=1. The First Seventy Years.=――Beyond a rare mention in the Saxon Chronicles, there are no records concerning English Jews till after the Conquest (1066), when Jews from France and Germany, seeking happier homes, may have crossed the Channel in the train of William the Norman, on the chance of finding such. They were probably accepted by William’s new subjects as one of the many consequences of the invasion, and Jews gradually gained a tolerably comfortable and secure position in the towns in which they settled. London and Oxford became head-quarters. The selection of London, the capital, is sufficiently explained. The attraction of Oxford was, in all likelihood, its scholarly reputation. King Alfred’s idea of making Oxford a seat of learning was already being realised in the eleventh century, and although none of the colleges bear much earlier date than that of the thirteenth, yet the names of some of these――Moses-Hall and Jacob-Hall, for instance――give silent evidence of the presence of Jews and of the growth of Jewish teaching, and, it may be, of Jewish trading influences in Oxford. Little colonies of Jews established themselves also in York, and in Lincoln, and in Norwich, and in various other towns, and set up small businesses, and always managed, however poor they might be at first, to find some small room which would serve as a meeting-place for prayer and for school work. In London they were soon numerous enough and prosperous enough to gain the great privilege of being allotted a ‘burying place for their dead.’ This first בֵּית חַיִּים of the Jews in England was situated in St. Giles, Cripplegate. Thus things went well for a time. William I. was a conqueror, but not an oppressor; William Rufus, though dissolute and dishonest, was yet a mediæval sort of gentleman, who, having once promised protection, kept his word, and Henry I. was a scholar, and had some sympathy with the historic race who were so bravely and patiently accommodating themselves to altered circumstances. It was in the reign of Stephen (1135‒1154) that the troubles of the Jews in England began.