Licoricia of Winchester Statue

Both women and Jewish people had few opportunities for independent success in England at the time. Fred Cherrygarden (Atlas Obscura User)

In 2022, a new statue was unveiled on Jewry Street, Winchester, portraying a regal woman in queenly garb and her son. This enigmatic figure is no royal but a rather obscure figure of the Middle Ages, albeit one with powerful significance in local history.

Licoricia of Winchester was an English Jewish businesswoman who lived in the mid-13th century. Described by historian Robert Stacey as “the most important Jewish woman in medieval England,” she managed to keep her family afloat in the period of increasing religious intolerance by being a high-profile moneylender with a close relationship with King Henry III.

Licoricia lived through a period of significant religious intolerance, in which Jewish people had few means of earning a living. When her name first appears in historical records in 1234, she is mentioned as a young widow with three sons and a daughter, and in 1242 she remarried David of Oxford. The two had a son, Asher, who was born the next year—and the one depicted in the sculpture, holding his mother’s hand in one hand and a dreidel in another.

Not only does Licoricia offer a glimpse into the lives of Jewish people in medieval England, but her name also reflects a certain trend in those days. Back then, especially in the early 13th century, exotic-sounding names (such as Saffronia and Almonda) were popular among both Christian and Jewish women; even among them, “Licoricia” seems to have been a rare, unique choice, which may have helped her rise to, so to speak, stardom.

It is also believed that she contributed heavily to the construction of the famous Westminster Abbey. When her second husband David died in 1244, Licoricia paid thousands to the King, which then funded the project.

Licoricia herself died in 1277, murdered alongside her Christian servant Alice. They were apparently stabbed to death during a robbery, but the perpetrators were never caught or even found, leaving the murders a medieval cold case.

Today, the sculpture on Jewry Street is one of the few reminders of this Licoricia’s legacy. It was created by sculptor Ian Rank-Broadley FRSS and inaugurated on February 10, 2022, celebrated by Charles III (then-Prince of Wales) a month later. The statue stands facing the direction where Licoricia’s house and the synagogue once stood.