In memory of Joe Hillaby, long-standing member and past President

A few days ago I heard of the death of Joe Hillaby from his wife Caroline. I asked the member of our Advisory Board, medieval historian Dean Irwin, to write a few words about Joe's distinctive contribution to the understanding of Jewish community life in medieval England. I use this occasion to offer thanks for his life and especially for his scholarship and service to our Society.

Dean Irwin writes:

It was with deep sadness that I received the news, from Caroline Hillaby, of Joe Hillaby’s death on 1 May 2024. I never had the opportunity to meet Joe, but his work has had a profound impact on the field of medieval Anglo-Jewish history, and upon my own work, too. Starting in the mid-1980s, he produced a series of important studies relating to specific Jewish communities in medieval England. These works were grounded in the foundational principles of the Society, which aimed ‘to determine the extent of the materials which exist for the compilation of History of the Jews in England’. Through meticulous examination of the published chancery rolls studied alongside local archival sources and archaeological findings he was able to reconstruct the topographies of several communities and to identify their leaders.

Joe’s most substantial and transformative research has been on Hereford, Worcester, and Gloucester. Hereford, in particular, was explored with care in articles published in the pages of the Woolhope Naturalists’ Field Club and Jewish Historical Studies. Worcester also benefited from Joe’s attention. When a plaque was unveiled in Worcester two years ago to commemorate the medieval Jewish that had lived there. I very happily engaged with and learned a great deal from Joe’s work.

Joe Hillaby’s work was immersed in the study of the counties that bordered on the Marches. But that was not all. In two articles in Jewish Historical Studies he studied in detail the London Jewish communities. Joe studied the thirteenth century first, with a follow up article on the period 1066-1216. Following on from these articles, he was well placed to comment (with others) on the discovery of mikva’ot in London, in 2001.

Central to Joe’s work was a sense of place. Each of his studies was firmly embedded into the landscape. We see this most clearly in his magnum opus, published with his wife Caroline, The Palgrave Dictionary of Medieval Anglo-Jewish History. This essential reference work provides extensive discussions of Jewish communities, reflecting a life time of engagement with the history and historiography of medieval Anglo-Jewry. The Dictionary is essential for anyone interested in the Jews of medieval England, academics and non-academics, those interested in local history or in the national vista.

In addition to his scholarship, Joe also played an important role in the Society. At various points, he served as a JHSE council member from 1995, and later served as President of the Society between 2006 and 2008. Through both paths, he served to shape the conversation about Jewish history and helped make it more broadly accessible.

Fifteen years ago, when I was starting my journey into Anglo-Jewish history, I ordered copies of all of Joe’s publications (before they had been digitised). I read them in order, and I can think of no finer education. Although my work is very different from Joe’s, I have always tried to capture that emphasis on place, and also on the need to move away from London and Westminster, and so to view Anglo-Jewry from a different lens. I include a bibliography of Joe’s Anglo-Jewish writings here, in the hopes that others will benefit from engaging with his work.

A selected bibliography of Joe Hillaby's publications on the histiory of the Jews in Medieval England

1. ‘Hereford Gold: Irish, Welsh, and English Land. The Jewish Community at Hereford and its Clients, 1179-1253 (Part I)’, Transactions of the Woolhope Naturalists’ Field Club, 44 (1984), pp. 358-419. [https://www.woolhopeclub.org.uk/document/transaction/transactions-1984]

2. ‘Hereford Gold: Irish, Welsh and English Land Part 2. The Clients of the Jewish Community at Hereford 1179-1253: Four Case Studies’, Transactions of the Woolhope Naturalists’ Field Club, 45 (1985), pp. 193-270. [https://www.woolhopeclub.org.uk/document/transaction/transactions-1985]

3. ‘A magnate among the marchers: Hamo of Hereford, his family and clients, 1218-1253’, Jewish Historical Studies, 31 (1988-1990), pp. 23-82. [Subscription required https://www.jhse.org/pre-2015articles/a-magnate-among-the-marchers%3A-hamo-of-hereford%2C-his-family-and-clients%2C-1218-1253]

4. ‘The Hereford Jewry, 1179-1290 (third and final part): Aaron le Blund and the last decades of the Hereford Jewry, 1253-90’, Transactions of the Woolhope Naturalists’ Field Club, 46 (1990), pp. 432-487. [https://www.woolhopeclub.org.uk/document/transaction/transactions-1990]

5. ‘The Worcester Jewry, 1158-1290: Portrait of a Lost Community’, Transactions of the Worcestershire Archaeological Society, 12 (1990), pp. 73-122. [Not yet online but hoped to be: https://worcestershirearchaeologicalsociety.org.uk/our-publications/]

6. ‘London: the 13th-century Jewry revisited’, Jewish Historical Studies, 32 (1990-1992), pp. 89-158. [Subscription required https://www.jhse.org/pre-2015articles/london%3A-the-13th-century-jewry-revisited]

7. ‘Beth Miqdash Me’at: The Synagogues of Medieval England’, The Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 44 (1993), pp. 182-198.

8. ‘The London Jewry: William I to John’, Jewish Historical Studies, 33 (1994-1996), pp. 1-44. [Subscription required https://www.jhse.org/pre-2015articles/the-london-jewry%3A-william-i-to-john]

9. ‘The ritual child murder accusation: its dissemination and Harold of Gloucester’, Jewish Historical Studies, 34 (1994-1996), pp. 69-109. [Subscription required https://www.jhse.org/pre-2015articles/the-ritual-child-murder-accusation%3A-its-dissemination-and-harold-of-gloucester]

10. ‘Testimony from the margin: the Gloucester Jewry and its neighbours, c. 1159-1290’, Jewish Historical Studies, 37 (2001), pp. 41-112. [Subscription required https://www.jhse.org/pre-2015articles/testimony-from-the-margin%3A-the-gloucester-jewry-and-its-neighbours%2C-c.-1159-1290-]

11. [With Ian Blair, Isca Howell, Richard Sermon and Bruce Watson] ‘The discovery of two medieval mikva'ot in London and a reinterpretation of the Bristol “mikveh”’, Jewish Historical Studies, 37 (2001), pp. 41-112. [Subscription required https://www.jhse.org/pre-2015articles/the-discovery-of-two-medieval-mikva'ot-in-london-and-a-reinterpretation-of-the-bristol-'mikveh']

12. [With Ian Blair, Isca Howell, Richard Sermon and Bruce Watson] ‘Two medieval Jewish ritual baths – mikva’ot – found at Gresham Street and Milk Street in London’, Transactions of the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society, 52 (2001), pp. 127-138. [https://www.lamas.org.uk/archives/23-transactions/126-transactions-vol52.html]

13. [With Richard Semon] ‘Jacob’s Well, Bristol: Mikveh or Bet Tohorah?’, Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, 122 (2004), pp. 127-52. [https://www.bgas.org.uk/browse-transactions-contents?vnum=122]

14. ‘Jewish Colonisation in the Twelfth Century’ in Patricia Skinner (ed.), Jews in Medieval Britain: Historical, Literary and Archaeological Perspectives (Woodbridge, 2003), pp. 15-40.

15. ‘A Domus Conversorum at Bristol?’, Jewish Historical Studies, 42 (2009), pp. 1-5. [Subscription required https://www.jhse.org/pre-2015articles/a-domus-conversorum-at-bristol%3F]

16. ‘Barrie Dobson and the English Medieval Jewry: an Appreciation’ in Helen Birkett (ed.), The Jewish Communities of Medieval England: the collected essays of R. B. Dobson (York, 2010), pp. vii-xviii.

17. ‘Prelude and Postscript to the York Massacre: Attacks in East Anglia and Lincolnshire, 1190’ in Sarah Rees Jones and Sethina Watson (eds.), Christians and Jews in Angevin England: The York Massacre of 1190, Narratives and Contexts (Woodbridge, 2013), pp. 43-56.

18. [With Caroline Hillaby] The Palgrave Dictionary of Medieval Anglo-Jewish History (London, 2013).

19. ‘The founding fathers of the Jewish Historical Society of England (JHSE): a tribute’, Jewish Historical Studies, 45 (2013), pp. 155-7. [Subscription required https://www.jhse.org/pre-2015articles/research-notes%3A-the-founding-fathers-of-the-jewish-historical-society-of-england-(jhse)%3A-a-tribute]

20. ‘Robin Mundill, 1958-2015’, Jewish Historical Studies, 47 (2015), pp. 250-1. [https://journals.uclpress.co.uk/jhs/article/id/13/]