They exported slaves, furs, and silk manufactures to Italy, Spain, and the Levant, and

imported to Gaul spices, balsam, garum, dates, brocades, and precious metals. The cross-

roads of this luxury trade were located in the Meuse and at Narbonne. 3 These traders could

be found even in Paris, on the lie de la Cite, near the forecourt of Notre Dame today [p. 6].

 

By the 800s in France, contemporaneous with the first incursions of the Normans,

the Jews constituted an indispensable part of the economy and culture. Benbassa (p. 11)

writes:

 

They did possess buildings, fields, orchards and vineyards, garden farms, and mills. They

devoted themselves to agriculture and, in particular, winegrowing in the valleys of the

Rhone, the Saone, and in the Paris region. Jewish wine production seems to have been still

larger in the ninth century, to the point that it supplied foreign markets....

 

In addition to being accomplished vintners and wine merchants, the Jews of Gaul

also excelled in finance, estate management, medicine, and manufacturing.

 

A certain number of Jews managed the assets of bishops and abbots. Others were in the

service of kings. They played an important role in East- West trade. They also practiced med-

icine. They were found, too, in trades such as the dyeing of fabric, and the tanning and cur-

rying of leather [p. 12].

 

By 1066, when the Normans conquered England taking several of these French Jew-

ish families with them to establish the new civil administration, the Western world had

embarked upon a capitalist economy.

 

Among the transformations undergone by the West since 1000 [c.E.] was the development of

a monetary economy.... Economic development... made the nobles dependent on cash

income. Jews were in a position to meet their demands for liquidity, either through profits

made from trade by those among them who practiced it or through recourse to credit [Ben-

bassa, p. 14],

 

In 1306, for a variety of political, religious and economic reasons, the Jews

were expelled from France. (And not coincidentally, we see families such as the “Black”

Douglases arriving in Scotland.) This expulsion followed close on the heels of Edward

I’s banishment of Jews from England and Gascony in 1290, and there were smaller

banishings of Jews from cities in Germany and Italy. However, as Benbassa writes (p. 15):

 

The expulsion in France affected a greater number of Jews (almost 50, 000 persons).... Exiles

found refuge in Lorraine, Alsace, the Rhine valley, even Poland and Hungary, in the duchy of

Burgundy, the Dauphine, Savoy, Provence, the Comtat Venaissin, and Spain.

 

We propose that several of these Jewish families made their way, as well, to Scot-

land, a possibility we will discuss in detail in chapters 7 and 9.

 

The Jewish Community at Narbonne

 

Below we present various texts regarding the Babylonian scholar Makhir/Machar and

the principality of Narbonne in France during the period 700-900 C.E. It was this Davidic

descendant of the Hebrew tribes, carried into captivity by the Babylonians in Biblical

times, we suggest, who traveled to Scotland, where he became known as “St.” Machar,

and likely pioneered the way for some of the earliest Jews to make their way to the north-

eastern part of Scotland. From Benbassa’s account (p. 7) we learn that

[t]he Muslim advance into France was checked in 732 at Poitiers by Charles Martel. ... His

son, Pepin the Short, founded the Carolingian dynasty in 751. ... From this moment, the pol-

icy of the Carolingian sovereigns was marked by alliance with Rome and indulgence with

regard to the Jews.

 

Pepin’s son, Charlemagne, is said to have been assisted by Jews in his conquest of

Narbonne, the former Visigothic kingdom, which housed a large Jewish community.

Because of their assistance, Pepin made their leader, Makhir (Machar), lord of the new

buffer state, and Charlemagne granted additional privileges to the French Jews, especially

those of Narbonne. The French Jews, including those of Narbonne, were largely secular-

ized; that is, they had little knowledge of Hebrew or Jewish religious texts. Though the

Babylonian Talmud arrived, belatedly, in France, even then the Jews did not scrupulously observe its teachings.... Contacts between the Orient [Babylonia] and the Carolingian Empire led a doctor of law named Mahir to leave Babylonia

and settle in Narbonne, where he founded a Talmudic school that helped establish Jewish

studies in France... . Influences reached France also from Italy and Muslim Spain, where

important Jewish cultural centers developed [Benbassa, p. 11],

 

An Internet site provides another account of Mahir and Narbonne, though this one

is substantially more embellished.

 

The Jewish Rulers of Narbonne

 

There was once a semi-autonomous principality in Narbonne (southern France)

described by Arthur J. Zuckerman (A Jewish Princedom in Feudal France, 768-900, New

York, 1972). It was ruled by a Jewish prince of the House of David whose offspring inter-

married with the aristocracy and royal line of France and [subsequently] with that of Nor-

mandy, Scotland, and England.... The first Jewish ruler of the House of David in Narbonne

was called Machir. Machir and his sons were probably practising Jews, but most (though

not all) of his family quickly assimilated and became Christians.... Machir gave his sister

to Pepin and took the sister of Pepin as one of his wives.... William (the son of Machir)

ruled over the area of Septimania [an area in southern France where Narbonne is located].

He was made Duke of Aquitaine and is referred to as “King of the Goths, ” since the area

of southern France was a place of Gothic settlement. At one stage many Goths converted

to Judaism and the terms “Goth” and “Jew” in southern France were used synonymously. ...

The wife of William the Conqueror was Matilda of Flanders [and] was descended from

Machir. The Dukes of Aquitaine (in western France) were also possibly descended from

William, son of Machir [ www.kuhnslagoon.net/whitepages/tea_telphi/machir.html ].

 

Here is yet another version of the same narrative:

 

The House of David in Babylon

 

The institution of the Babylonian Exilarchate began when King Nebuchadnezzar took

Jehoiachin, King of Judah, captive to Babylon in c. 597 B.C.... From Jehoiachin arose a royal

 

 

5. The Early Jews of France, 700-1200 c.E.

Davidic dynasty in Babylon reigning from their own palace and court over the Jewish com-

munities of the East. They reigned in regal splendor until the beginning of the fifteenth cen-

tury, when Tamerlane deposed them in 1401, and a branch of the family transferred to

Baghdad to lead the Jewish community until 1700.

 

Gershom and Machir went to Narbonne and founded the Western Dynasty of Exilarchs

there. Pepin (king of France) installed Machir, son of the Babylonian Exilarch, as the Jewish

King of Narbonne. Machir married a sister of Pepin called Alda. His son Guillame [William]...

was nicknamed “Hook Nosed.” He was fluent in Arabic and Hebrew. The heraldic device on

his shield was the same as that of the Eastern Exilarchs— the Lion of Judah. Guillame observed

the Sabbath and Sukkot during his campaigns. Machir’s sister married Pepin and became the

mother of Charlemagne [www.kuhnslagoon.net/whitepages/tea_telphi/machir.html].

 

From these two garbled accounts we glimpse an origin story that, if true, could

help account for three unusual circumstances we encountered during our research.

First, it would help better explain why HRH Prince Michael Stewart of Scotland

so strongly believes he is descended from Davidic Jews, when all the Stewart/Stuart

DNA tested thus far has not been Semitic, but rather Sephardic Rib. We believe it is

possible that the Babylonian scholar Machir, arriving to instruct the Jews of south-

ern France in the teachings of the Talmud, converted several persons in the surround-

ing population (as Benbassa noted), which would have been primarily of Gothic Rib

DNA.

 

If Machir also informed these new Rib converts that they were now of Davidic

lineage (as he, in fact, was), this would explain Michael Stewart’s ancestral French

Jewish forebears having this belief. It would also be the likely cause for the enormous

(and otherwise inexplicable) number of persons settling in Scotland from 1400 onward

surnamed Davidson, Davis, Dawes, Davies, Davison, Davie, Dow, Dowd and the

like (for King David), as well for those surnamed Lewis, Low, Law, Lawrey, Lovett

and similar forms, based on the Levite tribe from which King David sprang. And, it

would help explain the presence of two King Davids in Scotland between 1160 and 1290,

making it the only country in history, besides ancient Israel, to have a monarch named

David.

 

Further, it could provide an important clue to the identity of the mysterious “St.”

Machar in Aberdeen, Scotland (exact date and exact religion unknown) and substanti-

ate why the graveyard at St. Machar ’s church in Aberdeen is typically Crypto-Jewish in

style. Is it possible the Davidic Jewish scholar Machir of Narbonne could have visited a

Jewish congregation already situated in that city, or perhaps sent an envoy to instruct

them? 4 And finally, such a connection could account for why the granddaughter of William

the Conqueror through the female line was, in fact, named Judith (Yehudi, “female Jew”),

a name used exclusively at that time by persons of the Jewish faith. However, these fore-

going accounts were not deemed sufficiently cogent for us to draw support from, except

in an anecdotal and circumstantial sense.

 

Most fortuitously, the authors then stumbled across the following entry in the Jew-

ish Encyclopedia regarding France (2003, online version). According to this account, dur-

ing the period 300 to 650 C.E., the Jews residing in France were periodically subjected to

fines, restrictions and efforts to convert them to Christianity, with some very interesting

consequences (p. 10):

In order to insure the public triumph of the Church, the clergy endeavored to bring the Jews

to the acceptance of baptism.... Avitus, bishop of Clermont, strove long but vainly to make

converts. At length in 576 a Jew sought to be baptized. [In anger, ] one of [the Jew’s] former

coreligionists poured fetid oil over his head. The following Sunday the [Christian] mob that

accompanied the bishop razed the synagogue to the ground. Afterward the bishop told the

Jews that unless they were willing to embrace Christianity they must withdraw, since he as

bishop could have but one flock. It is said that five hundred Jews then accepted baptism, and

the rest withdrew to Marseilles.

 

By 689 c.E., however, the situation was altered dramatically for Jews in France (p.

11 ):

But at the south of France, which was then known as “Septimania” and was a dependency of

the Visigothic kings of Spain, the Jews continued to dwell and to prosper. From this epoch

(689) dates the earliest known Jewish inscription relating to France, that of Narbonne. The

Jews of Narbonne, chiefly merchants, were popular among the people, who often rebelled

against the Visigothic kings. It is noteworthy that Julian of Toledo accuses Gaul of being

Judaized. Wamba decreed that all the Jews of his realm should either embrace Christianity or

quit his dominions. This edict, which “threatened the interests of the country, ” provoked a

general uprising.The Count of Nimes, 5 Hilderic, the abbot Ramire, and Guimaldus, Bishop

of Maguelon, took the Jews under their protection and even compelled their neighbors to

follow their example. But the insurrection was crushed, and the edict of expulsion was put

into force in 673. Still, the exile of the Jews was not of long duration....

 

From a letter of Pope Stephen III (768-772) to bishop Aribert of Narbonne, it is seen that

in his time the Jews still dwelt in Provence, and even in the territory of Narbonne.... This

concession is probably connected with a curious episode in the struggle with the Arabs. The

“Roman de Philomene” recounts how Charlemagne, after a fabulous siege of Narbonne,

rewarded the Jews for the part they had taken in the surrender of the city; he yielded to

them, for their own use, a part of the city, and granted them the right to live under a “Jewish

king, ” as the Saracens lived under a Saracen king. Me'ir, son of Simon of Narbonne (1240), in

his “Milemet Miwah” refers to the same story.... A tradition that Charles granted to them a

third part of the town and of its suburbs is partly confirmed by a document which once

existed in the abbey of Grasse, and which showed that under the emperor Charlemagne, a

“king of the Jews” owned a section of the city of Narbonne, a possession which Charlemagne

confirmed in 791.

 

In the Royal letters of 1364 it is also stated that there were two kings at Narbonne, a Jew

and a Saracen, and that one-third of the city was given to the Jews. A tradition preserved by

Abraham ibn Daud 6 and agreeing in part with the statement of Benjamin of Tudela, his con-

temporary, attributes these favors to R. Makir, whom Charlemagne summoned from Baby-

lon, and who called himself a descendant of David. The Jewish quarter of Narbonne was

called “New City, ” and the “Great Jewry.” The Makir family bore, in fact, the name “Nasi”

(prince), and lived in a building known as the “Cortada Regis Judaeorum.”

 

The granting of such privileges would certainly seem to be connected with some particu-

lar event, but more probably under Charles Martel or Pepin the Short than under Charle-

magne.... It is certain that the Jews were again numerous in France under Charlemagne,

their position being regulated by law... They engaged in export trade, an instance of this

being found in the Jew whom Charlemagne employed to go to Palestine and bring back pre-

cious merchandise.... Isaac the Jew, who was sent by Charlemagne in 797 with two ambassa-

dors to Harun al-Rashid, was probably one of these merchants.... It was said that the Jews,

far from being objects of hatred to the emperor, were better loved and considered than the

Christians.

 

 

A Bishop Agobard also claimed:

 

 

5. The Early Jews of France, 700-1200 C.E.

 

The Christians celebrate the Sabbath with the Jews, desecrate Sunday, and transgress the reg-

ular fasts. Because the Jews boast of being the race of the Patriarchs, the Nation of the Right-

eous, the Children of the Prophets, the ignorant think that they are the only people of God

and that the Jewish religion is better than their own.

 

What we learn from this historically documented account is that there was a close

relationship between the Jews of France and the French monarchy; that the French Jews

had a very widespread trading network stretching to Central Asia, and beyond; and per-

haps most profoundly, that the French citizenry generally liked and respected Jews. Else-

where in the article it is noted that there were several instances of conversion to Judaism,

even among high-ranking church members.

 

We believe that it is certainly within the realm of possibility that segments of the

French population, especially in the southern and eastern sections of the country, con-

verted to Judaism and adopted surnames consistent with the belief that they were now

of the House of David, and of the Tribes of Judah and Levi. These newly-minted, Rib-

pedigree Davidsons and Levys would carry their new identities onward to England and

Scotland when joining the Norman entourage.

 

But They Weren’t Really Semitic...

 

Before leaving France to accompany our new French converts to England with

William the Conqueror, we wish to reiterate one point. Most of these persons, though

practicing Judaism, were not Semitic. Rather, they were for the most part Rib Mediter-

ranean, not Middle Eastern in their dominant ancestry. We believe this is why the Scot-

tish clan DNA (e.g., Gordon, Campbell, Forbes) collected and tested in our study is

strongly concentrated in the Iberian peninsula and southern France, and why it is not

classically Semitic and centered in Palestine or Judea.

 

If we reexamine the genealogy used by Prince Michael Stewart to establish his descent

from the tribe of Judah and compare it to the overview given in the Jewish Encyclopedia,

we see where a critical error has been made. In the Stewart genealogical chart, a line of

descent is drawn from Theodoric IV (720-732) to Guilhelm de Toulouse de Bellone, who

is the Davidic sovereign of Septimania (Narbonne). However, there are two mistakes

here. First, it was Guilhelm (William) who was given the honorary title Makir (teacher),

and not Theodoric. Second, Guilhelm was not a son of Theodoric, but rather a foreigner

who had been dispatched from the Jewish center at Babylon to Narbonne to establish a

shut (academy). Thus, the lineage of Pepin, Charlemagne, Louis I, Charles I and their

successors was not impacted by Judaic/Semitic/Davidic kinship through this source.

 

A Davidic bloodline does enter later on through Guilhelm, however, when his son

Prince Bernard of Septimania, the Imperial Chamberlain of the Carolingian court, mar-

ries Charlemagne’s daughter, Princess Dhuada. The continuing line through their son

Bernard would have carried Davidic and Semitic blood (see fig. 9, Davidic Descent to

Kings of Jerusalem).

 

However, we must also recognize two cultural signs of Judaism already present in

the Carolingian dynasty. First, the given name Dhuada means Davida. It is the feminine

form of David. To have named a daughter Dhuada and married her to a known Jew

strongly suggests that Charlemagne believed himself to be of Davidic, or at least Jewish,

ancestry. Second, Charlemagne’s son, Louis I (814-840), who became king and emperor,

married as his second wife a woman named Judith of Bavaria, and from that union came

Charles II (emperor 867-877). This line continued onward to some of the kings of

Jerusalem during the Crusades. 7

 

lrmengarde=Count Boso of

Vienne

 

r 1

 

Kunigund=Sigebert of

Verdun

 

Figure 9. Davidic Descent to Kings of Jerusalem. Figure by Donald N. Yates.

 

5. The Early Jews of France, 700-1200 C.E.

 

It was also within this Carolingian lineage that the Lion of Judah heraldic device

came to be adopted by French, Flemish and Norman nobles. They carried the device to

Scotland (for instance, William the Lyon, the Bruces, the Stewarts) and reintroduced it

to England with the Plantagenets. We do not infer any genuine genealogical support for

the presumption among the Bruces, Stewarts and Plantagenets that they were biological

descendants of David, nor has DNA testing conducted to date shown any evidence of

this. A more feasible conclusion is that among their ancestors during the years between

750 and 900 c.E. were converts to Judaism who instilled in family members a commit-

ment to the mitzvot of the faith along with the (erroneous) belief that they were of Davidic

descent.

 

Lest this “We are Davidic” scenario seem farfetched to the reader, we have included

in appendix D excerpts from the genealogies of families that also originated in France

and believed themselves to be Davidic, but also are not carrying Semitic genes. 8

 

 

Chapter 6

 

 

When Did Jews Arrive in Scotland?

 

 

Several sources posit that persons from the Levant, North Africa, and even Italy had

visited southwestern England near Cornwall before the Common Era (Cunliffe 2001, pp.

302ff.; Finn 1937, pp. 10-11). There were rich tin mines in this region that were exploited

by the early Phoenicians (800 b.c.e.), who traded with ports from France and Northern

Africa to Italy and Greece (Cunliffe 2001, pp. 302ff.; Thompson 1994, pp. 137-87; Gor-

don 1971; Casson 1971). Because the Judeans (Jews) often worked with the Phoenicians

as trading partners, some could have reached Britain as early as this time. The demog-

raphy of Cornwall still attests to a significant incidence of J and E3 genes in the region. 1

 

According to Brooks (2001), there are numerous well-established geographical links

between the Hebrews of the Mediterranean and peoples of the British Isles. The early name

of what is now Cornwall and Devon in southwestern England was Dumnoni, Dunmonii,

or Danmoni, which antiquarians have glossed as meaning “Dan’s Tin Mines” (pp. 89-90).

Among others, the distinguished Semitic studies professor Cyrus Gordon suggested that

this name, seen also in the Irish myth of the Tuatha (tribe) de Danaan, was identical with

that of the Biblical tribe of Dan (Gordon 1971). Finally, the Celtic scholar John Rhys

assembled strong evidence of Hebrew colonization of Britain in ancient times. Ireland

was known as Iberion, and the ancient name of the Israelites was Ibri or Iberi, derived

from the proper name Eber or Heber, the eponymous ancestor of that people (Brooks

2001, p. 90).

 

Notwithstanding the evidence, many Scottish historians and writers of Judaica seem

united in their desire to dismiss any early presence of Jews in Scotland. One goes so far

as to maintain:

 

There is no record of Jews settled in Scotland before the expulsion of English Jewry in 1290

and, in fact, there is little Jewish history in all of Scotland before the end of the eighteenth

century.... [Despite a law promulgated by the bishop of Glasgow in 1181-1187 forbidding

churchmen from using their benefices as collaterals on loans from Jews, ] it is extremely

unlikely that any Jews were resident in the area.... Apart from some Jewish traders and a

number of Jewish medical students in Edinburgh [e.g. Mordecai Marx and Levi Myers, both

from South Carolina], there were few Jews in Scotland before the formal establishment of

Jewish communities in Glasgow and Edinburgh in the early years of the nineteenth century.

 

There were few Jews in England.... Provincial Jewry remained small and although Jewish

communities were formed in Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester and some smaller English

provincial towns during the eighteenth century, no such development took place in Glasgow

or anywhere else in Scotland [Collins 1990, pp. 15, 17].

 

In Edinburgh, the story goes, “Scotland never bore the problems or tested the advan-

tages of a Jewish community within its borders until the year 1816 when twenty Jewish

families then living in Edinburgh founded a ‘Kehillah’ or Congregation of Jews, the first

ever to be seen in Scotland” (Phillips 1979, p. 1). Mentions of a “Mr. Wolf or Benjamin

of Edinburgh under date 1750, ” of Masonic Jews in the Lodge of St. David, and of Jew-

ish burials in Edinburgh have been ignored (Phillips 1979, pp. 1-2).

 

Let us, however, pick up the trail with a group of Jewish emigres who accompanied

William, Duke of Normandy, to Britain in the latter half of the eleventh century. One

English historian (Ludovici 1938, p. 2) states:

 

The first mention of Jews [in England] is to be found in the “Liber Poenitentialis” of

Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, a.d. 669. There are also references to Jews in the days

of Whitgaf or Wiglaf, King of Mercia, and Edward the Confessor. There can be little doubt,

therefore, that long before the [Norman] Conquest, Jews were established over here, though

probably not in large numbers. There is, however, no doubt whatsoever that William I was

responsible for the influx of a large crowd of Jews into England. They came from Rouen, and

the fact that he no doubt granted them extraordinary privileges, which were more or less

extended to them by every monarch of the Norman and Plantagenet lines up to the time of

Edward, is most significant. It indicates the explanation of a phenomenon otherwise inexpli-

cable — namely, that the crowned head of the land could have held under his protecting wing

for over two centuries a community of foreigners.

 

To this we would add that an even stronger explanation for William’s congeniality (and

that of subsequent Norman and Plantagenet English monarchs) towards the Jews was the

belief that the royal lineage itself carried Davidic Jewish ancestry. 2

 

Intriguingly, Ludovici raises, and then abruptly dismisses, the possibility that the

majority of these French Jews were converts to Judaism — i.e., that they were not ethni-

cally Semites, but rather European (p. 3):

 

Renan, pursuing his customary tactics, tries to imply that since the Jews of the early Middle

Ages in England and Germany came from France, and a high percentage of Gallic Jews were

converts, a large proportion of the alleged Jews of England and Germany may not have been

true Semites at all. The facts, however, are not in harmony with this hypothesis. Neither do

Hyamson, Goldschmidt, nor Abrahams— all of them Jewish historians and authors of books

on the Jews in England — ever hint at anything of the kind.

 

We, of course, do propose (and hopefully have shown the reader) that most of the

French Jews accompanying William were, in fact, likely carrying Rib DNA, and only a few

were genetically Semitic. Ludovici (1938) continues his discussion by noting that these

now-English Jews primarily were employed in international trade, banking and medi-

cine, 3 which corresponds with the accounts of other chroniclers (Barnavi 1992). Despite

their affluence, the Jews of England lived a precarious existence, primarily serving at the

caprice and pleasure of the reigning monarch. Two centuries after they first journeyed to

England, the first attacks upon them began. This likely caused an initial movement by some

Jewish families across the border into Scotland. As Ludovici (1938, p. 10) says:

 

At Richard I’s coronation in 1189 the first trouble on a large scale ultimately broke out....

 

There was a riot outside Westminster Abbey, in which the Christian population fell on the

Jews in the crowd, beat them, killed many of them, and pursued the rest to their houses,

which were sacked and burnt, in many cases with their inmates inside them. The king, who

heard of the tumult at his coronation banquet, did his utmost to stop the rioting and protect

the Jews, but in vain. The rioting lasted twenty-four hours, and during the massacre a

minority of Jews secured their safety only by receiving baptism. After the massacre, Richard

I issued an edict menacing punishment to all those who injured the Jews, but before this

edict was published, the Jews of Dunstable, wishing to forestall the possible repetition of the

London incidents in their town, are said to have gone over in a body to Christianity, and the

Jews in other cities are alleged to have done likewise.

 

It is very likely, we believe, that this 1189 pogrom was the origin of a Crypto-Jewish

presence in England. 4 Ludovici (1938, p. 13) continues:

 

From this time onwards, throughout the thirteenth century, the condition of the Jews in

England grew steadily worse. John’s reign was one of repeated extortions, and under Henry

III the royal demands became so intolerable, and the measures of compulsion so cruel, that

the whole of the Jewish community twice requested in vain to be allowed to leave the king-

dom.

 

Meanwhile, various measures had been passed which were calculated to destroy the peace

of the Jews in England. In 1218, for instance, they were ordered to wear a distinguishing

badge.... In 1222, Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, forbade the Jews to possess

Christian slaves and prohibited all intercourse of Christians with them. Moreover, by certain

laws of Henry III, all sexual intercourse between Jew and Christian was strictly forbidden,

and Jews were not allowed to practise as physicians. All through Henry Ill’s reign, commu-

nity after community of Jews was ransacked and massacred.... Late in the reign of Henry III,

moreover, disaffection was caused among large sections of the community, owing to the fact

that the Jews had become possessed of land... one of the last acts of Henry III s reign was to

disqualify all Jews from holding lands or even tenements, except the houses which they actu-

ally possessed, particularly in the City of London.

 

Edward I came to the British throne in 1271 C.E.; he issued in 1290 writs for the

expulsion of all Jews who would not convert to Christianity (Tovey 1967). Likely at this

time yet another set of English Crypto-Jews was created. Ludovici (1938, p. 16) writes:

 

Sixteen thousand Jews are supposed to have left England — i.e., all those who preferred exile

to apostasy.... Edward I not only allowed them to take their movable property with them and

“all pledges that had not been redeemed, ” but he also ordered all sheriffs to see that no harm

should overtake them.

 

It is no surprise we should find additional families with French Jewish DNA mak-

ing their way to Scotland at this time. And it is also not surprising that they would wisely

choose to practice their religion in secret — pretending outwardly to be Christian, while

adhering to Judaism among their families and close friends. Indeed, Ludovici (1938, p.

30) comments that both Crypto-Jews and the openly Jewish were present in England

from 1290 until their “official” re-entry under Oliver Cromwell in 1654; an assessment

with which others are in agreement (see, e.g., D. Katz 1996).

 

Not only were there Crypto-Jews (Jews who merely posed as Christians) in England in the

three hundred and fifty years following the expulsion, but also... there were Jews openly liv-

ing as such.... Jews as physicians, as philosophers, and men learned in various departments

of knowledge were admitted almost in every reign from the 14th century onwards. Jews are

mentioned in public life under Henry VI; Spanish Jews as having taken refuge in England

under Henry VII; eastern Jews as being favoured by Henry VIII; under Elizabeth, Houns-

ditch was already inhabited by Jews, and two or three Jewish doctors came into prominence,

one being physician to the Queen. Jews inhabited England under James I and Charles I, and

there was a large influx of them in the latter years of Charles I’s reign.

 

From Ludovici’s account, written in 1938, 5 we now turn to The Jews in the History

of England 1485-1850 (1996) by David S. Katz. Katz’s research focuses on the period sub-

sequent to the Sephardic Expulsion from Spain and Portugal, which provided the pri-

mary impetus for the second wave of Jewish emigres to Scotland. It was during this

period, for example, that the Caldwells are believed to have journeyed from France and

Spain to Scotland to find refuge.

 

Examining Katz’s work will also help provide us with some very important clues to

the psychological and sociological aspects of Crypto-Judaism. For instance, what reli-

gions did Crypto-Jews pretend to practice? What occupations did they follow? Whom

did they marry? And perhaps, most compelling, why did the descendants of Crypto-Jews

not rush forward and identify themselves as Jews once restrictions regarding Judaizing

were removed? We will argue that the patterns observable in England are analogous to

those found in Scotland and in most other Crypto-Jewish communities around the globe,

namely, the Melungeons in Appalachia and the conversos in New Mexico, Cuba, Puerto

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).

 

⇐ Предыдущая3456789101112Следующая ⇒

Поделиться: