A brief but devastating entry in the Henry III Close Rolls reveals the murder of an entire Jewish family of Nottinghamshire in 1256. Five Christians (three men and two women) were imprisoned and charged with the murder of Luna of Nottingham, her husband Simon, and their children Sarra and Bonekoc. King Henry III issued a writ that the sheriff of Nottingham was to keep custody of the accused while they awaited trial. The Christians—Henry of Newark (one hopes not the later Archbishop of York, who died in 1299), Eudo son of Simon, Ralph le Bukyde and his wife Jeva, along with the suggestively named Alice Prestewyf—may have been related, though the details are sparse. We know only that this group was, at least for a time, held in the king’s prison at Nottingham while accused of the murders. Luna and her family do not appear in any other records related to the Jews of England, perhaps indicating that the family was not among the wealthy, creditor class that typically appear in surviving records. That we know their names at all owes only to one brief, purely administrative close roll entry.

Further reading

• Hillaby, J. and C. Hillaby, The Palgrave Dictionary of Medieval Anglo-Jewish History. London: Palgrave. 2015, s.v. Nottingham, pp. 290–93.