Litigating Jews: New Directions in the Study of Medieval English Jewry, c. 1190–1290

This article seeks to map out possibilities for an intensive and wide-ranging study of Jewish litigation and legal agency within the English king's jurisdiction in the period c. 1190–1290. Despite a small number of studies of Jews and the king's law courts in England in recent years—including my own work on Jewish women litigants at the Exchequer of the Jews—this remains a neglected desideratum of medieval Anglo-Jewish history. Considering the potential of the records of all the king's law courts between 1190, from around which time the records begin to survive, and 1290, the year in which the Jews were expelled from England, this essay does two things. First, it reviews the developments, since 2015, in our understanding of Jews at law and in litigation in medieval England, as well as touching briefly upon the main cognate fields. Second, it provides a series of examples to demonstrate (just some of) the exciting new directions in the study of medieval English Jewry promised by the records of the king's law courts.