Bury's Darkest Day

 

 

Mediaeval remains of Jews murdered by
a mob, Feb 6th, 1190. Found in ancient
well in Norwich, 2004.

I recently read a report of the finding of the remains of Jewish children and adults in an ancient, disused well in Norwich. The discovery had, in fact, been made in 2004 during the construction of a shopping centre, and research on the remains of the 17 people revealed evidence of a bloody mediaeval pogrom. Eventual radiocarbon dating analyses have revealed that the bodies were thrown into the well often head-first, between 1161 and 1216. Historical records show that there was an antisemitic massacre in 1190 on February 6th when all the Jews in Norwich were taken from their houses, and some from the castle where they had taken refuge and murdered. This item caught my eye because of the date. I had recently learned that an unbelievable 57 Jews had been murdered here in Bury on 19 March, 1190. The dates of the two massacres were clearly not coincidental.

Mediaeval Anglo-Jewish deeds.

Jewish people had first come to England with William the Conqueror from Normandy where there was a sizeable population, by 1066 and they had financed the castle and cathedral building of William through which he cemented his control over the country. Jews were often rich because they practised usury; the lending of money at interest, something forbidden to Christians, and many powerful men financed castles and wars this way. Jews were outside the feudal system, could not own land and could not bear arms but their legal facility to practice usury aroused much envy from the general population. They were not party to the laws of the land but were dependent on the protection of the king which also meant that they were subject to his every whim. In all probability, Jews in Britain never felt secure; there are many examples in mediaeval times of deeds and debts, legally documented, signed and sealed, being seized and destroyed by interested parties. Although Britain's Jews were originally centred on London, in the 1100s, many moved away with some settling in East Anglia, including in Bury St Edmunds where the siting of the large, prosperous Abbey would have provided countless opportunities for usury.

Mediaeval view of Moyses Hall with
arched windows and gables intact
before the collapse of the east wall
and subsequent re-building 
in 1803-4.

The Jewish quarter of Bury was centred on Hatter Street, then bluntly labelled, Heathenman’s Street. Between Hatter Street and Whiting Street, was a stretch of the present Abbeygate Street, entitled Spicer

Row in mediaeval times and was the centre of the town’s highly popular spice trade. The spice trade, importing, retailing, wholesaling, was one of the very few trades open to Jews and there were almost certainly Jewish businesses in Spicer Row in what was part of the Jewish ghetto. It is likely there was a Jewish Synagogue in Bury, and the case has been made for Moyses Hall; a building of the appropriate period and size though the proximity of a nearby pig market makes this less likely. There are numerous early references to Moyses Hall [Moses’ Hall] as the Jewish House or the Jewish Synagogue and it was built in 1180 during a period of great prosperity and stability for the Jews of Bury St Edmund. Fronting on to the marketplace, Moyses Hall could certainly have been an ideal hub for Jewish businesses and a large expensive stone building, in an age of wattle and daub, would have provided security for financial dealings. However, Robert Butterworth, in his Not Saint Edward’s Men, makes a plausible case for the synagogue being situated in the Jewish quarter, in Heathenman’s Street, in the present Numbers 25-26 which is on high ground [a requirement] and has evidence of an old well in the basement which would have been a necessary source for ritual washing. It was also later the site of the chantry of St Robert; Robert was a choirboy reputedly murdered by the Jews in 1181. Wherever there were settlements of 

The narrative of Little St Robert of Bury.

Jews, they were almost automatically, and falsely, accused of many such child murders. Although the boy was never canonised, he became known, popularly, as Little St Robert with his tomb in the Abbey attracting many worshippers and with incidental income from the devout faithful, for the Abbey. Butterworth feels that the siting of the chantry of Little St Robert on the site of the previous Synagogue, might well have appealed to the mediaeval clerical mind!

Coronation of Richard the Lionheart.

In 1189 Richard the Lion-Heart came to the throne and Jews were turned away from his coronation banquet in London “under the apprehension that they would bewitch the king”; and a number were killed the same night in riots. During the following year when soldiers were being recruited to accompany the king on his forthcoming Crusade, religious fervour was high and there were more anti-Jewish riots and rampages with many murdered in King’s Lynn, Norwich, Stamford and York immediately before the Bury episode. 

On St. Edmunds Day on November 20 1189 the new king visited his friend, Abbott Samson, in the Abbey and spoke of his imminent Crusade to the Holy Land to vanquish the infidel. In Lent, when normally antisemitism was high, a sermon was preached in the Abbey church, probably by Samson, on “vanquishing the infidel.” The local population took this to mean, the Jews and a riot ensued. The Jews, probably unofficially warned, fled Heathenman Street for the normal sanctuary of the Abbey granted by William the Sacrist who was on good terms with Bury’s Jews. He had allowed them free access to the Abbey and given permission for the Jews to keep their valuables in the Abbey’s treasury. But on this Palm Sunday when the town was engaged in anti-Jewish rioting, Abbot Samson denied them entry and 57 were killed in a part of what are now the Abbey Gardens. Soon after this terrible event, on 9 October 1190, Abbott Sansom obtained from his friend, King Richard, permission to banish all the Jews from Bury St Edmunds. Normally, during a formal banishment, all belongings, houses, land owned by Jews, were confiscated by the king and this happened in Bury.

The central teardrop symbol in the Memorial
Peace Garden

On or near the killing field now stands the lovely Memorial Peace Garden, with a shiny sculpted teardrop, a universal symbol of sorrow, in the centre. There are 57 cobblestones embedded round the edge of the garden to commemorate the 57 local Jews murdered here in 1190. These are intended as a reflection of the Jewish tradition of placing stones on a cairn to remember the dead. Most appropriately, the local Holocaust Memorial Day service has been held here every 27^th January since 2001 although, interestingly, the 57 commemorative cobblestones and the inclusion of the memorial status of so many Jewish deaths in the riot of 1190, has apparently only been here since January 2015. It is a beautiful peaceful glade, ripe for meditation.

The Bodleian Bowl
A bronze alms vessel, found in the River Lark
in 1696. Probably stolen and then discarded
during the 1190 massacre.
It bears the name of Joseph Sancto of Bury.
He was the son of Yechial Sancto, Bury's 12th century Rabbi.

Star of David, one of two in the Norman tower and traditionally
said to be there because local Jews contributed to the 
re-building of the tower, 1330-1380, after a disastrous riot and fire. However
there were no Jews living in Bury during this period.

Bibliography.

Robert Butterworth. Not Saint Edward's Men. 2004.

Memorial Peace Garden and the Jews of Medieval Bury St Edmunds. Civic pamphlet. Rob Lock 2015.