Abstract
This article explores the relation between the expulsion of Jews from medieval England and France and state building, geo-politics, regime styles, and taxation in these countries. Jews were evicted as a result of attempts by kings to manage royal insecurity, refashion relations between state and society, and build more durable systems of taxation within the territories they claimed as theirs. As they engaged in state building and extended their ties, often conflictual, to key societal and political actors, Jews became financially less important but more visible as outsiders, becoming a liability for the crown. Similar mechanisms were at work despite important differences distinguishing England’s growing regime of rights and representation and France’s emergent absolutist patrimonialism.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Bouvines did not produce a complete or crisp break, as the English Crown maintained control over Poitou until 1226 and episodically over Gascony until 1453 (having been restored to England in the Treaty of Paris of 1303.
Tilly mentions the expulsions in Europe as a way to homogenize in one paragraph in Coercion and Capital, and European States AD 990–1990 (New York: Blackwell, 1990), p. 107.
A second major treatment of the contrast between parliamentary and absolutist regimes is Brian M. Downing, The Military Revolution and Political Change: Origins of Democracy and Autocracy in Early Modern Europe (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990).
A tallage “was an intermittent tax paid either in money or in kind by the direct feudal subjects of rulers and was spent at the discretion of the ruler.” See Judith Green, The Aristocracy of Norman England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 240.
From the evidence at hand, it is not possible to know precisely whether Edward responded to the knights or offered the arrangement in anticipation of their well-known wishes.
It is interesting that Louis IX never gave credence the notion of Jewish crimes against Christian children, much more interested to accumulate moral capital as he battled Jews on usury.
See also Jordan (1998), pp. 4–5.
Bisson argues that the term “Estates-General” is still useful as applied to Philip the Fair’s assemblies. He points out that “These consultations were indeed the first of a long series of national or central assemblies attended by men and communities of the three great orders of French society” (pp. 558–559).
See also Ertman (1997).
Jews were recalled by Louis X in 1315, the first son of Philip IV to take the throne. Louis X had accepted the Jews who had been expelled by his father into Navarre where he ruled. As the new King of France, Louis confronted similar economic demands and recalled the Jews in order to boost the finances of the monarchy. Jews paid for their reentry: 22,500 pounds and a yearly subvention of 10,000 pounds. Furthermore, they were allowed to collect on debts before 1306, but on the condition that 2/3 of their income go to the Crown. For the first time in Capetian history Louis X offered the Jewish community a specific charter of protection, regulation, and readmission, but only for 12 years. Between 1326 and 1327, as this contract expired, Jews again left. By 1359, it is said that Jews were recalled, but very few came back.
References
Bairoch, P. (1988). Cities and economic development: from the dawn of history to the present. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Baldwin, J. W. (1986). The government of Philip Augustus: foundations of French royal power in the middle ages. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Baron, S. W. (1929). Nationalism and Intolerance, Babylon to seventeenth century. The Menorah Journal, 16, 503–515.
Bartlett, R. (2000). The making of Europe: Conquest, colonization, and cultural change, 950–1350. London: Allen Lane.
Barzel, Y. (1992). Confiscation by the ruler: The rise and fall of Jewish lending in the middle ages. Journal of Law and Economics, 35(1), 1–13.
Barzel, Y., & Kiser, E. (1997). The development and decline of medieval voting institutions: a comparison of England and France. Economic Inquiry, 35, 244–260.
Barzel, Y., & Kiser, E. (2002). Taxation and voting rights in Medieval England and France. Rationality and Society, 14, 473–507.
Bendix, R. (1978). Kings or people: Power and the mandate to rule. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Benevolo, L. (1993). The European city. Oxford: Blackwell.
Berman, L. (1937). Histoire des Juifs de France des Origines à nos Jours. Paris: Librairie Lipschutz.
Bisson, T. N. (1969). Consultative functions in the King’s parliaments (1250–1234). Speculum, 44, 353–373.
Bisson, T. N. (1972). The general assemblies of Philip the Fair. Studia Gratiana, 15, 539–564.
Bradbury, J. (1998). Philip Augustus: King of France, 1180–1223. London: Longman.
Brown, E. A. R. (1972). Cessante Causa and the taxes of the Last Capetians: the political applications of a philosophical maxim. Studia Gratiana, 15, 565–587.
Brown, E. A. R. (1973). Philip IV and the morality of taxation. In J. B. Henneman (Ed.), The Medieval French monarchy (pp. 111–119). Hinsdale: Dryden.
Brown, E. A. R. (1980). Philippe Le Bel and the Remains of Saint Louis. Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 122nd year, 175–182.
Brown, E. A. R. (1991). Philip V, Charles IV, and the Jews of France: the alleged expulsion of 1322. Speculum, 66, 294–329.
Carpenter, D. (2003). The struggle for mastery: Britain, 1066–1284. London: Allen Lane.
Chazan, R. (1973). Medieval Jewry in Northern France: A political and social history. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Chazan, R. (1980). Church, State, and Jew in the middle ages. New York: Behrman House.
Coulet, N. (1990). L’Expulsion des Juifs de France. L’Histoire, 139, 9–16.
Dobson, R. B. (1974). The Jews of Medieval York and the massacre of march 1190. York: St. Anthony’s.
Downing, B. M. (1992). The military revolution and political change: Origins of democracy and autocracy in early modern Europe. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Elias, Norbert. (2000 [1939]). The civilizing process: The history of manners and state formation and civilization. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
Elman, P. (1937). The economic causes of the expulsion of the Jews. The Economic History Review, 7, 145–154.
Ertman, T. (1997). Birth of the Leviathan: Building states and regimes in medieval and early modern Europe. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Favier, J. (1978). Philippe Le Bel. Paris: Fayard.
Fawtier, R. (1940). L'Europe occidentale de 1270 a 1380. In G. Glotz (Ed.), Historie Génèrale, Histoire du moyen age (vol. 6). Paris: Presses universitaires de France.
Fawtier, R. (1953). Parlement d’Angleterre et Etats Generaux de France au Moyen Age. Comptes Rendus des séances de l’année, Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, 30, 275–284.
Fawtier, R. (1960). The Capetian Kings of France: Monarchy & Nation, 987–1328, trans. Lionel Butler and R. J. Adam. London: Macmillan.
Giddens, A. (1987). The Nation-State and violence. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Graetz, H. (1894). Geschichte der Juden, vol. 7. Leipzig.
Green, J. A. (1997). The aristocracy of Norman England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Guenée, B. (1967). Etat et nation en France du moyen age. Revue Historique, 237, 17–30.
Hohenberg, P. M., & Lees, L. H. (1985). The making of Urban Europe 1000–1950. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Holt, J. C. (1992). Magna Carta (2nd ed.). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Huscroft, R. (2006). Expulsion: England’s Jewish solution. Uckfield: Tempus.
Hyams, P. (1974). The Jewish minority in Medieval England, 1066–1290. Journal of Jewish Studies, 25, 270–293.
Jones, M. (1994). The New Cambridge Medieval history. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Jordan, W. C. (1979). Louis IX and the challenge of the crusade: A study in rulership. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Jordan, W. C. (1989). The French Monarchy and the Jews: From Philip Augustus to the Last Capetians. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Jordan, W. C. (1998). Jews regalian rights and the constitution in Medieval France. American Journal of Jewish Studies, 23, 1–16.
Jordan, W. C. (2003). Europe in the high middle ages. New York: Viking.
Kriegel, M. (1978). La Prise d’une Decision: I’expulsion des Juifs d’Espagne. Revue Historique, 260, 49–90.
Lachmann, R. (2002). Capitalists in spite of themselves. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Langmuir, G. (1976). Prolegomena to any present analysis of hostility against the Jews. Social Science Information, 15, 689–727.
Langmuir, G. (1990). Toward a definition of antisemitism. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Leonard, G. H. (1891). The expulsion of the Jews by Edward I: An essay in explanation of the exodus, A.D. 1290. Transactions of the Royal Historical Society. New Series, Volume 5.
Levi, M. (1988). Of rule and revenue. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Levy, M. (1995). Massacre de juifs en France lors la deuxième croisade. Archives juives, 28, 89–92.
Lewis, P. S. (1962). The failure of the French Medieval estates. Past & Present, 23, 3–24.
Lyon, B. (1973). Philip IV; a King who avoided being constitutional. In J. B. Henneman (Ed.), The Medieval French monarchy (pp. 111–119). Hinsdale: Dryden.
Mann, M. (1988). States, war, and capitalism. Oxford: Blackwell.
Mann, M. (1986). The sources of social power. Volume I: A history of power from the beginning to A.D.1760. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Mechoulan, S. (2004). The expulsion of the Jews from France in 1306: a modern fiscal analysis. Journal of European Economic History, 33, 555–584.
Menache, S. (1985). Faith, myth and politics—the stereotype of the Jews and their expulsion from England and France. The Jewish Quarterly Review, 75, 351–74.
Menache, S. (1987). The King, the Church, and the Jews: some considerations on the expulsion from England and from France. Journal of Medieval History, 13, 223–236.
Menache, S. (1993). The Templar Order: a failed ordeal. Catholic Historical Review, 79, 1–17.
Mundill, R. R. (1998). England’s Jewish solution: Experiment and expulsion, 1262–1290. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Nahon, G. (1962). Contributions à l’histoire des Juifs en France sous Philippe Le Bel. Revue des Etudes Juives, 121, 60–81.
Parkes, J. W. (1938). The Jew and the medieval community. London: Soncino.
Perry, F. (1901). Saint Louis. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons.
Picot, G. (1901). Documents relatifs aux Etats génèraux et assemblées reunis sous Philippe le Bel. Paris: Imprimerie nationale.
Picot, G. (1969). Histoire des Etats génèraux. 5 vols. Vol. 1. New York: Burt Franklin.
Pirenne, H. (1936). Economic and social history of Medieval Europe. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, Ltd.
Richardson, H. G. (1960). The English Jewry under Angevin Kings. London: Methuen and Company.
Richardson, H. G., & Sayles, G. (1931). The King’s ministers in parliament. The English Historical Review, 46, 194–203.
Roth, C. (1949). The intellectual activities of medieval english Jewry. Oxford: Oxford University Press for The British Academy.
Schwarzfuchs, S. R. (1967). The expulsion of the Jews from France (1306). In The Seventy-fifth anniversary volume of the Jewish quarterly review, pp. 482–489. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Sivery, G. (1993). Philippe Auguste. Paris: Plon.
Stacey, R. C. (1988). 1240–1260: A watershed in Anglo-Jewish relations? Historical Research, 61, 135–150.
Stacey, R. C. (1997). Parliamentary negotiation and the expulsion of Jews from England. In M. Prestwich, R. H. Britnell, & R. Frame (Eds.), Thirteenth century England, VI, Proceedings of the Durham Conference 1995. Woodbridge: The Boydell.
Stacey, R. C. (2001). Jews and Christians in Twelfth-Century England: some dynamics of a changing relationship. In M. A. Signer & J. Van Engen (Eds.), Jews and Christians in twelfth-century Europe. South Bend: Notre Dame University Press.
Strayer, J. R. (1971). Medieval statecraft and the perspectives of history: Essays by Joseph R. Strayer. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Strayer, J. R. (1980). The reign of Philip the Fair. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Strayer, J. R., & Taylor, C. H. (1939). Studies in early French taxation, Harvard historical monographs; XII. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Thomas, H. (2003). The English & the Normans: Ethnic hostility, assimilation, and identity, 1066-c.1220. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Tilly, C. (Ed.). (1975). The formation of National States in Western Europe. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Tilly, C. (1990). Coercion, capital, and European States, AD990-1990. Oxford: Blackwell.
Veitch, J. M. (1986). Repudiations and confiscations by the medieval state. The Journal of Economic History, 41, 31–36.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Barkey, K., Katznelson, I. States, regimes, and decisions: why Jews were expelled from Medieval England and France. Theor Soc 40, 475–503 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-011-9150-8
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-011-9150-8