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JewishHistoryעברית

Coin-clipping arrests and executions of English Jews

Date
17 November 1278 – 7 May 1279
Location
England (executions in London)United Kingdom
Then part of
Kingdom of England
Perpetrators
  • Edward I and royal officers (State)
Killed (estimate)
269 – 293[1]Jews executed in London; the National Archives gives 269 by 7 May 1279, the Jewish Encyclopedia 293.
Country

9% – 15% of the Jewish population of Kingdom of England (c. 1290)[31]

Worldwide

0.018% – 0.029% of the worldwide Jewish population (c. 1170)[4]

Category
Persecution
Confidence
DisputedThe National Archives, citing a record of 7 May 1279, gives 269 Jews executed in London; the Jewish Encyclopedia gives 293 executed at London in 1278. The two figures are close but not identical, and the Jewish Encyclopedia does not name the underlying roll.

Summary

After the Statute of Jewry (about 1275) forbade Jewish moneylending, many Jews were accused of clipping the coin. On 17 November 1278 the Jews of England were arrested together and their houses searched. Coin-clipping was a capital offence. By 7 May 1279, according to the National Archives, 269 Jews had been executed in London; the Jewish Encyclopedia gives 293 executed at London. Christians were also accused, but the Jewish community was treated as the principal target.

Sources

  1. Jews in England in 1290 (section "Growing tensions"). The National Archives
  2. Joseph Jacobs, England (section "The Statutum de Judaismo, 1275"). Jewish Encyclopedia (1906)

Jewish population (estimates)

  • Worldwide: 1,000,000 – 1,500,000[4]c. 1170Between the 12th and 17th centuries DellaPergola judges world Jewry never much below one million nor above 1.5 million. The late-12th-century point is processed from Benjamin of Tudela.
  • Kingdom of England: 2,000 – 3,000[31]c. 1290Mundill concludes that chronicle claims of 15,000–17,000 expelled are exaggerations and that about 2,000 is a more acceptable figure for Jews forcibly exiled in 1290, with poll-tax and coin-clipping evidence pointing to a late-1270s/1280s community of roughly 2,000–4,000. The National Archives educational summary estimates around 3,000 forced to leave.

Sources for population estimates

  1. Sergio DellaPergola, World Jewish Population, 2024. American Jewish Year Book 2024, via Berman Jewish DataBank (2025)
  2. Sergio DellaPergola, Notes toward a Demographic History of the Jews. Genealogy 8(1) (2024)
  3. Jewish Population of Europe in 1933. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  4. Jewish Population of the World. American Jewish Year Book 1948–1949, via Berman Jewish Policy Archive (1949)
  5. Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein, Voluntary Conversions and Diaspora: A Human Capital Interpretation of Jewish History. American Economic Association annual meeting paper (2007)
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  7. Mandate for Palestine. Report of the Mandatory to the League of Nations (Palestine Administration, 1922). United Nations UNISPAL (British mandatory report) (1922)
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  9. The Contagion of Violence. 1391 and the Jews of the Spanish Kingdoms. Palgrave / Springer chapter (preview) (2021)
  10. Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein, Religious Norms, Human Capital, and Money Lending in Jewish European History. Handbook chapter PDF via zvi-eckstein.com
  11. Sergio DellaPergola, Some Fundamentals of Jewish Demographic History. Berman Jewish Policy Archive (PDF) (2001)
  12. Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein, THE CHOSEN FEW: HOW EDUCATION SHAPED JEWISH HISTORY, 70–1492 (book summary). Bar-Ilan University Economics seminar PDF (Princeton University Press forthcoming summary)
  13. Joseph Jacobs, Statistics. Jewish Encyclopedia (1906)
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  20. Sergio DellaPergola, World Jewish Population, 2024. American Jewish Year Book 2024, via Berman Jewish DataBank / Israel CBS host (2025)
  21. Sergio DellaPergola, Demographic Trends in Israel and Palestine: Prospects and Policy Implications. American Jewish Year Book 2003, via Berman Jewish DataBank (2003)
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  31. Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein, Appendix A: Sources and Methodology for Section 2 (Jewish and total population in Germany-Austria and Poland-Lithuania). Authors' appendix PDF (citing Weinryb, Stampfer, Kupovetsky, Guggenheim, Toch, Battenberg, Israel) (2018)
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  48. Norway. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
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  50. Greece. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  51. Lithuania. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  52. German Jews during the Holocaust, 1939–1945. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
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  54. Jacqueline Shields, Jewish Refugees from Arab Countries. Jewish Virtual Library
  55. Lebanon Virtual Jewish History Tour. Jewish Virtual Library
  56. Jewish Populations in the Arab World. Jewish Virtual Library (citing Sergio DellaPergola, World Jewish Population, 2021 / AJYB 2023)
  57. Algeria (Vital Statistics). Jewish Encyclopedia (1906)
  58. Archives juives n°45/2 — Les Juifs d'Algérie. Archives Juives / Les Belles Lettres (2012)
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  62. Sara Koplik, The Demise of the Jewish Community in Afghanistan, 1933–1952. SOAS University of London (PhD thesis abstract / deposit page) (2001)
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