The main vicus Judeorum in 13th century Cambridge survives as All Saints' Passage (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
Patrick Comerford
When I was back in Cambridge last week, I went in search once again of the sites associated with the Jewish community in mediaeval Cambridge.
There is a tradition that the Round Church near Saint John’s College was a synagogue, and the parishes of All Saints and Saint Sepulchre were ‘in the Jewry.’ A mediaeval church in Saint John’s Street, Cambridge, was known as All Saints in the Jewry, and previously as All Saints by the Hospital, because of its proximity to the Hospital of Saint John the Evangelist.
Cambridge was one of the six principal cities of mediaeval England and one of the 26 centres in England to have an archa. These archae were official chests, provided with three locks and seals, and they held and preserved all deeds and contracts of the Jewish communities.
The archae were part of the reorganisation of English Jewry ordered by Richard I following the massacres of Jews in England 1189-1190. During the riots and massacres after his coronation, the mobs had destroyed Jewish financial records, resulting in heavy losses of Crown revenues.
The archae were introduced to safeguard royal interests in case of future disorder. All Jewish possessions and financial transactions were registered in designated cities. In each city with an archa, a bureau was set up with two reputable Jews and two Christian clerks, under the supervision of a new central authority known as the Exchequer of the Jews.
Cambridge was one of the original cities with an archa. Other centres included London, Canterbury, Lincoln, Norwich, Oxford, Winchester, Bedford and possibly Bristol, Gloucester and Northampton or Nottingham. The centres had increased in number to 27 by the mid-13th century. By the time of the mass expulsion of Jews from England in 1290, Jews had already been excluded from eight of these centres and only 19 archae were active.
The site of All Saints in the Jewry, a church in the heart of the mediaeval Jewry in Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
Jews are first mentioned as living in Cambridge in 1073. The first recorded medieval Cambridge Jew was Theobold of Cambridge (Theoboldus Kantebrugie). He is mentioned in 1144 as an alleged convert to Christianity and a monk. He played a crucial role in establishing the case for Saint William’s martyrdom at the hands of the Jews of Norwich, and so he became a key figure in disseminating the first-known propaganda alleging ritual murder.
Another early episode in the history of Jewish Cambridge is of a fine imposed on Comitissa, a Jewish woman living in Cambridge, for allowing her son to marry a Jewish woman from Lincoln without the king’s permission. This Comitissa was probably the mother of Moses ben Isaac Hanassiah, the author of the Sefer ha-Shoham.
There was a Jewish Cemetery in Cambridge in use from some time after 1177, and there is speculation that this may have been at the site of the Selwyn Divinity School, built in Saint John’s Street by Basil Champneys in 1878-1879.
The Jews of Cambridge do not seem to have suffered much during the riots of 1189-1190.
There is a tradition that the Round Church in Cambridge was once a synagogue (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
In the 13th century, the Cambridge Judaismus was located in the comparatively compact area of the town between the churches of the Holy Sepulchre and of All Saints in the Jewry. The main vicus Judeorum in the years before 1275 survives to this day as All Saints' Passage. The most important mediaeval synagogue probably stood there, although probably not as a separate building.
Benjamin of Canterbury or Cambridge was a rabbi and a disciple of Rabbi Tam. He is more likely to have been of Cambridge as the Latin records refer to ‘Magister Binjamin’ at Cambridge and the transliteration of Cambridge in Hebrew is near to that of Cambridge. No Benjamin is mentioned as living at Canterbury in the 12th century, but a distinguished ‘Magister Benjamin’ of Cambridge is mentioned in 1204 during the reign of King John.
Benjamin seems to have been a member of the English school of Masorites and grammarians, including Moses ben Isaac, Moses ben Yom-Ṭob, Berechiah ha-Naḳdan, and Samuel ha-Naḳdan, the last of whom he quotes.
Berechiah ha-Nakdan, in his commentary on Job, refers to ‘my Uncle Benjamin’, who was probably the same individual. He is mentioned in the list of mediaeval rabbis drawn up by Solomon Luria. Only one halakic decision of his is known: it forbids the purchase of milk from a Gentile unless a Jew be present when it is drawn. But a number of notes by a Rabbi Benjamin on Joseph Ḳimḥi’s Sefer ha-Galuy have been attributed to Benjamin of Canterbury or Cambridge. He died in the early 13th century.
The first administrative traces of the presence of Jews in the city of Cambridge seem to date from the 13th century. Henry III granted the house of Benjamin the Jew to the town as a jail in 1224. This was on the site of the present Guildhall.
Some historians suggest old synagogue was near the prison – also the site of the house of Benjamin the Jew and later the site of the Guildhall on Market Hill (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
About 50 Jewish families are recorded in Cambridge in documents between 1224 and 1240, and Cambridge remained one of the more important of the Jewries in England in England in the 13th century, primarily because it was the seat of an archa.
Aaron and Isaac le Blund held positions of financial influence and authority within the Jewry in the 1240s, while Jacob and Moses de Clare were similarly prominent before the latter migrated to Sudbury in or before 1270.
After the battle of Evesham on 4 August 1265, John d’Eyville and a formidable band forced their way on to the Isle of Ely. From their headquarters there, they ‘used Cambridge as a supply base’, blackmailing the burgesses, terrorising the canons of Barnwell Priory and allegedly holding rich Jews and others to ransom. They massacred some of the Jews of Cambridge on 12 August 1266 before they seized the town’s archa and removed it to Ely. There it presumably remained until the suppression of the dissidents on the Isle in July 1267.
Within a decade, Jews were banished from Cambridge and from the rest of the region to Norwich in 1275 at the instigation of Eleanor of Provence, the mother of Edward I. By the end of the year, on 24 November 1275, the list of Jewish archae in England selected for official inspection in the crown’s interest included Huntingdon but there is no mention of Cambridge.
Edward I issued an edict in 1290, expelling all 5,000 Jews from England and confiscating their property. The Jews who were expelled crossed to France and Flanders.
Some historians suggest old synagogue was near the prison – also the site of the house of Benjamin the Jew and later the site of the Guildhall on Market Hill. It was later given to the Franciscans, who first arrived in Cambridge ca 1226 and later had their main house in Cambridge on the site of Sidney Sussex College.
Hebrew-language manuscripts collected by the orientalist Thomas Erpennius were donated to the Cambridge University Library in 1632. Then, 15 years later, the library housed the Hebrew books of the Italian rabbi Isaac Faragi. However, Jews did not return to England – or to Cambridge – until after the decree of expulsion was annulled by Oliver Cromwell in 1656.
Shabbat Shalom, שבת שלום
The Franciscans, who were granted the once Jewish-owned site at the Market Hill, had their main house in Cambridge on the site of Sidney Sussex College (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
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