York Castle

You clearly think you can commit, you can do things because the devil will help you or support you.

You must be insane." And, um, Bruce goes to trial, and in his closing speech to the, um, jury, he says, "If you think that it will tend to the repression of crime, if you think that the law requires that this man who believes he has sold his soul to the devil, who is under this dreadful, insane delusion, should be hanged at York Castle for an example, to set an example, I ask you why.

An example to whom? The insane?" So you have a, a lawyer making a really powerful argument to a jury that what does killing a madman do for society? What murder does it prevent? Who does it save? Who does it help? Anyway, it goes to the jury.

Um, any guesses?

So is York worth it for just one day? Yes, as long as you're realistic.

York Minster is about a 15-minute walk from the station, and with seven or eight hours on the ground, you can comfortably walk a stretch of the city walls, wander the shambles and the snickleways, see the Multangler Tower and the Museum Gardens, and stand beneath Clifford's Tower, plus pay for two big attractions, perhaps York Minster and the Jorvik Viking Center.

Add a pub lunch and afternoon tea in between.

What you can't do is everything in this episode.

1066 changes everything.

William the Conqueror marches north, and in 1068 he throws up a castle on a great earth mound beside the river.

What stands on that mound today is the Grade 1 listed Clifford's Tower.

A stout, clover-shaped stone keep, you can climb for one of the best views in the city.

I just wanna say castles, but it's more of a castle and a tower.

So you got Clifford's Tower, which is part of York, which the one we're looking at to the left, and then you got Bailey Hill, which is to the right here.

So it's just a little hill.

So those are still standing today.

England experienced growing religious hostility, accusations of ritual murder that were completely false, violent attacks, crushing taxation, and increasing legal restrictions.

One notorious example occurred in eleven ninety at York, where many Jews sought refuge inside Clifford's Tower while facing a violent mob.

Rather than fall into the attackers' hands, many died in one of the most tragic episodes of medieval English Jewish history.

Events like York demonstrated that royal protection was often inconsistent.

Suspicions led to an arrest on horse theft charges, which at that time were treated with severity by both magistrates and juries due to the importance of horses for trade, agriculture, and warfare.

Palmer was confined in York Castle pending trial.

There, he became part of a small cohort of outlaws awaiting execution.

During his confinement, Turpin penned a letter to his brother-in-law from the cell, a hand that scholars have matched by handwriting analysis.

The Jewish community had long provided essential banking services to the crown, yet they were also blamed for a range of conspiracies, from blood libels to alleged attacks on Christian worship.

The eruption at Clifford’s Tower in eleven ninety epitomizes this hatred.

When an angry mob burst into the keep seeking the Jews who had sought refuge there, almost all chose suicide rather than surrender.

The massacre was a product of several factors: economic envy of Jewish moneylenders, religious zeal fermented by clergy and nobles alike, and political opportunism.