Edict of Expulsion

The Edict of Expulsion was a royal decree issued by Edward I of England on 18 July 1290 expelling all Jews from the Kingdom of England. Edward told the sheriffs of all counties he wanted all Jews expelled by no later than All Saints' Day (1 November) that year. The expulsion edict remained in force for the rest of the Middle Ages. The edict was not an isolated incident, but the culmination of over 200 years of increasing antisemitism in England. The edict was eventually overturned more than 350 years later, during the Protectorate when Oliver Cromwell permitted the resettlement of the Jews in England in 1657. The first Jewish communities of significant size came to England with William the Conqueror in 1066, when William issued an invitation to the Jews of Rouen to move to England, probably because he wanted feudal dues to be paid to the royal treasury in coin rather than in kind (which at the time meant paying a debt with goods and services rather than with money), and for this purpose it was necessary to have a body of men scattered through the country who would supply quantities of coin. After the Norman Conquest, William instituted a feudal system in the country, whereby all estates (i.e., most of the productive farmlands and grazing lands in the country) formally belonged to the Crown; the king then appointed lords (tenants in chief) over these vast estates, who owed duties and obligations (financial and military) to the king. Under the lords (higher nobility) were other vassals (tenants, sub-tenants, and sub-sub-tenants), down to free peasants, and at bottom the serfs, who all owed duties to their immediate lord, who in turn protected those who lived on his land. Merchants had a special status in the system, as did Jews. Jews were declared to be direct subjects of the king, unlike the rest of the population. This was an ambivalent legal position for the Jewish population, in that they were not tied to any particular lord but were subject to the whims of the king, and it could be either advantageous or disadvantageous.