17 January 2025

The Jewish community
in Colchester was one
of the most important
in mediaeval England

Stockwell Street was at the centre of Jewish life in Colchester in the 12th and 13th centuries (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

During my visit to Colchester earlier this week, I went in search of the stories of both the mediaeval and the modern Jewish communities in the Essex town that claims to be the oldest town in England, as well as being one of the newest cities.

The modern Colchester Synagogue is close to the Roman Walls and the ruins of Saint Botolph’s Priory. But there was a Jewish community in mediaeval Colchester from at least 1185 for over a century until the expulsion of Jews from England in 1290.

The mediaeval Jewish community in Colchester was centred on Stockwell Street, now part of the Dutch Quarter immediately north of the High Street and west of the castle. The Jewish community in mediaeval Colchester was so important that it was one of the 26 centres in England with an archa. These archae were official chests, provided with three locks and seals, and they held and preserved all the 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. Other centres with an archa included London, Canterbury, Lincoln, Norwich, Oxford, Cambridge, 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.

Jews are first mentioned as living in the Stockwell Street area of Colchester in 1185 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Jews are first mentioned as living in Colchester in 1185, when Benedict of Norwich paid a heavy fine of £40 for selling goods without licence to, among others, Aaron, Isaac and Abraham of Colchester.

Five years later, a wave of anti-Jewish attacks that started in Lynn, Norfolk, in 1190 spread to Colchester.

Colchester was ranked ninth in importance among the Jewish communities in England in 1194, according to the Northampton Donum, a rescript to the Jews of England by Richard I, Richard the Lionheart, when he returned from Germany, imposing a levy of 5,000 marks to be paid by them towards the expenses of his ransom from captivity. In all, £1,803 7s 7d was collected, with the Jews of Colchester contributing £41 to the levy of 5,000 marks, an indication of the wealth within the community.

The community had a special bailiff in 1220. He was named Benedict and his role was probably to collect the taxes imposed upon the community.

A deed in 1252 shows the Jewry of Colchester was located in Stockwell Street.

The position of the Jews of Colchester as vassals of the Crown is illustrated in 1255 when Henry III granted the custody of the Castle of Colchester and the lands belonging to it to Guy de Rochefort. The grant expressly excluded the woods of Kingwood and the Jews of the town. The king claimed sole jurisdiction over the Jewry of Colchester, and when he granted the castle to Guy of Rochfort, he reserved the right to enter the town and the hundred of Colchester to search for Jews’ debts.

A grant of the Castle of Colchester in 1255 excluded the Jewry of Colchester (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

An agreement dated 1258 shows the Jewish community in Colchester was living in Stockwell Street. The Victoria County History records that in 1258 a rabbi, Samuel son of the Rabbi Jechiel, was given 15 years tenure of a house in East or West Stockwell Street that may have contained the synagogue recorded in 1268.

Friendly community relations in Colchester are disclosed in a curious incident in December 1277 when several Jews and Christians were involved in an infringement of the forest laws. They were severely fined, the Jews more heavily than the others, and the Christians stood surety for Jews and vice-versa. The Jews of Colchester were named as Saute, son of Ursel, Cok and Samuel, sons of Aaron, and Isaac, their chaplain.

One of the Jewish offenders escaped to Lincoln, but he returned 10 years later, when a portrait of him was drawn upon the Forest Roll by the scribe who had described his offence. The caricature is the earliest dated portrait of a Jew in England. He wears a yellow badge with the Tablets of the Law on his upper garments, and was named as ‘Aaron, Son of the Devil.’

Jews were expelled en masse from England in 1290, including the Jewish community in Colchester in 1290. By then, the Jews of Colchester had become the seventh largest Jewish community in England. They included nine families of about 50 individuals, with nine houses in Stockwell Street and a ‘schola’ or synagogue that was confiscated and transferred to the Crown.

Later, the area immediately north of the High Street in Colchester became known as the Dutch Quarter. It includes: Maidenburgh Street, West Stockwell Street, East Stockwell Street, Stockwell Street, Saint Helen’s Lane, Northgate Street and Nunn’s Road.

Flemish Protestant refugees fleeing religious persecution after a rebellion against their Spanish Catholic rulers settled in these streets in the 16th century. The houses pre-date the Dutch arrival and previously had been inhabited by the Jewish community and other immigrants.

When Jews began to return to England in the 1650s, a small number initially returned to Stockwell Street, and there was a small number of Jews in Colchester by the end 18th century. It seems there was a synagogue in Colchester by the late 18th century in what was then known as Synagogue Yard, in Angel Lane, near West Stockwell Street, although little is known about it.

The Dutch Quarter fell into relative decay by the early decades of the 20th century. The area was regenerated in the 1970s and received a Civic Trust Building award. Today, the Dutch Quarter is a quiet residential area just off of the High Street.

But more about the modern Jewish community in Colchester on another Friday evening, hopefully.

Shabbat Shalom, שבת שלום‎

East Stockwell Street … the Jews of Colchester were the seventh largest Jewish community in England by 1290 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Daily prayer in Christmas 2024-2025:
24, Friday 17 January 2025

The healing of the paralytic man … a fresco in Analipsi Church in Georgioupoli in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

The 40-day season of Christmas continues until Candlemas or the Feast of the Presentation (2 February). This week began with the First Sunday of Epiphany (Epiphany I, 12 January 2025), with readings that focus on the Baptism of Christ.

The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Antony of Egypt (356), Hermit and Abbot, and Charles Gore (1932), Bishop and Founder of the Community of the Resurrection. We are travelling to York later today. But, before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.

A blessing in the Chapel of the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Mark 2: 1-12 (NRSVA):

1 When he returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home. 2 So many gathered around that there was no longer room for them, not even in front of the door; and he was speaking the word to them. 3 Then some people came, bringing to him a paralysed man, carried by four of them. 4 And when they could not bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him; and after having dug through it, they let down the mat on which the paralytic lay. 5 When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven.’ 6 Now some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts, 7 ‘Why does this fellow speak in this way? It is blasphemy! Who can forgive sins but God alone?’ 8 At once Jesus perceived in his spirit that they were discussing these questions among themselves; and he said to them, ‘Why do you raise such questions in your hearts? 9 Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, “Your sins are forgiven”, or to say, “Stand up and take your mat and walk”? 10 But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins’ – he said to the paralytic – 11 ‘I say to you, stand up, take your mat and go to your home.’ 12 And he stood up, and immediately took the mat and went out before all of them; so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, ‘We have never seen anything like this!’

Inside the Chapel in the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

This morning’s Gospel reading at the Eucharist (Mark 2: 1-12) is another healing story that follows yesterday’s story of Christ healing a man with leprosy and the story the day before of him healing Simon Peter’s mother-in-law.

Today’s Gospel reading has its synoptic parallels in Matthew 9: 2-8 and Luke 5: 18-26

I had one of my regular injections for my B12 deficiency last week, two appointments or consultations earlier in the month, and another one within the next week or two. Meanwhile, I continue to have regular appointments in Milton Keynes University Hospital and the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, monitoring my pulmonary sarcoidosis and as part of the care and attention I continue to receive as a follow-up to my stroke almost three years ago in March 2022.

I remain truly grateful for the caring and attentive treatment I receive in both hospitals and in Sheffield, and I am even more grateful for the way Charlotte Hunter recognised I was having a stroke, brought me to hospital, ensured I received the attention I needed, visited me every day, and brought me back to Stony Stratford.

Some years ago, at an event in Saint Martin-in-the-Fields Church, Trafalgar Square, when people were asked to bring along their favourite poems, Charlotte brought Seamus Heaney’s poem ‘Miracle’, from his collection Human Chain (2010).

In these poems, written after his stroke in 2005, Seamus Heaney speaks of suffering and mortality. This poem ‘Miracle’ retells the story of the miraculous healing of the man variously described as a paralytic man and a man with palsy. The story is told in all three synoptic Gospels, including this morning’s Gospel reading (Luke 5: 17-26), and – like Seamus Heaney, I suppose – my situation makes me wonder whether this man was also suffering after a stroke.

It is interesting how Heaney tells the story of healing and this man from the perspective of the man’s friends. In this way, his poem becomes an expression of gratitude by the poet to all who helped his recovery after his stroke.

When Jesus looks at the paralysed man brought to him by his friends, he sees not just the faith of the man, but the faith of his friends too. In other words, this is a story of the blessing of friendship and the miracle of community as much as it is a story of miraculous healing.

Heaney’s focus is on neither Christ as the healer nor the invalid, but on the friends who helped this sick man to reach Jesus by lowering him through a skylight in the roof. The title of the poem refers to the miracle in the Gospel story, but for the poet the miracle is found in the opening lines:

Not the one who takes up his bed and walks
But the ones who have known him all along
And carry him in
.

The friends of this man love him and seek his healing, no matter what it takes for them to do, and so they become the true miracle at this moment. They are there when no one else is, they care for their friend, and they give him the priceless gift of friendship.

When they hear in Capernaum that Jesus is healing the sick, they give their friend one more gift. They carry him to Jesus. And when they cannot get him through the door, they then lower him through the roof.

What persistent love they show their friend, like the persistent love of one who calls a taxi, packs all my bags, brings me to the A&E unit, stays with me while I am admitted, transferred to the emergency unit, and then, late at night, when I am moved to a ward.

This poem sees the Gospel story through the eyes of this man’s faithful friends. So often, I read this story through the eyes of the paralysed man, through the eyes of the crowd, or even through the eyes of the Pharisees and teachers. But Seamus Heaney invites me to join the man’s friends, who stand with

their shoulders numb, the ache and stoop deeplocked
In their backs, the stretcher handles
Slippery with sweat
.

We are invited to stand with those friends, with the hope and the faith and the love that brings them there, to stand with them on behalf of all who hurt, to feel the burn in their hands from the paid-out rope, the ache in their backs from the burden they have carried, to see the gift of this miracle, this grace, that was all gift, but that required something extra of them.

There are many miracles in this story and many lessons. This poem reminds us how sometimes we need to be carried by our friends, while at other times we are the ones who need to help ‘bear one another’s burdens’ (Galatians 6: 2).

Miracle, by Seamus Heaney (1939-2013)

Not the one who takes up his bed and walks
But the ones who have known him all along
And carry him in —

Their shoulders numb, the ache and stoop deeplocked
In their backs, the stretcher handles
Slippery with sweat. And no let up

Until he’s strapped on tight, made tiltable
and raised to the tiled roof, then lowered for healing.
Be mindful of them as they stand and wait

For the burn of the paid out ropes to cool,
Their slight lightheadedness and incredulity
To pass, those who had known him all along.

Today’s Prayers (Friday 17 January 2025):

The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘A Bag of Flour’. This theme was introduced on Sunday with a Programme Update by Rachel Weller, Communications Officer, USPG.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Friday 17 January 2025) invites us to pray:

Father God, may we be bold with our prayers, actions and words. May our lament turn into action.

The Collect:

Most gracious God,
who called your servant Antony to sell all that he had
and to serve you in the solitude of the desert:
by his example may we learn to deny ourselves
and to love you before all things;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

Merciful God,
who gave such grace to your servant Antony
that he served you with singleness of heart
and loved you above all things:
help us, whose communion with you
has been renewed in this sacrament,
to forsake all that holds us back from following Christ
and to grow into his likeness from glory to glory;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflection

Continued Tomorrow

An image of Saint Antony above the entrance to Saint Antony’s Church in Mitropolis Square, Rethymnon … he is commemorated in the Church Calendar on 17 January (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

The magnolia tree in a courtyard in the hospital in Milton Keynes (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)