Licoricia of Winchester: Heritage and Memory of Medieval Anglo Jewry

Join us on Sunday 21 May in Winchester for a special event focusing on Licoricia of Winchester and the heritage and memory of medieval Anglo-Jewry.

The bronze statue of the remarkable Anglo-Jewish woman, Licoricia, was unveiled in Winchester in 2021. This is the most prominent heritage work carried out relating to medieval Anglo- Jewry.

This event, through a walking tour (charge applies) and free round table discussion, will consider the achievements of the Licoricia project, and the challenges of creating heritage in the absence of the built heritage that directly reflects the presence of medieval Winchester Jewry. It will also consider the public and educational issues raised when dealing with questions such as the Jewish role in medieval finance and hostile representations of Jews from the period based on religious bigotry. Addressing the key aims of the Licoricia project, we will explore the potential of such commemoration to consider the roots of prejudice and discrimination, using this to promote tolerance, diversity, and female empowerment.

Getting Here: Parking in Winchester is extremely limited so we would advise you to plan your travel accordingly, making the most of public transport links. Click here for public transport information.

Please note that if you wish to attend both the walking tour and the roundtable event, you will need to register for each event separately. See below for booking details.

Walking Tour: Winchester’s Jewish history

Date: Sunday 21 May
Time: 10:30-11:30am or 11:30-12:30pm
Venue: Winchester City Centre, exact location TBC with joining instructions
Cost: £5 per person (Under 18s are free but must be accompanied by a paying adult. A sandwich buffet lunch at the Arc between 12.20 and 13.30 is included in this price)

Find out more about the fascinating history of the Jewish community by joining us for the Winchester Medieval Jewish Trail. Winchester has an important Jewish past. The earliest record of Jews in the city date to the mid-1100s, making it one of the earliest, largest, and most successful Jewish settlements in England. The medieval Jewish settlement was based around Jewry Street, and while it thrived for a period, the 13th century would see the community facing heavy fines, imprisonment, and execution before their eventual expulsion in 1290. Although fascinating, until recently, the story was little known.

There are two walking tours (10.30­­–11.30 and 11.30–12.30), please select one time slot.

The walking tour is dependent on weather, and there is a possibility the event will need to be cancelled in case of particularly adverse conditions, but we will be tracking this and in contact with attendees prior to the event if anything changes.

Click here to book your place on the tour!

Roundtable Event: Licoricia of Winchester and Heritage and Memory of Medieval Anglo Jewry

Date: Sunday 21 May
Time: 1:30-3:30pm
Venue: The Arc, Winchester ( More Information )
Cost: Free

The event will bring together key members of the Licoricia project, experts in medieval Anglo-Jewry, heritage studies and school educators to reflect on the key aims and successes of the Licoricia project, explroring the potential of such commemoration to consider the roots of prejudice and discrimination, using this to promote tolerance, diversity, and female empowerment. The roundtable, chaired by Miri Rubin (Professor of Medieval and Early Modern History at Queen Mary University of London), will involve five speakers:

• Toni Griffiths (Visiting Fellow at The Parkes Institute)
• Katherine Weikert (Senior Lecturer in Early Medieval History at the University of Winchester)
• Maggie Carver CBE DL (Chair of the Licoricia of Winchester Trust)
• Educational team at Hants County Council:
  • Justine Ball (County Inspector for History and RE)
  • Sarah Herrity (Teaching and Learning Advisor for Secondary History)

Click here to register for the roundtable event.

Speaking Biographies

Justine Ball works for Hampshire County Council as the County Inspector for History and Religious Education, providing professional support for primary History and RE across Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. She has a degree in Theology and MA in Religious Studies, as well as having completed Woolf Institute courses on ‘Bridging the Great Divide’ and ‘Jews, Christians and Muslims in Europe.’ Justine is one of the joint Vice Chairs of the Association of RE Inspectors, Advisors and Consultants (AREIAC), a joint Vice Chair of the London and South East Branch of AREIAC, and the South East RE Hub leader for England.

Maggie Carver is Deputy Chair of Ofcom and Chairs its Content Board and Election Committee, having recently spent 16 months as its Interim Chair. She is also Chair of the charity, the Licoricia of Winchester Appeal. Maggie’s working life began in investment banking followed by a number of roles in the media industry. She was involved in the setting up of ITV franchise, Meridian Broadcasting, and was Chief Executive of Channel 4 Racing producer and outside broadcaster, ThreeonFour. Until its sale in December 2017, she owned and ran with her husband, a retail and online business specialising in the sale of goods for the elderly and disabled. Additionally, over the last 30 years she has gained extensive experience as a non-executive director on the boards of twenty companies, public, private and not-for-profit. These include Chairing news and programme provider ITN, the British Board of Film Classification, leading horseracing industry body, the RCA, and multiplex operator, SDN, as well as the boards of Channel 5 Television, RDF Media plc, Satellite Information Services, the Eden Project and British Waterways. Maggie and her husband William have lived in Winchester for over 20 years and for the whole of that time they have been involved in local Jewish education projects and interfaith work. Ten years ago they initiated the Mitzvah Day project and just over five years ago, the Licoricia of Winchester project.

Toni Griffiths is a Visiting Fellow at The Parkes Institute for the Study of Jewish/Non-Jewish Relations, University of Southampton. She completed her PhD, ‘The Journey of Memory: Forgetting and Remembering England’s Medieval Jews’, in 2018 at the University of Winchester. Toni is also Senior Outreach Officer at the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust.

Sarah Herrity works for the Hampshire Inspection and Advisory Service (HIAS) which provides consultancy and inspection services to schools in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. Sarah is the HIAS teaching and learning advisor for history and has additional roles concerning quality assurance, safeguarding and provision for Early Career Teachers. Sarah has written teaching materials on Licoricia of Winchester including the published Key Stage 4 GCSE case study for the Pearson Migration unit, the Pearson KS3 Topic of the Month on Licoricia due to be published shortly, and the HIAS resourced enquiries into the historical significance of Licoricia and what her life reveals about the treatment of the medieval Jewish minority in England. The Licoricia of Winchester Appeal charity commissioned the resources which are available from the Hampshire History Curriculum Centre.

Miri Rubin is Professor of Medieval and Early Modern History at Queen Mary University of London, and President of the Jewish Historical Society of England since 2020. She has written books and articles that explore the religious cultures of Europe between 1100 and 1600, with particular attention to community relations, relations between Jews and Christians, the participation of women, and ideas about the body and emotions.

Katherine Weikert is a senior lecturer in early medieval history, and Deputy Head of the School of History and Archaeology at the University of Winchester. Her research specialties are in gender and authority in the central middle ages, particularly in regards to place and material culture. Her monograph Gender, Authority and Space in the Anglo-Norman World, 900-1200, was shortlisted for the Alice Davis Hitchcock Award by the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain.