The Medieval Jewish community at the Tower of London

Historic Royal Palaces Podcast

Historic Royal Palaces

London, Palace, Tower, Historic, Conservation, Royal, Lecture, Learning, Kensington, Hampton, Kew, Banqueting, History, Court, Of, House, Palaces

4.6 • 635 Ratings

🗓️ 29 May 2025

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The history of the Jewish community in Medieval England is complex and fascinating, but it hasn’t received as much attention as it deserves when it comes to our understanding of the Tower of London.

In this bonus episode as part of our mini-series, curator Charles Farris is joined by Dr Rory MacLellan and Professor Miri Rubin to discuss how the Jewish community interacted with the Crown and the Tower of London during the Middle Ages.

This episode is a re-release of the episode on the same topic from 2023, to add context to our reopening of the Medieval Palace.

Read more about the Jewish community and the Tower of London. Jewish Medieval History at the Tower | Tower of London | Historic Royal Palaces

Rory's research can be found on our website. The Jewish History of the Medieval Tower of London | Historic Royal Palaces

Visit the medieval palace. Medieval Palace | Tower of London | Historic Royal Palaces

Content warnings:

This episode discusses prejudice against Jewish people, including:

Blaming Jewish people for the death of Christ

Blood libel

Accusations of greed and financial crimes

Imprisonment

Mob violence

Execution

Forced conversion

Expulsion

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to the Historic Royal Palace's podcast.
0:07.0	I'm Charles Farris and I'm a curator and historian here at the Tower of London.
0:12.0	This week we are bringing you a bonus episode as part of our mini-series to celebrate the reopening of the medieval palace.
0:20.0	It is impossible to fully understand the place that the Tower of London occupied in medieval society
0:26.6	without examining the complicated story of the Jewish community in England at this time.
0:32.6	So, to bring in a wider context to our discussion of the medieval palace, we are re-releasing
0:39.2	the fascinating conversation I had with two experts on Jewish history during this period.
0:46.0	We hope you will find this an interesting episode, which is just as important today as it
0:50.7	was back in 2023 when we first recorded it.
1:05.0	Please be aware that in this episode we will be discussing facets of historic anti-Judaism and contemporary anti-Semitism. Detailed content warnings can be found in the episode's show notes.
1:10.0	The Tower of London holds a principal place in the complex story of the coercion and coexistence
1:15.6	of England's medieval Jewish community.
1:18.6	It is a place where medieval Jews sought refuge from anti-Jewish attacks, but in contrast,
1:23.6	it was also a place of imprisonment, persecution and execution.
1:28.3	The Tower was one of the main sites from which the expulsion of the Anglo jury took place in 1290,
1:34.3	seeing an entire community displaced on the orders of England's king at the time, Edward I.
1:39.3	More recent research has shown the true extent to which Jews and Christians coexisted at the Tower of London,
1:45.0	which has helped to give us a more nuanced picture of life for the medieval Jewish community in England.
1:50.0	It's a complicated history that hasn't received enough representation at the Tower of London.
1:55.0	But to help us explore all of this today, I'm joined by Dr Rory McClellan,
2:00.0	who has recently worked on the project at
2:01.9	Historic Royal Palaces that focused on the Jewish history of the Medieval Tower of London.
	...

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