ABSTRACT
LONG before residence within a restricted quarter or ghetto 1 was compulsory, the Jews almost everywhere had concentrated in separate parts of the towns in which they lived 2. Though the era of the ghetto proper begins with the sixteenth century, numerous records are extant of the seclusion of Jews in special quarters several centuries earlier 3. The voluntary congregation of Jews in certain parts of the towns, due to the needs of the communal organization, was
2 There were many exceptions, of course, e. g. Lincoln in 1290. From the records published in the Jewish Quarterly Review, viii. p. 360, it is clear that was no Jewish quarter then. On the other hand, the' Jews' Street' in London is mentioned as early as !IIs (Jacobs, Angevin England, p. 13).
