The first mention I find of the Jews in English works, is that in Bede’s “Ecclesiastical History,” in connexion with the ridiculous and absurd controversies which prevailed between the Romish and British monks, viz., about the form of the tonsure and the keeping of Easter. The priests of all the then Christian churches were accustomed to shave part of their head; but the form given to this tonsure was different in the Britons from that used by the Roman monks, who came over to this country with Augustine. The latter made the tonsure on the crown of the head, and in a circular form, whilst the former shaved the forepart of their head from ear to ear. The Romish monks, in order to recommend their own form of tonsure, maintained that it imitated symbolically the crown of thorns worn by our Lord in his passion. But as to the Britons, their antagonists insisted that their form was invented by Simon Magus, without any regard to that representation. The Britons also celebrated Easter on the very day of the full moon in March, if that day fell on a Sunday, instead of waiting till the Sunday following. The Britons pleaded the antiquity of their usages; the Romans insisted on the universality of theirs. In order to render the former odious, the latter affirmed that their native priests once in seven years concurred with the _Jews_ in the time of celebrating that festival. This incidental circumstance proves that there must have been Jews here who had synagogues, and observed the feast of Passover. The Jews must also have had learned men amongst them to arrange their calendars: and such an arrangement requires a fair astronomical knowledge, or else the charge would have been totally unintelligible to the Saxons. The above charge will account for the edict published soon after by Ecgbright, Archbishop of York, in the “_Canonical Excerptiones_,” A.D. 740, to the effect, that no Christian should be present at any of the Jewish feasts,¹ which establishes the fact that Jews must have resided in this country at the time of the Saxon heptarchy, in tolerable numbers, and celebrated their feasts according to their own law; and what is more, they desired to live peaceably with their Christian neighbours. ¹ See Appendix A. It also appears from a charter granted by Whitglaff, King of the Mercians, to Croyland Abbey, ninety-three years after the above edict was issued, that there were Jews in this country at that period, and possessed landed property; and what is most remarkable, they endowed Christian places of worship.