Between The Straits: The York Massacre of 1190

I actually read a comment on a "liberal" blog somewhere within the last couple months that anti-semitism (which I refer to as Jew Hate, or Judeophobia depending on which is appropriate), did not exist prior to the 19th century. Seriously. Yes, there is an extreme breed of dumb ass out there, and there are a lot of them. They are all around us, all the time.

They pass themselves off as intellectual, often "liberal" (a term as misused as anti-semitism in my opinion), but are completely ignorant in any history that is beyond their realm of experience, or that hasn't been jammed into their heads by the onslaught of PC bullshit that is the undergraduate experience in many an American college...you know...white men are to blame for everything, Israel is bad, and the opinion of women in the classroom and lecture hall doesn't mean shit (at least that's how it was when I was in college, and one of the reasons I loathed the academic experience, and found myself spending most my time in the stacks educating myself, with the occasional roundtable of peers who also found themselves bored out of their fucking minds). That's not to say that white guys aren't responsible for a lot of fucked up shit, but fact is that in every culture there are segments that are responsible, during varying periods of history, for committing horrible horrible acts of savagery, brutality, and genocide. But I digress.

Let's start off with a humdinger from the Middle Ages, when Judeophobia really took off. The year is 1189 and Richard the Lionheart is crowned king. Richard made it plain that no Jews were to be admitted to his coronation festivities (he must have forgotten that Yeshki was a Jew, a Jew who turned water into wine...to me that's the kind of skill you want at a party, but that's just me). Anyway, there were some converts there including one named Benedict who, when brought before the new king, was announced as a convert, but identified himself as a Jew, who had brought gifts from many of the Jews of the realm. Well you can imagine that this didn't go over very well. This led to that and...yada yada yada...a riot broke out in London. Thirty Jews were killed. Richard let the rioting go for about 24 hours and then brought it to a halt, hanging three of the miscreants who helped get the good times rolling. He then decreed that no more persecuting of Jews would be tolerated. But this was merely the prelude for what would happen in York the following year.

In 1190 Richard and a host of nobles went abroad in a great massacre commonly referred to as a crusade. In York, the absence of nobility, along with the ascendence of a new archbishop of York who was apparently a bit on the flacid side when it came to asserting his authority, created a bit of a power vacuum; not the kind that keeps things spic and span, but the kind that let's ignorant idiots assert themselves, causing very fucked up things to happen. Such was the case in York.

Apparently there were quite a few landowners in the area who owed a bit of money to local Jewish lenders. Seeing the absence of anything resembling decent authority, at least any authority that would intimidate them, these men, led by Richard Malbysse, saw their chance to riot their way out of paying their debts.

Now it needs to be mentioned that prior to the incident at York, massacres of Jews were taking place all over England, largely a result of crusader fever, which apparently is a lot like dance fever only people end up properly dead, as opposed to just dying of embarrassment. Rampaging crusaders killed 50 Jews at Bury St. Edmonds in 18 March. There were also killings at Lynn, Stamford fair (parsley, sage, rosemary, and stabbing), with the Jews of Lincoln managing to find refuge in the local castle. Malbysse and his brute squad sacked the home of Benedict, the forced convert who had died in the rioting the previous fall, killing his widow in the process.

Now York was one of the largest centers of Jewry at the time, and was home to quite a few scholars. Fearing what would ensue, the Jews of York, led by Yosef of York, and their chief Rabbi, Yom Tov ben Yitzchak of Joigny, France, took refuge at what became known as Clifford's Tower which, at the time, was a wooden keep that had been originally built by William in 1068. They received permission of entry from the constable of the castle as Jews were now protected by the king (which, as we have already established, was not working out very well in the king's absence). But not long after their arrival the constable left to seek out the sheriff to complain that the Jews had "cheated him" according to accounts. Perhaps they engaged him in a game of mahjong and he didn't know the rules. When he returned with the county militia in tow, who had orders to evict the Jews from the castle (again, so much for the king's protection), they refused to let the constable in due to the fact that there was now a rather large and angry mob gathered.

After several days of siege the mob set fire to the castle. Rather than face forced baptism, many of the Jews took the way of the zealots at Masada. Fathers ritually slaughtered their wives and children. They were then killed by one of the rabbis, the last of which killed himself so that only he committed the sin of suicide. There were a handful that refrained from the martyring, accepting the promise of the forced baptism. They were promptly set upon by the mob and killed. Virtually all of York's Jews died in the incident.

Eventually the king's regent, one William de Longchamps, when he finally heard about the incident, was none too pleased and set about levying punishments. The sheriff and the constable were sacked, 52 noblemen were heavily fined, and Richard Malbysse was exiled to Scotland.

In the years following the incident, the castle was restored, the stone edifice known as Clifford's Tower being erected between 1245 and 1261. Excavations at the site in the early 20th century revealed charred wooden beams from the original castle 13 feet or so under the surface.

In 1978, a plaque was laid on the slope below the castle in the presence of the Chief Rabbi of England, the Archbishop of York, and a dsecendent of Richard Malbysse. The plaque bears the following inscription:

“On the night of Friday 16 March 1190, some 150 Jews and Jewesses of York, having sought protection in the Royal Castle on this site from the mob incited by Richard Malebisse and others, chose to die at each other’s hands rather than renounce their faith.”

Which is followed by the verse from Isaiah:

ישימו ליהוה כבוד ותהלתו באיים יגידו

“Let them honor G-d and declare His praise in the isles.”

Subsequently, the slopes beneath Clifford's Tower were sewn with daffodils as a memorial to the martyrs.

So the next time you encounter a sniveling little rat-faced git who tells you "anti-semitism" didn't exist prior to the 19th century you can say to them, "You're a stupid idiot."