Aaron of York or Aaron fil Josce, was a Jewish financier and chief rabbi of England. He was born in York before 1190 and died after 1253. He was probably the son of Josce of York, the leading figure in the York pogrom of 1190.
Aaron of York or Aaron fil Josce, was a Jewish financier and chief rabbi of England. He was born in York before 1190 and died after 1253. He was probably the son of Josce of York, the leading figure in the York pogrom of 1190.
Aaron appears to have obtained some of his father's money and commercial connection, for he was appointed Presbyter Judaeorum, or senior representative, of the Jews of England in 1237, in succession to Josce of London. This would imply that he was very wealthy, as only the wealthiest of the Jews obtained this position. He did not hold the office more than a year, as he was succeeded in 1237 by Elias of London (Prynne, Short Demurrer, ii.38).
In 1219 he was appointed by the King to act as a talliator (assessor of tallage) and was among the twelve wealthiest Jews of the Kingdom.
In 1221 on the marriage of the King's sister to Alexander II of Scotland, Aaron paid £14 15s towards her dowry.
In 1223 he paid £43 towards a tallage of £3000, making the second highest payment.
In 1235 Henry III had made an agreement with him that he would only tax him 100 marks, reduced to 60. This was never honoured.
In 1236 Aaron agreed to pay to King Henry III of England 100 marks a year to be free of all taxes (Tovey, Anglia Judaica, Oxford, 1738, p. 108). Notwithstanding this, in 1273 he was mulcted 4,000 marks of silver and four of gold (Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora, iv.260). This was not an unusual occurrence, for in 1250 he was fined 14,000 marks of silver and ten of gold for the use of the Queen, on the charge of having falsified a deed. On this occasion he told Matthew Paris himself that he had paid the king altogether no less a sum than 30,000 marks in silver and 200 in gold (ibid. v.136). A number of Hebrew sheṭarot dealing with Aaron's transactions still exist, one of them entirely in his own handwriting.
When Henry III went to war in 1243, in his absence Aaron of York was accused of transgressions against the King; these are not recorded. He was sent to prison and managed to leave when he paid a fine of £100. The following year he was accused of forging a deed and was summoned before the King. On threat of imprisonment he paid the sum of 30,000 marks in silver to the King and 200 gold marks as a gift to the Queen. At this time the King was desperate for money as the war in France had not gone well. This left Aaron of York in ruins and the King realised that he was no more of use to him and dismissed him from his office. [1]
Alexander II was King of Scotland from 1214 until his death. He concluded the Treaty of York (1237) which defined the boundary between England and Scotland, virtually unchanged today.
Tallage or talliage may have signified at first any tax, but became in England and France a land use or land tenure tax. Later in England it was further limited to assessments by the crown upon cities, boroughs, and royal domains. In effect, tallage was a land tax.
Matthew Paris, also known as Matthew of Paris, sometimes confused with the nonexistent Matthew of Westminster, was an English Benedictine monk, chronicler, artist in illuminated manuscripts, and cartographer who was based at St Albans Abbey in Hertfordshire. He authored a number of historical works, many of which he scribed and illuminated himself, typically in drawings partly coloured with watercolour washes, sometimes called "tinted drawings". Some were written in Latin, others in Anglo-Norman or French verse.
The history of the Jews in England goes back to the reign of William the Conqueror. Although it is likely that there had been some Jewish presence in the Roman period, there is no definitive evidence, and no reason to suppose that there was any community during Anglo-Saxon times. The first written record of Jewish settlement in England dates from 1070. The Jewish settlement continued until King Edward I's Edict of Expulsion in 1290.
In early modern Europe, particularly in Germany, a court Jew or court factor was a Jewish banker who handled the finances of, or lent money to, royalty and nobility. In return for their services, court Jews gained social privileges, including, in some cases, being granted noble status.
Sir John Maunsell, Provost of Beverley Minster, was a king's clerk and a judge. He served as chancellor to King Henry III and was England's first secretary of state.
It is believed that the first Jews in England arrived during the Norman Conquest of the country by William the Conqueror in 1066. The first written record of Jewish settlement in England dates from 1070. They suffered massacres in 1189–90. In 1290, all Jews were expelled from England by the Edict of Expulsion.
Aaron of Lincoln was an English Jewish financier. He is believed to have been the wealthiest man in Norman England; it is estimated that his wealth exceeded that of the King. He is first mentioned in the English pipe-roll of 1166 as creditor of King Henry II for sums amounting to £616 12s 8d in nine of the English counties. He conducted his business through agents, and sometimes in conjunction with Isaac, fil Joce; by these methods building up what was practically a great banking association that spread throughout England.
Hagin ben Moses or Hagin filus Mossy was Presbyter Judaeorum or chief rabbi of the Jews of England and agent of Richard of Cornwall. He appears to have been the chirographer of the Jews of London, and obtained great wealth, but he lost it under Edward I. In 1255 he was appointed presbyter on the expulsion of Elias from that office. It seems probable that he was a brother of Elias. During the riots preceding the battle of Lewes in 1264 he fled to the Continent. His wife, Antera, and his son, Aaron, seem to have held possession of the only remaining synagogue in London at the time of the Edict of Expulsion in 1290.
Elias of London also known as Elijah ben Moses or Elias le Evesque, was Presbyter Judaeorum in 13th-century England.
The Presbyter Judaeorum was the chief official of the Jews of England prior to the Edict of Expulsion. The office appears to have been for life, though in two or three instances the incumbent either resigned or was dismissed. Prynne argues that the Presbyter Judaeorum was merely a secular officer in the Exchequer of the Jews to keep the rolls of control, whereas Tovey argues that the use of "sacerdos" and "pontifex" as synonymous of the office shows its ecclesiastical character.
Yom Tovof Joigny, also denoted of York was a French-born rabbi and liturgical poet of the medieval era who lived in York, and died in the massacre of the Jews of York in 1190. A Hebrew language hymn attributed to him, transliterated "Omnam Kayn" or "Omnam Ken" is still recited in Eastern Ashkenazi synagogues each year on the evening of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. He was a student of Rabbeinu Tam.
Josce of York was the leader of the Jewish community in York, England, and the leading figure in the York pogrom of 1190. He committed suicide along with nearly the entire Jewish community, rather than face death or conversion at the hands of an angry mob.
Taxation of the Jews in Europe refers to taxes imposed specifically on Jews in Europe, in addition to the taxes levied on the general population. Special taxation imposed on the Jews by the state or ruler of the territory in which they were living has played an important part in Jewish history. The abolition of special taxes on the Jews followed their admission to civil rights in France and elsewhere in Europe at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries.
Events from the 1230s in England.
The Vitae duorum Offarum "The lives of the two Offas" is a literary history written in the mid-thirteenth century, apparently by the St Albans monk Matthew Paris; however, the most recent editor and translator of the work rejects this attribution and argues for an earlier date, in the late twelfth century. The earliest editor, William Wats, argues that the texts are older than Matthew's day but were revised by him; he bases this view on stylistic elements, such as the inclusion in the first Vita of a quotation from Lucan which also appears repeatedly in Matthew's Chronica maiora.
The Exchequer of the Jews was a division of the Court of Exchequer at Westminster which recorded and regulated the taxes and the law-cases of the Jews in England and Wales. It operated from the late 1190s until the eventual expulsion of the Jews in 1290.
Josce of London was an English Jew and the Presbyter Judaeorum, or Chief Rabbi, of the Jews of England from 1217 to 1237.
During the Middle Ages there was a small Jewish community in Worcester, a city and county town of Worcestershire in the West Midlands of England that mainly provided money lending services to the non-Jewish citizens. Worcester also hosted a national gathering of England's leading Jews in 1241, to allow the Crown to assess their worth for taxation. The Worcester Bishopric was hostile to the Jewish community in Worcester, commissioning tracts against Jewry, and pushing for segregation of Jews and Christians. During the Second Barons' War, Jews suffered violence and many died in 1255, at the hands of Simon de Montfort's supporters.
Benedict of York was a moneylender and a leading member of the 12th-century Jewish community in York, England. Benedict was considered the second-greatest moneylender in York after Josce of York. Benedict acquired several lands as a result of his activities, and debts to him were still being honoured a decade after his death.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain : Joseph Jacobs (1901–1906). "Aaron of York". In Singer, Isidore; et al. (eds.). The Jewish Encyclopedia . New York: Funk & Wagnalls.