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I was fortunate to take part in the inaugural Medieval Jewish Lincoln Walking Tour with Natasha Jenman and Dean A. Irwin on July 11, 2025. Having already been familiar with the great results of their research into the history of the medieval Jewish community in Lincoln and always impressed by the rich source material, I was very excited to get to know the medieval Jewish neighbourhood. Lincoln is a very beautiful place with an impressive stock of medieval buildings, with the castle and the wonderful cathedral as well as numerous medieval streets. These also include the former Jewish quarter, which was home to a large community of important scholars and wealthy merchants between around 1150 and 1290.
The tour took us to (nomen est omen) Steep Street, the market of the time, where not only various houses of well-known Jews have been preserved, but where the medieval synagogue was also located. The tour shows that Jews and Christians lived together peacefully for a long time in Lincoln, but also places anti-Jewish aggression in a local and national context. The case of “Little Hugh”, an accusation of ritual murder that had devastating consequences for the Jewish community in the thirteenth century, is addressed as part of the tour without perpetuating anti-Semitic stereotypes.
Our experience in developing and communicating the Jewish medieval heritage in Erfurt has shown that the presentation of the shared culture of Jews and Christians is an important element in the fight against anti-Semitism. This is why the contextualized presentation of the new Medieval Jewish Lincoln Walking Tour is so important.
Good luck to the new tour, and of course to Tash and Dean, and many interested visitors!
Mazal Tov from Erfurt,
Maria Stürzebecher (Curator Medieval Jewish World Heritage of Erfurt)
A thoroughly interesting and fascinating tour through the story of Medieval Lincoln’s vibrant Jewish community and the important contribution it made to the life of the city.
Elizabeth Chadwick (New York Times bestselling author)
I had the privilege of participating in the first Medieval Jewish Lincoln Walking Tour, which was expertly guided by Natasha Jenman and Dean A. Irwin. The tour through the former Jewish quarter highlights the importance of Lincoln’s medieval Jewish community and clearly shows how it was embedded in the central area of the medieval city. Organised by renowned experts, the tour enables participants to learn about the latest research findings on Lincoln’s rich medieval Jewish history and to relate them to the buildings and sites they visit. In this way, the close Jewish-Christian coexistence in medieval Lincoln with all its bright and dark sides becomes visible and tangible. I highly recommend this tour to anyone interested in Jewish history and culture who wants to experience Lincoln’s rich medieval Jewish heritage first-hand.
Eveline Brugger (Institute for Jewish History in Austria)
As someone who has spent many years in researching the fascinating story of the Jews in Medieval Lincoln I thoroughly enjoyed the tour we were given by Dean on Sunday 7 September. He was able to achieve a fine balance between summary description and information overload, as well as maintaining a delivery which was entertaining and educational.
It is always difficult to satisfy both academic and general expectations, but the information itself was well placed to illustrate the wide range of stories which have been identified through the records and the glorious medieval architecture (our ‘USP’) providing a superb backdrop. The result was that history came alive for those joining the tour.
The itinerary was entirely appropriate and fitted the time schedule, and the tour party were able to cope with the gradient. Tour notes and a suitable map are being developed for future use, and we look forward to these developments.
For the future there is something which needs to be addressed. The existing JTrails work is now seen as outdated, and in some respects inaccurate, so some negotiating and information exchange may be necessary to influence a rethink in certain quarters. Contact with the two Jewish congregations and the Society for Lincolnshire History and Archaeology (owners of Jews’ Court) may help towards this end, as they are all stakeholders in the Jewish heritage.
Christopher Johnson (Historian of the Lincoln Jewry who has mapped the entire medieval Jewish community in Lincoln)
