Rubbish? No, it’s proof medieval Jews ate kosher
ARCHAEOLOGISTS DIGGING on the site of demolished shops overlapping Oxford’s old Jewish quarter were stunned to find clear evidence that medieval Jews did observe the dietary laws of kashrut.
Dr Julie Dunne, the bio-molecular archaeologist at Bristol University who worked on the 2016 project — whose findings the JC can reveal today — says they were “blown away” by what they discovered in the centuries-old latrine and rubbish tip.
“Normally you would expect a mixture of cow, sheep, goat and pig. Instead we found a massive, I mean massive, amount of chicken and goose bones.” Out of 171 bones recovered from the site, 136 were some kind of poultry. More important still, there was a complete absence of pig bones, hindquarters of cows, shellfish or any other non-kosher food.
More than 2,000 fragments of pottery were also found on the site, enabling
Dr Dunne and her colleagues to go even further into the dietary world of medieval Jewry.
Using organic residue analysis, they were able to identify the particular kinds of fat that had been absorbed into ceramic cooking vessels 800 years earlier and then sealed into the pottery through years of constant use (in much the same way as we season a cast-iron frying pan).
“This process allows us to distinguish animal fats from ruminants and non-ruminants, as well as from dairy products,” said Dr Dunne, “and what we found was astonishingly precise.” The fats in the pots exactly followed the findings from the bones. Not only were there no traces of nonkosher food, there was no evidence of meat and milk ever being used in the same vessels.
These results held only for the area of the site that had been lived in by Jews and only for the period in which Jews lived in medieval England. Beyond the precise boundaries of this area and these dates, from the 8th century to the 18th century, it was a non-stop, non-kosher carnival.
Until now, there has been surprisingly little firm evidence to support the assumption that Jews in medieval England ate kosher.
Thanks to the preservation of Jewish manuscripts, contracts and property deeds by Oxford’s colleges and libraries, documentary information about Oxford’s medieval community is exceptionally rich.
But virtually all physical traces of this once-thriving
Jewry have vanished since the 1290 expulsion. In addition, the excavation site in the modern city’s commercial centre had been repeatedly built over in the centuries since. It was a long way from a “pristine site”.
The chance to excavate the site very nearly didn’t happen. Commercial developers had already reached the final stages of gaining planning permission and it was only a last minute appeal by historian Pam Manix and Dr Evie Kemp, members of the Oxford Jewish Heritage Committee, that brought archaeologists the time they needed.
“Oxford Preservation Trust got in touch just days before the last meeting,” recalled Dr Manix, “and asked if I’d attend and raise an objection.”
Dr Manix needed no persuasion. An expert on medieval Jewish Oxford, she’d previously helped to identify the first Jewish cemetery in Oxford (now under Magdalen College) and St George’s Tower in the castle where Jews were imprisoned on coin clipping charges in 1278. Having spent years mapping Jewish property ownership in the 12th and 13th centuries, she knew exactly how significant the
Map of medieval Jewish quarter of Oxford; Jacob’s Hall is shaded red
site was from a Jewish perspective. “I realised at once this was an amazing opportunity. It was the first time in decades the site had been opened up and it was right on top of a property called Jacob’s Hall, which had belonged to Jacob of Oxford, one of the most important Jews in England.”
Jacob’s Hall was one of five enormous stone mansions belonging to Jewish magnates that once stood on both sides of Great Jewry, now St Aldate’s. Its large underground vaulted chamber may have served as the synagogue until 1228, and the building may also have housed a yeshiva