Wikipedia

History of the Marranos in England

TheHistory of Sephardic Jews in Englandconsists of theSephardic Jews' contribution and achievement in England.

Sephardic Jews were Spanish and Portuguese Jews living in the Iberian Peninsula who converted or were forced to convert to Christianity during the Middle Ages, but continued to practice Judaism in secrecy.

Arrival of Sephardic Jews

edit

Documents suggest that, although small in number at the time, Sephardic Jews fleeing persecution from theInquisitiondeveloped a small community inLondonaround the late 16th century, largely known from contemporarySpanishandPortuguesesources writing about English Catholic ambassadors' repeated complaints of Jews from this community meeting to celebratePassoverandYom Kippurin London.[1][2] Toward the middle of the 17th century a considerable number of Sephardic merchants settled in London and formed there a secretcongregation,at the head of which wasAntonio Fernandez Carvajal.They conducted a large business with theLevant,EastandWest Indies,Canary Islands, andBrazil,and above all with theNetherlands,Spain, andPortugal.They formed an important link in the network of trade spread, especially throughout the Spanish andPortugueseworld by the Sephardi or secret Jews (see Commerce). Their position enabled them to giveCromwelland his secretary,John Thurloe,important information as to the plans both ofCharles Stuartin Holland and of the Spaniards in theNew World(see L. Wolf, "Cromwell's Secret Intelligencers" ). Outwardly they passed as Spaniards and Catholics; but they held prayer-meetings at Creechurch Lane, and became known to the government as Jews by faith.

Creechurch Lane and, later in 1701, theBevis Marks Synagoguein 1701 become the first Jewish religious places since theEdict of Expulsionof 1290. In the following three centuries, Sephardic Jews communities established near the major European sea ports likeAmsterdamand London, helping theMarranoswho were expelled from theSpanish Inquisitionto rise up new merchant activities.[3]

Puritans call for the Jews' return

edit

Meanwhile, public opinion in England had been prepared by thePuritanmovement for a sympathetic treatment of any proposal by the Judaizing sects among the extremists of theParliamentaryparty for the readmission of the Jews into England. Petitions favouring readmission had been presented to the army as early as 1649 by twoBaptistsofAmsterdam,Johanna Cartwright and her son Ebenezer ( "The Petition of the Jews for the Repealing of the Act of Parliament for Their Banishment out of England" ); and suggestions looking to that end were made by men of the type ofRoger Williams,Hugh Peters,and by Independents generally. Many were moved in the same direction by mysticalMessianicreasons; and their views attracted the enthusiasm ofMenasseh Ben Israel,who in 1650 published hisHope of Israel,in which he advocated the return as a preliminary to the appearance of the Messiah. The Messiah could not appear till Jews existed in all the lands of the earth. According toAntonio de Montezinos,theTen Tribeshad been discovered in the American Indians of Ecuador, and England was the only country from which Jews were excluded. If England admitted them, the Messianic age might be expected.

In fiction

edit

The Queen's Fool,historical novel byPhilippa Gregory,is told from the point of view of a (fictional) Marrano girl living in England at the time ofQueen Mary I.

See also

edit

References

edit
  1. ^Shapiro, James (15 March 2016)."How were Jews regarded in 16th-century England?".Discovering Literature: Shakespeare & Renaissance. British Library. Archived fromthe originalon 9 October 2023.Retrieved15 September2023.
  2. ^Prior, Roger."A second Jewish community in Tudor London".Jewish Historical Studies.31, 1988–1990. Jewish Historical Society of England: 137–152.JSTOR29779868.
  3. ^Elizabeth Ann Mitchell (6 May 2014).In the Style of Toleration: Bevis Marks and the Synagogue Architecture of Seventeenth-Century London.University of Virginia. p. 1.doi:10.18130/V3PD5J.OCLC7355542304.Archivedfrom the original on 2 June 2018.(M.A. thesis, with the supervision ofGabriel N. Finder)
  • This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain:Singer, Isidore;et al., eds. (1901–1906). "England".The Jewish Encyclopedia.New York: Funk & Wagnalls.
  • Katz, David. The Jews in the History of England, 1485–1850. Oxford: Clarendon, 1994.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=History_of_the_Marranos_in_England&oldid=1249465494"