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Did the Jewish community living In medieval England speak and read and write in the English language?
Probably as much as Jews anywhere speak and read the local goyishe language as their second (or third) language. Why would you doubt that?
Did Jews live in England during Medieval times?
Probably very little. Documents from the time suggest their primary language was (similar to Rashi’s) French which they wrote with Hebrew letters. At the time the upper and middle classes in England used French, and the switch to English came after Jews were expelled. An individual dealing with peasants would have picked up some English, but for the most Jews it was unlikely. Remember that more than a century after the explusion, an English king was able to put down a peasants rebellion by addressing the peasants in English, which so amazed them that they obeyed and went home. As for reading and writing English, during the period Jews were in England, English was not written all that much; before the Norman question there was much writing of English (Old English, Anglo-Saxon) but there wasn’t much written in English again until well after the expulsion (by which time it was “Middle English”). Some Jews probably knew Latin as well, since that was the language of law (meaning contracts, legalese, courts, etc.) and non-Jewish scholarship (serious books at the time were rarely written in the local vernaculars – Christians wrote serious literature in Latin, Jews in Hebrew – vernacular was for things such as romances, poetry, etc.
Much of what we today call vulgar language was simply pre-Norman Conquest English descriptions that were driven underground by the ruling French speaking Normans.
Jews were expelled in 1290. Oliver Cromwell allowed a Sephardic community to unofficially exist in 1656
Read Ivanhoe, as William the Conqueror believed that a leaderless people would not revolt he wiped out the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy (according to some versions this is why Robin Hood had to flee to the forest) but left the common people alone. This is why a live animal is a cow (koo in Anglo-Saxon) but its meat is beef (boeuf in French). Anglo-Norman French also became the language of the law courts and was known as Law French. While it was eventually abandoned many terms survive (e.g. attorney and bailiff). As the Jews had to interact with the common people they would have had to be conversant in Early Middle English.
Uneducated Jews wouldn’t have been able to read or write. Merchants and other middle-class Jews will have spoken as Avi K described, but my best guess is, between themselves they probably spoke a language which must have died out by now.
1. Ivanhoe was a novel – a work of fiction. It tells much about the 18th century, but little about the 13th.
2. Most Jews were urban and would not have been dealing with the Anglo-Saxon peasantry. A city merchant would not have needed to learn Anglo-Saxon. A professional Ben Torah (rav, teacher, sofer, etc.) would definitely not have needed Anglo-Saxon. A merchant dealing with wholesale or foreign trade would not have needed Anglo-Saxon. A housewife probably expect the servants to learn enough French to communicate. There is also strong evidence that English Jews tagged along with the Normans, and were French speakers. As was the case of the Anglo-Normans, fluency in English was not common unless needed for a vocational reason.
Hml, Jews would have to have known how to read and write Hebrew for davening and learning. They would also have needed to the local languages in order to do business (unless they were simple workers, which few Jews were). Probably, as everywhere else, they spoke a Judaized version of either English, Norman French or a combination of both. Similarly, the Jews in northern France spoke a language called Zarphatic or Judeo-French. There is, in fact, a book called Hebrew and Hebrew-Latin documents from medieval England : a diplomatic and palaeographical study by Judith Olszowy-Schlanger that has facsimiles of Jewish documents from medieval England. It costs about $1,500 but you can see some pictures on Google. You can also google “Jewish life in medieval England”.
What a fascinating history/linguistic lesson this thread has become!
So the question really is, did the non-Jews speak, read and write English in Medieval England? If it was the language of the peasants, we can assume that they did not read or write it. So any Jew who may have had contact with them would have needed to know how to speak the language to some degree, but reading and writing it would not have been necessary.
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