Jewish Life, Persecution and Expulsion in Medieval Europe (History HL)

By the 11th century, Jewish communities were scattered across much of Europe — from the Rhine valley in Germany to the cities of Spain, France and England. Despite being a minority and facing restrictions, Jews played roles that medieval Christian society depended on and often could not fill itself.

Why Jews occupied these roles: Canon law (Christian church law) forbade Christians from charging interest on loans — this was called usury. Jews were not bound by this rule, so they stepped into the role of moneylenders and financiers. This was not a free choice so much as a niche created by exclusion from other professions.

Four key areas of contribution

The double bind: Jewish communities were tolerated precisely because they were useful — but that usefulness (especially moneylending) made them resented. Debtors who owed money to Jewish lenders could accuse them of greed or exploitation. This contradiction — needed but resented — made Jewish communities permanently vulnerable.

Persecution of Jews in medieval Europe was not a single event but a recurring pattern with overlapping causes. The IB syllabus names three: religious hysteria during the Crusades, official and popular anti-Semitism and scapegoating, and the belief that Jews caused the Black Death. Each built on the last.

Cause 1 — Religious hysteria during the Crusades

When Pope Urban II launched the First Crusade in 1095, he called on Christians to recapture Jerusalem from the Muslims. But for some crusading bands — especially irregular groups of poor crusaders moving through the Rhine valley — the logic was straightforward: why travel all the way to the Holy Land to fight the enemies of Christ when there were Jews at home? In 1096, mobs led by figures such as Count Emicho of Flonheim attacked the Jewish communities of Speyer, Worms and Mainz in what became known as the Rhineland massacres. Thousands of Jews were killed or forced to convert. Later Crusades produced further violence: the Third Crusade (1189–1192) triggered anti-Jewish riots in England, including a massacre at York in 1190 where Jewish families took their own lives rather than face the mob.

The York massacre, 1190: Around 150 Jews took refuge in Clifford's Tower in York when a mob came for them. When the tower was about to fall, most killed themselves rather than be murdered or forcibly baptised. The leaders of the mob then destroyed the records of debts owed to Jewish creditors — a reminder that economic grievance ran alongside religious hatred.

Cause 2 — Official and popular anti-Semitism and scapegoating

The medieval Church promoted theological hostility to Jews. Jews were accused of deicide, a charge used to justify treating them as a cursed people. The Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 required Jews in Christian lands to wear a distinctive mark on their clothing — a yellow badge or a pointed hat — to separate them visually from Christians. This official segregation fed popular prejudice.

Cause 3 — The Black Death and the accusation of well-poisoning

When the Black Death reached Europe in 1347–1348, it killed roughly a third of the population. People desperately needed an explanation for catastrophe on this scale. In January 1349, the Jewish community of Basel was burned alive. In February, Strasbourg's Jews were killed. By the end of 1349, pogroms had swept through over 300 towns and cities in the Holy Roman Empire. The accusation — that Jews had poisoned the water supply — had no basis in fact (Jewish communities died of plague too), but it gave frightened, grieving people someone to blame. Pope Clement VI issued two papal bulls condemning the killings, pointing out that Jews were dying of plague like everyone else — but the violence continued regardless. This shows that persecution was driven by popular emotion and local greed as much as by official doctrine.

The persecution of Jews in medieval Europe did not stay as background hostility. It produced concrete, devastating outcomes: physical massacres, systematic expulsions from country after country, enforced segregation, and the long-term removal of Jewish skills and expertise from European economic and intellectual life.

The Alhambra Decree, 1492: On 31 March 1492 — the same year Columbus reached the Americas — King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella signed the Alhambra Decree (also called the Edict of Expulsion), ordering all Jews who would not convert to Christianity to leave Castile and Aragon within four months. Estimates of those expelled range from 100,000 to 200,000. Many converted outwardly (becoming conversos) while secretly maintaining Jewish practice. The expelled Jews scattered to Portugal (briefly), the Ottoman Empire, North Africa and Italy, taking their skills and networks with them — and Spain lost them permanently.

Paper 3 essays on this topic — what examiners want: When questions ask about the impact of persecution, make sure you cover all three levels: immediate (physical violence, deaths), medium-term (expulsion and displacement) and long-term (loss of expertise, cultural impoverishment). Avoid writing only about massacres — the economic and intellectual loss is equally important to the syllabus and to strong analysis. Link cause to impact: rulers who exploited Jewish wealth then expelled Jews were damaging their own economies, showing that persecution was often irrational in its outcomes even when it had rational motives.