In 1440, King Henry VI needed money for his exchequer. Feelings against foreigners in the country were strong at the time, so parliament decided to ‘soak the foreigners’. The 1440 Alien Subsidy was the first of its kind, and it was collected off and on...
‘The King’s Jews’ by Myra Fonceca examines the history of Exeter’s mediaeval Jewish community first recorded in the city in 1181, and sheds light on the century preceding the expulsion by Edward I in 1290.
In The King’s Jews Community Researcher Myra Fonceca takes us back to the middle ages in her study of Exeter’s mediaeval Jewish community revealing individual stories of Exeter’s chirographers and moneylenders, men and women, who lived against the...
Jews started to come into England after the Norman Conquest. The first record of a Jewish presence in Exeter was in 1177, when a law was passed granting them a cemetery outside the city walls. The need for a cemetery indciates that the community had already been there...
In the summer of 1001, Vikings ravaged the coast of Devon from a base in Exmouth. Around 4000 Vikings, driven away from the city walls, attacked Topsham and Clyst St Mary. At Pinhoe they were met by the county army of Devon estimated to be around 1500 men, whom...
Legend says that Sidwell was a Saxon Christian girl living in Exeter in the 8th century. Her stepmother wanted her killed, and hired a reaper to do the job. He cut off her head with a scythe, and where it fell, water sprang up. This became the well of St Sidwell,...
The year 410 is the one traditionally given for the Romans leaving Britannia. We cannot be sure, of course. With Italy itself under attack by Goths and other Germanic tribes, the Legions were gradually withdrawn from the outlying parts of the Empire. This left Exeter...
Vespasian (Titus Flavius Caesar Vespasianus Augustus), as depicted in the coin, was the Leader of the II Augusta legion that arrived in Exeter around AD55 and set up their fortified camp on the hill above the river Exe, where a Celtic settlement already existed. The...
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