{"id":8199,"date":"2026-03-31T03:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/materialcultureofwills\/?p=8199"},"modified":"2026-03-30T09:14:39","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T09:14:39","slug":"will-of-the-month-a-preceptor-of-aldgate-and-his-hebrew-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/materialcultureofwills\/2026\/03\/31\/will-of-the-month-a-preceptor-of-aldgate-and-his-hebrew-books\/","title":{"rendered":"Will of the month: A Preceptor of Aldgate and his Hebrew Books"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This month\u2019s post explores the will of David de Crasto, who was born into a prominent Jewish family in London, and died in the city in 1784.[1]<\/a> De Crasto\u2019s will is an example of how illuminating probate documents can be, but also how they can omit or obscure key details of a person\u2019s life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

De Crasto is described in the will simply as a \u2018Gentleman\u2019, yet he would have been well known in his lifetime as the \u2018reader\u2019, \u2018cantor\u2019 or \u2018hazzan\u2019 of the Spanish and Portuguese (Sephardic) synagogue. As a hazzan or precentor, De Crasto held a prominent position in the congregation, leading worship and directing the singing of prayers.[2]<\/a> The record of his burial described him as \u2018Hazan David de Isaac De Crasto\u2019, but his title and position are not obvious from reading the will alone.<\/p>\n\n\n

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A photograph of Bevis Marks Synagogue: https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Bevis_Marks_Synagogue_P6110044.JPG<\/em> <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

<\/a>\u2018for the use and Benefit of the said Synagogue\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

De Crasto\u2019s address was identified as \u2018Beers [Bevis] Marks London\u2019. This is the same street as the Bevis Marks synagogue, which was established in 1701 and continues to operate from the same building today. It is the oldest synagogue in the United Kingdom that has been in continuous use. Like many Sephardic families, De Crasto ostensibly lived in the immediate vicinity of the synagogue, but equally he may also have identified himself as being \u2018of\u2019 the synagogue that he led. He also sought to provide for its continued maintenance and administration after his death, leaving \u2018to the Rulers of the portiguese Jews Synagogue in London\u2026 Ten pounds Sterling for the use and Benefit of the said Synagogue\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018ffemme Coverts\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

De Crasto left sums of money to many of his relatives, including his daughters and granddaughters. Notably, he took pains to ensure that any of his beneficiaries that were \u2018ffemme Coverts\u2019 (married women) should have these legacies \u2018paid to them for their own use and benefit notwithstanding their Coverture\u2019. In other words, he explicitly stated that he wanted his daughters and granddaughters to have access to their money, despite a law which prevented married women from having control over their own assets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

De Crasto\u2019s unmarried daughter Esther received multiple bequests. He had entrusted his executors to invest the rest and residue of his estate, instructing them to \u2018pay the Interest and Dividends thereof unto my said Daughter Esther for and during her Life\u2019. Esther was also left \u2018all the ffurniture China Glasses and pictures that shall be in my House at the time of my death\u2019. While this is an umbrella term designed to encompass a variety of household objects, it nonetheless still gives a sense of the range of decorative goods, including chinaware and artworks, which De Crasto may have owned.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Writing table with raised compartments (bonheur du jour), About 1775<\/em> \u00a9 Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 2025 https:\/\/collections.vam.ac.uk\/item\/O113530\/writing-table-roger-vandercruse-lacroix\/<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

\u2018all that shall be found in my desk\u2019<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a later codicil, De Crasto added \u2018it is my pleasure and Will to bequeath to my Daughter Esther de Crasto my Desk at present at Mrs D\u2019aguilar at Clapton with all the valuables Moneys Rings it may contain to serve her for Mourning at my decease\u2019. The gift of her father\u2019s desk would have been a substantial and personally significant bequest, while its \u2018valuable\u2019 contents were designed to either be used or sold to pay for Esther\u2019s mourning wear. It is unclear why De Crasto had a desk at Mrs D\u2019aguilar\u2019s house at Clapton, some four miles from Bevis Marks. It is possible that he lodged there towards the end of his life. This bequest might also signal De Crasto\u2019s connection to the establishment of Hackney\u2019s first synagogue, near Clapton House, in 1779\/80, which was linked to the movement of several prominent Jewish families to the area from the City of London.[3]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Esther received all his furniture and everything contained in his desk, De Crasto\u2019s son Moses received one of a few more specific bequests: \u2018my Silver Watch and the Saphire Ring sent me for a present\u2019. This ring had originally been a gift, but no further details were given about who the ring had originally been gifted by, or what it might have meant to the owner.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Ring, purple sapphire with a border of rose- and brilliant-cut diamonds, in a gold setting set of about 1820, made in Europe<\/em> \u00a9 Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 2025  https:\/\/collections.vam.ac.uk\/item\/O122610\/ring-unknown\/<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

The clearest reference to De Crasto\u2019s position at the synagogue were the bequests made to his \u2018esteemed ffriend Mordecai Salom\u2019 – probably the Mordecai Salom who subsequently became the hazzan. He left Salom \u2018all my Wearing Apparel and also all my Hebrew Books and Silk Viels that shall be found in my Desk at the Synagogue\u2019. The Hebrew books and the silk veils – ostensibly a form of prayer shawl \u2013 were bequests which directly resourced the work of the hazzan.[4]<\/a> The discussion of De Crasto\u2019s personal desk at the synagogue, and the objects associated with leading prayer, signals a transference of responsibility to the younger beneficiary and successor. When Salom himself made his will prior to his death in 1818, he, like De Crasto, also mentioned another hazzan, Isaac Almosnino, who he appointed the executor of his will, and referred to as his \u2018dear child\u2019.[5]<\/a> These testamentary practices provide evidence of the close professional and personal bonds between the men who served the Sephardic synagogue in the role of hazzan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018be decently interred\u2026 in the Portugueze Jews Burial Ground at Mile End\u2019.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

De Crasto asked to \u2018be decently interred without ostentation according to the rites and ceremonies of the Jews in the Portugueze Jews Burial Ground at Mile End\u2019. As requested, his body was laid to rest in the \u2018Novo\u2019 (New) Sephardic cemetery at Mile End, the congregation\u2019s second cemetery, which had been established in 1733 to serve an expanding community in East London.[6]<\/a> His beloved daughter Esther appears to have remained unmarried, and to have been buried near her father in 1819. Subsequently the community kept expanding, and the cemetery reached capacity in 1918. De Crasto\u2019s body, along with Esther\u2019s, and all others that were buried in the Novo cemetery prior to 1875, was exhumed and reinterred in a mass, unmarked, grave in Essex in 1974.[7]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

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A photograph of the remaining graves in Novo Jewish Cemetery, where David de Crasto was originally buried. The oldest part of the cemetery, containing De Crasto\u2019s body, was cleared in the 1970s. <\/em>Photo \u00a9 Emily Vine, 2025 <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

De Crasto\u2019s will is an example of how probate documents can sometimes provide only a partial impression of a testator\u2019s life, and how reading these documents alongside other evidence can help build a more complete picture. Cross-checking between De Crasto\u2019s will and the Novo burial records allows us to confirm that he was \u2018decently interred\u2019 according to his wishes, although he and his daughter did not remain in their preferred resting place permanently. We are not always able to corroborate that the burial wishes of the other testators featured in our study were acted upon. Equally, unlike the majority of the testators featured in our study, we know not only where De Crasto was laid to rest, but what he looked like: the Jewish Museum London holds this engraving<\/a> of him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A man prominent enough to merit a portrait would, it might be assumed, have mentioned their status or position within their will. It is striking that there is no explicit reference to his role of hazzan or precentor: the title and position of leadership that best characterised his life instead subsumed by the vague term \u2018gentleman\u2019. This absence could relate to the fact that the scribe may not have placed importance on, or indeed have understood, what a hazzan or precentor was. It\u2019s a reminder to those of us that work with probate documents that they were created for a specific purpose: to ensure that final burial wishes were expressed, and that the correct belongings and sums of money reached the correct beneficiaries, but not as a summary of the decades of an individual\u2019s life, the totality of their relationships, or the substance of how they spent their days.  <\/p>\n\n\n