Christians and Jews in Angevin England: The York Massacre of 1190, Narratives and Contexts - Tapa dura

For all scholars of twelfth- and thirteenth-century England there is much to learn from this book. ... The editors and Press are to be congratulated on producing such an impressive and stimulating volume... York Medieval Press has, since 1999, added impressively to our knowledge of the history, literature and culture of the Middle Ages both in Britain and on the Continent. NORTHERN HISTORY

A scholarly and stimulating volume. YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

Through its new approach to old sources and examination of new sources, the collection provides important insights into Christian attitudes toward Jews, as well as moments of violence against Jews and their everyday lives in medieval England. JOURNAL OF CHURCH AND STATE

The volume as a whole makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the history of the Jewish community in medieval England and its relationship with the Christian population and English royal government. CATHOLIC HISTORICAL REVIEW

A substantial addition to the growing corpus of recent work on the Jews of medieval England. ... An impressive volume. ENGLISH HISTORICAL REVIEW

An impressive and rich collection of articles. Each and every one.repays careful attention. The reader gets filled up with a very solid mixture of facts about the inner workings of Jewish life in Angevin England as well as an appetite for more. MEDIEVAL HISTORIES

The mass suicide and murder of the men, women and children of the Jewish community in York on 16 March 1190 is one of the most scarring events in the history of Anglo-Judaism, and an aspect of England's medieval past which is widely remembered around the world. However, the York massacre was in fact only one of a series of attacks on communities of Jews across England in 1189-90; they were violent expressions of wider new constructs of the nature of Christian and Jewish communities, and the targeted outcries of local townspeople, whose emerging urban politics were enmeshed within the swiftly developing structures of royal government.
This new collection considers the massacre as central to the narrative of English and Jewish history around 1200. Its chapters broaden the contexts within which the narrative is usually considered and explore how a narrative of events in 1190 was built up, both at the time and in following years. They also focus on two main strands: the role of narrative in shaping events and their subsequent perception; and the degree of convivencia between Jews and Christians and consideration of the circumstances and processes through which neighbours became enemies and victims.

Sarah Rees Jones is Senior Lecturer in History, Sethina Watson Lecturer, at the University of York.

Contributors: Sethina Watson, Sarah Rees Jones, Joe Hillaby, Nicholas Vincent, Alan Cooper, Robert C. Stacey, Paul Hyams, Robin R. Mundill, Thomas Roche, Eva de Visscher, Pinchas Roth, Ethan Zadoff, Anna Sapir Abulafia, Heather Blurton, Matthew Mesley, Carlee A. Bradbury, Hannah Johnson, Jeffrey J. Cohen, Anthony Bale