingdom of Naples (which included the duchy of Milan) were partially exiled in 1510. Wealthy Jews in Spanish-ruled Italy were expelled again in 1541. Begin- ning in 1555, Jews in Italy were ghettoized, a situation that was to last until Napoleon’s invasion in 1796. The expulsions of 1515, 1550, and 1575, were to the interior of Italy. In 1572, the Duke of Savoy attempted to give Jews special permission to settle in Nice, but renounced the plan under pressure from Spain and the Pope. Phillip II of Spain ordered the expulsion of Jews from the Duchy of Milan again in 1597, and many took refuge in Protestant Switzerland (Barnavi 1992). From these bare facts it is obvious that Jews liv- ing in Toulouse had to keep moving to stay ahead of the changing jurisdictions and poli- cies.
Many anomalies formed in this ambiguous, ever-shifting territory. The Jewish state of Leghorn was established by Portuguese conversos in 1593, and the Jewish community of Marseilles managed to maintain a continuous existence until Hitler. The Piedmon- tese Jews were not relegated to ghettos until the 1730s and 1740s. A splendid Rococo syn- agogue located between Genoa, Turin and Milan, dating back to 1598, survives as testimony to the past glories of Piedmontese Jewry. 5
Kennedy/Canaday/Canady
The Kennedys first appear in southwest Scottish history around 1360, shortly after an anti-Jewish pogrom in France (Smout 1969). Their lands were named “Cassilis, ” which may be derived from the Sephardic name Cassell, and, indeed, Cassell is listed as one of the Kennedy septs. 6 Other Kennedy sept names are Cassilis, Ulrich, Canady/Canaday, and Carrick (because Kennedys married into the Carrick family ). DNA analyses have sug- gested that the Scottish Kennedys and their American descendents are likely of Sephardic ancestry, and that their original name may have been Candiani (“from Candy”). 7 One of the primary Melungeon researchers in recent years is N. Brent Kennedy (1997). Genealo- gies of the Kennedy family of Hyannisport, Massachusetts, do not go farther back than to Patrick Kennedy, a prosperous farmer of Dunganstown, County Wexford, Ireland, who was born about 1785 and whose son emigrated to America ( Burke’s 1992). However, there is no reason to rule out a possible French origin for the Massachusetts Kennedys before the family became Irish. Both Cassel and Canady appear on a list of refugee Huguenots to Ireland. 8
Alexander
The Alexanders arrived in Scotland in the late 1400s or early 1500s, concurrent with the Spanish and Portuguese inquisitions (Roth 1937). Further, both as a given name and surname, Alexander is not indigenous to the British Isles. Rather it is Greek in origin and was one of the most widely used names among Mediterranean Jews in the Middle Ages (Roth 1937). 9 The Alexander family settled in the southwestern portion of Scotland, near Stirling on the English border — a locale with easy access to France and the ports of the Mediterranean. The lineage of the Alexander Earls of Stirling is instructive in showing a pattern of intermarriage with other DNA-confirmed Sephardic-Scottish families (e.g., Forbes, Douglas). 10
Lineage of the Alexander Earls of Stirling
Thomas ALEXANDER was born before 1505 in Menstrie, Sterling. His son was Alexander ALEXANDER. Alexander ALEXANDER was married to Elizabeth FORBES. Alexander ALEXANDER and Elizabeth FORBES had the following children:
1. William ALEXANDER (Earl of Stirling) was born in 1557 in Menstrie, Sterling, Scot- land. He died in 1640 in Scotland. William ALEXANDER (Earl of Sterling) was married to Janet ERSKIN about 1580. William ALEXANDER (Earl of Stirling) and Janet ERSKIN had the following children:
2. John ALEXANDER was born about 1590 in Tarbert, Kentyre, Scotland.
a. William ALEXANDER was born at Eridy, Donegal Co., Ireland.
b. Phillip ALEXANDER.
c. Robert ALEXANDER was born in 1610 in Stirling, Scotland. He died in Drumiquim, Tyrone, Ireland.
d. John ALEXANDER was born between 1624 and 1653.
e. Andrew ALEXANDER D.D. REV. was born about 1635 in Co. Coleraine, Ireland.
f. Archibald ALEXANDER was born about 1614 in Scotland or Co. Armagh, Ireland. He died on 31 Mar. 1689 in Belleghan, Donegal, Ireland.
3. William ALEXANDER was born between 1613 and 1656 in Menstrie, Sterling.
William ALEXANDER was married to Margaret Douglas. William ALEXANDER and Margaret DOUGLAS had the following children:
1. James ALEXANDER was born about 1618 in Menstrie, Sterling. He died 9 Dec. 1691 or 17 Nov. 1704 in Donegal, Donegal Co., Ireland.
James ALEXANDER was married to Mary MAXWELL about 1639/40 in Raphoe, Done- gal, Ulster, Ireland. Mary MAXWELL was born about 1634/35 in Raphoe, Donegal, Ulster, Ireland. She died in Cecil C., Md.
James ALEXANDER and Mary MAXWELL had the following children:
a. Joseph ALEXANDER was born between 1639 and 1660 in Raphoe, Donegal, Ulster, Ireland. He died on 9 Mar. 1729/30 in New Munster, Cecil Co., Md.
b. William ALEXANDER was born about 1646 in Raphoe, Donegal, Ulster, Ireland. He died in 1715 in Somerset Co., Md.
c. Andrew ALEXANDER was born about 1648 in Raphoe, Donegal, Ulster, Ireland. He died before 1700 in Cecil Co., Md.
d. Elizabeth ALEXANDER was born in 1650 in Raphoe, Donegal, Ulster, Ireland. She died between 1714 and 1716 in Manokin Hundred, Somerset Co., Md.
e. James B. ALEXANDER, weaver and carpenter, was born about 1652 in Raphoe, Done- gal, Ulster, Ireland. He died in 1719 in New Munster, Cecil Co., Md.
f. Frances ALEXANDER was born about 1654 in Raphoe, Donegal, Ulster, Ireland. He died about 1701 in Somerset Co., Md.
g. Samuel ALEXANDER was born about 1657/58 in Raphoe, Donegal, Ulster, Ireland. He was buried in 1733 in Bethel (Chesapeake City) cemetery. He died on 14 Jun. 1733 in Cecil Co., Md.
h. Jane ALEXANDER was born about 1659 in Raphoe, Donegal, Ulstger, Ireland. She died on 28 Mar. 1692/93 in Manokin Hundred, Somerset Co., Md.
4. Genealogies of the Second Wave of Jewish Families, 1350-1700 c.E.
i. John ALEXANDER was born about 1662 in Raphoe, Donegal, Ulster, Ireland. He died after 1718 in Cecil Co., Md.
j. Thomas ALEXANDER was born in 1676 in Donegal, Donegal Co., Ireland. He died in 1749 in Augusta Co., Va.
Note that the Alexander family immigrated to Baltimore, Maryland — the arrival point for many immigrants of Sephardic origin due to Maryland’s relatively lax religious constraints. The burial of Samuel Alexander occurred in Bethel Cemetery, likely a Judaic burial ground and not a Presbyterian or Anglican churchyard. Finally, Thomas Alexan- der, born in Donegal, Ireland, is recorded as having died (1749) in Virginia’s Augusta County, believed to be a Melungeon/Crypto-Jewish community (Kennedy 1996).
Additional support for the Alexander’s Sephardic and Crypto-Jewish status comes from genealogical information on the family once it had reached the American colonies. Inquiries taken from the Alexander Genealogical Forum on the Internet show a naming pattern for the children which is markedly Hebrew. There was frequent intermarriage with the Houston and Kennedy families, both believed to be of Sephardic descent through DNA testing.
Before leaving Alexander, let us present some additional statistics. According to the U.S. Census for 1990, Alexander is the 96th most common surname in America. If you add the variants Sanders (75th) and Saunders (421st), the frequency climbs to 0.2 percent, rather high in the scheme of things. However, Alexander is even more common as a specifically Jewish surname. It is among the top ten researched surnames at the Jewish Genealogical Soci- ety of Great Britain, and it figures prominently in Rabbi Malcolm Stern’s Americans of Jew- ish Descent (1991), as well as in studies of Jewish tombstones in Barbados and Jamaica by Barnett (1959) and Wright (1976). The Alexander genealogical manuscripts of the Ameri- can Jewish Historical Society are voluminous. For example, Abraham Alexander, born in London in 1743, came to Charleston, S.C. in 1760 and was hazan for that city’s Beth Elohim congregation 1764-1784. Several generations of Scottish Alexanders came to the Shenan- doah valley from Glasgow, via northern Ireland, to “escape religious persecution” and along with the McKees, Davidsons and Houstons were benefactors of a stone “temple” built near Lexington in Rockbridge County in the mid-eighteenth century. 11 Finally, it was an Alexan- der who presented Glasgow’s Jewish community with an ark (Torah receptacle) for the new synagogue in South Portland Street, the largest in Scotland in 1901 (Collins 1987, p. 104).
The somewhat surprising popularity of the Alexander name among Jews is explained by a legend enshrined in the writings of the Roman Jewish author Josephus (27-95 C.E.; Graves 1975, p. 84):
According to Josephus, when Alexander [the Great] came to Jerusalem at the outset of his Eastern conquests [winter of 332 B.C. E.], he refrained from sacking the Temple but bowed down and adored the Tetragrammaton [the four Hebrew letters for God’s name ] on the High Priest’s golden frontlet. His astonished companion Parmenio asked why in the world he had behaved in this unkingly way. Alexander answered: “I did not adore the High Priest himself, but the God who has honoured him with office. The case is this: that I saw this very person in a dream, dressed exactly as now, while I was at Dios in Macedonia.
“In my dream I was debating with myself how I might conquer Asia, and this man exhorted me not to delay. I was to pass boldly with my army across the narrow sea, for his God would march before me and help me to defeat the Persians. So I am now convinced that Jehovah is with me and will lead my armies to victory.” The High Priest then further encour- aged Alexander by showing him the prophecy in the Book of Daniel which promised him the dominion of the East; and he went up to the Temple, sacrificed to Jehovah and made a gen- erous peace-treaty with the Jewish nation. The prophecy referred to Alexander as the “two- horned King” and he subsequently pictured himself on his coins with two horns. He appears in the Koran as Dhul Karnain, “the two-horned.”
The surname Alexander was often shortened to Sanders or Saunders and also took the forms Sender, Sand, Andrus, Andros, and Anderson. 12 Numerous surnames begin- ning with Sand- (e.g., Sandford) are thought to be related (Jacobs 1906-1911).
Cowan/Cowen
Septs: Cowan, Cowen, Cowans, MacCowan, MaCowan, McCowen, McCown The Clan Cowan Web site states:
Cowan, Cowen, and Cowans are common surnames in Ayrshire, Dumfriesshire, and other Lowland counties. There was a James Cowhen, chaplain in North Berwick, in 1560. There was also an old family in Stirling of Cowane. Cowane’s Hospital in Stirling was founded in 1639 by John Cowane, a merchant there. A John M’Coan was in Duchre, parish of Kilbran- don, in 1691. A David M’Kowne was a notary in Glasgow in 1550, and his name was also spelled M’Kownne and M’Kowin.
Some additional commentary on members of Clan Cowan in the American Colonies states:
Alexander McCown, Sr. was shown in VA in 1715. His six sons came to America in 1728. Alexander Sr. was a distinguished Presbyterian minister and his son, George, was a ruling elder of the Presbyterian church. They were Scotch-Irish and suffered religious persecution in Ireland. Alexander McCown’s ancestors came tp Ireland [from Scotland] in the 1600’s....
John McCown, with five brothers, George, James, Malcolm, Alexander, and Moses, emi- grated from County Tyrone, Ireland, in 1728. John McCown settled in Calf Pasture, Augusta County, Virginia. James, Moses and Alexander settled in Catawba County, South Carolina, and George in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania [ U. S. Biographical Dictionary — 1876 — Mis- souri, p. 723, under McCown, Col. William H., Carthage, Mo.].
Alexander McCown was born in Scotland, and moved to Tyrone, Ireland. His six sons... came to America in 1728 from Tyrone, Ireland. They were called the Blacks and the Reds, because three of them had black hair and dark eyes and dark complexion. The other three had red hair and light complexion. The sons named were: James, Alexander, Moses, George, Malcolm, and John [Mr. Bobby S. Mullins, of Nashville, Tennessee, in correspondence to Lou Poole dated 29 October 1994].
Rico, and South America.
Presumably the Crypto-Jews who remained in England after the Expulsion in 1290 presented themselves as practicing Christians, which at that time would have meant Roman Catholicism, the prevailing religion in England. They would have “switched” to Anglicanism under the reign of Henry VIII (1509-1547), in order, once again, to con- form to external norms.
When Crypto-Jews entered England from Iberia at the time of the Inquisition (1492), they were readily recognizable as Spaniards or Portuguese; hence pretending to be Angli- can would not have been a credible cover. Thus, as Katz (1996) reports, these Crypto- Jewish arrivals pretended to be Roman Catholic, the state religion of Spain and Portugal. “The Spanish Jews who had come to London undoubtedly continued as they had done at home, worshipping according to the Roman Catholic rite and behaving outwardly in every respect like any Iberian merchant” (p. 2). By the 1530s, Katz writes, “In the Jewish world, at least, it was possible to speak of a secret Jewish community in London” (p. 4).
Near Regensberg
Bamberg
Germany
House
Middlebourg
Germany
House
Hall
Germany
House
Brunswick (Braunschweig)
Germany
House
Rorich
Germany
Fiefdom
In Pomerania
Pausin
Germany
Fiefdom
In Pomerania
Wildenheuh
Germany
Fiefdom
In Pomerania
Bach
Hungary
Herefordshire
House
Hampshire
House
Worcestershire
House
Suffolk
House
Suffolk
In addition to the stunning list given above, there were also several preceptories in Scot- land and Ireland, which were dependent on the Temple at London. 5 Addington summarizes:
The annual income of the order in Europe has been roughly estimated at six millions ster- ling! According to Matthew Paris, the Templars possessed nine thousand manors or lord- ships in Christendom, besides a large revenue and immense riches arising from the constant charitable bequests and donations of sums of money from pious persons.,..
The principal benefactors to the Templars amongst the nobility were William Marshall, 6 Earl of Pembroke, and his sons William and Gilbert; Robert, Lord de Ross; 7 the Earl of Here- ford; William, Earl of Devon; the King of Scotland; William, Archbishop of York; Philip Harcourt, dean of Lincoln; the Earl of Cornwall; Philip, Bishop of Bayeux; Simon de Senlis, Earl of Northampton; Leticia and William, Count and Countess of Ferrara; Margaret, Countess of Warwick; 8 Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester; Robert de Harecourt, Lord of Rosewarden; William de Vernon, Earl of Devon, etc.
As the reader gathers from this lengthy enumeration of holdings and privileges, the Knights Templar were an enormous, extraordinarily rich and very powerful organiza- tion. In essence, they were the first multinational corporation — one over which no court or tribunal had jurisdiction. The seal of the brotherhood featured “a man’s head, deco- rated with a long beard, and surmounted by a small cap, and around it are the letters Testis V. Magi” (Addington 1892, p. 106). At this time, Templar masters in England included persons named William de La More and Amadeus de Morestello. Clearly, Mus- lims, as well as Jews, were in England.
From Addison’s (1892) account, we now turn to that of Piers Paul Read, who wrote a critically acclaimed history of the Templars in 1999. Read’s work is very well researched, and he delves into the ancient origin of the group, predating the Crusades. He starts by recounting the history of the Jewish people. At the point when King David reconquers Palestine from the Jebusites, we are given great detail concerning David’s assembling of materials for a Jewish worship center, the First Temple, built by David’s son Solomon Around 950 b.c.e.
After Solomon’s death, the Jewish state went into decline and was conquered by sev- eral eastern nations in succession. In 586 b.c.e., King Nebuchadnezzar, a Chaldean, destroyed the Temple of Solomon and enslaved the Jewish population, taking many of them (including those of Davidic descent) to Babylon. However, by 515 b.c.e., the Per- sians under their king Cyrus had defeated the Chaldeans and permitted the Jews to return to Judea, where they rebuilt their temple. By the fourth century b.c.e., the Macedonian Surgeons, Barbers
James IV 1530 Bakers, Bonnet-makers
James V 1581 Goldsmiths (separated from Hammermen)
James VI 1586 Skinners
James VI 1635 Post Office
Charles I 1640 Dyers (incorporated with Bonnet-makers)
Charles I 1672 Hatters (incorporated with Wakers)
Charles II 1681 Merchant Company
From the ranks of the newly created, operative Guilds, the Knights Templars selected certain members who were keen to extend their minds to matters of science, geometry, history and philosophy, as detailed in the ancient manuscripts which the original Order had brought out of Jerusalem and the Holy Land.... Scotland became a beacon of enlightenment. The new brotherhood of “Free” Masons supported their less fortunate neighbours, and their respec- tive Guilds set money aside for the poorer members of society, thereby beginning the estab- lishment of charitable organizations in Britain. 9 King James VI became a speculative Freemason at the Lodge of Perth and Scone in 1601, and on becoming James I of England two years later, he introduced the concept south of the Border.
Stewart further reports that the Scottish Guilds were given access to the Templar banking system, which enabled them to construct and maintain their international trade network. Aberdeen, with its very broad-based trade channels, founded Freemason Guilds on the French model in 1361, according to Stewart (p. 117-118):
[Further, ] quite apart from the Guilds, the Knights also received lay-people into their allied confraternities and, for a small annual subscription of a few pence, men and women alike were afforded numerous privileges by way of personal and family support in times of need. This was, in fact, the beginning of the insurance and life assurance industry, and it is the reason why so many of today’s leading British underwriting institutions emanated from Scotland.
The Cabala
We will close this chapter with a section designed to segue between what has been presented about the Templars and what will be covered in chapter 9, on Aberdeen and northeast Scotland. This has to do with a branch of Judaism termed the Cabala. The Cabala originated in the Holy Land around 70 C.E. and incorporated Judaic religious ideas together with geometric principles developed much earlier, very likely at the time of the building of the pyramids of Egypt. The same architectural and mathematical prin- ciples were applied to the construction of the Temple of Solomon in Israel.
As we shall see, the theorems behind both the pyramids and the First Temple are based on the discovery of pi, phi, a number of Pythagorean theorems, and other geo- metric principles emanating from Eastern learning. They are not magical or mystical, per se. Yet, to the human minds capable of grasping them, they must have seemed God- given and divinely- inspired. Their perfection, symmetry and consistency would have produced awe and amazement among those gifted enough to comprehend and use them. This same set of mathematical principles also had enormous pragmatic utility in fields as diverse as astronomy, architecture, navigation and land measurement. Because of the precious intellectual capital they represented, these- geometric theorems were closely guarded, shared only among a select group of Middle Eastern cognoscenti.
The Templars embraced this body of knowledge eagerly, more particularly since it had been the subject of earlier philosophical, scientific and religious speculation in Greece, Rome and Moorish Spain, and it became one of the spoils of conquest when they seized control of the ancient civilizations of the East. In medieval Palestine, the principles had been combined with a mystical numerical system which assigned each letter in the Hebrew alphabet to a number or digit. By recasting Torah texts as numerical sequences, the Jews created elaborate mathematical metaphors that were used to give additional levels of meaning and correspondences to their sacred scripture. In the Diaspora after 100 c.E., these notions were elaborated and embroidered in Cabalistic centers of learning, first in Provence in southern France, then in Spain, and by the 1500s, cycling back to the Holy Land and other Levantine centers such as Alexandria, Istanbul and Salonica.
As Benbassa (1999, p. 38) notes, the spread of Cabalistic doctrines occurred within the larger context of the cross-translation of important philosophical and scientific trea- tises in the Mediterranean area:
The [French-Jewish] Kimhi and Ibn Tibbon families distinguished themselves in the domain of translation. In the one, Joseph Kimhi (1105-70) and his son David ( 1 160? — 1 235), and in the other, Judah ibn Tibbon (1120-90) and his son Samuel (1150-1230), translated the great classics of Judeo-Arabic thought from Arabic into Hebrew, including the works of Saadya Gaon (882-942), Ibn Gabiron (10201-1057? ), Judah Halevi (before 1075-1141), and Bahya ibn Pakuda (second half of the eleventh century).... They also devoted themselves to the translation of Greek and Arabic scientific works, particularly in medicine. The texts of the Muslim physician, philosopher, and mystic Avicenna (980-1037) and, especially, of the philosopher Averroes (1126-98) were translated from Arabic into Hebrew. 10 Spanish Jews trained in their homeland in Arabic astronomy brought it with them to Provence; some invented astronomical instruments, others translated works from Latin.... Samuel ibn Tib- bon produced a translation of Maimonides’ Guide for the Perplexed (1200) that appeared before the author’s death in 1204.... Indeed, Provence was also the homeland of Levi ben Gershom, commonly known as Gersonides (1288-1344).... At once a philosopher and the- ologian, commentator on Averroes and biblical exegete, talmudist, mathematician and logi- cian, he was also the inventor of an astronomical instrument....
Provence, land of philosophy, was also a land of mysticism. It is there that the Sefer-ha- Bahir (Book of Brightness), the first document of theosophic kabbalism, was compiled on the basis of oriental sources between 1150 and 1200.... Abrah ben Isaac, president of the rab- binical court of Narbonne (d. 1180), and especially Isaac the Blind ( 1 160? — 1235) — grandson of Abraham ben Isaac... developed a contemplative mysticism. Born in Provence and along the coast of Languedoc, the kabbalah was rapidly transplanted to Catalonia, which main- tained close political and cultural ties with these regions.
The earliest known mention of the Cabala comes from the first century of the Com- mon Era, in Judea. Here, four of the classical texts were written: (1) Heikalot Books, (2) Sepher Yetzirah (Book of Formation), (3) the Zohar (Book of Splendor), and (4) the Bahir (Book of Brilliance) (Bernstein 1984). The Heikalot Books are based on the biblical Book of Ezekial, which uses the Throne of Glory and the Heavenly Chariot (Merkabah) as cen- tral symbolic devices. The Book of Ezekial and the Book of Genesis both were popular religious texts within Judea from 538 b.c.e. to 70 C.E., that is, during the Second Temple period. Commonly, the wheels of the heavenly chariot are drawn to incorporate the Pythagorean theorem; metaphorically, this means that mathematical wisdom could raise mankind to a perfected state (Bernstein 1984).
The Sepher Yetzirah (Book of Formation) is the oldest non-Biblical treatise of Judaism, having been written down in the second century (Bernstein 1984). This book develops the theme of the ten Sephiroth or primordial numbers and the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Some of its main images are the ladder of wisdom, with each step lead- ing to a higher level of knowledge, and the tree of life, which combines aspects of the ladder going upward from Earth to Heaven with the additional symbolism of “above ground tree, below ground roots, ” or, “As Above, So Below.” 11 The tree metaphor posits that activities on Earth are reflections of actions in Heaven. An important theme through-
Tau
Sign of the cross
out is the perfectibility of the world through human endeavor, often expressed in Judaic tradition as Tikkun Olam (“perfecting the universe”).
The Zohar (Book of Splendor) is a collection of many different writings on various religious topics. Possibly authored by Rabbi Simeon ben Yohai (160 c.E.), it is the most influential of the Cabalistic writings. It was first published in its entirety by Rabbi Moses de Leon of Guadalajara, Spain, around 1290 C.E. (Bernstein 1984). Rabbi Simeon was known as “the Sacred Light, ” and we see this name carried forward to the Saint Clair/ Sin- clair /Sanctus Clarus family of France and Scotland. Further, we will find in Aberdeen many persons having the surname of Norrie/Noory/Nory/Norris, which is Arabic for “light” or “illumination.” The Zohar proposes that the Torah is actually a series of numer- ical codes that reveal a much deeper level of divine meaning than the “surface” letters, words and stories.
The Bahir (Book of Brilliance) was also produced in the early Talmudic period (ca. 100 C.E.) and almost lost as a text, only to reappear in Provence, France, during the 1200s. The Bahir introduces metaphors of reincarnation and the masculine-feminine nature of God. The Jewish scholar most closely associated with the tradition of the Bahir is Rabbi Forbes
Roper (Sp. “old clothes dealer”) Riach (Arabic “wind”)
Skene, Tarves, Turriff, Tyrie
Again, these are cemeteries whose names are strongly redolent of the Mediterranean world. Tyrie is likely named for Tyre, the ancient capital of Phoenicia (now Lebanon), and Tarves invokes Tarshish, referred to in the Bible, located by some in southern Spain, the homeland of the Sephardim. 25 Buried at Skene, just north of Aberdeen, are persons named Low, Massey, Hector, Davnie, Kellas, Menzies, Gammie and Tawse (Thow). An unusual feature of many of these names is their evident Greek origin. One might specu- late that so much Greek in one place bears testimony to the vestiges of a colony of Roman- iots (Greek Jews), perhaps displaced to faraway Scotland by the fall of Byzantium in 1453. 26
At Tarves cemetery several graves had flat stones and “open book” designs indica- tive of Jewish burial practice. Names found here were Tough (= Thow), Godsman, Perry, Norrie, Luias, Argo, Cassie, and Cheyne (= Hebrew letter Shin, with a pun on schon, “beautiful”). Turriff cemetery also had several flat stones and names such as Chessar (Hezar), Imlach, Taws, Shirof (Sharif), Grassie (- Grassi, Garcia, Gracia, the ancestral village of a famous noble Sephardic family from the area of Barcelona), Chivas, and Loban (perhaps from Lobbes, a commercial center in the Low Countries). Finally, Tyrie graveyard had several Semitic surnames: Pirie, Lyon, Lee, Lovie, 27 Lowe (indicative of lion/Loewe, for the tribe of Judah), Shirran, Lunan (Sp. de Luna) and Chivas.
Skene Churchyard
Hepburn
Aberdeen
We now turn to the population of Aberdeen proper, the earliest useful record for which is the list of merchant and trade burgesses, beginning 1600-1620. To become a burgess required social, political and economic standing in the community. It was a hereditary status, passed from father to son and not granted to outsiders unless they mar- ried the daughter of a burgess. The names of several burgesses in Aberdeen from 1600 to 1620, 1631 to 1639 and 1640 to 1659 are listed below. As the reader will see, they include a great many names that are, prima facie, Sephardic, French Jewish and even Islamic.
From 1600 to 1620, for example, we find Allies (= Ali, Arabic for “man”), Balmanno, Frachar, Gareauche, Horne (cp. Hebrew shofar), Menzies, Pantoune and Zutche. From 1621 to 1639, names such as Alshinor, Ezatt, Goldman, Omay, and Zuill appear on the list. The time period of the 1640s and 1650s sees Arrat, Daniell, Dovie, Izods, Pittullo and Yair added. By the time of the first Scottish national census in 1696, additional Jewish and Islamic surnames had made their home in Aberdeen, including Deuran (cp. the rab- binical family of Duran), Orem, Lucas, Scrimgeor, Monyman, Aeson, de Pamaer, and Lorimer. By the late 1700s (1751-1796) a list of apprentices in Aberdeen included Chillas, Gillet, Kemlo, Silver, and Tilleray.
1696 Census: Aberdeen Environs
The 1696 census also sheds light on who was living in the areas around Aberdeen. For example, in Belkelvie and New Machar we find Barok, Brockie, Salmon, Talzor, Cow- ane, Hervie, Wysehart, Pyet and Essell (Heb. Assael). And in nearby Daviot, Bethelnie and Bourtie, there are the surnames Hebron, Gammie, Lunan, Shivas, Shirres, Argoe, Currie, Yool, Benzie and Japp.
Although we have not listed all the surnames in the northeast section of Scotland, we have given a representative sampling in the lists published here. What is striking is the very low incidence of “traditional” Scottish surnames (once the origin of aristocratic Jewish families like Gordon, Fraser, Leslie and their ilk is factored in). The candidate pop- ulation for a significant paternal genetic legacy in Aberdeen strongly resembles the Sephardic Jewish contribution to the founders of Colombia, a Spanish colony established in South America at about the same time.
The male and female lines of the Colombian population were genetically mapped in exacting detail by Carvajal-Carmona and his team of geneticists at the University of Antioquia (2000). They found an unusually large (16 percent) frequency of paternal
9. The Judaic Colony at Aberdeen
Semitic ancestry, including the Cohen modal haplotype of Jewish priests (p. 1290). Sim- ilarly, the correspondence between Jewish names mentioned in the records of the Span- ish Inquisition and reflected in the Aberdeen burgess and merchant lists is much too high to be coincidental. In both records one can trace the path of Jewish refugees fleeing the Iberian Peninsula in order to escape the long arm of the Holy Office. If readers were to tabulate the complete listings in the original documents we cite using the surname touch- stones we have argued for in these pages, around 50 percent of the surnames would fall into the French-Jewish/Sephardic/Islamic column. 31 Those marked with an asterisk appear in the same form in a contemporaneous record of Jewish surnames compiled by the Span- ish Inquisition. 32
Aberdeen Merchant and Trade Burgesses, 1600-1620
Merchant (= Heb. Jacob) 38
Further, there is also surname evidence that this exotic population extended north to the Orkney Islands. The Orkneys were ruled by the Sinclair family — of Templar fame — and thus it would make sense that they would permit Templar-linked refugees to settle on their lands. In the Yell Cemetery on Orkney, likely named after the Hebrew Jehiel (“God lives”) — there is also a Yell County, Arkansas, incidentally — we find, for exam- ple, a Hosea Hoseason, a Basil Pole, a Jemima Jeromson and a Janet Tarel — all domi- ciled there quite recently.
The Orkney Island surname genealogy listings include Annal, Arnot, Esson, Gor- rie, Lyon, Davie, Gullion, Holland, Hourie and Omand as “native born.” Patterns such as these call into serious question the presumption that even these northernmost por- tions of Scotland were inhabited by persons primarily of Viking/Scandinavian descent. Indeed, genetic investigations of the population in the remote north of Scotland have found the gene pool there surprisingly low in “Viking genes, ” though how much of the dominant Atlantic Modal Haplotype (AMH) is Celtic and how much is Iberian has not yet been reliably determined; see, for instance, Wilson et al. 2001, also Helgason et al. 2000.
Mid- and South Yell: Orkney Cemetery
Young
Source: http: //www.cursiter.com/pages/origins.htm
Aberdeen and the World: 1200-1750
We believe that it was this Judaic community that provided Aberdeen its large role as an international center of trade from the 1200s onward. Keith (1974, p. 46-47) writes:
As commerce went in those days, Aberdeen plied a busy trade in the fifteenth century with both the Netherlands and the Baltic ports, Danzig and Poland particularly. The Danzig busi- ness developed sharply after 1500 [when additional Sephardim would have arrived there from Iberia], and during the next 200 years the number of Scotsmen trading in Poland was so large as to become proverbial. Several observers put them at 40, 000.... After 1500 there were Aberdonians of the name of Skene with cloth mills and sugar refineries in Poland....
The older and steadier commerce was with the Low Countries. Bruges, Middleburg, and Campvere were in turn the Scottish staple there — the clearing-house for all Scottish imports....
There were about half a dozen great Aberdonian shipping families— the Cullens, Blindse- les, Rattrays, Fiddeses and Pratts. Greatest of all the town’s merchants were Andrew Cullen and Andrew Buk. Cullen was Provost in 1506 and 1535.... Even Bishop Elphinstone engaged in the overseas trade, though as a priest he must have procured a special licence to do so (! ). When he was building King’s College he sent abroad wool, salmon, trout, and money, receiv- ing in exchange carts, wheelbarrows, and gunpowder — to quarry and transport the freestone from Elgin which he was using in Old Aberdeen.
Royalty also was closely aligned with Aberdeen. David II had opened a mint there for the making of coins and his sister Matilda was married to Thomas Isaac (obviously Jewish), a clerk and burgess of the city. By the early 1400s, a Sephardic family, the Menezes/Menzies, had arrived. Keith (1974, p. 67) comments:
In the first half of the fifteenth century, a new family appears upon the scene. The Chalmerses [from de Camera, Cameron, Chambers, meaning “chamberlain”] were still at the height of their influence when the first member of this house, which was to rule the destinies of Aberdeen for 200 years, made his appearance in the provost’s seat. This was Gilbert Men- zies, surmised to have been a son of Sir Robert Menzies of Wemyss. Gilbert came from Perthshire 40 to Aberdeen about 1408.... No more brilliant autocratic family than the Menzies ever resided in Aberdeen. They held their heads high before royalty; they lived side by side with the most opulent of the nobility.
Also prominent among Aberdeen’s leading families were the Bannermans, one of whom, Alexander Bannerman, was physician to David II. Yet another was Robert David- son. John Barbour (= Berber) became archdeacon of Aberdeen in 1357. Keith (1974, p. 95) notes he “was a scholar and a man of business, as well as a priest and a poet... and above all, he was a historian.... He several times audited the King’s household accounts and those of the Exchequer.... He twice traveled in France. Both David II and Robert II gave him pensions.” Another Aberdeen provost, in 1416, was Thomas Roull (= Raoul), mentioned by Keith (p. 97).
Keith also records (p. 104) that an Andrew Schivas was the “Master of Schools” for Aberdeen. And the same Skene family that was operating linen factories and sugar mills in Poland also produced Gilbert Skene, who held the chair of medicine at Kings College in 1556 and became physician to King James IV. Skene also authored the first book on medicine in Scotland. Even earlier, Bernard Gordon had written an excellent treatise on the subject (1305 c.E.), and this text was still in use at the renowned medical school of Salerno (Italy) in 1480.
Another Gordon, one named Patrick, held the Hebrew chair at Marischal Univer- sity in Aberdeen in 1642. Keith (p. 176) informs us he “learned Hebrew from a Jew”: most likely, he already knew it. And yet another Gordon, Thomas, was making regular trips to the island of Leghorn in Italy during the early 1600s. At this time, Leghorn, or Livorno, had a large and prosperous Jewish population, thanks to licenses and special dispensa- tions by the de Medici rulers of Florence; it was also the center of the coral export trade with India (gems and metals were the import goods). John Burnet, another Aberdonian, was already engaged in the tobacco trade with Maryland and Virginia. In English eyes, the Scottish tobacco trade was illegal. It was carried out behind the backs of the mer- chants of the Royal Exchange in London, becoming enormously profitable in years when Aberdonian and Glaswegian traders managed to undercut the state contract with France.
A wealthy Scottish merchant and financier in Danzig, Robert Gordon, left £ 10, 000 for the establishment of a school for indigent boys in Aberdeen. Another Gordon from London, William, was the doctor of medicine at Kings College from 1632 to 1640. He had been educated at Padua in Italy and studied dissection, which he introduced into the medical curriculum. He also served as the business manager for the college (Keith, pp. 306, 339).
Not all the scions of Jewish-descended families in the North of Scotland, however, were pillars of polite society. Several were smugglers (Wilkins 1995). In France, an Alexan- der Gordon of St. Martins and a Robert Gordon of Bordeaux supplied John Stewart of Inverness, Scotland, with contraband salt and liquor. Similarly, Andrew Cruikshank, John Sutherland, and Alexander Brodie smuggled tobacco from Port Hampton, Virginia, to their factory in Gourdon during the American War of Independence, proving perhaps once again that money outbids politics when it comes to power.
Finally we must ask the question: Did these Aberdonian families still maintain social and economic ties with their ancestral families in France and with other Crypto-Jews in that country or elsewhere? We believe the answer is a resounding Yes and will use the overseas suppliers of Stewart et al. shown as a case in point. First, the reader is invited to take at look at the list of cities with which these Scots had trading relationships. They range from Scandinavia (Copenhagen, Stockholm, Bergen) to Holland (Rotterdam), to France (Rouen, Boulogne), to Spain (Barcelona), to Italy (Livorno)— all places of Sephardic Crypto-Jewish settlement after the Inquisition. Further, the trading partners used in these cities included not only persons with relatives or ancestors now in Aberdeen (e.g., Robert Gordon and John McLeod in Bordeaux; Campbell in Stockholm; Farquhar in Bergen, Norway), but — very importantly — Jewish trading houses which would usu- ally only trade with other Jewish companies. For example, Jacob Ferray in Le Havre; Shalet, Vonder and Ferrant in Barcelona; and Rosenmeyer, Flor and Co. in Frederick- swaag. This, we posit, is strong evidence of a common Judaic awareness and ethnic iden- tity recognized on an international level.
Overseas Suppliers Used by John Stewart,
Equally eloquent of Scottish Jews’ ties to other countries are the names of Scots who served in the Russian military or operated businesses in Russia during the 1600s and 1700s. Russia at this time was extremely accommodating to Jews from a variety of coun- tries, Poland, Germany, Pomerania and Hungary among them, in an effort to interna- tionalize its economy. Virtually all of Scotland’s leading families sent members to Russia. Among the most noteworthy were the Gordons and Davidsons. The latter became Davidoffs/Davidovs, and both of them have Russian (and doubtless also Israeli) descen- dants recognized as Jewish. Indeed the two Russian Jewish Gordons whose DNA we tested both carried the Kohanim gene.
Scots Serving in the Russian Army or Operating Businesses in Russia, 1600-1800
Sir Robert Adair 1791 James Balfour 1770 James Bannatine 1632
John Carr /Kar 1618* Robert Carr /Kerr 1610* George Forbes 1675 James Forbes 1633 George Keith 1650s George Keith 1661 James Keith 1696 John Muir 1661 Andrew Murray 1632 Ethan Murray 1632 James Murray 1632 Peter Murray 1632 William Murray /Morea 1636 George Napier 1730s George Ogilvy 1648
*Still many descendants in Russia.
Robert Pont (du Pont)
1562
Thomas Drummond
1564
Adam Bellenden
1615-1635
William Fogo 5
1619-1623
Keep in mind these patterns of office holding predate the enormous out-migration of Iberian Jews due to the Inquisition. Indeed, religious scholars have pointed out that it would be foolhardy to assume that the estimated 200, 000 Jews expelled from Spain and Portugal after 1492, added to the millions of others who had already converted, genuinely or not, to Catholicism, had no impact upon the religious practice in the countries to which they migrated (see Lavender 2003, p. 1). How could they fail to have a rather large one? They were well educated, in many cases more steeped in learning and better trained in the professions than the Christian majority. They were multilingual, well traveled, and socially active, often holding key positions in government, finance and civil administra- tion. (For instance, John Mossman was royal treasurer to James IV of Scotland, and an architect-master mason named Moise Martyne designed the East Range facade of Falk- land Palace for James V.) Their numbers included a high proportion of physicians, pro- fessors, artists, philosophers, international traders, astronomers, manufacturers, craftsmen, cartographers, ship builders, architects, bankers, brokers, metallurgists, jew- elers, smiths, glaziers and chemists. Some moved in the upper ranks of society, becom- ing counselors to kings and emperors, popes and princes; indeed, not a few had careers within the Catholic Church (Gitlitz 2002, pp. 563-69).
In all these social roles, their private religious beliefs must have influenced their dis- course, actions and counsel. Lavender (2003), who recently uncovered the Sephardic ancestry behind his family’s French Huguenot roots in Charleston, S.C., draws attention to the fact that the Huguenot Seal of 1559 has the same four Cabalistic Hebrew letters, YHVH (the Tetragrammaton), 6 engraved upon it — within a burning bush, no less— as we found emblazoned on the title page of the Edward Raban psalter in Aberdeen in 1623. Many of the Huguenots were formerly Jews and Moors (Roth 1932), and in France, the persecution of Jews and Huguenots went hand in hand. The King’s dragonnards came after both with equal ferocity, and often the same legislation was used to condemn them
This headstone from the Dunblane Cathedral cemetery has a Judaic Ten Commandments motif. Photograph by Elizabeth Caldwell Hirschman.
This headstone, also from Dunblane Cathedral cemetery, displays the Judaic dove and olive branch symbol. Photograph by Elizabeth Caldwell Hirschman.
in the courts and seize their assets. Could it not be more than merely fortuitous that the Protestant Reformation sprang from those very countries to which Sephardim fled — France, Switzerland, Germany, Holland, England and Scotland?
Remarking on the main difference between the Reformation in Scotland and in England, M’Gavin wrote:
England... retained many of the ceremonies, the habits, and almost all the frame-work, of the previous [Catholic] establishment. In Scotland, these were generally swept away; and an order was established, simple and unostentatious, having more of a spiritual kingdom, and much less of the splendour of this world, than our neighbour in the south [Howie 1981, p. xi].
Curiously, few scholars have actively pursued this angle of investigation in explor- ing the origins of Protestantism. We suspect it is for the same reasons Scottish history is normally told as a monothematic battle for independence from the British “elephant” that one popular writer finds himself “in bed with” (Kennedy 1995) — told with such par- tisan zeal, in fact, that “Scots” and “Scottish” come to be defined only as a counterfoil to “British, ” eclipsing all other strains of nationality and culture that went into the making of modern Scotland. We propose that the Reformation, beyond being a movement against Catholicism, should also be seen as a movement toward Judaism.
John Calvin/Cauvin (1509-1564)
John (Jean) Calvin was born in 1509 in Picardy, France; the family name was per- haps actually Cauvin. John’s father, Gerard, was employed as an attorney by the Lord of Noyon. Of John’s youth we know only that he served the noble family of deMontmor and studied for the priesthood. In early adulthood, Calvin moved to Paris, where he became friends with the two sons of the French king’s physician. Given their surname and their father’s occupation, Nicholas and Michael Cop were likely of Crypto-Jewish descent. Calvin’s father persuaded him to abandon training for an ecclesiastical career and instead pursue an education in the law. However, in 1529 Calvin decided instead to seek an edu- cation in the humanities under scholar Andrea Aciate 8 in Bourges, France. Calvin was joined there by a friend from Orleans, Melchior Wolmar. Wolmar instructed Calvin in Greek and later in Paris, Calvin became proficient in Hebrew, as well.
From 1532 to 1534, Calvin experienced a religious epiphany, turning to Protes- tantism. Concurrently, his friend Nicolas Cop was elected rector of the University of Paris. Calvin helped prepare Cop’s inaugural address which was strongly Protestant in tone. As a result, Cop was ordered to appear before the Parisian Parliament, but fled instead to Basel, Switzerland — a Protestant stronghold.
At the time, a war was in progress between Francis I and Charles V, so Calvin was forced to make his own way to Switzerland through Geneva. In Geneva, William Farel 9 (bearing a Sephardic surname), founder of the Reformed Church in Geneva, convinced Calvin to stay and help preach the new Protestant theology. Calvin obliged and set up several Protestant religious schools in the city.
However, theology within the new Protestant movement was in flux; a diversity of theological positions was present even from the earliest days, perhaps due to the desire to overthrow the strict orthodoxy of the Catholic doctrine. Thus Calvin’s views were shared by some but not by all Reform theologians of the time period. Calvin next moved on to Strasbourg where he married a widow, Idelette de Burre, in 1540. He continued to preach, write and teach in Strasbourg, establishing himself as one of the prime movers of the new theology.
From this capsule biography we learn that Calvin’s father was an attorney in Picardy, which contained at the time a flourishing Marrano colony. 10 Obviously his father was lit- erate and well-educated; he was also an advisor to nobility— common traits of Crypto- Jews. Gerard Cauvin was clearly ambitious for his son, guiding his career with an eye toward social and economic advancement. He was not a force of Catholic religious fer- vor or conventional piety.
We read also that John chose to learn both Greek and Hebrew, languages which would have permitted him to read the Old Testament (i.e. Torah) in its original ancient form, rather than relying upon Christian translations into Latin. We perceive as well that he favored universal literacy, a Judaic value, that two of his closest friends, Cop and Farel, both had Sephardic surnames, and that he married a woman named Idelette de Bure, evi- dently of possible Sephardic descent. A surviving sketch of John Calvin shows him with leather head covering, full beard and dark features. While we do not presume to judge the sincerity or Christian orientation of his beliefs, we do hold that he was of Crypto- Jewish descent, that he moved in circles that included Marranos, and that his theology would naturally have been influenced by these ancestral and communal ties.
John Knox (1513/14? to 1572)
Details of John Knox’s childhood and even his birth date are unknown. Historians believe he was born around 1513 or 1514 in Haddington, Scotland. It is known that Knox attended a university, but unknown whether it was St Andrews or the University of Glas- gow. 12 It appears unlikely that Knox graduated, choosing instead to take up the priest- hood as a career around 1540. By the early 1540s he was serving as a theological lecturer and by 1545 had come under the influence of George Wishart, a Lutheran-oriented min- ister.
In March 1546, Catholic Cardinal Beaton ordered Wishart burned at the stake for heresy and Scotland entered the bloody throes of the Reformation. The Cardinal him- self was killed by an angry mob of Protestants, among them John Knox, who stormed his castle at St. Andrews.
The Protestant radicals were soon defeated, however, and Knox was sent in chains to serve as a galley slave in France for 19 months. When pro-Protestant King Edward VI of England obtained his release, Knox made his way back to the Scottish borders, serv- ing as a royal minister in Berwick and New Castle. Sickly Edward soon died, however, bringing the staunchly Catholic Mary Tudor (“Bloody Mary”) to the throne of England. Knox fled to Europe, first to Frankfurt, Germany, and then on to Geneva, Switzerland, where he joined forces with John Calvin and also assisted in the translation of the Bible from Latin to English, resulting in the Geneva Bible. It was also in Geneva that Knox wrote the tract “Faithful Admonition” (1554) which advocated the violent overthrow of “godless rulers” by the populace. He became pastor of the English Reformed Church in Geneva (1556-1558) and subsequently published his tract “First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women, ” which attacked the policies and right to rule of Catholic monarchs Mary of Guise (Scotland) and Mary Tudor (England).
In 1557, several Protestant Scottish noblemen, including James Stewart, the Earl of Moray (see chapter 1), signed a covenant declaring Protestantism the national religion of Scotland. Knox had been in correspondence with them and returned to Scotland at their request in May 1559. With Knox’s leadership, the Scottish Parliament declared itself a Protestant nation and adopted the “Scots Confession”; Catholicism was banned from Scotland.
In 1560, a general assembly was held to assist the reformation of the Scottish church. By 1561, the “Book of Discipline” was adopted by the Scottish Parliament, placing Calvin- ist Presbyterian structure at the center of church governance. In this treatise, Knox out- lined a system of education and welfare covering the entire Scottish population that was to be financed by the sale of former Catholic properties. 13 Knox also re-designed the con- tent of the worship service itself, determining that all rites and practices must be based in scripture.
To go a little more deeply into Knox’s theology, let us have a look at the recent biog- raphy by Rosalind Marshall (2000). While Marshall never doubts that Knox was a whole- hearted Christian, she characterizes him as modeled largely after the Old Testament prophets. In her narrative, Knox emerges as a Biblical purist, much like the Jewish Karaites. He believed that the Bible was the word of God and that only the scriptures should serve as a religious guide. Among his favorite texts were the Book of Daniel, Psalms (especially Psalm 6), Exodus and passages describing David and Moses. He was virulently anti-Catholic and anti-Spanish, viewing both Mary Stuart Queen of Scots and Queen Mary of England as “idolatrous harlots” and “Jezebels.” He advocated that “God should send ajehu to slay Mary Stuart.” 14 He once threw a painting of the Virgin Mary into the river saying (p. 25), “Such an idol is accursed and therefore I will not touch it.”
He railed against women as monarchs, especially Mary of England, stating that under her rule the English were “compelled to bow their necks under the yoke of Satan and of his proud mistress, pestilent Papists and proud Spaniards” (Marshall 2000, p. 107). 15 His exhortations to his congregants were likewise rooted in the Old Testament (p. 145). For instance, he applied Psalm 80 (“Turn us again, O Lord God of Hosts, cause thy face to shine and we shall be saved”) to current events, equating his present congregation to the ancient Israelites.
Knox also urged the adoption of Mosaic law as the governing rule of Scotland. Under it, “certain crimes [including] murder, blasphemy, adultery, perjury and idolatry” (Mar- shall 2000, p. 67) would be punishable by death. He further proposed that Scotland cre- ate a universal system of education so that every individual in the population would be literate and able to read the scriptures; he also envisaged a universal charity system to care for the indigent, ill and disabled. All three of these concepts are rooted in Judaic tradi- tion, not in Christianity. Knox described the resulting society as one in which events on Earth would mirror those in Heaven— a metaphor which Marshall attributes to St. Augus-
tine, but which could just as easily, and more immediately, be derived from the Cabalis- tic tradition in France. In Knox’s view, Scotland was “a new Israel dedicated to uphold- ing God’s law” (Smout 1969).
By 1656 the Scottish Parliament had institutionalized Sabbatarianism, “forbidding anyone to frequent taverns, dance, hear profane music, wash, brew ale or bake bread, profanely walk or travel or do any other worldly business” on the Sabbath (Smout, p. 79). Also forbidden on the Sabbath were “carrying in water or casting out ashes, ” a pro- vision that had been in effect in Aberdeen as early as 1603, according to Smout (p. 79). These restrictions echo in remarkable detail the Jewish mitzvoth regarding the keeping of the Sabbath (Gitlitz 2003, pp. 317-354).
Knox also developed very detailed guidelines for the religious training of ministers. “Trainee ministers would study not only theology, but Hebrew, mathematics, physics, economics, ethics, and moral philosophy” (Marshall 2000, p. 153), a curriculum that appears to be patterned more on the Islamic and Jewish ideals emanating from Spain and southern France than on any prior Christian educational scheme.
Knox advocated that every household have its members instructed in the principles of the Reform religion, so they could sing the psalms at Sabbath services and hold house- hold prayer services morning and evening in their homes (Marshall 2000, p. 153). Both parents were to “instruct their children in God’s law” (p. 29); highly reminiscent of the familial worship practices of Orthodox Jews. Virtually the only exceptions to the Judaic nature of his religious ideology were the absence of dietary rules, or kashrut (for instance, a prohibition of pork); and the requirement that males be circumcised.
Examining Knox’s family and friends helps shed some additional light on his think- ing and sympathies. Among his most ardent supporters was Thomas Lever, formerly mas- ter of St. Johns College in Cambridge and later a Protestant minister living in Zurich. Lever is a surname of Semitic origin. Descendants of this same family afterwards immi- grated to the American colonies and established the Lever Brothers Corporation; they were practicing Jews. Also among the early Protestants in Frankfurt, Germany, with one of the largest Jewish communities in Europe, were Thomas Parry (a common Sephardic surname) and John Foxe (= Fuchs, an Ashkenazic surname). When Knox returned to Scotland, he lodged in the house of a “well-known Protestant merchant, James Syme” (Marshall 2000, p. 89), and had for his assistant another Scot, James Barron (both, of course, are Sephardic surnames).
In 1652, Knox performed the wedding ceremony uniting Lord James Stewart and Lady Agnes Keith, the former a man who was self-consciously of Jewish descent and the latter a woman from an Aberdonian family that we have suggested was also of Jewish ori- gin. Knox himself had married Marjorie Bowes (the surname Bovee is French Jewish), and the couple named their two children Nathaniel and Eleazer, Old Testament Hebrew names uncommon among Christians at the time. When Marjorie died in 1560, she gave her sons her blessing, “praying that they would always be as true worshippers of God as any that ever sprang out of Abraham’s loins” (Marshall 2000, p. 155) — a strange injunc- tion for a Christian mother.
In 1564 Knox remarried at the age of 50 to Margaret Stewart, age 17, a member of the royal Stewart family. Of course, because of its linking of a noblewoman with a com- moner (especially one who had presided over Catholic Mary Stewart’s downfall), and because of the pairing of a young woman with an elderly man, this marriage makes lit- tle sense — unless it is viewed from a Judaic perspective. As Marshall (2000, p. 199) explains, Knox was the “leading minister” in Scotland at that time. If we recognize Knox as the Head Rabbi, then his marriage to a woman of the ruling house, and of Davidic descent, makes imminent sense. 16
So, can we prove that either John Calvin or John Knox were of Marrano descent? No. But we can sum up our case by pointing to the preponderance of the evidence, which suggests that their ancestors were Jewish and that they, themselves, were aware of this. If we are correct in this inference, then perhaps the ultimate irony is that the Spanish Inqui- sition — intended to crush Judaism and send Spain’s Sephardim into ignominious exile — actually had the opposite effect. The displaced Jews, like so many tiny floating seeds from a milkweed pod, landed on fertile ground in Holland, France, Scotland, Germany, Switzer- land, and England, where they grew into the Protestant Reformation.
Chapter 11
Jews in the National Consciousness of Scotland: Scott’s Ivanhoe
Significantly, it was a Scottish lawyer and antiquary who fired the first salvo in the public debate over Jews in Britain; this debate intensified with the Reform Movement in national politics and eventually led to their emancipation in the 1830s. And just as significantly, the Jews were Sephardic. 1 He was Sir Walter Scott, Edinburgh publisher, national champion of Scots culture and author of the immensely popular Waverly nov- els (1771-1832). It may be surprising to learn that the best-paid author in Britain in the first decades of the nineteenth century was a Scotsman. 2 Scottish Border Minstrelsy, bal- lads that Scott collected on journeys through his native Borders country, had catapulted him to fame in 1802, and The Lay of the Last Minstrel sealed it. Now he turned to prose, and with Waverly in 1814 he created a new literary genre, the historical novel, an inven- tion that would inspire “Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, William Thackeray, George Eliot, Anthony Trollope and other accomplished Continental writers of nineteenth-century literature, such as Balzac, Hugo, Flaubert, and Tolstoy” (Herman 2001, pp. 309-310), not to mention the American writers Irving, Hawthorne, Melville, Cooper, Twain, and Wal- lace.
The debt author Washington Irving owed to Scott, and vice versa, is especially note- worthy, for Scott’s Rebecca of York was apparently inspired by Rebecca Gratz, a member of Philadelphia’s elite and widely regarded as the foremost American Jewess of her day (1781-1869). 3 The story is told by Stephen Birmingham in The Grandees (1971, pp. 160-62):
A particularly close friend of Rebecca Gratz’s was Matilda Hoffman. It was in the office of Matilda’s father, Judge Ogden Hoffman, that Washington Irving studied law, and presently Miss Hoffman and Washington Irving became engaged. But before the pair could marry.
Miss Hoffman became ill with “wasting disease, ” a common affliction of the day, and Rebecca went to live at the Hoffmans’ to help nurse her friend. Rebecca was there to close Matilda’s eyes at the end.
The devotion of one young woman to another impressed Irving. When he went to England to try to forget his sweetheart’s death, Rebecca Gratz and her kindness to Matilda became almost an obsession with him.... One of the people he told the story to was Sir Wal- ter Scott.... [W]hen Ivanhoe was published... Scott wrote Irving a letter saying...”How do you like your Rebecca? Does the Rebecca I have pictured compare well with the pattern given? ”
Thus a vivacious and emancipated Sephardic Jewish American served as the model for Ivanhoe’s Rebecca, infusing contemporary meaning and life into the ancient tale.
It is counter-intuitive for many of us to realize that Scotland at that time was far more literate and literary than England. In 1696, Scotland’s parliament had passed the country’s progressive School Act calling for the establishment of a school in every parish nationwide.
In 1790 nearly every eight-year-old in Cleish, Kinross-shire, could read, and read well. By one estimate male literacy stood at around 55 percent, compared with only 53 percent in England. It would not be until the 1880s that the English would finally catch up with their northern neighbors. Scotland became Europe’s first modern literate society [Herman 2001, p. 23].
While intellectuals such as Adam Smith and David Hume held sway in the seats of learning, townspeople flocked to public lectures at the universities and Scotland’s work- ing classes read avidly. Patrons of lending libraries included bakers, blacksmiths, coop- ers, dyer’s apprentices, farmers, stonemasons, tailors and servants (Herman, p. 23). “An official national survey in 1795 showed that out of a total population of 1.5 million, nearly twenty thousand Scots depended for their livelihood on writing and publishing — and 10, 500 on teaching” (p. 25). With its passion for education and high literacy rate (not neglecting its mathematical counterpart, computational ability), Scotland was uniquely prepared to inform the literary tastes of the masses and set the tone for public discourse. No one was better positioned to lead the popular groundswell that blended nostalgia with progressiveness than Sir Walter Scott, whose family came of the same background as the Stewarts, Leslies, Frasers, and Campbells.
In 1819, Scott published the first of his novels in which he adopted a purely English subject. 4 Ivanhoe introduced a set of characters based on a defining moment in English history, the late twelfth century, and its protagonists and antagonists were all English, from Richard Lionheart to Robin Hood. 5 Saxons and Jews represented the “other” in this sweeping book about cultural conflict, while Scots were conspicuously absent. With its pathos-laden figures of Rebecca the Jewess and her father Isaac, Ivanhoe attacked the prevailing stereotypes of English history at a time when the experiment in government called Great Britain was going through “a crisis of acculturation and assimilation... [when] the fabrication of the (Scottish or Jewish or Irish) Briton through parliamentary legislation led to a variety of reactions: the attempt by these minorities to reinvent them- selves, or their rejection of their new identity, or their rejection by so-called true-born Englishmen” (Ragussis 2000, p. 775). Moreover, in Ivanhoe’s climactic scene, “Scott rewrites English history as Anglo-Jewish history” (Ragussis 1995, p. 113). Scott also accords a central role to Templars in the national consciousness and sets his tale in York, about as close to Scotland as one can get without being in the Borders. Did he know something?
A recent writer on collective memory and cultural “forgetting” has demonstrated that ancestry, pedigrees, dynasties, genealogies and ethnic origins are social constructs. Like time periods, these notions take shape through a process of collective cognition, the organization of unrelated and discontinuous events into coherent and meaningful narratives (Zerubavel 2003). Many people, for instance, conceive that the Roman Empire ended in 476 C.E., even though its Eastern part, known as Byzantium, continued for another thousand years. Nationalities are constructed around the genealogies of their ruling families (Zerubavel, pp. 32-43). Sometimes the dynastic pedigrees have to be rein- vented or refashioned, as was the case with Saxon England’s Norman invaders, who had to be recast as British and Celtic in the historiography of Geoffrey of Monmouth and William de Newbury. To take a modern example, the House of Saxe-Coburg 6 that occu- pied the British throne was converted into the House of Windsor in short order at the beginning of hostilities between Great Britain and the German Empire in 1914. A simi- lar process erased the dynasty’s Scottish links under the Hanoverians in the eighteenth century. In this spirit, we can appreciate Scott as one of the inventors of British culture. Notably, it is a culture that includes Jews and is not born in London, the capital, but rather in a northern province.
The city of York was long associated in the minds of Jew and non-Jew with the pogrom that took place there in the year 1190, the precise timeframe of Scott’s Ivanhoe; in the words of Joseph Jacobs, a pivotal year that brought “the first proof that the Jews of England had of any popular ill-will against them” (1911, s.v. “London”). While King Richard (a philosemite) was away at the Crusades, a number of local Crusaders under Sir Richard Malebis seized the opportunity to erase their debts by murdering Jews. Those who escaped took refuge in the King’s castle, where, inspired by one of their celebrated poets, the visiting French rabbi Yom Tob of Joigny, they committed collective suicide (Bar- navi 1992, p. 98). Before that disaster, York Jewry enjoyed a high degree of prosperity. Unlike Jewish communities in the rest of England, there was no Jewish quarter in York; rather, Jews lived betwixt and between the Christian inhabitants (Adler 1939, p. 132).
Knights, fair maidens in distress, bloodthirsty Templars who say things like “Back, dog! ” and dark heroines whose “long silken eyelashes... a minstrel would have compared to the evening star darting its rays through a bower of jessamine” (Scott 1988, p. 249) are apparently no longer in the step of literary fashion. Though generations of Southern belles and beaus may have been nursed on The Lady of the Lake, our local libraries could not produce one copy of the works of the author credited with inventing historical romance and reviving clans and tartans. Assuming our readers would face some of the same difficulties, we will save them the trouble both of tracking down this classic and actually reading it. We provide here a plot summary of Ivanhoe. We will then be able to look at some of the scenes and characters which hark back to a time “when Scotland was Jewish.”
Wilfred of Ivanhoe, son of Cedric, a noble Saxon, loves his father’s ward, the lady Rowena, who also traces her descent to Saxon King Alfred. Cedric is intent on restoring the Saxon line to the throne of England, now occupied by Norman King Richard the Lionheart, and he hopes to accomplish this by marrying his daughter Rowena to Athel- stane of Coningsburgh. He has banished his own son, Ivanhoe, who has joined King Richard on the Crusades. In Richard’s absence, his brother Prince John rallies the law- less, dissolute Norman vassals to his own cause, intending to depose Richard. Among the knights in John’s party are the fierce Templar Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert and Sir Regi- nald Front-de-Boeuf.
The story centers around two events. At a great tournament at Ashby de la Zouch, Ivanhoe together with King Richard defeats the Templars, but is wounded. It is at this point, more than halfway through the novel, that Scott introduces Rebecca the Jewess, who will upstage Rowena as the love interest for both Saxons and Normans and become the intrinsic heroine of the tale. The Templars carry off Cedric, Rowena, the wounded Ivanhoe, Rebecca and her father Isaac to the castle of Torquilstone, where, after an excit- ing assault by King Richard and a band of Saxon outlaws led by Locksley (Robin Hood), the prisoners are rescued — all except for Rebecca, with whom Bois-Guilbert falls in love and carries off to the Templar Preceptory of Templestowe.
We relate the rest of the story in the words of The Oxford Companion to English Lit- erature (Drabble 1985, p. 499):
Here the unexpected arrival of the Grand Master of the order, while relieving Rebecca from the dishonourable advances of Bois-Guilbert, exposes her to the charge of witchcraft, and she escapes sentence of death only by demanding trial by combat. Ivanhoe, whose gratitude she has earned by nursing him when wounded at the tournament of Ashby, appears as her champion, and in the encounter between him and Bois-Guilbert (on whom has been thrust the unwelcome duty of appearing as the accuser), the latter falls dead, untouched by his opponent’s lance, the victim of his own contending passions. Ivanhoe and Rowena, 7 by the intervention of Richard, are united; the more interesting Rebecca, suppressing her love for Ivanhoe, leaves England [for Spain] with her father.
When the book first appeared in 1819, many criticized its author’s sense of history as wrong-headed. He should not have pitted the indigenous Saxons against the Norman invaders at so late a period, for by the twelfth century both peoples were well assimilated with each other. There was no rear-guard Saxon resistance, and Robin Hood belonged to another era entirely, the fourteenth century and later. Scott anticipated his detractors with a mock dedicatory epistle humbly addressed to the lofty antiquary “the Reverend Dr. Dryasdust” and back-dated to 1817. He also fitted later editions of Ivanhoe with a long introduction, defending his theme and fictional mode of operation (p. vii):
The period of the narrative adopted was the reign of Richard I, not only as abounding with characters whose very names were sure to attract general attention, but as affording a strik- ing contrast betwixt the Saxons, by whom the soil was cultivated, and the Normans, who still reigned in it as conquerors, reluctant to mix with the vanquished, or acknowledge them- selves of the same stock.
It is clear then that Ivanhoe is about national identity and the ethnic “Other.” Lest the point be lost, Scott has his author, in the plodding and subservient persona of Lau- rence Templeton, apologize for deserting the easy fables of Scotland to venture into the more treacherous ground of English myth-making:
In England civilization has been so long complete, that our ideas of our ancestors are only to be gleaned from musty records and chronicles, the authors of which seem perversely to have conspired to suppress in their narratives all interesting details, in order to find room for flowers of monkish eloquence, or trite reflections upon morals. To match an English and a Scottish author in the rival task of embodying and reviving the traditions of their respective countries would be... in the highest degree unequal and unjust [p. xvii],
Scott, therefore, will tell the real story of English nationhood, which is not found in any of the history books. His tale includes not only the noble yet “homely” Saxons along with the merry band of Robin and his thieves, but also usurious Jews, good and bad Templars, indifferent kings, and learned Jewesses.
Virginia Woolf remarked that there was more originality to Scott’s novels than met the eye. “Part of their astonishing freshness, their perennial vitality, is that you may read them over and over again, and never know for certain what Scott himself was or what Scott himself thought” (Herman 2001, p. 310). The man himself was a bundle of para- doxes, a Tory among the Whig heirs to the Scottish Enlightenment then getting their sec- ond wind, a painstaking antiquarian and confirmed reactionary with a flare for modernity, “the last minstrel” and first promoter of the Edinburgh municipal gas company. He called himself “half-lawyer, half-sportsman... half crazy... half-everything” (p. 291).
Of all Scott’s ethnic types, it is Rebecca, a woman and a Jew, who is at once “most Other, ” yet at the same time, the quintessential ingredient. When she sails away to Spain at the end of the novel, suppressing her love at the moment of its requital by the hero Ivan- hoe, we sense the departure of Jews from English shores and experience a void that can only be filled with nostalgia, wonder and guilt. Scott’s readers did not like this ending:
The character of the fair Jewess found so much favour in the eyes of some [female] readers, that the writer was censured because, when arranging the fates of the characters of the drama, he had not assigned the hand of Wilfred to Rebecca, rather than the less interesting Rowena. But, not to mention that the prejudices of the age rendered such a union almost impossible, the Author may, in passing, observe, that he thinks a character of [such] a highly virtuous and lofty stamp is degraded rather than exalted by an attempt to reward virtue with temporal prosperity.... A glance on the great picture of life will show that the duties of self-denial, and the sacrifice of passion to principle, are seldom thus remunerated [ Ivanhoe, pp. xiii-xiv].
It is interesting to see what kind of prejudice against Jews Scott thought his char- acters and readers had. As we have already noticed, he reserves the appearance of Rebecca until the middle of the book. Even then, her identity as a Jewess is hidden from the hero until she declares herself. At first, recuperating from wounds after the battle with the Templars, awaking from sleep, Wilfred looks upon the figure who attends his sick-bed as a dream from Palestine, a “fair apparition” of Eastern exoticism:
To his great surprise, he found himself in a room magnificently furnished, but having cush- ions instead of chairs to rest upon, and in other respects partaking so much of Oriental cos- tume that he began to doubt whether he had not, during his sleep, been transported back again to the land of Palestine. The impression was increased when, the tapestry being drawn aside, a female form, dressed in a rich habit, which partook more of the Eastern taste than that of Europe, glided through the door, which it concealed, and was followed by a swarthy domestic.... She performed her task with a graceful and dignified simplicity and modesty, which might, even in more civilised days, have served to redeem it from whatever might seem repugnant to female delicacy. The idea of so young and beautiful a person engaged in attendance on a sick-bed, or in dressing the wound of one of a different sex, was melted away and lost in that of a beneficent being contributing her effectual aid to relieve pain, and to avert the stroke of death [pp. 247-48].
Wilfred goes so far as to call Rebecca “noble damsel” in Arabic before she dispels his illu- sions and explains that she is Jewish:
“Bestow not on me, Sir Knight, ” she said, “the epithet of noble. It is well you should speedily know that your handmaiden is a poor Jewess, the daughter of that Isaac of York to whom you were so lately a good and kind lord.”
Now the scales fall from Wilfred’s eyes. At the mere word “Jewess, ” all his preju- dices come tumbling out:
Dumfries
Annan
Gretna Q*
Cobrend
Carlisle English West At
Scottish Borders area exhibiting high modern-day levels of Mediterranean and Semitic DNA halo- types. Map by Donald N. Yates.
As evidenced in Roth (1937), two other descriptors used by medieval (and modern) Jews are ha-Levi and ha-Kohane, denoting descent from the class of Levites and priestly caste of the ancient Hebrews.
Since the word rabbi means “teacher, ” it was sometimes translated as Magister or Master. “Cantor” may appear as le Prestre (the priest). Parnas, the head of the synagogue or of the com- munity, and gabbai, synagogue (or community) treasurer are also found. Throughout much of medieval Europe, the Jews had a great deal of autonomy over their own affairs, even to hav- ing their own local courts of Jewish law. Jacobs (1893) explains the descriptor Episcopi (“of the bishop”) which occurs several times as referring to the judge of one of these courts. The Hebrew term is dyan, which has become a modern Jewish family name.
Appendix C
Several kings, starting with Richard I, appointed what amounted to a “King’s Minister or Liaison for Jewish Affairs, ” a prominent member of the community and often a rabbi; these are remembered as the Judeus Presbyter. The term was first translated as a sort of high priest, although the role was secular. The term “presbyter” appears several times on the [Roth] list and may well refer to these men (there were about a half dozen). One of the assistants, the chirographer [scribe, or clerk], is also mentioned on the list [ha-Levi].
Other descriptors referring to professions are aurifaber (goldsmith), medicus (physician), and miles (soldier, or perhaps, knight). The Hebrew translation of medicus was ha-rophe which can mean both “the physician” and “the leach.” A “furmager” or “fermager” is a tax “farmer, ” paying the king a fee for the right to collect the tax in a given area. He kept the taxes for himself with all monies above the original fee being his profit for the venture. “Scrip- tor, ” scribe, generally referred to a sophar, a writer of religious texts, a busy man in a com- munity whose religion emphasized literacy. “The Pointer” refers to two grammarians, students of the Hebrew language.
Jewish custom calls for the use of two separate names. The shem ha-kodesh or religious name is used during Jewish ritual such when one is being called up to read a portion of the Torah. The common name, kinnui, was used in everyday affairs. It could be formed in sev- eral ways: (1) the shem ha-kodesh could be translated into the vernacular. Thus, Berichiyah, “blessing, ” becomes Benedict; Obediah, “servant of G-d, ” Norman French Serfdieu. (2) A name similar in sound to— or using some of the letters in — the shem ha-kodesh could be used; thus, Robert for Reuben, George for Gershom. (3) A nickname could be made from the shem ha-kodesh.
Hebrew nicknames go back to the days of the Bible. Numbers 13: 4-15 lists the names of the spies Moses sent into the land of Canaan, giving several with a nickname as well. Josce, Hok, and Copin were common period English nicknames for Joseph [Isaac, and Jacob] (Heb Yos-eph, Ytz-hok and Ya-a-kov, respectively). Biket was used for Rebeccah. Even kinnui were not exempt. Deulecresse, the translation given for both Gadaliah and Solomon, is often abbre- viated to Crease.
Sometimes, a name that in some way referred to shem ha-kodesh (or the individual) could be used. A common practice was to take the references made by Jacob on his deathbed (Gen- esis 49) or Moses in his final oration to the Children of Israel (Deuteronomy 33). Thus, Judah became Leon (‘Judah is a lion’s whelp, ’ Genesis 49.9). Other times, a more obscure reference was used. Jacobs suggests that Jornet, coming from the word ‘jerkin’ (jacket) was a kinnui for Joseph. And, in what seems to be a rare instance, the name Belaset was derived from bella assez (fair to look upon) and applied to Rachel (Genesis 29: 17, ‘Rachel was fair to look upon’) Bonevent (good day) referred to a child born on a holiday, especially Passover (ha-Levi)....
Parents of Jewish girls, says ha-Levi, had more leeway in naming them. Some Biblical or Hebrew names were used — Abigail, Zipporah, Esther, Anna or Hanna, Judith, Miriam and Sarah. More common, however, were vernacular names: flowers (Fleur de liz, Fleur, Rose); things of value (Almonda, Chera (Greek: Iekara, precious stone), Licoricia); desirable traits: Bona (good), Belia (pretty), Genta (gentle), or terms of endearment: Columbia (dove), Comitessa (countess), Pucella (little girl); or simply the names their neighbors used (Elfid, Auntera, Margaret, Sweetecote).
Female and Male Jewish Names from Medieval England
Fleur de Liz
Flora
Floria, Fluria, Flurie
Gentil, Gentilia
Female
Miriam
Maria, Miriana
In 1292, just two years after the expulsion of the Jews from Angevin England, and shortly before their banishment from the He de France and French-ruled areas, a census was made by the royal authorities in Paris. Jews were marked with the letter J. These entries are shown below, with our comments.
From Brabant (town in Flanders)
Appendix C
At the time this list was made, France was at war with England (and would be for another hundred years). Many Jews in Paris were clearly regarded as ex-nationals of England. Their association with Jews from Brabant, Brugges, Ghent, Soissons and Meux can be read as a sign that some Jews expelled by Edward I took refuge with Flemish relatives and business part- ners, likely retracing their steps in coming to England with the Normans. Here they also min- gled with Jews from the Rhineland, Iberia and southern France, Prague, Palestine and Babylon.
Appendix D
Davidic Jewish Genealogies
Arthur Benveniste is one of the founders of America s Society for Crypto Judaic Stud ies. He traces his Ladino family back to twelfth century Catalonia and Narbonne and ties it to the Shealtiel, Gracian and Luna families of Sephardic Spain, all of whom claim Davidic descent. Of the name itself, he writes that it belongs to an old, rich, and scholarly family of Narbonne, the numerous branches of which were found all over Spain and the Provence, as well as at various places in the Orient.” It is still borne, he notes, by certain families in Bul- garia, Serbia, and Vienna, and until World War II it was also found in Salonika, Izmir and Rhodes. His sketch of family history includes extensive biographical notes on leading related rabbinical families through the ages.* * * §
In an online article titled “Can We Claim Descent from David? Moshe Shaltiel-Gracian discusses Shealtiel Family Davidic Descent.t He responds to the article “Can We Prove Descent from King David? ” by David Einsiedler, who points out that whereas a great many families claim descent legitimately from Rashi, the most famous Talmudic scholar, others have gone farther and claimed descent through Rashi to King David. t According to these authors, one of the earliest claims to descent from King David is found in the genealogy Mishpachat Luna, discussed by Abraham Epstein (Vienna, 1901). This source states that before his death, Yehiel Luria told his nephew, Moses Enosh, that he had a yichus brief (pedigree scroll) going back to Johanan Ha-Sandlar. Johanan Ha-Sandlar lived in the second century c.e., was a Tannah (sage) of the Mishnah, and was considered a descendant of King David. According to Epstein, this record “was lost in the Swiss War, and Johanan Luria mourned the loss of his yichus brief more than the material goods he was robbed of. Einsiedler notes, moreover,
In Seder Ha-Dorot (The Order of Generations) (Zhitomir, 1867), R. Jehiel Heilprin claims descent from Jehiel, the father of Solomon Luria (MaHaRaSHaL), § from Rashi, and from the Tannah Johanan Ha-Sandlar. This claim is made on the title page; in Part II, page 201, under the entry “Rabbi Johanan Ha-Sandlar” and again in the section on books under “Lulaot Ha-Shir” (page 60). He gives no details. More detailed references are found in Maalot Ha-Yuchsin (Degrees of Descent), by R. Ephraim Zalman Margolioth of Brody (Lemberg, 1900). It includes a fractional genealogy “from the Tannah Johanan Ha-Sandlar to Rashi to
* Arthur Benveniste, http: //home.earthlink.net/~benven/.
Sassoon and Ab Ravanel
The Sassoon family is often also referred to as being of Davidic descent. In The Sassoons (New York, 1968) Stanley Jackson writes:
Small colonies (of Jews) have settled from antiquity in India and China, but Baghdad remained the nerve center of the exiled. Over 40, 000 were living in the city by the 12th century, and the Sassoons were among an elite who claimed their pedigree from King David himself.... Among their ancestors were the Ibn Shoshans, princes of the community in Toledo, Spain.... As early as the 17th century, a scholar and mystic of Venice, Abraham Sason, proudly claimed descent from Shephatiah, the fifth son of King David.... The first member of the family of whom there is any significant documentary evidence was Sason ben Saleh, born in Baghdad in 1750, who was the Chief Banker and had the honorary title of Sheikh, and became in 1778 Nassi (Prince of the Captivity) of the Jewish community.
However, as Einsiedler remarks (qtd. in Shaltiel), Davidic descent is not mentioned in either Chaim Bermant’s The Cousinhood (MC, 1972) or Cecil Roth’s The Sassoon Dynasty (London, 1941).
The Ab ravanel / Abarbanel family of Spain is frequently characterized as of Davidic descent. The Encyclopaedia Judaica (Jerusalem, 1972) reports that the family, first mentioned in 1300, attained distinction in Spain in the 15th century.... Don Isaac Abravanel (1437-1509), finance minister to the Kings of Portugal, then Spain, then Naples, wrote in his memoirs: “All my forebears, descended from King David, son of Jesse of Bethlehem, were worthy leaders of our people” [Volume II, page 102].
But Shaltiel quotes Einsiedler as rejecting these claims, for the latter says, “I have not found sources going far enough back to support the claim of Davidic descent.” Shaltiel concludes,
The bottom line is: King David had a number of wives and concubines, and about two dozen children are mentioned in the Bible. King Solomon “had seven hundred royal wives and three hundred concubines” (I Kings 11: 3). One can only imagine how many children he had. After nearly 3, 000 years, there may be an untold number of their descendants.
There is a fair possibility that you and I may be among them. All we need is good evidence and records that go back that far and [to] give convincing proof of our claim. So far, avail- able records cannot do it. Some individuals rely on tradition and faith to back their claim. More power to them. The rest of us may have to wait for that promised descendant — the Messiah.
We agree with this rebuttal and propose that these Sephardic families very likely con- verted to Judaism around 750-900 c.e. in France, together with several families who subse- quently moved to Scotland (e.g., the Stewarts, Davidsons). In all these cases, we suggest that because they were converted by a Davidic descendant at the Jewish Academy in Narbonne, they came to believe that they therefore descended from King David themselves, in accor- dance with the generational myth-making process described by Zerubavel (2003). Note that virtually all these “Davidic pedigrees” begin around 900-1100.
Notably also, DNA from over 10 descendants of the Sisson family in the United States matched the Caldwell-Yates-Ramey- Stewart haplotype and is Rib Sephardic, but not Semitic.
Appendix E
Border Reiver DNA
Since completing When Scotland Was Jewish, the authors became aware of a large col- laborative project called Border Reiver Families DNA Study (available at http: //freepages. genealogy.rootsweb.com/~donegalstrongs/reiver_families. htm). The Borderlands separating England from Scotland are notable as the traditional stronghold of several important Scot- tish clans and septs, including Scott, Burns, Tait/Tate, Forster, Beatty, Rutledge, Graham, Armstrong, Elliot, Johnston, Kerr, Kay, Gray, Hume, Bell, Davidson, Storey, Robinson, Crow, Langley, Heron, Hunt, Lindsay, Jackson, Taggart, Bold, Reade, Young, Oliver, Brown, Watts, Turner, Taylor, Chamberlain, and Maxwell. Members of these families emigrated in high numbers to America during the Scots-Irish migration of the eighteenth century and crop up among the Melungeons.
The interpretive results of this study will be years in coming, but it is evident at a glance that the leading families who controlled this region have a similar mixture of DNA lines as the Scots investigated in our book, with Iberian-centered Rib forming the overwhelming majority of male lineages. Some surprises that tend to corroborate our thesis include Hall, Moorish (E); Liddell and Armstrong (J2); numerous Hungarian names*; and Elliott (C).t
* Tentatively; we note Carruthers, Carr/Kerr (swordsman), Carnaby, Darby (D’Arby), Armstrong, Strange, Strong, Brown (through translations of Hungarian words like kar, nagy and barnaj. Bell (Bela? ), Selby fcsel “deceive”), Taggart (mem- ber) and perhaps Heron (white, blonde), Irvin/Erwin and Beatty (fearless). Carnegie (“big czar”) has already been dis- cussed.
t About this lineage, the author of the Clan Elliott subsheet speculates: “The top five hits in YHRDfell in Gotland, China, Iran, Spain, Venice and among the Iraqi Kurds.... this haplotype may be Hunnish or Indo-Iranian in origin, and could have come to Britain with the Sarmatians in the Roman Army, or with Norman invaders of Alanic or Visigothic [empha- sis added] descent.... these Elliotts (or Eliots) were reputedly descended from a Norman knight surnamed ‘Aliot.’” We have suggested above that Elliot comes from Judeo-Arabic and means “those who go up” (i.e., who are called up for serv- ice, or make an aliyah, who become distinguished). The famous poet and man of letters, Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888- 1965), has Anglo-French Jewish ancestry in both his maternal and paternal lines, a fact which sheds light on his efforts to help Jewish refuges and alleged anti-Semitism; see R.F. Fleissner, “T.S. Eliot and Anti-Semitism, ” Contemporary Review (Dec. 1999).
Chapter Notes
Chapter 1
1. Scotland even lacks an agreed-upon history of its place-names. As has been pointed out, its land- scape, glacial and volcanic at once, with marine fos- sils in the Grampian Mountains, and some of the deepest lakes in the world, was so bewildering that the modern science of geology had to be created to explain it (by James Hutton and Sir Charles Lyell; see Magnusson 2000, pp. 2-3). Two archeological marvels are distinctively Scottish, the brochs (stone towers) and crannogs (lake fortresses), while all Scotland’s major rivers and firths show evidence of having been bridged with a network of highways prior to the Roman arrival. Modern-day attempts to etymologize many of Scotland’s oldest place-names, however, are conflicting because no consensus has emerged on the country’s underlying chronology of settlement. Does the name Douglas derive from “dark stranger, ” “black water, ” or “one from Gaul”? It depends on what you believe was the original lan- guage — Scottish Gaelic, some other Gaelic: English, or French. Does the name for Tiree, one of the islands of the Inner Hebrides, come from Gaelic Tir-iodh “Land of Corn, ” or Tir fo Thuinn “Land Below the Waves”? Or was the original name something else, in a different language? Curiously, most of Scotland’s islands bear names that were apparently given in the Greek language: Hebrides = Hebrew Islands; Orkneys = Islands of the Whales; Skye = Island of the Scythians; Iona = Jonah’s Island; Tiree = Island of the Phoenician Sea Goddess Tyre; Mull = Island of Black Lead (Greek ^oXu^dop. Yet no Greek-speak- ing inhabitants have ever been documented, much less proposed, in Scotland’s entire history.
2. “Piets” (“painted people”) was the name given by Romans to the indigenous people they found when they conquered Britain in the first century. Their language is presumed to have been Celtic, a distant cousin of Latin and major branch of the Indo-European language group. In the 18th century, historians discovered evidence of a link between When Bernard of Clairvaux integrated the Celtic church into the Cistercian order and |
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