no Expulsion of Jews from England

on this day (July 18th) in 1290AD King Edward I of England expelled the 16,000 Jews living in his Kingdom, what if the Jews of England were never expelled?
 
They...continue to live in England until some other king decides to use "I'll exile the Jews" for purposes like Edward did.

Probably his grandson.

Butterflies, but probably not major changes in and of itself.

The Jews never being expelled from England at all? 16,000 more people potentially producing all sorts of stuff (counting their offspring and their products). England may not change very much though.

Too hard to predict.
 
The Jews never being expelled from England at all? 16,000 more people potentially producing all sorts of stuff (counting their offspring and their products). England may not change very much though.

Too hard to predict.

a map of Europeans kicking out Jews:

Expulsion_judios-en.svg


England is the second earliest date, so if England never kicks them out, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian Jews might settle in England, not to go to far but England as the Poland for the West for Jews.
 
Possible, but it would take more than simply not expelling English Jews to make England actually draw Jewish settlement like Poland did OTL.
 
Possible, but it would take more than simply not expelling English Jews to make England actually draw Jewish settlement like Poland did OTL.
If the Kings of England began and maintained a policy of not treating the Jews nearly as badly as the rest of Europe did, that would do it. They'd probably still play 'soak the rich Jew' a lot, but having no pogroms and such would be a great draw.
 
If the Kings of England began and maintained a policy of not treating the Jews nearly as badly as the rest of Europe did, that would do it. They'd probably still play 'soak the rich Jew' a lot, but having no pogroms and such would be a great draw.

This is true. But that would take more than just Edward I not expelling them - might be a great POD for such a thing happening, but it would only be the beginning.
 
A quick and dirty trip to Wikipedia suggests that Jews were better-off in England until the crusades, especially the third crusade. So one possible PoD(and one which would probably improve the postion of Jews in much of late mideval Europe) seems to be to not have the Crusades happen. I'm not 100% what the best way to not have the crusades is, but a stronger Byzantine empire seems like it could work. Alternatively, you could have the First Crusade happen but but keep Richard I from going on it.
 
That would be kind of cool if some english king had the idea that instead of expelling those industrious peoples from his country like everyone else in Europe he could just take in all of the jews from the other European kingdoms.
 
I was always suprised that Charles I didn't formally invite the Jews back, as it would have been a source of income that didn't involve Parliment. It was left to Cromwell to make the formal overturning of the decree.

It would be interesting to see what would have happened if the Jews fell into the Feudal system under William I rather than be direct subjects of the King. I suspect that we would have seen Jewish Lords and Barrons etc. alot earlier than Victorian times. I think that it would have seen the end of British antisemitism much earlier as well.
 
I was always suprised that Charles I didn't formally invite the Jews back, as it would have been a source of income that didn't involve Parliment. It was left to Cromwell to make the formal overturning of the decree.

It would be interesting to see what would have happened if the Jews fell into the Feudal system under William I rather than be direct subjects of the King. I suspect that we would have seen Jewish Lords and Barrons etc. alot earlier than Victorian times. I think that it would have seen the end of British antisemitism much earlier as well.
I would have thought that butterflying away the expulsion of the Jews would in fact mean more anti-semitism, as they could be blamed for plagues, bad harvest etc which they weren't blamed for in England IOTL because they weren't there.
 
Well, the anti-semitism depends on how well they are integrated into English society, really.
 
Some Kings would be very happy to see a non-church educated Chancellor incharge of the English purse. This would lead to Jews being given titles and lands in the same way that other chancellors where.

Once an area of the country has been ruled by a non-christian and not suffered as a result then the superstition about Jews causing bad things would dissapear.

Just think what would have happened to England if there was a Jewish chancellor to Henry VIII.
 
Some Kings would be very happy to see a non-church educated Chancellor incharge of the English purse. This would lead to Jews being given titles and lands in the same way that other chancellors where.

Once an area of the country has been ruled by a non-christian and not suffered as a result then the superstition about Jews causing bad things would dissapear.

Just think what would have happened to England if there was a Jewish chancellor to Henry VIII.

Since when did people become this rational about things like bigotry? The idea that Jews were a source of evil didn't come from Jewish misrule, why would good Jewish rule erase it?

It might be possible to set up a more healthy environment, but it would take much work.
 
Incidentally, what variety of Jew were they? Sephardi? Ashkenazi? I know when Cromwell let them back in they were mostly Sephardi, but I'm talking about the ones who were kicked out in the first place.
 
Incidentally, what variety of Jew were they? Sephardi? Ashkenazi? I know when Cromwell let them back in they were mostly Sephardi, but I'm talking about the ones who were kicked out in the first place.

IIRC, they actually spoke a French based language (Judeois??? Tsorfatizi??) rather than the Sephardi Ladino or Ashkenazi Yiddish.

I really don't remember details, ATM.
 
IIRC, they actually spoke a French based language (Judeois??? Tsorfatizi??) rather than the Sephardi Ladino or Ashkenazi Yiddish.

I really don't remember details, ATM.

trying to look that up on the wiki I found this:

However, during Henry's reign (1100–1135) a royal charter was granted to Joseph, the chief rabbi of London, and all his followers. Under this charter, Jews were permitted to move about the country without paying tolls, to buy and sell goods and property, to sell their pledges after holding them a year and a day, to be tried by their peers, and to be sworn on the Torah rather than on a Christian Bible. Special weight was attributed to a Jew's oath, which was valid against that of 12 Christians, because they represented the King of England in financial matters. The sixth clause of the charter was especially important: it granted to the Jews the right of movement throughout the kingdom, as if they were the king's own property (sicut res propriæ nostræ).
 
Interesting idea. Might lead to England becoming more technologically advanced.

Don't know if I buy into it, but there's a hypothesis that Jews bred themselves smarter and Christians bred themselves dumber. Literate Rabbis were considered good marriage partners, and the community helped support them if they ended up with lots of children. Clever Christians, younger sons who would not inherit much were forced to become celibate monks. And any girl who was smart but had few prospects for marriage would often become a nun. Thus Christians bred out smartness.

And Jewish communities often invested in skills and training, rather than land and property. They never knew when the next progrom would take their property away. Skill and craft cannot be stolen.

An England with more Jews living more stable lives might have many advantages. Practical denim pants. Reliable flintlocks when everyone else is stuck with matchlocks. Perhaps even an earlier discovery of how cholera is spread.
 
The franco-jewish language was not quite french based but had strong provencal influences. I've seen it called Djudyo in some sephardic papers but I think it has another name (there was also a jewish-greek language).

Also the problem is that medieval christianity is still very very antisemitic, and the black death is coming up. Countries with large jewish minorities during the black death had horrible progroms on top of the concentration of the jewish population in urban centers (which led to more deaths).

However, in the 18th century it might lead to something like France's situation (emancipation of the jews during the revolution). If it somehow survives that long.

Practical denim pants. Reliable flintlocks when everyone else is stuck with matchlocks.
Denim comes from North Italy and Southern France, basic flintlocks exist since the 16th century (snaplock/snaphaunce) and the jewish input on intellectual culture of christian europe was not particularly great because of the "separate and not equal at all" policy.
 
Last edited:
Just think what would have happened to England if there was a Jewish chancellor to Henry VIII.

Henry VIII was a horrible king, his economic policies bankrupted the country, his reign saw horrible inflation, and he barely ever won a war despite throwing himself in every continental conflict around. He faced revolt after revolt. I'm not sure a jewish chancellor to Henry VIII would be good even if people were actually smarter about this.
 
Top