Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott chapters 31 to 40

As you will realise there are many words involved in these chapters but putting it succinctly – Poor Rebecca, daughter of Isaac of York, a Jewish moneylender, has been abducted by Brian de Bois Guilbert and taken to Templestowe, the headquarters of the Knights Templar. When Isaac discovers this he’s horrified but Prior Aymer sends Isaac to Templestowe with a letter from him, in the hope that it will help to free Rebecca. It only makes matters worse though and the Grand Master of the Templars accuses Rebecca of witchcraft, apparently she must have bewitched Brian de Bois Guilbert! Poor Rebecca. She needs to find someone to be her champion.

Judith, Reader in the Wilderness and I are reading Ivanhoe in tandem and she has been surprised that the character of Rebecca is much more prominent than that of Lady Rowena. I must admit that from what I remember of the TV adaptation of Ivanhoe they both had fairly equal parts, but I think that Scott was using his book to try to influence the politics of the day.

Obviously he was copying Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice when he decided to make the plight of Isaac and Rebecca such an important part of the storyline. At the time that Ivanhoe was written Jews and Roman Catholics didn’t have the vote, obviously a deeply unfair situation. Mind you most working men didn’t even have the vote at this time, you had to be a property owner to be able to vote, so in theory even women who owned property could vote at this time.

I like to think that fairness and support for the underdog are important to the Scottish psyche and I’m sure that that was why Scott was featuring this problem. However, later in the century Dickens championed the poor and wrote about their appaling working conditions, Trollope was more concerned with the plight of middle-class families and particularly women, writing about entailed properties could leave them destitute, Jane Austen also wrote about that problem before him of course. So fiction writers did what they could to flag up situations which they found to be unfair.

I have no idea how bad things were for Jews in the rest of Europe in the 12th century, when Ivanhoe was set, but I think that it wasn’t too bad in England. They were restricted in the jobs which they were allowed to do, but as Christians weren’t supposed to be involved with money-lending it meant that they did take up that employment. People obviously borrowed money from them and paid the interest which meant that they did thrive in business, but that in turn must have led to jealousies.

Below is a photo of a rather grand looking medieval building which Jack took a photo of in Lincoln. It’s very close to Lincoln Cathedral, so is in one of the best parts of town, but the area was home to the Jewish population, as you can see.

2 thoughts on “Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott chapters 31 to 40

  1. Katrina,
    What an excellent photo, and complete explanation of the aspects of Jews and charges of anti-Semitism in Ivanhoe. I had no idea of The Merchant of Venice connection! Fascinating! I must read your comment again tomorrow, as I’m now dishing up the meat loaf. I’m reading lots, but am a bit behind on comments!
    Judith

    • Judith,
      If you click on the arrows either side of that photo you’ll be able to see some more buildings in what must have been the Jewish area of medieval Lincoln. You’ve certainly got meat loaf weather, it sounds like a winter warmer, comfort food.

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