the city; the mob, rushing to the palace, massacred the soldiers taken
at Scaletta; the alarm-bells rang; the few partisans of the French
concealed themselves in terror; the armed and bloodstained people
poured in torrents through the streets, even the rulers of the city
made no attempt to quell their fury; for Neocastro, who undoubtedly
shared in their counsels, writes that they, on the contrary, advanced
the more boldly in the path of revolution when they beheld the
multitude so inextricably engaged.
EXPULSION OF JEWS FROM ENGLAND
A.D. 1290
HENRY HART MILMAN
Long persecuted in so-called Christian lands, the people
without a country--the Jews--first appeared in England
during the latter half of the eleventh century, a colony, it
is said, having been taken from Rouen to London by William
the Conqueror. These first-comers were, we are told, special
favorites of William Rufus. Little is seen of them under
Henry I, but in the reign of Stephen they are found
established in most of the principal towns, but dwelling as
a people apart, not being members of the State, but chattels
of the King, and only to be meddled with, for good or for
evil, at his bidding. Exempt from taxation and fines, they
hoarded wealth, which the King might seize at his pleasure,
though none of his subjects could touch it. The Jew's
special capacity--in which Christians were forbidden by the
Church to employ themselves through fear of the sin of
usury---was that of money-lender.
In this status the Jews remained without eventful history
until the latter part of the twelfth century, when the
crusading spirit had aroused a more intense hatred of the
race. At the coronation of Richard I (1189) certain of the
Jews intruded among the spectators, causing a riot, in which
the Jewish quarter was plundered; and this violence was
followed by a frenzy of persecution all over the land. A
rumor spread that the Jews were accustomed to crucify a
Christian boy at Easter, and this aroused the populace to
fury against them. Murder and rapine prevailed in several
places. Five hundred Jews, who were allowed to take refuge
in the castle at York, were there besieged by the townsmen,
in whom no offers of ransom could appease the thirst for
blood. These avengers were led on by their own clergy, with
the cry, "Destroy the enemies of Christ!" A rabbi addressed
his countrymen: "Men of Israel, it is better that we should
die for our law than to fall into the power of those that
hate it, and our law prescribes that we may die by our own
hands. Let us voluntarily render up our souls to our
Creator." Then all but a few of them burned or buried their
effects, and, after setting fire to the castle in many
places, the men cut the throats of their wives and children,
and then their own.
Richard I had special dealings with the Jews, the effectual
results of which were more securely to bind them as crown
chattels and to add to the royal emoluments. King John, well
estimating the importance of the Jews as a source of
revenue, began his reign by heaping favors upon them, which
only made his subjects in general look upon them with more
jealousy. Under Henry III both the wealth of the Jews and
the oppressions which laid exactions upon it increased; and
during the half-century preceding their expulsion from the
realm, their condition, as shown by Milman, became more and
more intolerable.
Jewish history has a melancholy sameness--perpetual exactions, the
means of enforcing them differing only in their degrees of cruelty.
Under Henry III the Parliament of England began, 1250, to consider
that these extraordinary succors ought at least to relieve the rest of
the nation. They began to inquire into the King's resources from this
quarter, and the King consented that one of the two justices of the
Jews should be appointed by parliament. But the barons thought more of
easing themselves than of protecting the oppressed. In 1256 a demand
of eight thousand marks was made, under pain of being transported,
some at least of the most wealthy, to Ireland; and, lest they should
withdraw their families into places of concealment, they were
forbidden, under the penalty of outlawry and confiscation, to remove
wife or child from their usual place of residence, for their wives and
children were now liable to taxation as well as themselves. During the
next three years sixty thousand marks more were levied. How, then, was
it possible for any traffic, however lucrative, to endure such
perpetual exactions?
The reason must be found in the enormous interest of money, which
seems to have been considered by no means immoderate at 50 per cent.;
certain Oxford scholars thought themselves relieved by being
constrained to pay only twopence weekly on a debt of twenty shillings.
In fact, the rivalry of more successful usurers seems to have
afflicted the Jews more deeply than the exorbitant demands of the
King. These were the "Caorsini," Italian bankers, though named from
the town of Cahors, employed by the Pope to collect his revenue. It
was the practice of these persons, under the sanction of their
principal, to lend money for three months without interest, but
afterward to receive 5 per cent, monthly till the debt was discharged;
the former device was to exempt them from the charge of usury. Henry
III at one time attempted to expel this new swarm of locusts; but they
asserted their authority from the Pope, and the monarch trembled.
Nor were their own body always faithful to the Jews. A certain
Abraham, who lived at Berkhampstead and Wallingford, with a beautiful
wife who bore the heathen name of Flora, was accused of treating an
image of the Virgin with most indecent contumely; he was sentenced to
perpetual imprisonment, but released, on the intervention of Richard,
Earl of Cornwall, on payment of seven hundred marks. He was a man, it
would seem, of infamous character, for his brethren accused him of
coining, and offered one thousand marks rather than that he should be
released from prison. Richard refused the tempting bribe, because
Abraham was "his Jew." Abraham revenged himself by laying information
of plots and conspiracies entered into by the whole people, and the
more probable charge of concealment of their wealth from the rapacious
hands of the King. This led to a strict and severe investigation of
their property. At this investigation was present a wicked and
merciless Jew, who rebuked the Christians for their tenderness to his
brethren, and reproached the King's officers as gentle and effeminate.
He gnashed his teeth, and, as each Jew appeared, declared that he
could afford to pay twice as much as was exacted. Though he lied, he
was useful in betraying their secret hoards to the King.
The distresses of the King increased, and, as his parliament
resolutely refused to maintain his extravagant expenditure, nothing
remained but to drain still further the veins of the Jews. The office
was delegated to Richard, Earl of Cornwall, his brother, whom, from
his wealth, the King might consider possessed of some secret for
accumulating riches from hidden sources. The rabbi Elias was deputed
to wait on the Prince, expressing the unanimous determination of all
the Jews to quit the country rather than submit to further burdens:
"Their trade was ruined by the Caorsini, the Pope's merchants--the Jew
dared not call them usurers--who heaped up masses of gold by their
money-lending; they could scarcely live on the miserable gains they
now obtained; if their eyes were torn out and their bodies flayed,
they could not give more." The old man fainted at the close of his
speech, and was with difficulty revived.
Their departure from the country was a vain boast, for whither should
they go? The edicts of the King of France had closed that country
against them, and the inhospitable world scarcely afforded a place of
refuge. Earl Richard treated them with leniency and accepted a small
sum. But the next year the King renewed his demands; his declaration
affected no disguise: "It is dreadful to imagine the debts to which I
am bound. By the face of God, they amount to two hundred thousand
marks; if I should say three hundred thousand, I should not go beyond
the truth. Money I must have, from any place, from any person, or by
any means." The King's acts display as little dignity as his
proclamation. He actually sold or mortgaged to his brother Richard all
the Jews in the realm for five thousand marks, giving him full power
over their property and persons; our records still preserve the terms
of this extraordinary bargain and sale.
Popular opinion, which in the worst times is some restraint upon the
arbitrary oppressions of kings, in this case would rather applaud the
utmost barbarity of the monarch than commiserate the wretchedness of
the victims; for a new tale of the crucifixion of a Christian child,
called Hugh of Lincoln, was now spreading horror throughout the
country. The fact was confirmed by a solemn trial and the conviction
and execution of the criminals. It was proved, according to the mode
of proof in those days, that the child had been stolen, fattened on
bread and milk for ten days, and crucified with all the cruelties and
insults of Christ's Passion, in the presence of all the Jews in
England, summoned to Lincoln for this especial purpose; a Jew of
Lincoln sat in judgment as Pilate. But the earth could not endure to
be an accomplice in the crime; it cast up the buried remains, and the
affrighted criminals were obliged to throw the body into a well, where
it was found by the mother. A great part of this story refutes itself,
but among the ignorant and fanatic Jews there might be some who,
exasperated by the constant repetition of this charge, might brood
over it so long as at length to be tempted to its perpetration.
I must not suppress the fearful vengeance wreaked on the supposed
perpetrators of this all-execrated crime. The Jew into whose house the
child, it was said, had gone to play, tempted by the promise of life
and security from mutilation, made full confession, and threw the
guilt upon his brethren. The King, indignant at this unauthorized
covenant of mercy, ordered him to execution. The Jew, in his despair
or frenzy, entered into a still more minute and terrible denunciation
of all the Jews of the realm, as consenting to the act. He was
dragged, tied to a horse's tail, to the gallows; his body and his soul
delivered to the demons of the air. Ninety-one Jews of Lincoln were
sent, to London as accomplices, and thrown into dungeons. If some
Christians felt pity for their sufferings, their rivals, the Caorsini,
beheld them with dry eyes.
The King's inquest declared all the Jews of the realm guilty of the
crime. The mother made her appeal to the King. Eighteen of the richest
and most eminent of the Lincoln Jews were hung on a new gallows;
twenty more were imprisoned in the Tower awaiting the same fate. But
if the Jews of Lincoln were thus terribly chastised, the church of
Lincoln was enriched and made famous for centuries. The victim was
canonized; pilgrims crowded from all parts of the kingdom, even from
foreign lands, to pay their devotions at the shrine, to witness and to
receive benefit from the miracles which were wrought by the martyr of
eight years old. How deeply this legend sank into the popular mind may
be conceived from Chaucer's _Prioress' Tale_.
The rest of the reign of Henry III passed away with the same
unmitigated oppressions of the Jews; which the Jews, no doubt, in some
degree revenged by their extortions from the people. The contest
between the royal and ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the Jews was
arranged by certain constitutions, set forth by the King in council.
By these laws no Jew could reside in the kingdom but as king's serf.
Service was to be performed in the synagogue in a low tone, so as not
to offend the ears of Christians. The Jews were forbidden to have
Christian nurses for their children. The other clauses were similar to
those enacted in other countries: that the Jew should pay all dues to
the parson; no Jew should eat or buy meat during Lent; all disputes on
religion were forbidden; sexual intercourse between Jews and
Christians interdicted; no Jew might settle in any town where Jews
were not accustomed to reside, without special license from the King.
The barons' wars drew on, fatal to the Israelites as compelling the
King, by the hopeless state of his finances, to new extortions, and
tempting the barons to plunder and even murder them as wickedly and
unconstitutionally attached to the King. How they passed back from
Richard of Cornwall into the King's jurisdiction as property appears
not. It is not likely that the King redeemed the mortgage; but in 1261
they were again alienated to Prince Edward. The King's object was
apparently by this and other gifts to withdraw the Prince from his
alliance with the barons. The justiciaries of the Jews are now in
abeyance. The chancellor of the exchequer was to seal ail writs of
Judaism, and account to the attorneys of the Prince for the amount.
But this was not the worst of their sufferings or the bitterest
disgrace; the Prince, in his turn, mortgaged them to certain of their
dire enemies, the Caorsini, and the King ratified the assignment by
his royal authority.
But for this compulsory aid, wrung from them by violence, the Jews
were treated by the barons as allies and accomplices of the King. When
London, at least her turbulent mayor and the populace, declared for
the barons; when the Grand Justiciary, Hugh le Despenser, led the city
bands to destroy the palaces of the King of the Romans at Westminster
and Isleworth, threw the justices of the king's bench and the barons
of the exchequer into prison, and seized the property of the foreign
merchants, five hundred of the Jews,[83] men, women, and children,
were apprehended and set apart, but not for security. Despenser chose
some of the richest in order to extort a ransom for his own people,
the rest were plundered, stripped, murdered by the merciless rabble.
Old men, and babes plucked from their mothers' breasts, were
pitilessly slaughtered. It was on Good Friday that one of the fiercest
of the barons, Fitz John, put to death Cok ben Abraham, reputed to
have been the wealthiest man in the kingdom, seized his property, but,
fearful of the jealousy of the other barons surrendered one-half of
the plunder to Leicester in order to secure his own portion.
The Jews of other cities fared no better, were pillaged, and then
abandoned to the mob by the Earl of Gloucester; many at Worcester were
plundered and forced to submit to baptism by the Earl of Derby. At an
earlier period the Earl of Leicester (Simon de Montfort) had expelled
them from the town of Leicester; they sought refuge in the domains of
the Countess of Winchester. Robert Grostête, the wisest and best
churchman of the day, then Archdeacon of Leicester, hardly permitted
the Countess to harbor this accursed race; their lives might be
spared, but all further indulgence, especially acceptance of their
ill-gotten wealth, would make her an accomplice in the wickedness of
their usuries.[84]
After the battle of Lewes, 1264, the King, with the advice of his
barons--he was now a prisoner in their camp--issued a proclamation to
the Lord Mayor and sheriffs of London, in favor of the Jews. Some had
found refuge, during the tumult and massacre, in the Tower of London;
they were permitted to return with their families to their homes. All
ill-usage or further molestation was prohibited under pain of death.
Orders of the same kind were issued to Lincoln; twenty-five citizens
were named by the King and the barons their special protectors; so
also to Northampton. The King--Prince Edward was now at war with the
barons, who had the King in their power--revoked the grant of the Jews
to his son; with that the grant to the Caorsini, which had not
expired, was cancelled. The justiciaries appointed by the Prince to
levy the tallage upon them were declared to have lost their authority;
the Jews passed back to the property of the King. The King showed his
power by annulling many debts and the interest due upon them to some
of his faithful followers, avowedly in order to secure their
attachment.
It was now clearly for the King's interest that such profitable
subjects should find, we may not say justice, but something like
restitution, which might enable them again to become profitable. The
King in the parliament, which commenced its sittings immediately after
the battle of Lewes, and continued till after the battle of Evesham,
August 4, 1265, restored the Jews to the same state in which they were
before the battle of Lewes. As to the Jews in London, the constable of
the Tower was to see not only that those who had taken refuge in the
Tower, but those who had fled to other places, were to return to their
houses, which were to be restored, except such as had been granted
away by the King; and even all their property which could be recovered
from the King's enemies. Excepting that some of the barons' troops,
flying from the battle of Evesham, under the younger Simon de
Montfort, broke open and plundered the synagogue at Lincoln, where
they found much wealth, and some excesses committed at Cambridge, the
Jews had time to breathe. The King, enriched by the forfeited estates
of the barons, spared the Jews. We only find a tallage of one thousand
pounds, with promise of exemption for three years, unless the King or
his son should undertake a crusade.
Their wrongs had, no doubt, sunk deep into the hearts of the Jews. It
has been observed that oppression, which drives even wise men mad, may
instigate fanatics to the wildest acts of frenzy; an incident at
Oxford will illustrate this. Throughout these times the Jews still
flourished, if they may be said to have flourished, at Oxford. In 1244
certain clerks of the university broke into the houses of the Jews and
carried away enormous wealth. The magistrates seized and imprisoned
some of the offenders. Grostete, as bishop of the diocese--Oxford was
then in the diocese of Lincoln--commanded their release, because there
was no proof of felony against them. We hear nothing of restitution.
The scholars might indeed hate the Jews whose interest on loans was
_limited_ by Bishop Grostete to twopence weekly in the pound--between
40 and 50 per cent. Probably the poor scholars' security was not
overgood. Later, the studies in the university are said to have been
interrupted, the scholars being unable to redeem their books pledged
to the Jews.
Twenty-four years after the outbreak of the scholars, years of
bitterness and spoliation and suffering, while the chancellor and the
whole body of the university were in solemn procession to the reliques
of St. Frideswide, they were horror-struck by beholding a Jew rush
forth, seize the cross which was borne before them, dash it to the
ground, and trample upon it with the most furious contempt. The
offender seems to have made his escape in the tumult, but his people
suffered for his crime. Prince Edward was then at Oxford; and, by the
royal decree, the Jews were imprisoned, and forced, notwithstanding
much artful delay on their part, to erect a beautiful cross of white
marble, with an image of the Virgin and Child, gilt all over, in the
area of Merton College, and to present to the proctors another cross
of silver to be borne at all future processions of the university. The
Jews endeavored to elude this penalty by making over their effects to
other persons. The King empowered the sheriff to levy the fine on all
their property.
The last solemn act of Henry of Winchester was a statute of great
importance. Complaints had arisen that the Jews, by purchase, or
probably foreclosure of mortgage, might become possessed of all the
rights of lords of manors, escheat wardships, even of presentation to
churches. They might hold entire baronies with all their
appurtenances. The whole was swept away by one remorseless clause. The
act disqualified the Jews altogether from holding lands or even
tenements, except the houses of which they were actually possessed,
particularly in the city of London, where they might only pull down
and rebuild on the old foundations. All lands or manors were actually
taken away; those which they held by mortgage were to be restored to
the Christian owners, without any interest on such bonds. Henry almost
died in the act of extortion; he had ordered the arrears of all
charges to be peremptorily paid, under pain of imprisonment. Such was
the distress caused by this inexorable mandate that even the rival
bankers, the Caorsini, and the friars themselves, were moved to
commiseration, though some complained that the wild outcries raised in
the synagogue on this doleful occasion disturbed the devotion of the
Christians in the neighboring churches.
The death of Henry released the Jews from this Egyptian bondage; but
they changed their master, not their fortune. The first act of
Edward's reign, after his return from the Holy Land, regulated the
affairs of the Jews exactly in the same spirit; a new tallage was
demanded, which was to extend to the women and children; the penalty
of nonpayment, even of arrears, was exile, not imprisonment. The
defaulter was to proceed immediately to Dover, with his wife and
children, leaving his house and property to the use of the King. The
execution of this edict was committed, not to the ordinary civil
authorities, but to an Irish bishop (elect) and to two friars.
This edict was followed up by the celebrated Act of Parliament
Concerning Judaism,[85] the object of which seems to have been the
same with the policy of Louis IX of France, to force the Jews to
abandon usury, and betake themselves to traffic, manufactures, or the
cultivation of land. It positively prohibited all usury and cancelled
all debts on payment of the principal. No Jew might distress beyond
the moiety of a Christian's land and goods; they were to wear their
badge, a badge now of yellow, not white, and pay an Easter offering of
threepence, men and women, to the King. They were permitted to
practise merchandise or labor with their hands, and--some of them, it
seems, were still addicted to husbandry--to hire farms for cultivation
for fifteen years. On these terms they were assured of the royal
protection. But manual labor and traffic were not sources sufficiently
expeditious for the enterprising avarice of the Jews. Many of them,
thus reduced, took again to a more unlawful and dangerous occupation,
clipping and adulterating the coin. In one day, November 17, 1279, all
the Jews in the kingdom were arrested. In London alone two hundred and
eighty were executed after a full trial; many more in other parts of
the kingdom. A vast quantity of clipped coin was found and confiscated
to the King's use. The King granted their estates and forfeitures with
lavish hand.
But law, though merciless and probably not overscrupulous in the
investigation of crime, did not satisfy the popular passions, which
had been let loose by these wide and general accusations. The populace
took the law into their own hands.
Everywhere there was full license for plunder and worse than plunder.
The King was obliged to interpose. A writ was issued, addressed to the
justiciaries who had presided at the trials for the adulteration of
the coin, Peter of Pentecester, Walter of Heylynn, John of Cobham,
appointed justiciaries for the occasion. It recited that many Jews had
been indicted and legally condemned to death and to the forfeiture of
their goods and chattels; but that certain Christians, solely on
account of religious differences, were raising up false and frivolous
charges against men who had not been legally arraigned, in order to
extort money from them by fear. No Jew against whom a legal indictment
had not been issued before May 1, 1280, was to be molested or subject
to accusation. Those only arrested on grave suspicion before that time
were to be put upon their trial. Jewish tradition attributes the final
expulsion of the Jews to these charges, which the King, it avers, did
not believe, yet was compelled to yield to popular clamor.