Alice of Worcester

Alice of Worcester was a converted Jewess in late thirteenth-century England, who used letters and petitions to seek support from her connections in the royal government for herself and her son as their material circumstances degenerated and they were forced into itinerancy among various charitable houses and cities across England. Her two surviving writings, addressed to the king, Edward I, and his chancellor, Robert Burnell, show adept use of language, genre and rhetoric, and familiarity with contemporary norms of scribal production but seem nevertheless to have been ineffective in counteracting the challenges faced by converted Jews in England in the closing decades of the century. While they shed special light on the experience and writing strategies of her marginalized community, Alice’s letters also exemplify the wider letter-writing of women of her time. They are rare survivals of what may have been a more substantial female correspondence seeking assistance from extended social networks.