HOME Study Questions The Middle Ages in England
The Middle Ages in England
The history of the Jews in England is in many ways paradigmatic of Jewish experience in many parts of Europe. It is also a period that anticipates one of the most significant aspects of the subsequent Jewish history: the expulsion in 1290. It was the first of numerous expulsions of Jews from kingdoms and principalities throughout Western, Central, and Eastern Europe.
England was also the site of the first blood libel, a charge that has continued to be brought against Jews intermittently until the present day. How do ritual murder accusations fit into the fabric of Christian religiosity? What connections can you draw between the blood libel and the coin clipping?
Consider the background of the Jews who initially came to live in England: what were the political circumstances that brought them to England, and what were the ramifications of those politics for later Anglo-Jewish history? What did it mean to be a Jew in England in the twelfth and thirteen centuries? How is Jewishness inflected by gender is Jessica Jewish in the same way as Shylock?
The charges against the Jews of usury and, especially, coin-clipping, took on larger symbolic significance in English culture. How might you interpret those symbols and their cultural ramifications? Do you see them reflected in TMV?
What cultural markers and economic structures hindered Jewish integration into English society? What kind of Jewish identities were created and performed, and what performances of Christianity created tensions between the two communities?
Are there elements of Christianity (for example, concepts of bloodand purity) that are reflected in the political developments leading up to the expulsion of the Jews in 1290? What relationships can you identify between the economic and the theological tensions? Do the body, gender and sexuality play a role in shaping either or both?
Given the history of the expulsion, how might viewers of TMV have regarded the figure of Shylock? Could the figure of Shylock bring together or even resolve the theological and political tensions over the presence of Jews in England?
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