October 2023 newsletter

THE LICORICIA OF WINCHESTER APPEAL

October 2023 newsletter

Highlights of the last nine months:

Information Board.  We have been working with Hampshire County Council and Hampshire Cultural Trust for some time to erect an information board by the statue, and this was finally achieved in September.  The board briefly and simply covers Licoricia’s history, Winchester’s medieval Jewish history, and our messages, and will increase our impact on visitors.   A QR code provides more information. 

Book:  Our fascinating book (Licoricia of Winchester:  Power and Prejudice in Medieval England) is selling very well and we may have to reprint in a year or so.  Sales at the end of September were over 1000 copies.  It is wonderful to have sold around half of our stock in the first year.  The book is sold at all Winchester’s major tourist sites as well as being available through Amazon.  If you haven’t purchased one it is worth the read!

Lessons for children.  We haveagreed with Hampshire County Council that our five ground-breaking Key Stage 3 lessons developed with HIAS (the Council’s educational Inspectorate and Advisory Service) will be available shortly for free download nationwide from their site (they are already available from our website http://www.licoricia.org).  These lessons are a unique way to explore issues of prejudice, diversity, and female agency within the context of medieval England.  HIAS can be contacted on 01962 874802 or via history.centre@hants.gov.uk. 

We have also started work with HIAS on primary school lessons, aimed at children of 11 years of age.  These lessons will introduce the middle ages (which students will study later at secondary school) through the Plantagenets’ Angevin Empire and Henry III –  institutions, politics and religion – and weave into them an understanding of the lives of the Jews of the time.  We hope that these lessons will be a unique way to help pupils cross over from the Anglo-Saxons into the world studied at secondary level.

Statue:  In early 2023 agreement was reached with Hampshire County Council for us to donate the statue to them.  They have undertaken to maintain it. 

We were very touched recently to find that a bunch of red roses had been left by Licoricia, a sign of hope in difficult times.

Leaflets.  We have given away over 10,000 leaflets in Winchester since the statue was unveiled.  When this is added to the 35,000 hits on our website, and the impact of the talks and podcasts on Licoricia, our impact continues to be considerable. 

Partnerships.  We are engaged with the Holocaust Educational Trust and Winchester University on a project regarding the teaching of prejudice in schools.

Talks and podcasts.  The Historical Association held a series of highly successful talks online about medieval Jews, to UK history teachers, in association with the Jewish Historical Society of England.  The Historical Association also included Licoricia in their One Big History Department blog.  There have been numerous podcasts made, by Hampshire HistoryBites, Apple, History Extra, Footnoting History, the Campaign against Antisemitism, BBC History Extra, the Jewish Historical Society of England and Medieval Jewish Studies. 

The trustees have continued to give talks to groups such as synagogues and local history societies.

King Charles III Coronation Celebration Service at Winchester Cathedral.  Rather wonderfully, a banner of Licoricia was present at the altar of Winchester Cathedral during the thanksgiving service for His Majesty King Charles III’s coronation.

Future plans.  There is no doubt that our impact would be increased by video resources, for example a talking head accessible by QR code from the Information Board, and short clips that could be shown to teachers of our lesssons as a teaser to students.  We intend to investigate these options and raise funds for them as necessary.

We will also be publicising our lessons further now that they are available free, with a view to making them part of mainstream history teaching in the UK.  They also are valuable as part of migration, diversity and female achievement studies, as well as in teaching the origins of anti-Semitic prejudice in this country.    We hope that they will be utilised by charities involved in teaching children.  Amongst the Jewish Community, many do not realise the antiquity or importance of Licoricia’s medieval history, and we hope to provide these lessons to synagogues and Jewish schools.

We have not given up the possibility of further research into Winchester’s medieval Jewish community.  Our initial enquiries have not proved fruitful but we will continue to investigate this area.

In summary, we have made exciting progress and that there remains a lot of good work to do.  Thank you for your continued support.

Walking tour of Winchester and round-table discussion at ARC, 21 May.

This roundtable event organised by the Parkes Institute of the University of Southampton 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 discussion will be chaired by Miri Rubin (Professor of Medieval and Early Modern History at Queen Mary University of London) and 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)

Please register to attend: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/licoricia-of-winchester-heritage-memory-of-medieval-anglo-jewry-tickets-617018628327

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. https://www.arcwinchester.org.uk/your-visit for directions on how to reach The Arc using public transport.

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.

The Walking Tour is led by Toni Griffiths exploring Winchester’s Jewish history and ending with the Licoricia statue.

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.

Please book here: https://store.southampton.ac.uk/conferences-and-events/faculty-of-arts-and-humanities/events/licoricia-of-winchester-heritage-and-memory-of-medieval-anglo-jewry-sunday-21st-may-1030am

Our latest newsletter

Dear Supporter

2022 has been a momentous year for us.  The unveiling and Royal visit in February and March respectively were the highlights of the year, but much was accomplished towards our other goals.    In Phase One of the project (for which we raised £192,000) we aimed to erect the statue with an information board close to it, hold a pop-up exhibition to accompany the unveiling, create Key Stage Three lessons for children, produce and distribute an information leaflet in Winchester, and publish a book.  With the publication of the book (Licoricia of Winchester: Power and Prejudice in Medieval England, by Rebecca Abrams) in the summer of 2022, all these have been achieved, with the exception of the Information Board.  We plan to erect the latter in early 2023.  As you will see below, we are now pressing on with our Phase Two educational work and have some exciting projects planned.

The unveiling of the statue and Royal visit

The unveiling of the statue was preceded by hard work by sculptor, Ian Rank-Broadley, in finishing the life-size statue, casting and patinating it.  There was also much to do in submitting a request for planning permission, finalising the statue site, and designing and commissioning the plinth. 

Considerable effort went into preparations for the unveiling, and we are really grateful for all the assistance we received from Hampshire County Council in organising it.  We were extremely pleased that the unveiling was supported by a wide range of senior faith and other leaders, with the invaluable help of the Council of Christians and Jews. 

Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis (Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth) gave a magnificent and moving speech.  Other leaders included Rabbi Charley Baginsky (CEO of Liberal Judaism), Rabbi Joseph Dweck (Senior Rabbi of the Spanish and Portuguese Community of the United Kingdom), Archbishop Nikitas Loulias (Archbishop of the Greek Orthodox diocese of Thyateira and Great Britain), Archbishop Kevin McDonald (Archbishop Emeritus of the Roman Catholic Archdioceseof Southwark), The Very Reverend Catherine Ogle (Dean of Winchester Cathedral), Reverend Dr Hugh Osgood (Moderator of the Free Churches Group), Bishop Debbie Sellin (Bishop of Southampton and acting Bishop of Winchester), Reverend Dr Richard Sudworth (Secretary for Inter Religious Affairs to the Archbishop of Canterbury and National Inter Religious Affairs Advisor for the Church of England), Marie van der Zyl (President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews), The Lord Mann (HM Government adviser on Antisemitism), many leading Rabbis from different denominations, and local Muslim representatives. 

Senior representatives from Hampshire County Council, Winchester Council, Hampshire Cultural Trust, and local organisations were also present, as were donors to the Appeal, our Patrons, Simon Sebag Montefiore and Dame Jenny Abramsky, and our Trustees.  The unveiling was accompanied by a klezmer band and was well attended by over a thousand members of the public.  Security was provided by mounted police. 

Over two hundred guests were entertained in Winchester’s Great Hall as part of Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations.  Klezmer music was again played, and a guard of honour was provided by the Gurkhas.  At the Great Hall, a speech was given on Licoricia’s connections with Winchester by Councillor Keith Mans, Chairman of Hampshire County Council, and one of our Patrons, Simon Sebag Montefiore, gave a rousing speech on Licoricia’s significance.

Three weeks later we were hugely honoured to be visited by HM King Charles, when Prince of Wales.  The centre of Winchester was closed to traffic again and our Chair, Maggie Carver, gave a speech explaining why the statue has been erected.  As with the unveiling itself, a huge crowd of the public had assembled.

Both these events were widely reported in local and national media, reaching an audience of well over a million people.  The events were covered by local and national radio (including an interview with Rebecca Abrams on Woman’s Hour), local television (BBC and ITV), and newspapers, magazines and online – local, national, and international in Europe, America and Israel.  Licoricia’s Wikipedia webpage has had over 40,000 visits and our own website over 20,000 visits.  We have distributed over 6,000 leaflets locally. 

The statue of Licoricia is very popular with residents and visitors alike.  She has become a “Selfie Queen”, and children love Asher.  Interestingly, Licoricia has been especially inspiring to women of all ages, regardless of religion, as a strong woman who succeeded in a man’s world in difficult circumstances.

We are particularly pleased with the interfaith reaction.  The Catholic Church in Jewry Street gave a sermon about her messages and the Dean of Winchester Cathedral produced an online video which is now on Youtube and on our website.  Winchester Cathedral also arranged a series of four talks inspired by Licoricia, her community and her times.  These thoughtfully and sensitively tackled such subjects as Jews and Money and the Jews in the Tower of London.

We have been encouraged by the extent other organisations are helping spread our messages.  Following the unveiling, Licoricia has been included in an information board in Winchester City Museum.  Winchester’s Medieval Jewish Trail has been updated to include Licoricia. 

Outside Winchester, Maggie gave a talk at the House of Lords, hosted by Lord Mann.  Presentations have been given to many synagogues and groups visiting Winchester’s Medieval Jewish Trail.  The statue will shortly be donated to Hampshire County Council, who will maintain it.

The book

Our fascinating book, (‘Licoricia of Winchester:  Power and Prejudice in Medieval England’, ISBN 978-1-3999-1638-7) was published in June and has been well-received by both experts and the general public.  Robert Stacey, Professor Emeritus of the University of Washington, wrote that it is ‘a beautifully written account of the life of the most important Jewish woman in thirteenth-century England.

Easily accessible to general readers yet informative even to specialists, this book deserves a wide and receptive audience’.  It has 144 pages, is well-illustrated with over 40 colour images, and retails at £14.99.   

The book has engendered considerable interest, including from Tracy-Ann Oberman, who mentioned her in a tweet.  The book is selling well with around one third of the 2,000 print-run having sold, despite availability problems with Amazon, Waterstones and the distribution warehouse.

Rebecca will be giving a talk at Jewish Book Week in 2023.

Education

We are working hard to maximise Licoricia’s impact and now that the statue is in place, we are using it as the foundation of our educational activities.  We have had podcasts produced from Hampshire HistoryBites, Apple, History Extra, Footnoting History, the Campaign against Antisemitism, BBC History Extra, the Jewish Historical Society of England and Medieval Jewish Studies.  The Historical Association included her in their One Big History Department blog. 

The Jewish Museum London has exhibited the maquette of Licoricia for the last six months, and this has been very successful.  Here are some examples of comments from visitors:

“I find it very inspirational to see powerful women and their stories celebrated”

“How fabulous to see a recognisable window into the representation of women in the distant past – one can only wonder at the challenges she must have faced and how unfortunately women still face challenges in today’s society”

“This presentation has been very useful for understanding the context of the place of women in society – very inspirational”

Lessons

Five ground-breaking Key Stage 3 lessons have been created by Hampshire County Council which are available in Hampshire and beyond to teach about Licoricia and her lessons for today.  The lessons are divided into two enquiries. The first, three lesson enquiry, looks at what the extraordinary life of Licoricia of Winchester reveals about medieval society and how it treated its Jewish community. They explore how the experience of medieval Jews changed over time and why.

The second, two lesson enquiry, explores the medieval history of Winchester to discover what it reveals about the experience of the Jewish minority who lived there. It provides a meaningful local study and familiar context in which to learn about the attitudes, power structures, relationships and events that affected their lives.

The lessons are available from HIAS (Hampshire’s Inspectorate and Advisory Service) who can be contacted on 01962 874802 or via history.centre@hants.gov.uk.  They have been well-received and were updated for the unveiling and the Royal visit. 

Plans for 2023

Information Board

There is considerable demand from visitors to the statue for the information board near the statue, and so this is our next priority.  Hampshire Cultural Trust are helping us with wording and design and we hope to apply for Advertisement consent in early 2023. We plan to instal it in spring 2023.

Primary school lessons

We are in discussion with Hampshire County Council about producing lessons for primary schools and we hope to progress this early in 2023.  Further funding may be necessary.

Park Community School, Portsmouth

Park Community School provided a contingent of lovely young people to meet HM King Charles at both the unveiling and the subsequent Royal visit.  They are now interested in building some of our material into their RE and history syllabi.  As with the teacher-training materials, there could be possibilities for wider distribution of the materials we produce. 

Research

Winchester’s County Archives contain the Winchester Bishopric Pipe Rolls.  These cover 331 years between 1208-09 and 1710-11. The medieval bishops of Winchester held the richest English episcopal estate. The Pipe Rolls, arguably the finest medieval estate accounts in Europe, were among twenty artefacts from UK archives awarded a place in 2011 in the UK Memory of the World Register run by UNESCO.  Pierre des Roches, Bishop of Winchester under King John and the young Henry III, was a privotal figure in English politics, and we know that he engaged with Winchester’s Jews.  We would like to fund some research to uncover more about Winchester’s Jewish community and their place in, and contribution to, medieval society. 

Other

We are keen to work with other like-minded organisations to promote our aims of making England’s medieval Jewish community better-known, promote education and the benefits of diversity, combat prejudice, and encourage female achievement.

Conclusion 

Overall, we have been thrilled with the response to the project in 2022 and feel optimistic about prospects for 2023.  Locally, it is changing the way Winchester sees itself, and nationally, it is changing our understanding of British history.  We also feel that some progress is being made in peoples’ understanding of the prejudices about Jews that were formed during the middle ages, more than 700 years ago, and hope that the project will have a long-term impact on antisemitism. 

The response of women to Licoricia, of children to her son Asher, and generally to our message of ‘love thy neighbour as thyself’, has been heartening. We have good work still to do.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank our trustees and our patrons for their hard work in a busy year, and also to thank you for your support, which is absolutely vital to our work.  We look forward to staying in touch.

Further fundraising will be necessary in 2023.  Please let us know if you would like to contribute to any of the above projects.

Yours sincerely

Maggie Carver CBE DL, Chairman                              William Carver, Treasurer and Secretary