Definition
A house or institution established in medieval England for the reception and maintenance of Jewish converts to Christianity. The Domus Conversorum — literally "house of converts" — was founded in London by Henry III in 1232 to provide shelter, a small stipend, and religious instruction to Jews who had renounced their faith and accepted baptism. Upon conversion, such individuals were effectively stripped of their former legal status within the Jewish community but were not yet fully integrated into Christian society; the Domus provided a transitional institution for their support.
After the general expulsion of Jews from England in 1290, the house lost its original population but was not dissolved. It continued to exist as a legal and administrative entity for centuries, eventually coming to serve as the official residence and office of the Master of the Rolls — a significant judicial officer in the Court of Chancery. This transition gave the term a secondary historical significance in English legal administration, entirely detached from its original religious purpose.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encounter Domus Conversorum in at least two distinct documentary contexts that must not be confused. The first is medieval ecclesiastical and constitutional history, where the term appears in royal writs, patent rolls, and administrative records from the thirteenth century onward. The second is the history of the Court of Chancery and the office of Master of the Rolls, where the Domus is referenced as the physical and institutional seat of that office well into the modern period.
The institutional continuity between these two contexts is a frequent trap. A researcher encountering a reference to the "Domus Conversorum" in a Chancery record from the sixteenth or seventeenth century should not assume any ongoing function related to Jewish converts; by that period, the term is purely an administrative and architectural designation. Conversely, a researcher focused on medieval English Jewry will find the Domus in records of royal patronage and religious policy where its original purpose is central.
The connection to the Master of the Rolls matters for legal history researchers because the Rolls Chapel — housed within the Domus — was the repository of the Chancery rolls, and the Master's residential and custodial function there gave shape to how Chancery records were organized and preserved. This has direct implications for understanding access to, and the physical condition of, historical Chancery records.
No American jurisdictional significance attaches to this term. Its research value is confined to English legal and ecclesiastical history.
Historical Dictionary Support
Rapalje and Lawrence treat Domus Conversorum briefly but accurately, identifying it as the house founded for Jewish converts and noting its connection to the Master of the Rolls. Their entry correctly captures the dual character of the institution — its origin as a charitable and religious house and its later administrative function — without fully developing the historical arc between the two.
What historical dictionaries generally understate is the significance of the 1290 expulsion as the turning point that drained the institution of its original purpose while leaving the physical and legal entity intact. The gap between what the name means and what the institution became is wider than most compact dictionary entries suggest. Researchers relying solely on dictionary definitions risk missing the degree to which the Domus Conversorum is, for most of its documented existence, simply an administrative address rather than an operating religious house.
The Rolls Chapel, physically part of the Domus complex, had its own independent significance as a place of record-keeping and, eventually, as a site of religious services for Chancery officials — a dimension the dictionaries do not address.
Jurisdictional Note
This term is specific to English legal history and carries no operative meaning in any modern jurisdiction. It may appear in comparative legal history or in scholarship on the development of English Chancery jurisdiction, but it has no American, Commonwealth, or civilian law equivalent.