I'm trying to find evidence of William the Conqueror's apparent invitation to Jewish lenders and merchants into London/Oxford.
Many secondary sources say this can be found in William of malmesbury... But I cannot find anything of the sort. I can find William Rufus hosting debates between jewish and Christian clerics... But nothing about an invitation or anything that speaks to motivation... Where are these secondary sources getting this idea of an "invitation"?
I looked pretty well through William of Malmesbury's Gesta Regum Anglorum and checked the Historia Novella. But I could not find an explicit reference to William inviting them for this purpose.
This passage suggests that the Jews were present in London prior to the ascension of William II:
at London, entering into controversy with our bishops; because the king, in jest, as I suppose, had said, that if they mastered the Christians in open argument, he would become one of their sect. The question therefore was agitated with much apprehension on the part of the bishops and clergy, fearful, through pious anxiety, for the Christian faith. From this contest, however, the Jews reaped nothing but confusion: though they used repeatedly to boast that they were vanquished, not by argument, but by power.
(Unfortunately, I don't own the scholarly copy of William of Malmesbury, so I'm using a copyright-free edition from 1847 available on Project Gutenberg)
Looking through the items cited by The Palgrave Dictionary of Medeival Anglo-Jewish History, there may be more information in William's Gesta Pontificum Anglorum, which I do not have access to at present. Some digging also revealed that William discusses Jews, albeit in an unfavourable light, in his collection of Marian miracles, so there may be reference to it there.
I agree, it's frustrating that none of the secondary literature cites precisely where in William of Malmesbury this comes from. The Palgrave Dictionary above begins an entry tantalizingly with "William of Malmesbury tells us that William the Conqueror 'had transferred' some Jews to London from Rouen" with no specific citation as to what text the author is quoting before going directly into a discussion of the passage I quoted above.
While unfortunately, I don't have full access to William's entire body of work, I think I can surmise that the knowledge that William I invited Jews to London may be an assumption derived from reading William's work as a whole and is not specifically stated by the chronicler in one distinct place. Or historians have been very poor at citing a specific line in one of his more obscure works.
Edit: I also checked Henry of Huntingdon and the Anglo-Saxon chronicle and found no reference to William I and the Jews there.