The towns were the first to carry out a practical and effective
anti-Jewish policy. It was they that suffered most keenly and
constantly from the presence of the Jews. They had bought, at great
expense, from King or noble or abbot, the right to be independent,
self-governing communities, living under the jurisdiction of their own
officers, free from the visits of the royal sheriffs, and paying a
fixed sum in commutation of all dues to the King or the local lord;
and yet many of them saw the King protecting in their midst a band
of foreigners, who had the royal permission to go whithersoever they
pleased, who could dwell among the burgesses, and were yet free not
only from all customs and dues and contribution to the ferm,[37] but
even from the jurisdiction of those authorities which were responsible
for peace and good government.[38] This was exasperating enough; but
there was more and worse. The exclusion of the sheriff and the King’s
constables was one of the most cherished privileges of towns, but,
wherever the Jews had once taken up their residence, it was in danger
of being a mere pretence. At Colchester, if a Jew was unable to recover
his debts, he could call in the King’s sheriffs to help him. In London,
Jews were “warrantised” from the exchequer, and the constable of the
Tower had a special jurisdiction by which he kept the pleas between
Jews and Christians. At Nottingham, complaints against Jews, even in
cases of petty assaults, were heard before the keeper of the Castle.
At Oxford the constable called in question the Chancellor’s authority
over the Jews; contending that they did not form part of the ordinary
town-community.[39] Moreover, the debts of the Jews were continually
falling into the King’s hands, and whenever this happened, his officers
would no doubt penetrate into the town to make on behalf of the royal
treasury a collection such as had never been contemplated when the
burgesses made their agreement, which was to settle once and for all
their payment to the King.[40]
In some of the towns the feeling against the Jews was expressed in
riots as early as the reign of John, and the beginning of that of Henry
III. But the King in each case took stern measures of repression. John
told the mayor and barons of London that he should require the blood
of the Jews at their hands if any ill befell them.[41] In Gloucester
and in Hereford, the burgesses of the town were made responsible for
the safety of the Jews dwelling amongst them. In Worcester, York,
Lincoln, Stamford, Bristol, Northampton, and Winchester, the sheriffs
were charged with the duty of protecting them against injury.[42] Such
measures only increased the ill-feeling of the burgesses. At Norwich in
1234 the Jewry was fired and looted.[43] The Jews were maltreated and
beaten, and were only saved from further harm by the timely help of the
garrison of the neighbouring castle. At Oxford the scholars attacked
the Jewry and carried off “innumerable goods.”[44]
But the towns soon began to use a far more effective method than
rioting in order to rid themselves of the Jews. Just as they had found
it worth while to pay heavily for their municipal charters, so now
they were willing to pay more for a measure which would secure them
in the future against a drain on their revenues and a violation of
their privileges. Whether a town held its charter from the King, or
was still dependent on an intermediate lord, the motive was equally
strong. An abbot or a baron would be glad to second the efforts made by
the inhabitants of one of his vills to expel a portion of the populace
which took much from the resources whence his revenue came and added
nothing to them.[45] The abbot of Bury St. Edmund’s induced the King to
expel the Jews from the town in 1190.[46] The burgesses of Leicester
obtained a similar grant from Simon de Montfort in 1231, those of
Newcastle in 1234, of Wycombe in 1235, of Southampton in 1236, of
Berkhampsted in 1242, of Newbury in 1244, of Derby in 1263; at Norwich
the citizens complained to the King, but without any result, of the
harm that they suffered through the growth of the Jewish community
settled in the city.[47] In 1245 a decree in general terms was issued
by Henry III., prohibiting all Jews, except those to whom the King had
granted a special personal license, from remaining in any town other
than those in which their co-religionists had hitherto been accustomed
to live.[48] This series of measures did not simply deprive the Jews in
England of a right which had been solemnly granted them and which they
had long enjoyed. It went much further. For, by circumscribing the
area in which they could carry on their business, and so diminishing
their opportunities of acquiring wealth, it threatened their very
existence in a land where their wealth alone secured them protection.