By posing this enquiry question in a slightly paradoxical way, students are encouraged to go deeper in the explanation than simple anti-semitism. Having steered them through a simple narrative covering the Jews in England 1066-1290, looking all the time for long- medium- and short-term factors, students are then asked to explore a range of given factors for themselves in order to categorise the types of causes often cited by historians. The lesson concludes by showing the fruits of most recent scholarship. How close did students get with their own thinking?
Introduction
Pose the paradox that needs explaining: if the Jews were so important to the medieval economy why were they expelled. Add a further level of complication. In the reign of Henry II they were treated well. So what could possibly have gone so disastrously wrong for the Jews who were destined never to return for another 250 years!
