History, Wonder Tales, Fairy Tales, Myths and Legends The Flemish | Page 40

TO SUMMARISE SO FAR:
- All these people were different tribes of the same European race.
- Their numbers were few.
- They came, predominantly, from a very small part of Northern Europe.
- They were not so much "immigrants" as invaders.
- Their initial presence was often violently resisted.
- They changed, and often violently destroyed, the original culture.
- They took over the reins of government.
- They were entering a land which was virtually empty, and which remained so,
right up until the late 19th Century.
- This migration process occurred over two thousand years.
- There were not millions of people waiting to follow them.

JEWS 1066-1290, from 1656, and particularly 1881-1914 and 1933-39
Until very recently, Jews represented the only substantial non-Christian presence in
Britain. The first definite settlement occurred shortly after 1066. It has been suggested
that they may have helped finance the invasion.
Their main activity was money-lending. For example, Magna Carta 1215 declares, "If
anyone who has borrowed a sum of money from Jews dies before the debt has been
repaid, his heir shall pay no interest on the debt for so long as he remains under age …"
Paul Johnson has written that Magna Carta undermined the economic basis of English
medieval Jewry.
An angry Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester and founder of the first English
Parliament, decreed in 1231 that: "No jew or jewess in my time, or in the time of any of
my heirs to the end of the world shall inhabit or remain, or obtain a residence in
Leicester."
In 1290, the community of around 5,000 was expelled by Edward I. Another estimate
claims the figure "exceeded fifteen thousand."
Paul Johnson has written, "In the fourteenth century English agriculture suffered
grievously from the absence of Jewish finance, and the failure to provide a native
substitute." By 1348, England's population has been estimated at between 4.5 and 6
million.
Menasseh Ben Israel, the spin-doctor of his day, from Amsterdam, was concerned
about the security of Jews in Holland, and wanted to see England opened up as a
country of refuge. To that end, in 1650, he published The Hope of Israel aimed at
Christian fundamentalists, which argued that Jews had to be scattered throughout the
world, including England, before the Messiah would return. He presented a petition to
Cromwell on the matter.
Oliver Cromwell favoured the readmission of Jews for predominantly commercial
reasons. He called a convention in Whitehall to discuss the matter in December 1655. It
decided there was no law preventing re-admittance because, it argued, Edward's act
had been one of Royal Prerogative -- but it could not agree to readmission. However,

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