1– W. Prynne.2– “As soon as Henry received the glittering fruits of this iniquity, he sent for Eleanor to assist him in squandering it away in the light and vain expenses in which they mutually delighted, and to grace with her presence the bridal of their eldest son, Prince Edward. King Henry waited at Bourdeaux to receive his son’s bride. He had prepared so grand a festival for the reception of the young Infanta, that he expended 300,000 marks on her marriage-feast, to the indignation of his English peers.”—A. Strickland.In vain did the Jews remonstrate against these accumulated oppressions; their remonstrances were only met by a renewal of their hardships. In vain did they pray for permission to depart from the country, in order that they might seek an asylum in some other land; this alternative was also denied them, and proclamations were issued forbidding any Jew to leave England without the king’s license. Having failed to obtain redress when sought in terms of humble supplication, they wanted not the courage to enforce their complaints in language at once bold and impressive. When the principal men amongst them had been summoned before the Earl Richard of Cornwall, the king’s brother, and the council, and were threatened with imprisonment and death, unless they forthwith supplied the sum required of them,Elias, their senior rabbi, stood up, and in the name of his brethren addressed the assembly in these words:—“O noble lords, we see undoubtedly that our Lord the king purposeth to destroy us from under heaven. We entreat, for God’s sake, that he give us license and safe conduct to depart out of his kingdom, that we may seek a mansion in some other land, and under a prince who bears some bowels of mercy, and some stability of truth and faithfulness, and we will depart, never to return again, leaving our household stuff and houses behind us. But how can he spare us miserable Jews, who destroys his own natural English? He hath people, yea, his own merchants, I say not usurers, who by usurious contracts accumulate infinite heaps of money. Let the king rely upon them, and gape after their emoluments. Verily, they have supplanted us, which the king, however, dissembles to know; extracting from us those things we cannot give him, although he would pull out our eyes or cut our throats, whenhe had first taken off our skins.” With so much feeling and sincerity was this address made, that as the orator concluded it, a sudden faintness seized him, from which he was with much difficultyrecovered.1The application for leave to quit this country was refused with as much courtesy and gentleness as possible. The king’s brother, the Earl of Cornwall, knowing that their removal would prove injurious to his money-sucking brother, replied to Rabbi Elias’ application in the following words:—“The king, my brother, is your loving prince, and ready at all times to oblige you, but in this matter could not grant your request, because the king of France had lately published a severe edict againstJews,2and no other Christian country would receive you; by which meansye would be exposed to such hardships and difficulties as would afflict the king, who had always been tender of your welfare.”1– The king did not leave Rabbi Elias’ speech unresented; for the following year, the king deprived him of the high office he held amongst the Jews, without alleging any offence against him. SeeAppendix M.2– SeeAppendix N.Next year, when the king and queen returned from Gascony to England, the Jews had occasion to present a memorial to the king himself, in reply to another unreasonable request, in which they thus addressed him:—“Sir king, we see thou sparest neither Christians nor Jews, but studiest with crafty excuses to impoverish all men. We have no hope of respiration left us, the usurers of the pope have supplanted us. Permit us to depart out of the kingdom with safe conduct, and we will seek for ourselves such a mansion as we can, be it what it will.” “Although we may admire the boldness,” observesMr.Blunt, “with which the Jews (notwithstanding their degraded and dependent situation) demanded relief from their wrongs, it can in no way excite astonishment to find that the language they employed had not the effect of procuring them the redress which they claimed.” When the king received theirmemorial, and was informed of the address to the council, he expressed himself in terms of violent anger. The words which he used on the occasion are recorded:—“Is it to be marvelled at,” he said, “that I covet money? It is a horrible thing to imagine the debts wherein I am held bound. By the head of God, they amount to the sum of 200,000 marks; and if I should say 300,000, I should not exceed the bounds of truth. I am deceived on every side; I am a maimed and an abridged king—yea, now but half a king. There is a necessity for me to have money, gotten from what place soever, and by what means soever, and fromwhomsoever.”11– Well might Henry say, “that it would be a greater act of charity to bestow money on him, than on those who went from door to door, begging alms.” M. Paris. A. Strickland.No time was lost in devising measures for procuring a supply, according to the intention thus expressed. The Duke Richard proposed to provide the king with the sum which was required, upon condition that the whole of the Jews should be assigned over to him.The king consented to the proposal, and forthwith, upon receiving the money, he sold the Jews to the duke as a security for the sumadvanced.11– M. Paris; Maddox; Prynne; Tovey; Blunt.The Jews were again accused of crucifying a boy at Lincoln, Hugo by name, eight years of age. They are reported to have first fattened the boy for ten days with white bread and milk, in a secret chamber, and then sent for the principal Jews from all the cities of England, and appointed one to act as Pilate, others as the tormentors, and then re-enacted all the indignities mentioned in Scripture; scourged him, cruelly crowned him with thorns, fastened him to a cross, gave him gall to drink, and lastly, when dead, pierced his side with a spear. To crown all, they took out his bowels, as being particularly serviceable in their magic practices, and then, that the matter might not be known to Christians, diligently concealed the corpse. The earth, however, vomited forth the innocentbody, worthy of a more honourable sepulchre, and as often as the Jews tried to bury it, it showed itself again next day above ground. Terrified beyond measure, they threw it into a well, where the mother at last found it. The master of the house was seized, and confessing the whole matter, was tied to horses’ tails, and thus torn to pieces. Ninety Jews were carried off in chains to London, and received due punishment.The whole story is thus related by Matthew Paris, and copied by Prynne into his Demurrer, part first,pp.29–32:—“The same year, [i.e.when the king wanted so much money, and the Jews began to remonstrate], about the feast of Peter and Paul, the Jews of Lincoln stole a child called Hugo, being eight years old; and when as they had nourished him in a certain most secret chamber, with milk and other childish aliments, they sent to almost all the cities of England wherein the Jews lived, that, in contempt and reproach of Jesus Christ, they should be present at their sacrifice at Lincoln;for they had, as they said, a certain child hid to be crucified. Whereupon many assembled at Lincoln. And coming together, they appointed one Lincoln Jew for the judge, as it were for Pilate. By whose judgment, by the consent of all, the child is afflicted with sundry torments. He is whipped even unto blood and lividness, crowned with thorns, wearied with spittings and strickings; and moreover he is pricked by them all with poniards, made to drink gall, derided with reproaches and blasphemies, and frequently called by them with grinding teeth, Jesus the false prophet. And after they had derided him in divers manners, they crucified him, and pierced him with a spear to the heart. And when the child had given up the ghost, they took down his body from the cross, and took the bowels out of his corpse, for what end is unknown; but it was said it was to exercise magical arts. The mother of the child diligently sought for her absent son for some days, and it was told her by neighbours, that the last time theysaw her child whom she sought, he was playing with the children of the Jews of his age, and entered into the house of a certain Jew. Whereupon the woman suddenly entered that house, and saw the body of her child cast into a certain pit. And having warily called the bailiffs of the city together, the body was found and drawn forth, and there was made a wonderful spectacle among the people. But the woman, mother of the child, complaining and crying out, provoked all the citizens there assembled together, to tears and sighs. There was then present at the place John de Lexinton, a circumspect and discreet man, and moreover elegantly learned, who said—‘we have sometimes heard that the Jews have not feared to attempt such things in reproach of Jesus Christ, our crucified Lord.’ And one Jew being apprehended—to wit, he into whose house the child entered playing, and therefore more suspected than the rest, he saith unto him, ‘O wretch, knowest thou not that speedy destruction abides thee? All the gold of England will not suffice forthy deliverance or redemption. Notwithstanding I will tell thee, although unworthy, by what means thou mayest preserve thy life and members, that thou mayest not be dismembered. I will save both to thee, if thou dost not fear to discover to me whatsoever things are done in this case, without falsehood.’ Whereupon the Jew, whose name was Copin, believing he had thus found out a way of escape, answered, saying, ‘Sir John, if thou makest thy words good by thy deeds, I will reveal wonderful things to thee.’ And the industry of Sir John animating and exciting him thereto, the Jew said, ‘those things are true which the Christians say. The Jews almost every year crucify one child, to the injury and contumely of Jesus; but it is not found out every year, for they do this secretly, and in hidden and most secret places. But this child whom they call Hugo, our Jews have most unmercifully crucified, and when he was dead, and they desired to hide him, being dead, he could not be buried in the earth, nor hid. For thecorpse of the innocent was reputed unprofitable for divination, for he was unbowelled for that end. And when in the morning it was thought to be buried, the earth brought it forth, and vomited it out, and the body sometimes appeared inhuman, whereupon the Jews abhorred it. At last it was cast headlong into a deep pit; neither as yet could it be kept secret, for the importunate mother diligently searching all things, at last showed to the bailiffs the body she hadfound.’1But Sir John, notwithstanding this, kept the Jew bound in chains. When these things were known to the canons of the church of Lincoln, they requested the body to be given to them, which was granted; and when it had been sufficiently viewed by an infinite company of people, it was honourably buried in the church of Lincoln, as the corpse of a most precious martyr. The Jews kept the child alive for ten days, that being fed for somany days with milk, he might living suffer many sorts of torments. When the king returned from the northern parts of England, and was certified of the premises, he reprehended Sir John that he had promised life and members to so flagitious a person, which he could not give; for that blasphemer and homicide was worthy the punishment of many sorts of death. And when as unavoidable judgment was ready to be executed upon this offender, he said, ‘my death is now approaching, neither can my Lord John preserve me, who am ready to perish. I now relate the truth to you all. Almost all the Jews of England consented to the death of this child, whereof the Jews are accused; and almost out of every city in England wherein the Jews inhabit, certain chosen persons were called together to the immolation of that child, as to a Paschal sacrifice. And when as he had spoken these things, together with other dotages, being tied to an horse’s tail and drawn to the gallows, he was presented to the æreal Cacodæmonsin body and soul; and ninety-one other Jews, partakers of this wickedness, being carried in carts to London, were there committed to prison. Who if so be they were casually bewailed by any Christians, yet they were deplored by the Caursini (the pope’s Italian usurers), their co-rivals, with dry eyes. Afterwards, by the inquisition of the king’s justices, it was discovered and found, that the Jews of England, by common counsel, had slain the innocent child, punished for many days and crucified. But after this, the mother of the said child constantly prosecuting her appeal before the king against them for that iniquity, and such a death, God, the Lord of revenges, rendered them a condign retribution, according to their merits; for onSt.Clement’s day, eighty-eight of the richest and greatest Jews of the city of London [what a bountiful harvest for the needy king], were drawn and hanged up in the air upon new gibbets, especially prepared for that purpose; and more thantwenty-three others were reserved in the Tower of London to the likejudgment.”2,31– Contrast this again with the conduct of the converted Jews of that time.2– “Lying wonders form as much a part of the stories concerning the murdered children, as those which describe bleeding crucifixes, or flying sacramental wafers. Contemporary writers may be cited for the one set of facts as well as for the other. The atrocious and murderous lies which envelope this charge of using blood, give us strong reason for suspecting, that it is as devoid of truth, as calumnious, and as devilish as those image and wafer stories, by means of which so many thousands of unhappy Israelites were put to the sword, whose blood still cries to heaven for vengeance.”...“The mere recital of these follies shows that they are the offspring of an unenlightened imagination, if not the invention of a malignant heart.“The total absence of all credible testimony compels us to refuse our belief. The only evidence to be had is that extracted from the victims of the torture. But that mode of examination would have made the same persons confess that they were metempsychoses of Judas Iscariot or Pontius Pilate, that they had caused the ruinous convulsions of an earthquake or the devastations of the cholera morbus.”—Dr.M‘Caul’s Reasons for believing that the Charge lately revived against the Jewish People is a baseless Falsehood,pp.16, 24.3– SeeAppendix O.Earl Richard, having obtained his election as successor to the Emperor of Germany, he named himself King of the Romans. This exaltation had no favourable effect upon the unfortunate Jews. Tyranny and cruelty seem to have been the predominant features of royalty in those dark ages. He caused them to be arrested, and would not accept of any bail. The attorneys he employed were Jews, and in all probability of very indifferent characters—such as his favourite Abraham, the murderer of his own wife—who made, no effort to alleviate the oppression of their suffering brethren; perhaps helped forward their affliction by telling the Roman king they could raise the money at once, if made to do it.There can be no doubt that the Jews had then able judges and lawyers of their own, and whom the king’s court considered competent to decide all sorts of questions, spiritual as well as temporal. This circumstance annoyed the ecclesiastics not a little, which they did not fail to resent.The prelates began to complain that the Jews were protected by the king’s courts. Alas, for the protection! Boniface, the primate, who was honoured with the well-merited appellations of “this ruffian, this cruel smiter ... no winner of souls, but an exacter ofmoney,”1convened a provincial synod, in which the prelates enacted several severe and cruel edicts respecting the Jews, which are the following:—1– M. Paris. A. Strickland.“That because ecclesiastical judicature is confounded, and the office of prelates obstructed, when a Jew offending against ecclesiastical persons and things is convicted of these or other matters, which belong to the ecclesiastical court of pure right, and yet is not permitted by the king’s sheriffs or bailiffs to stand to the ecclesiastical law, but is rather forced to betake himself to the king’s court; therefore all such Jews shall be driven to make answer, in such cases, before a judge ecclesiastical, by being forbiddento traffic, contract, or converse with the faithful: and they who forbid and obstruct them, and distress judges and others on this account, shall be coerced by the sentences of excommunication and interdict.”This primate—“elected by female intrigue”—proved a great source of trouble and virulent persecution to the poor Jews. He being uncle to Queen Eleanor—who, in fact, was the sole monarch of England, and even of her husband—had, as a matter of course, great influence with the king. Henry, therefore, though he opposed the decrees of the Church against the Jews during Stephen Langton’s primacy, as you heard on Friday evening last, entirely concurred with the Church in persecuting the Jews during the♦administration of Boniface.♦‘administraton’ replaced with ‘administration’Accordingly, by an edict enacted in the thirty-seventh year of this reign, Henry sanctioned Stephen Langton’s decrees; and it was ordained that “no Jew should remain in England who did not render service to the king; that there should be no schoolsfor Jews, except in places where they were wont to be of old; that, in their synagogues, all Jews should pray in a low voice, according to the rites of their religion, so that Christians might not hear them; that every Jew should be answerable to the rector of his parish for parochial dues, chargeable on his house; that no Christian woman should suckle or nurse the child of a Jew, nor any Christian serve a Jew, eat with them, nor abide in their houses; that no Jew or Jewess should eat meat in Lent, or detract from the Christian faith; that no Jew should associate with a Christian woman, nor any Christian man with a Jewess; that every Jew should wear a badge on his breast, and should not enter into any church or chapel, except in passing to and fro, and then should not stay there, to the dishonour of Christ. That no Jew should hinder any other who was desirous to embrace the Christian faith. That they should not abide in any town without the king’s special license, save in places where they were formerly wont to reside.”On offending against any of these provisions, their properties were to be immediately seized.In the year 1261, unfortunately for the Jews, died the queen’s sister, Sancha, Countess of Cornwall and Queen of the Romans, for whom the king and queen made great lamentations, and gave her a magnificentfuneral.1As usual, the poor Jews had to supply the needful, for the king ordered that new inventories should be made of all their lands, tenements, debts, ready money, plate, jewels, and household stuff. The king’s commissioners were to be assisted in their strict search by all sheriffs, constables of castles, mayors,&c.1– A. Strickland.The king’s opposition to the barons proved a twofold scourge to the oppressed Jews. He took away their money, in order to be able to continue his opposition to the barons; whilst the barons took away their lives, with the remainder of their wealth, foryielding to the intolerable pressure of that covetous monarch. It was, therefore, a cause of joy to the Hebrew congregations, that a truce was established between the sovereign and his barons, and that the former was prevailed upon to sign an amicable arrangement with the latter, by which he bound himself to confirm the provisions of Oxford. Henry, however, was not a man to abide any length of time by any agreement, and as a matter of course refused to adhere to the rules of the compact, under the pretence that his consent and signature were extorted from him. He withdrew to the tower of London. The offended barons unexpectedly entered the city, eager for plunder and athirst for blood, raised first a dreadful uproar there against the luckless Jews, which was the prelude to a personal attack upon the queen, the most unpopular of all the queens of England. The following are the particular details of this tumult, as related by Agnes Strickland, copied from T. Wikes, a contemporarychronicler:—“At the sound ofSt.Paul’s great bell, a numerous mob sallied forth, led on by Stephen Buckrell, the marshal of London, and John Fitz-John, a powerful baron. They killed and plundered many of the wretched people, without mercy. The ferocious leader, John Fitz-John, ran through with his sword, in cold blood, Kokben Abraham, the wealthiest Hebrew resident in London. Besides plundering and killing fivehundred1of this devoted race, the mob turned the rest out of their beds, undressed as they were, keeping them so the whole night.” During which catastrophe, a newly-erected synagogue was reduced to ashes.1– Others have seven hundred.The oppressions exercised towards the Jews by the king, rendered them obnoxious to the inhabitants of the places where they resided. The continual exactions to which they were subjected had necessarily the effect of withdrawing large sums from the towns of their abode; and it could notfail, sooner or later, to be discovered that though the tax, in the first instance, fell upon the Jews alone, yet that eventually the wealth of the neighbourhood was thereby considerably diminished. It was, it is probable, partly with a view to this consequence, that many towns obtained, during the present reign, from the king, charters or writs, directing that no Jews should reside within their walls. Charters or writs to this effect were granted to the towns of Newcastle, Derby, Southampton, as you have already heard, Wycomb, Newbery, and to other places; and the Jews were forced to remove with their families and effects. It would have been happy for the Jews, if the necessity of changing the places of their residence had been the only hardship to which, through the popular feeling, they were exposed. In many parts of the country, the people treated them with open violence; charges of the wildest description were raised against them, and made excuses for the exercise of everyspecies of cruelty and extortion; tumults were excited; their houses were pillaged and burned; and hundreds fell victims to the frenzy of the populace. At Norwich, on the occasion of some Jews being executed upon a charge of having stolen a Christian child, which you have already heard, the citizens broke into the houses of the Jews there, and stripped them, and then setting fire to them, burned them to the ground. At Canterbury, the Jews were subjected to a similar violence, the immediate cause of which is not mentioned; but it is stated, that the clergy there did not scruple to encourage the outrage, and to take an active part with the mob on the occasion. At Oxford, the scholars of the university, having upon some pretext picked a quarrel with the Jews, broke into their houses and pillaged them of theirproperty.11– Prynne; Tovey; J. E. Blunt.When Prince Edward returned from his victorious campaign in Wales, he was sopoor that he could not pay the arrears which he owed to the troops, and unwilling to disband men whom he foresaw his father’s cause would require, the king fixed on the expedient of presenting him with the Jews—the king of the Romans must have got, by this, all he wanted fromthem1—witha new privilege,viz., that of having all writs of judicature, which had been formerly sealed by the justices of the Jews, sealed by the chancellor of the exchequer, the profits of which were to be paid to the prince. Edward, however, did not keep them long in his grasp; being in want at once of ready cash, he assigned them with his father’s consent and signature, for two years to the Catercensian merchants. No more did the latter keep them long, for Edward was soon after accused of a conspiracy against his father; the king therefore seized upon the Jews—a trick of olden times in royal trade.1– Seep. 282.The battle of Lewes is another melancholymemorable event in the history of the Jews in this country. This battle, as all of you must be aware, terminated in the complete discomfiture of the king’s party. The common people being disbanded and out of employment, betook themselves to persecute the unfortunate Jews. They pretended that that people conspired with the king’s party to destroy the barons and the good citizens of London; which they thought gave them a right to plunder that defenceless people wherever they were found. They began with London, and the conduct of the metropolitans was soon followed by the inhabitants of other places. Lincoln, Northampton, Canterbury, and many other towns in the kingdom became the scenes of plunder and persecution. The London Jews were placed in imminent danger, and in all probability, those who survived the massacre of Montfort and John Fitz-John, would have shared the fate of their five hundred, or seven hundred, brethren, who perished there. But the constableof the tower opened the gates, to afford them a timely refuge.The king, in conjunction with the barons, endeavoured to quell these riots, and issued letters patent to the mayor and sheriffs of London, and to the persons put under authority in all those places where outrages were committed, to suppress all sorts of disorders; and as peace had been established throughout the kingdom, the Jews should share in that peace. A proclamation was therefore to be published, for the Jews to return peaceably to their homes. Few, indeed, must have been the number who found homes. It was also announced that any molestation offered to the Jews would subject the offender to the danger of life and limb.The king, being anxious to procure for himself the services of his friends, after his disastrous differences with his Gentile subjects, resolved to do so at the expense of his Jewish ones. He remitted the interest money which was owing to them from severalof his friends. So that, though they were permitted to return to their homes, they had well nigh been deprived of any means of subsistence in those homes. Parliament, however, soon met, and enacted that their houses, goods, and chattels should be restored to them in the same condition they were in before the battle of Lewes. The Jews, therefore, enjoyed comparative tranquillity for the period of four years, since that meeting of parliament. They agreed to pay £1000, to be free from taxes during that period; under the proviso, however, that neither the king nor the prince should undertake any crusade during that time: and some few had even great favours bestowed upon them, especially those who rendered the king effectual service in his distresses. Yet was their tranquillity only comparative; they were by no means universally exempt from trouble and annoyance, and individuals were subject to grievous calumnies and accusations, as was the case with the Jews of Lincoln during that period.The dean and chapter of that city wouldnot pay their debts; they contrived to accuse their Jewish creditor of forging a bond. It is a faithful picture of the English of those days, “that when churchmen and laymen, prince and prior, knight and priest, come knocking at Isaac’s door, they borrow not his shekels with these uncivil terms. It is then, Friend Isaac, will you pleasure us in this matter, and our day shall be truly kept, so God save me?—and kind Isaac, if ever you served a man, show yourself a friend in this need. And when the day comes and I ask my own, then what hear I, but the curse of Egypt on your tribe, and all that may stir up the rude and uncivil populace against poorstrangers.”11– Sir Walter Scott.The Jews in Oxford for a long time seem, upon the whole, to have been more prosperous than their brethren in many other places. You have heard that they had schools and seminaries there at an early period of their history inEngland.1Their occupationthere seems to have been almost altogether in the literary line, so that we do not find any documents respecting forged bonds. The Jews have always appreciated learning very much and encouraged it. We read of individuals selling some land at a very low rate indeed, for the erection of an institution for that purpose. The celebrated Sir Walter de Merton, the founder of a college in Oxford bearing his name, purchased a site from a Jew, as appears from a deed in the collegetreasury.21– Seepp.87,109.2– SeeAppendix P.Yet they were now and then subject to some accusations: for instance, we learn from a writ of release, and which has been alluded to already, that several Jews in that city were imprisoned on a charge brought against them of taking away a boy belonging to a Jewish convert, and concealing him. However, it proved a false alarm, the child was soon found; the prisoners were therefore forthwithreleased.11– SeeAppendix Q.Prynne briefly notices an investigation respecting the murder of a certain Jew there, Jacob byname.11– SeeAppendix R.The university, however, was at that time very badly off for a nice elegant cross; they had no means of erecting it. The authorities therefore ingeniously contrived to make the Jews erect one for them. One of them was, therefore accused of having, on Ascension Day—whilst the chancellor, masters, and scholars of the university were walking in solemn procession to visit the sainted reliques of Frideswide, bearing the cross before them—snatched the cross—awoodenone—from its bearer, and trodden it under his feet in contempt of Christ. A very likelystory!11– Judging from the Popish customs still existing in the countries where that religion is national, I should say that certainly no Jew was permitted to appear in the street during that or any similar procession-day, as is the case to this day in Poland, and other Roman Catholic countries. A Jew, in all probability, ventured out at that time, and thus gave his enemies an opportunity to fabricate the above adventure, which ended in the erection of a splendid cross by its enemies.Strict search was made after the culprit, but in vain. Of course, there was evidently no culprit to find; if there were, he could not possibly have escaped, as no Jew was allowed to travel from place to place without especial license.All those, therefore, who could be found within the city, were seized, and imprisoned until they had provided sufficient funds for the erection of a cross of white marble, with golden figures of the Virgin and Jesus Christ, and also a rich silver cross, to be carried before the masters and scholars of the university, in their processions. The marble cross was placed in Merton College, and the silver one entrusted to the Fellows of that society. The large marble cross appears to have existed till Henry the Sixth, according to John Ross, a contemporary antiquary, who copied from it, just before it was destroyed, the following inscription:—“Quis meus author erat? Judæi. Quomodo? Sumptu. Quis jussit? Regnans. Quo procurante? Magistris. Cur? Cruce pro fractuLIGNI. Quo tempore? Festo Ascensus Domini. Quis erat locus? Hic ubi sisto.”At Brentford, the people rose up against the Jews, and robbed them of whatever goods they could lay their hands upon. On this occasion, forty-five of the principal actors in the outrage were apprehended by the authorities of the place. The whole of these were, however, shortly after liberated, upon the intervention of the Bishop of Lincoln, because it was maintained that no man could impeach them of any crime or breach of the peace.After the battle of Eversham, when the rebel barons had assembled an army in the eastern counties, they marched a part of their forces to Lincoln, broke into the houses of the Jews, and plundered them of their wealth; then making an excursion to Cambridge, they committed a similar outrage, and carryingaway with them the richest of the Jews, forced them to pay heavy ransoms for their liberation. These and many other acts of oppression and cruelty were inflicted upon the Jews by the populace.The conduct of the people was the natural result of the unrestrained extortions practised by the crown. The daily occurrence of these extortions led the populace to regard the Jews as persons who were not within the usual protection of the law, and they therefore considered it no crime to enrich themselves at the expense of those unfortunate people. But though the king did not hesitate to oppress the Jews himself, yet he had good reasons for shielding them against the violence and extortions of his subjects. He considered the Jews and all they possessed as his own peculiar property, and he consequently looked upon every act by which they were impoverished, as withdrawing so much from his own wealth. Measures were therefore taken to prevent a continuance of the outrages of the people; and directionswere issued to twenty-six of the principal inhabitants of the towns where the Jewsresided,1to protect them from any further acts of violence, under heavy penalties fordisobedience.21–Dr.Jost observes, how great must their danger have been, since twenty-six burgesses in each town were necessary to protect them.2– SeeAppendix S.The Jews seem to have been treated by that monarch exactly as slaves, and were presented as gifts to his children. Prince Edmund was presented with a rich Jew, Aaron. As it happened, however, Aaron was not the worse off on that account; for Edmund does not seem to have inherited much of the avarice and rapacity either of his father or mother. This Jew, therefore, fared far better than many of his brethren. He was enfranchised altogether by that prince for the trifling remuneration of an annual pair of giltspurs,1and had, moreover, the peculiarliberty of residing wherever he liked in any part of the kingdom. There were several others who were favoured with the king’s countenance; for instance, Cressey and two other Jews of London were freed, by the intercession of the king of the Romans, from all sorts of tallages, for the space of five years, for the trifling remuneration of one mark and a half of gold, to be paid by each of them annually. And also to a certain Jacob le Eveske, by the interference of the queen, an exemption was conceded from all sorts of tributes and taxes all his life-time; and the same privilege to his son Benedict after his father Jacob’s death. A few other instances of that kind are adduced by Prynne.1– SeeAppendix T.However, the favour bestowed on individuals had only the effect of exciting the odium of the populace against the whole community, and thus kindled the flame of persecution in the breasts of the British Christians to an incredible pitch. In fact, they first pretended that the crown lavished too many favours on the Hebrews, and thenmaintained that the king was not a good Christian in consequence; till they wrought him up to the pitch they aimed at. Eleanor even, who was as unprincipled a plunderer of the Jews as the king himself, whenever an opportunity occurred, was also accused of patronizing them, simply because it was supposed that when Eleanor was married to Henry, a great number of Jews followed her to this country, hoping to experience the same favour they enjoyed in her paternal country. All these pretences pressed heavily upon the poor Jews. New cruel enactments were devised against them; and the king was obliged to sanction them, in order to retain the pretensions to the name Christian. Cruelty to the Jews seems, then, to have been an infallible feature of a good Christian. Thus, in the fifty-first year of this reign, when the statute of Pillory passed, it was enacted, amongst other things, that “no person should purchase flesh of a Jew.” “The regulations of these statutes,” saysMr.Blunt, “had reference principally to the conduct ofthe Jews, and to their intercourse with the Christians.” If their fury went no further, the Jews would have had no reason to be sorry; for truth to speak, the less intercourse the Jews had withthoseChristians, the safer they were. But the people did not stop here. Indeed, there were circumstances arising out of the authority claimed by the crown over the Jews, which induced the nation to require some regulations with respect to their property and possessions. The right of the crown with respect to them, was not unfrequently, in the exercise, oppressive to the Christian inhabitants. When the king seized the estate of a Jew into his hands, he claimed to be entitled, as part of his effects, to all the debts which were at the time owing to him, and the debtor to the Jew thereby became the debtor of the king—a situation which the wants of the crown in these times rendered dangerous and oppressive. It was the custom of the Jews, instead of advancing money on mortgage, to purchase certain rent-charges on annuities, securedupon the landed estates of the debtor. These rent-charges had increased to a very large extent, and by becoming vested in the king, were probably found to give the crown a dangerous hold upon the landed proprietors of the country. As a further consequence, also, of the title claimed by the king to the property and estates of the Jews, an encroachment was made upon the accustomed rights of the tenure. When a Jew became entitled to any landed property, the fruits and privileges of the lord of the fee became immediately endangered or suspended; for, besides that the land was liable at any time to be seized into the hands of the king, who, upon feudal principles, could not hold of any inferior, the lord was deprived at once of his chance of escheat and the advantages of reliefs, as the king claimed in all cases to succeed to the lands of a Jew upon his death; and the heir, for permission to take the land of his ancestors, paid his relief to the king. In cases of outlawry, moreover, the kingstepped in and deprived the lord of his escheat.In consequence of this state of circumstances, the king was constrained, towards the conclusion of his reign, to grant the following charter:—“Henry, by the grace of God, king of England,&c.To all our sheriffs, bailiffs, and liege subjects, to whom these presents shall come, greeting. Know ye, that for the honour of God and the universal Church, for the amendment and advantage of our kingdom, and for relieving Christians from the damages and grievance which they have suffered by the freeholds which our Jews claimed to have in lands, tenements, fees, rents, and other tenures; and that no prejudice may hereafter happen to us, to the commonweal of our kingdom, or to the kingdom itself, we, bythe advice of our bishops, nobles, and great men who are of our council, have provided, ordained, and enacted, for us and our heirs, that no Jew shall from henceforth have a freehold in anymanors, lands, tenements, fees, rents, or tenures whatsoever, either by charter, gift, feoffment, confirmation, or other grant, or by any other means whatever.“Provided nevertheless, that they may hereafter hold, as in times past they were accustomed to hold, those houses in our cities, boroughs and towns, which they themselves inhabit; and likewise that they may let those houses to lease, which they now hold for that purpose, to Jews only, but not to Christians.“Yet nevertheless it is here provided, that it should not be lawful for our Jews of London to purchase, or by any other method to acquire, more houses than they now have in our said city of London; by which the parochial churches of the said city, or their incumbents, may incur a loss. However, it shall be lawful for the said Jews of London at their pleasure to repair their houses, and even to rebuild and restore to their former condition such of their old houses as have fallen down or been demolished.“We likewise, by and with the advice of our said council, provide and enact, that with respect to the said houses so to be inhabited, or let to lease as aforesaid, no Jew shall sue or be sued by our original writs out of chancery, but before our justices appointed for taking care of the Jews, and by the writs of Judaism hitherto used and accustomed.“But with respect to those lands and tenures in which the Jews were beforethis statuteinfeoffed, and which they now hold, our will is, that such infeoffments and grants shall be absolutely annulled; and that the said lands and tenements shall return to the Christians who granted the same; but upon condition that the said Christians shall make satisfaction to the Jews, without usury, for the money or consideration contained in the charters and writings, which was paid by the Jews to the Christians, for the said feoffments or grants. And also upon condition, that if the said Christians cannot make immediate satisfaction for the same, it may be lawful for the said Jews to make over thesaid tenements to other Christians, until the consideration paid by them can, without usury, be raised out of the rents and profits of the said estate, according to its true value by a reasonable assessment; saving, however, to such Christians their subsistence; and so as that the Jew may from thence receive the money or consideration by the hands of some Christian, and not of any Jew, as aforesaid.“And if a Jew should hereafter happen to receive from any Christian a feoffment of any fee or tenement, contrary to thispresent statute, the said Jew shall absolutely forfeit the said tenement or fee, and the same shall be taken into, and safely kept in our hands; and the Christians or their heirs may recover the said lands or tenements out of our hands; but upon condition that they pay to us the whole money which they received from the said Jews for such a feoffment. Or if they have not sufficient wherewithal to do this, they shall then pay yearly to us and our heirs, at our exchequer, the true yearly valueof those tenements or fees, according to a just and reasonable assessment, until we have had full satisfaction of the said money or consideration.“And with regard to the nurses of Jewish children, and the bakers, brewers, and cooks of the Jews, as they and the Christians are different in their faith and worship, we provide and enact, that no Christian man or woman shall presume to serve them in any of these capacities.“And because the Jews have long since been accustomed to receive, by the hands of Christians, certain rents something like fee-farm rents, out of the lands and tenements of Christians, which likewise have been called fees, we will and ordain that the statute relating to them heretofore by us made, shall remain in full force, nor shall any way be derogated from by this present act; thereforewe commandand strictly charge you, that you cause the said provision, ordinance, or statute, to be publicly proclaimed, andduly observed and obeyed, throughout your whole bailiwick.“In testimony whereof we have caused to be issued these our letters patent. Witness self at Westminster,24thday of July, and of our reign the54thyear.”11– I have here borrowed a couple of pages from John Elijah Blunt.—SeeAppendix U.One would have fancied that such a statute as was just read, would have been the crown’s crowning act of violence towards the poor Jews; and since they had suffered so much of murder, plunder, and robbery both from the king and his subjects, a little respite, at least, would have been granted to them. But various as their oppressions were, so were they also incessant. Soon after the above decree was proclaimed, Prince Edward proceeded to the Holy Land, “that grave of immense treasures and innumerable lives.” His expenses were heavy; the Jews were therefore taxed at 6,000 marks. Now it was high time, after all their endurances, tobe completely drained of their silver and gold, as they really were; they were therefore unable to raise the demanded sum with the promptitude with which it was required. Earl Richard came forward again, and advanced the money on the security of the Jews. But they seem to have been mortgaged to him in the present instance for one year only, for the next year they were again very heavily taxed. Several individuals were assigned over to Prince Edward, who had to pay £1000.The Christians of that reign seemed to have cultivated an unaccountable covetousness for every thing Jewish, not only their money, but also their public buildings, and particularly their synagogues. We are thus informed, that this year another synagogue in London—the principal one—was taken away from the Jewish congregation and given to the Friars Penitents, who were sadly in want of a church. Unfortunately for the poor Jews, the Friars’ dark hole of a chapel was standing close to that magnificent synagogue,upon which those “locusts,” as Tovey calls them, set their avaricious and malicious affection, and did not rest till they got the king to sanction their robbery. The pretext they fixed upon was of a most blasphemous nature. They complained, that in consequence of the great noise the Jews made in their synagogue during their worship,they were not able to make the body of Christ quietly. The king thought the reason was a cogent one, and without any further consideration, ordered the Jewish place of worship to be turned into a den of thieves. But the king was so gracious as to permit the Jews to build for themselves another synagogue in some other convenient place, if they chose. No doubt expecting to get another church for hisimpious subjects.Henry the Third must have been tormented with the torturous apprehension—as was the tyrannical Herod—that the Jews anticipated his death with greatcomplacency.1Henry began to grow infirm, and did not expect to enjoy this world much longer: he determined therefore not to allow the Jews to be glad on that account. The cruelties, therefore, which he inflicted upon them in his last days, were of so barbarous a nature as to excite the commiseration of their most venomous foes. He called upon his unfortunate Jewish subjects to reckon up all their accounts with him, and pay him in the balance without delay. All arrears of his arbitrary tallages were to be settled in the short term of four months, but half of the aggregate sum was to be paid in seventeen days. Should any one be unable to pay, or give adequate security, he was forthwith tobe imprisoned, and the privilege of bail denied him, except by body for body. And if any of their sureties should fail to pay in their whole quota on the appointed days, any sums formerly paid in part were to be forfeited, and their persons, goods, and chattels to be at the king’s mercy. Numbers of them upon this occasion were imprisoned in the Tower of London, and other places. Nothing but weeping and lamentation were to be seen and heard in every corner of every street.Dr.Tovey states—“Even the friars, who had so lately taken possession of their synagogue, as it is said, pitied them; nor were the Caursini and the Caturcensian brokers (though their rivals in extortion) without compassion; for nothing could be more rigorous and unmerciful than the king’s proceedings at this time.”1– That savage tyrant, Herod, when he was taken ill in Jericho, which dreadful illness terminated his life, apprehending the approach of his dissolution, and remembering the many cruelties which he inflicted on the poor Jews; he had every reason to believe that joy instead of mourning would succeed his death. He ordered, therefore, his sister and brother-in-law to seize the principal men of the city of Jericho, and to put them to the sword the moment of his decease, in order that mourning should be asine qua non.I ended my last Lecture with the erection of a Jewish converts’ institution, which Henry had established “to deliver his father’s soul from the flames ofpurgatory,”1and with thesame subject will I conclude my lecture tonight; and I am truly glad that this protracted Lecture is coming to a close. It seems that at the end of Henry’s reign there were great numbers of Jewish converts. Before that institution was established, I doubt not that many were deterred from embracing Christianity, in consequence of the distressing prospect they had before their eyes, of being deprived of all they possessed, and without any means ofsupport.2The provision thus made for the Christian Jews induced many a one to make public confession of his faith. On one of the rolls of that reign, about five hundred names of Jewish converts are registered. But as all institutions, if not diligently looked after, become in process of time abused, so was that one, in an especial manner. The revenues were swallowed up by a few of the officers of that house, and the majority of the poor converts were subject to sheerstarvation.3Henry, therefore, thought that itwould be a meritorious thing on his part—especially as he expected ere long to be called before an awful tribunal to give an account of his stewardship—to give fresh encouragement to that asylum, and institute a strict investigation as to what became of the revenues assigned to that establishment; and he also enacted, that for the future none should receive any support from the house, except those who were really in want of it. The regulations of the house and chapel were also revised and improved. The king’s commissioners for that purpose were the mayor of London, and John deSt.Dennis, warden of thatasylum.4I repeat what I took the liberty to express in my last Lecture, that such institutions are most important in our own days, and I venture to cherish the hope, that I shall have the happiness to see institutions of that kind established in every town in England where the Jews reside, which, I am convinced, would be the means of makingMANYavow their secret belief in the truth of the Christian religion.
1– W. Prynne.2– “As soon as Henry received the glittering fruits of this iniquity, he sent for Eleanor to assist him in squandering it away in the light and vain expenses in which they mutually delighted, and to grace with her presence the bridal of their eldest son, Prince Edward. King Henry waited at Bourdeaux to receive his son’s bride. He had prepared so grand a festival for the reception of the young Infanta, that he expended 300,000 marks on her marriage-feast, to the indignation of his English peers.”—A. Strickland.
1– W. Prynne.
2– “As soon as Henry received the glittering fruits of this iniquity, he sent for Eleanor to assist him in squandering it away in the light and vain expenses in which they mutually delighted, and to grace with her presence the bridal of their eldest son, Prince Edward. King Henry waited at Bourdeaux to receive his son’s bride. He had prepared so grand a festival for the reception of the young Infanta, that he expended 300,000 marks on her marriage-feast, to the indignation of his English peers.”—A. Strickland.
In vain did the Jews remonstrate against these accumulated oppressions; their remonstrances were only met by a renewal of their hardships. In vain did they pray for permission to depart from the country, in order that they might seek an asylum in some other land; this alternative was also denied them, and proclamations were issued forbidding any Jew to leave England without the king’s license. Having failed to obtain redress when sought in terms of humble supplication, they wanted not the courage to enforce their complaints in language at once bold and impressive. When the principal men amongst them had been summoned before the Earl Richard of Cornwall, the king’s brother, and the council, and were threatened with imprisonment and death, unless they forthwith supplied the sum required of them,Elias, their senior rabbi, stood up, and in the name of his brethren addressed the assembly in these words:—
“O noble lords, we see undoubtedly that our Lord the king purposeth to destroy us from under heaven. We entreat, for God’s sake, that he give us license and safe conduct to depart out of his kingdom, that we may seek a mansion in some other land, and under a prince who bears some bowels of mercy, and some stability of truth and faithfulness, and we will depart, never to return again, leaving our household stuff and houses behind us. But how can he spare us miserable Jews, who destroys his own natural English? He hath people, yea, his own merchants, I say not usurers, who by usurious contracts accumulate infinite heaps of money. Let the king rely upon them, and gape after their emoluments. Verily, they have supplanted us, which the king, however, dissembles to know; extracting from us those things we cannot give him, although he would pull out our eyes or cut our throats, whenhe had first taken off our skins.” With so much feeling and sincerity was this address made, that as the orator concluded it, a sudden faintness seized him, from which he was with much difficultyrecovered.1The application for leave to quit this country was refused with as much courtesy and gentleness as possible. The king’s brother, the Earl of Cornwall, knowing that their removal would prove injurious to his money-sucking brother, replied to Rabbi Elias’ application in the following words:—“The king, my brother, is your loving prince, and ready at all times to oblige you, but in this matter could not grant your request, because the king of France had lately published a severe edict againstJews,2and no other Christian country would receive you; by which meansye would be exposed to such hardships and difficulties as would afflict the king, who had always been tender of your welfare.”
1– The king did not leave Rabbi Elias’ speech unresented; for the following year, the king deprived him of the high office he held amongst the Jews, without alleging any offence against him. SeeAppendix M.2– SeeAppendix N.
1– The king did not leave Rabbi Elias’ speech unresented; for the following year, the king deprived him of the high office he held amongst the Jews, without alleging any offence against him. SeeAppendix M.
2– SeeAppendix N.
Next year, when the king and queen returned from Gascony to England, the Jews had occasion to present a memorial to the king himself, in reply to another unreasonable request, in which they thus addressed him:—
“Sir king, we see thou sparest neither Christians nor Jews, but studiest with crafty excuses to impoverish all men. We have no hope of respiration left us, the usurers of the pope have supplanted us. Permit us to depart out of the kingdom with safe conduct, and we will seek for ourselves such a mansion as we can, be it what it will.” “Although we may admire the boldness,” observesMr.Blunt, “with which the Jews (notwithstanding their degraded and dependent situation) demanded relief from their wrongs, it can in no way excite astonishment to find that the language they employed had not the effect of procuring them the redress which they claimed.” When the king received theirmemorial, and was informed of the address to the council, he expressed himself in terms of violent anger. The words which he used on the occasion are recorded:—“Is it to be marvelled at,” he said, “that I covet money? It is a horrible thing to imagine the debts wherein I am held bound. By the head of God, they amount to the sum of 200,000 marks; and if I should say 300,000, I should not exceed the bounds of truth. I am deceived on every side; I am a maimed and an abridged king—yea, now but half a king. There is a necessity for me to have money, gotten from what place soever, and by what means soever, and fromwhomsoever.”1
1– Well might Henry say, “that it would be a greater act of charity to bestow money on him, than on those who went from door to door, begging alms.” M. Paris. A. Strickland.
No time was lost in devising measures for procuring a supply, according to the intention thus expressed. The Duke Richard proposed to provide the king with the sum which was required, upon condition that the whole of the Jews should be assigned over to him.The king consented to the proposal, and forthwith, upon receiving the money, he sold the Jews to the duke as a security for the sumadvanced.1
1– M. Paris; Maddox; Prynne; Tovey; Blunt.
The Jews were again accused of crucifying a boy at Lincoln, Hugo by name, eight years of age. They are reported to have first fattened the boy for ten days with white bread and milk, in a secret chamber, and then sent for the principal Jews from all the cities of England, and appointed one to act as Pilate, others as the tormentors, and then re-enacted all the indignities mentioned in Scripture; scourged him, cruelly crowned him with thorns, fastened him to a cross, gave him gall to drink, and lastly, when dead, pierced his side with a spear. To crown all, they took out his bowels, as being particularly serviceable in their magic practices, and then, that the matter might not be known to Christians, diligently concealed the corpse. The earth, however, vomited forth the innocentbody, worthy of a more honourable sepulchre, and as often as the Jews tried to bury it, it showed itself again next day above ground. Terrified beyond measure, they threw it into a well, where the mother at last found it. The master of the house was seized, and confessing the whole matter, was tied to horses’ tails, and thus torn to pieces. Ninety Jews were carried off in chains to London, and received due punishment.
The whole story is thus related by Matthew Paris, and copied by Prynne into his Demurrer, part first,pp.29–32:—
“The same year, [i.e.when the king wanted so much money, and the Jews began to remonstrate], about the feast of Peter and Paul, the Jews of Lincoln stole a child called Hugo, being eight years old; and when as they had nourished him in a certain most secret chamber, with milk and other childish aliments, they sent to almost all the cities of England wherein the Jews lived, that, in contempt and reproach of Jesus Christ, they should be present at their sacrifice at Lincoln;for they had, as they said, a certain child hid to be crucified. Whereupon many assembled at Lincoln. And coming together, they appointed one Lincoln Jew for the judge, as it were for Pilate. By whose judgment, by the consent of all, the child is afflicted with sundry torments. He is whipped even unto blood and lividness, crowned with thorns, wearied with spittings and strickings; and moreover he is pricked by them all with poniards, made to drink gall, derided with reproaches and blasphemies, and frequently called by them with grinding teeth, Jesus the false prophet. And after they had derided him in divers manners, they crucified him, and pierced him with a spear to the heart. And when the child had given up the ghost, they took down his body from the cross, and took the bowels out of his corpse, for what end is unknown; but it was said it was to exercise magical arts. The mother of the child diligently sought for her absent son for some days, and it was told her by neighbours, that the last time theysaw her child whom she sought, he was playing with the children of the Jews of his age, and entered into the house of a certain Jew. Whereupon the woman suddenly entered that house, and saw the body of her child cast into a certain pit. And having warily called the bailiffs of the city together, the body was found and drawn forth, and there was made a wonderful spectacle among the people. But the woman, mother of the child, complaining and crying out, provoked all the citizens there assembled together, to tears and sighs. There was then present at the place John de Lexinton, a circumspect and discreet man, and moreover elegantly learned, who said—‘we have sometimes heard that the Jews have not feared to attempt such things in reproach of Jesus Christ, our crucified Lord.’ And one Jew being apprehended—to wit, he into whose house the child entered playing, and therefore more suspected than the rest, he saith unto him, ‘O wretch, knowest thou not that speedy destruction abides thee? All the gold of England will not suffice forthy deliverance or redemption. Notwithstanding I will tell thee, although unworthy, by what means thou mayest preserve thy life and members, that thou mayest not be dismembered. I will save both to thee, if thou dost not fear to discover to me whatsoever things are done in this case, without falsehood.’ Whereupon the Jew, whose name was Copin, believing he had thus found out a way of escape, answered, saying, ‘Sir John, if thou makest thy words good by thy deeds, I will reveal wonderful things to thee.’ And the industry of Sir John animating and exciting him thereto, the Jew said, ‘those things are true which the Christians say. The Jews almost every year crucify one child, to the injury and contumely of Jesus; but it is not found out every year, for they do this secretly, and in hidden and most secret places. But this child whom they call Hugo, our Jews have most unmercifully crucified, and when he was dead, and they desired to hide him, being dead, he could not be buried in the earth, nor hid. For thecorpse of the innocent was reputed unprofitable for divination, for he was unbowelled for that end. And when in the morning it was thought to be buried, the earth brought it forth, and vomited it out, and the body sometimes appeared inhuman, whereupon the Jews abhorred it. At last it was cast headlong into a deep pit; neither as yet could it be kept secret, for the importunate mother diligently searching all things, at last showed to the bailiffs the body she hadfound.’1But Sir John, notwithstanding this, kept the Jew bound in chains. When these things were known to the canons of the church of Lincoln, they requested the body to be given to them, which was granted; and when it had been sufficiently viewed by an infinite company of people, it was honourably buried in the church of Lincoln, as the corpse of a most precious martyr. The Jews kept the child alive for ten days, that being fed for somany days with milk, he might living suffer many sorts of torments. When the king returned from the northern parts of England, and was certified of the premises, he reprehended Sir John that he had promised life and members to so flagitious a person, which he could not give; for that blasphemer and homicide was worthy the punishment of many sorts of death. And when as unavoidable judgment was ready to be executed upon this offender, he said, ‘my death is now approaching, neither can my Lord John preserve me, who am ready to perish. I now relate the truth to you all. Almost all the Jews of England consented to the death of this child, whereof the Jews are accused; and almost out of every city in England wherein the Jews inhabit, certain chosen persons were called together to the immolation of that child, as to a Paschal sacrifice. And when as he had spoken these things, together with other dotages, being tied to an horse’s tail and drawn to the gallows, he was presented to the æreal Cacodæmonsin body and soul; and ninety-one other Jews, partakers of this wickedness, being carried in carts to London, were there committed to prison. Who if so be they were casually bewailed by any Christians, yet they were deplored by the Caursini (the pope’s Italian usurers), their co-rivals, with dry eyes. Afterwards, by the inquisition of the king’s justices, it was discovered and found, that the Jews of England, by common counsel, had slain the innocent child, punished for many days and crucified. But after this, the mother of the said child constantly prosecuting her appeal before the king against them for that iniquity, and such a death, God, the Lord of revenges, rendered them a condign retribution, according to their merits; for onSt.Clement’s day, eighty-eight of the richest and greatest Jews of the city of London [what a bountiful harvest for the needy king], were drawn and hanged up in the air upon new gibbets, especially prepared for that purpose; and more thantwenty-three others were reserved in the Tower of London to the likejudgment.”2,3
1– Contrast this again with the conduct of the converted Jews of that time.2– “Lying wonders form as much a part of the stories concerning the murdered children, as those which describe bleeding crucifixes, or flying sacramental wafers. Contemporary writers may be cited for the one set of facts as well as for the other. The atrocious and murderous lies which envelope this charge of using blood, give us strong reason for suspecting, that it is as devoid of truth, as calumnious, and as devilish as those image and wafer stories, by means of which so many thousands of unhappy Israelites were put to the sword, whose blood still cries to heaven for vengeance.”...“The mere recital of these follies shows that they are the offspring of an unenlightened imagination, if not the invention of a malignant heart.“The total absence of all credible testimony compels us to refuse our belief. The only evidence to be had is that extracted from the victims of the torture. But that mode of examination would have made the same persons confess that they were metempsychoses of Judas Iscariot or Pontius Pilate, that they had caused the ruinous convulsions of an earthquake or the devastations of the cholera morbus.”—Dr.M‘Caul’s Reasons for believing that the Charge lately revived against the Jewish People is a baseless Falsehood,pp.16, 24.3– SeeAppendix O.
1– Contrast this again with the conduct of the converted Jews of that time.
2– “Lying wonders form as much a part of the stories concerning the murdered children, as those which describe bleeding crucifixes, or flying sacramental wafers. Contemporary writers may be cited for the one set of facts as well as for the other. The atrocious and murderous lies which envelope this charge of using blood, give us strong reason for suspecting, that it is as devoid of truth, as calumnious, and as devilish as those image and wafer stories, by means of which so many thousands of unhappy Israelites were put to the sword, whose blood still cries to heaven for vengeance.”...
“The mere recital of these follies shows that they are the offspring of an unenlightened imagination, if not the invention of a malignant heart.
“The total absence of all credible testimony compels us to refuse our belief. The only evidence to be had is that extracted from the victims of the torture. But that mode of examination would have made the same persons confess that they were metempsychoses of Judas Iscariot or Pontius Pilate, that they had caused the ruinous convulsions of an earthquake or the devastations of the cholera morbus.”—Dr.M‘Caul’s Reasons for believing that the Charge lately revived against the Jewish People is a baseless Falsehood,pp.16, 24.
3– SeeAppendix O.
Earl Richard, having obtained his election as successor to the Emperor of Germany, he named himself King of the Romans. This exaltation had no favourable effect upon the unfortunate Jews. Tyranny and cruelty seem to have been the predominant features of royalty in those dark ages. He caused them to be arrested, and would not accept of any bail. The attorneys he employed were Jews, and in all probability of very indifferent characters—such as his favourite Abraham, the murderer of his own wife—who made, no effort to alleviate the oppression of their suffering brethren; perhaps helped forward their affliction by telling the Roman king they could raise the money at once, if made to do it.
There can be no doubt that the Jews had then able judges and lawyers of their own, and whom the king’s court considered competent to decide all sorts of questions, spiritual as well as temporal. This circumstance annoyed the ecclesiastics not a little, which they did not fail to resent.
The prelates began to complain that the Jews were protected by the king’s courts. Alas, for the protection! Boniface, the primate, who was honoured with the well-merited appellations of “this ruffian, this cruel smiter ... no winner of souls, but an exacter ofmoney,”1convened a provincial synod, in which the prelates enacted several severe and cruel edicts respecting the Jews, which are the following:—
1– M. Paris. A. Strickland.
“That because ecclesiastical judicature is confounded, and the office of prelates obstructed, when a Jew offending against ecclesiastical persons and things is convicted of these or other matters, which belong to the ecclesiastical court of pure right, and yet is not permitted by the king’s sheriffs or bailiffs to stand to the ecclesiastical law, but is rather forced to betake himself to the king’s court; therefore all such Jews shall be driven to make answer, in such cases, before a judge ecclesiastical, by being forbiddento traffic, contract, or converse with the faithful: and they who forbid and obstruct them, and distress judges and others on this account, shall be coerced by the sentences of excommunication and interdict.”
This primate—“elected by female intrigue”—proved a great source of trouble and virulent persecution to the poor Jews. He being uncle to Queen Eleanor—who, in fact, was the sole monarch of England, and even of her husband—had, as a matter of course, great influence with the king. Henry, therefore, though he opposed the decrees of the Church against the Jews during Stephen Langton’s primacy, as you heard on Friday evening last, entirely concurred with the Church in persecuting the Jews during the♦administration of Boniface.
♦‘administraton’ replaced with ‘administration’
Accordingly, by an edict enacted in the thirty-seventh year of this reign, Henry sanctioned Stephen Langton’s decrees; and it was ordained that “no Jew should remain in England who did not render service to the king; that there should be no schoolsfor Jews, except in places where they were wont to be of old; that, in their synagogues, all Jews should pray in a low voice, according to the rites of their religion, so that Christians might not hear them; that every Jew should be answerable to the rector of his parish for parochial dues, chargeable on his house; that no Christian woman should suckle or nurse the child of a Jew, nor any Christian serve a Jew, eat with them, nor abide in their houses; that no Jew or Jewess should eat meat in Lent, or detract from the Christian faith; that no Jew should associate with a Christian woman, nor any Christian man with a Jewess; that every Jew should wear a badge on his breast, and should not enter into any church or chapel, except in passing to and fro, and then should not stay there, to the dishonour of Christ. That no Jew should hinder any other who was desirous to embrace the Christian faith. That they should not abide in any town without the king’s special license, save in places where they were formerly wont to reside.”On offending against any of these provisions, their properties were to be immediately seized.
In the year 1261, unfortunately for the Jews, died the queen’s sister, Sancha, Countess of Cornwall and Queen of the Romans, for whom the king and queen made great lamentations, and gave her a magnificentfuneral.1As usual, the poor Jews had to supply the needful, for the king ordered that new inventories should be made of all their lands, tenements, debts, ready money, plate, jewels, and household stuff. The king’s commissioners were to be assisted in their strict search by all sheriffs, constables of castles, mayors,&c.
1– A. Strickland.
The king’s opposition to the barons proved a twofold scourge to the oppressed Jews. He took away their money, in order to be able to continue his opposition to the barons; whilst the barons took away their lives, with the remainder of their wealth, foryielding to the intolerable pressure of that covetous monarch. It was, therefore, a cause of joy to the Hebrew congregations, that a truce was established between the sovereign and his barons, and that the former was prevailed upon to sign an amicable arrangement with the latter, by which he bound himself to confirm the provisions of Oxford. Henry, however, was not a man to abide any length of time by any agreement, and as a matter of course refused to adhere to the rules of the compact, under the pretence that his consent and signature were extorted from him. He withdrew to the tower of London. The offended barons unexpectedly entered the city, eager for plunder and athirst for blood, raised first a dreadful uproar there against the luckless Jews, which was the prelude to a personal attack upon the queen, the most unpopular of all the queens of England. The following are the particular details of this tumult, as related by Agnes Strickland, copied from T. Wikes, a contemporarychronicler:—“At the sound ofSt.Paul’s great bell, a numerous mob sallied forth, led on by Stephen Buckrell, the marshal of London, and John Fitz-John, a powerful baron. They killed and plundered many of the wretched people, without mercy. The ferocious leader, John Fitz-John, ran through with his sword, in cold blood, Kokben Abraham, the wealthiest Hebrew resident in London. Besides plundering and killing fivehundred1of this devoted race, the mob turned the rest out of their beds, undressed as they were, keeping them so the whole night.” During which catastrophe, a newly-erected synagogue was reduced to ashes.
1– Others have seven hundred.
The oppressions exercised towards the Jews by the king, rendered them obnoxious to the inhabitants of the places where they resided. The continual exactions to which they were subjected had necessarily the effect of withdrawing large sums from the towns of their abode; and it could notfail, sooner or later, to be discovered that though the tax, in the first instance, fell upon the Jews alone, yet that eventually the wealth of the neighbourhood was thereby considerably diminished. It was, it is probable, partly with a view to this consequence, that many towns obtained, during the present reign, from the king, charters or writs, directing that no Jews should reside within their walls. Charters or writs to this effect were granted to the towns of Newcastle, Derby, Southampton, as you have already heard, Wycomb, Newbery, and to other places; and the Jews were forced to remove with their families and effects. It would have been happy for the Jews, if the necessity of changing the places of their residence had been the only hardship to which, through the popular feeling, they were exposed. In many parts of the country, the people treated them with open violence; charges of the wildest description were raised against them, and made excuses for the exercise of everyspecies of cruelty and extortion; tumults were excited; their houses were pillaged and burned; and hundreds fell victims to the frenzy of the populace. At Norwich, on the occasion of some Jews being executed upon a charge of having stolen a Christian child, which you have already heard, the citizens broke into the houses of the Jews there, and stripped them, and then setting fire to them, burned them to the ground. At Canterbury, the Jews were subjected to a similar violence, the immediate cause of which is not mentioned; but it is stated, that the clergy there did not scruple to encourage the outrage, and to take an active part with the mob on the occasion. At Oxford, the scholars of the university, having upon some pretext picked a quarrel with the Jews, broke into their houses and pillaged them of theirproperty.1
1– Prynne; Tovey; J. E. Blunt.
When Prince Edward returned from his victorious campaign in Wales, he was sopoor that he could not pay the arrears which he owed to the troops, and unwilling to disband men whom he foresaw his father’s cause would require, the king fixed on the expedient of presenting him with the Jews—the king of the Romans must have got, by this, all he wanted fromthem1—witha new privilege,viz., that of having all writs of judicature, which had been formerly sealed by the justices of the Jews, sealed by the chancellor of the exchequer, the profits of which were to be paid to the prince. Edward, however, did not keep them long in his grasp; being in want at once of ready cash, he assigned them with his father’s consent and signature, for two years to the Catercensian merchants. No more did the latter keep them long, for Edward was soon after accused of a conspiracy against his father; the king therefore seized upon the Jews—a trick of olden times in royal trade.
1– Seep. 282.
The battle of Lewes is another melancholymemorable event in the history of the Jews in this country. This battle, as all of you must be aware, terminated in the complete discomfiture of the king’s party. The common people being disbanded and out of employment, betook themselves to persecute the unfortunate Jews. They pretended that that people conspired with the king’s party to destroy the barons and the good citizens of London; which they thought gave them a right to plunder that defenceless people wherever they were found. They began with London, and the conduct of the metropolitans was soon followed by the inhabitants of other places. Lincoln, Northampton, Canterbury, and many other towns in the kingdom became the scenes of plunder and persecution. The London Jews were placed in imminent danger, and in all probability, those who survived the massacre of Montfort and John Fitz-John, would have shared the fate of their five hundred, or seven hundred, brethren, who perished there. But the constableof the tower opened the gates, to afford them a timely refuge.
The king, in conjunction with the barons, endeavoured to quell these riots, and issued letters patent to the mayor and sheriffs of London, and to the persons put under authority in all those places where outrages were committed, to suppress all sorts of disorders; and as peace had been established throughout the kingdom, the Jews should share in that peace. A proclamation was therefore to be published, for the Jews to return peaceably to their homes. Few, indeed, must have been the number who found homes. It was also announced that any molestation offered to the Jews would subject the offender to the danger of life and limb.
The king, being anxious to procure for himself the services of his friends, after his disastrous differences with his Gentile subjects, resolved to do so at the expense of his Jewish ones. He remitted the interest money which was owing to them from severalof his friends. So that, though they were permitted to return to their homes, they had well nigh been deprived of any means of subsistence in those homes. Parliament, however, soon met, and enacted that their houses, goods, and chattels should be restored to them in the same condition they were in before the battle of Lewes. The Jews, therefore, enjoyed comparative tranquillity for the period of four years, since that meeting of parliament. They agreed to pay £1000, to be free from taxes during that period; under the proviso, however, that neither the king nor the prince should undertake any crusade during that time: and some few had even great favours bestowed upon them, especially those who rendered the king effectual service in his distresses. Yet was their tranquillity only comparative; they were by no means universally exempt from trouble and annoyance, and individuals were subject to grievous calumnies and accusations, as was the case with the Jews of Lincoln during that period.
The dean and chapter of that city wouldnot pay their debts; they contrived to accuse their Jewish creditor of forging a bond. It is a faithful picture of the English of those days, “that when churchmen and laymen, prince and prior, knight and priest, come knocking at Isaac’s door, they borrow not his shekels with these uncivil terms. It is then, Friend Isaac, will you pleasure us in this matter, and our day shall be truly kept, so God save me?—and kind Isaac, if ever you served a man, show yourself a friend in this need. And when the day comes and I ask my own, then what hear I, but the curse of Egypt on your tribe, and all that may stir up the rude and uncivil populace against poorstrangers.”1
1– Sir Walter Scott.
The Jews in Oxford for a long time seem, upon the whole, to have been more prosperous than their brethren in many other places. You have heard that they had schools and seminaries there at an early period of their history inEngland.1Their occupationthere seems to have been almost altogether in the literary line, so that we do not find any documents respecting forged bonds. The Jews have always appreciated learning very much and encouraged it. We read of individuals selling some land at a very low rate indeed, for the erection of an institution for that purpose. The celebrated Sir Walter de Merton, the founder of a college in Oxford bearing his name, purchased a site from a Jew, as appears from a deed in the collegetreasury.2
1– Seepp.87,109.2– SeeAppendix P.
1– Seepp.87,109.
2– SeeAppendix P.
Yet they were now and then subject to some accusations: for instance, we learn from a writ of release, and which has been alluded to already, that several Jews in that city were imprisoned on a charge brought against them of taking away a boy belonging to a Jewish convert, and concealing him. However, it proved a false alarm, the child was soon found; the prisoners were therefore forthwithreleased.1
1– SeeAppendix Q.
Prynne briefly notices an investigation respecting the murder of a certain Jew there, Jacob byname.1
1– SeeAppendix R.
The university, however, was at that time very badly off for a nice elegant cross; they had no means of erecting it. The authorities therefore ingeniously contrived to make the Jews erect one for them. One of them was, therefore accused of having, on Ascension Day—whilst the chancellor, masters, and scholars of the university were walking in solemn procession to visit the sainted reliques of Frideswide, bearing the cross before them—snatched the cross—awoodenone—from its bearer, and trodden it under his feet in contempt of Christ. A very likelystory!1
1– Judging from the Popish customs still existing in the countries where that religion is national, I should say that certainly no Jew was permitted to appear in the street during that or any similar procession-day, as is the case to this day in Poland, and other Roman Catholic countries. A Jew, in all probability, ventured out at that time, and thus gave his enemies an opportunity to fabricate the above adventure, which ended in the erection of a splendid cross by its enemies.
Strict search was made after the culprit, but in vain. Of course, there was evidently no culprit to find; if there were, he could not possibly have escaped, as no Jew was allowed to travel from place to place without especial license.
All those, therefore, who could be found within the city, were seized, and imprisoned until they had provided sufficient funds for the erection of a cross of white marble, with golden figures of the Virgin and Jesus Christ, and also a rich silver cross, to be carried before the masters and scholars of the university, in their processions. The marble cross was placed in Merton College, and the silver one entrusted to the Fellows of that society. The large marble cross appears to have existed till Henry the Sixth, according to John Ross, a contemporary antiquary, who copied from it, just before it was destroyed, the following inscription:—
“Quis meus author erat? Judæi. Quomodo? Sumptu. Quis jussit? Regnans. Quo procurante? Magistris. Cur? Cruce pro fractuLIGNI. Quo tempore? Festo Ascensus Domini. Quis erat locus? Hic ubi sisto.”
At Brentford, the people rose up against the Jews, and robbed them of whatever goods they could lay their hands upon. On this occasion, forty-five of the principal actors in the outrage were apprehended by the authorities of the place. The whole of these were, however, shortly after liberated, upon the intervention of the Bishop of Lincoln, because it was maintained that no man could impeach them of any crime or breach of the peace.
After the battle of Eversham, when the rebel barons had assembled an army in the eastern counties, they marched a part of their forces to Lincoln, broke into the houses of the Jews, and plundered them of their wealth; then making an excursion to Cambridge, they committed a similar outrage, and carryingaway with them the richest of the Jews, forced them to pay heavy ransoms for their liberation. These and many other acts of oppression and cruelty were inflicted upon the Jews by the populace.
The conduct of the people was the natural result of the unrestrained extortions practised by the crown. The daily occurrence of these extortions led the populace to regard the Jews as persons who were not within the usual protection of the law, and they therefore considered it no crime to enrich themselves at the expense of those unfortunate people. But though the king did not hesitate to oppress the Jews himself, yet he had good reasons for shielding them against the violence and extortions of his subjects. He considered the Jews and all they possessed as his own peculiar property, and he consequently looked upon every act by which they were impoverished, as withdrawing so much from his own wealth. Measures were therefore taken to prevent a continuance of the outrages of the people; and directionswere issued to twenty-six of the principal inhabitants of the towns where the Jewsresided,1to protect them from any further acts of violence, under heavy penalties fordisobedience.2
1–Dr.Jost observes, how great must their danger have been, since twenty-six burgesses in each town were necessary to protect them.2– SeeAppendix S.
1–Dr.Jost observes, how great must their danger have been, since twenty-six burgesses in each town were necessary to protect them.
2– SeeAppendix S.
The Jews seem to have been treated by that monarch exactly as slaves, and were presented as gifts to his children. Prince Edmund was presented with a rich Jew, Aaron. As it happened, however, Aaron was not the worse off on that account; for Edmund does not seem to have inherited much of the avarice and rapacity either of his father or mother. This Jew, therefore, fared far better than many of his brethren. He was enfranchised altogether by that prince for the trifling remuneration of an annual pair of giltspurs,1and had, moreover, the peculiarliberty of residing wherever he liked in any part of the kingdom. There were several others who were favoured with the king’s countenance; for instance, Cressey and two other Jews of London were freed, by the intercession of the king of the Romans, from all sorts of tallages, for the space of five years, for the trifling remuneration of one mark and a half of gold, to be paid by each of them annually. And also to a certain Jacob le Eveske, by the interference of the queen, an exemption was conceded from all sorts of tributes and taxes all his life-time; and the same privilege to his son Benedict after his father Jacob’s death. A few other instances of that kind are adduced by Prynne.
1– SeeAppendix T.
However, the favour bestowed on individuals had only the effect of exciting the odium of the populace against the whole community, and thus kindled the flame of persecution in the breasts of the British Christians to an incredible pitch. In fact, they first pretended that the crown lavished too many favours on the Hebrews, and thenmaintained that the king was not a good Christian in consequence; till they wrought him up to the pitch they aimed at. Eleanor even, who was as unprincipled a plunderer of the Jews as the king himself, whenever an opportunity occurred, was also accused of patronizing them, simply because it was supposed that when Eleanor was married to Henry, a great number of Jews followed her to this country, hoping to experience the same favour they enjoyed in her paternal country. All these pretences pressed heavily upon the poor Jews. New cruel enactments were devised against them; and the king was obliged to sanction them, in order to retain the pretensions to the name Christian. Cruelty to the Jews seems, then, to have been an infallible feature of a good Christian. Thus, in the fifty-first year of this reign, when the statute of Pillory passed, it was enacted, amongst other things, that “no person should purchase flesh of a Jew.” “The regulations of these statutes,” saysMr.Blunt, “had reference principally to the conduct ofthe Jews, and to their intercourse with the Christians.” If their fury went no further, the Jews would have had no reason to be sorry; for truth to speak, the less intercourse the Jews had withthoseChristians, the safer they were. But the people did not stop here. Indeed, there were circumstances arising out of the authority claimed by the crown over the Jews, which induced the nation to require some regulations with respect to their property and possessions. The right of the crown with respect to them, was not unfrequently, in the exercise, oppressive to the Christian inhabitants. When the king seized the estate of a Jew into his hands, he claimed to be entitled, as part of his effects, to all the debts which were at the time owing to him, and the debtor to the Jew thereby became the debtor of the king—a situation which the wants of the crown in these times rendered dangerous and oppressive. It was the custom of the Jews, instead of advancing money on mortgage, to purchase certain rent-charges on annuities, securedupon the landed estates of the debtor. These rent-charges had increased to a very large extent, and by becoming vested in the king, were probably found to give the crown a dangerous hold upon the landed proprietors of the country. As a further consequence, also, of the title claimed by the king to the property and estates of the Jews, an encroachment was made upon the accustomed rights of the tenure. When a Jew became entitled to any landed property, the fruits and privileges of the lord of the fee became immediately endangered or suspended; for, besides that the land was liable at any time to be seized into the hands of the king, who, upon feudal principles, could not hold of any inferior, the lord was deprived at once of his chance of escheat and the advantages of reliefs, as the king claimed in all cases to succeed to the lands of a Jew upon his death; and the heir, for permission to take the land of his ancestors, paid his relief to the king. In cases of outlawry, moreover, the kingstepped in and deprived the lord of his escheat.
In consequence of this state of circumstances, the king was constrained, towards the conclusion of his reign, to grant the following charter:—
“Henry, by the grace of God, king of England,&c.To all our sheriffs, bailiffs, and liege subjects, to whom these presents shall come, greeting. Know ye, that for the honour of God and the universal Church, for the amendment and advantage of our kingdom, and for relieving Christians from the damages and grievance which they have suffered by the freeholds which our Jews claimed to have in lands, tenements, fees, rents, and other tenures; and that no prejudice may hereafter happen to us, to the commonweal of our kingdom, or to the kingdom itself, we, bythe advice of our bishops, nobles, and great men who are of our council, have provided, ordained, and enacted, for us and our heirs, that no Jew shall from henceforth have a freehold in anymanors, lands, tenements, fees, rents, or tenures whatsoever, either by charter, gift, feoffment, confirmation, or other grant, or by any other means whatever.
“Provided nevertheless, that they may hereafter hold, as in times past they were accustomed to hold, those houses in our cities, boroughs and towns, which they themselves inhabit; and likewise that they may let those houses to lease, which they now hold for that purpose, to Jews only, but not to Christians.
“Yet nevertheless it is here provided, that it should not be lawful for our Jews of London to purchase, or by any other method to acquire, more houses than they now have in our said city of London; by which the parochial churches of the said city, or their incumbents, may incur a loss. However, it shall be lawful for the said Jews of London at their pleasure to repair their houses, and even to rebuild and restore to their former condition such of their old houses as have fallen down or been demolished.
“We likewise, by and with the advice of our said council, provide and enact, that with respect to the said houses so to be inhabited, or let to lease as aforesaid, no Jew shall sue or be sued by our original writs out of chancery, but before our justices appointed for taking care of the Jews, and by the writs of Judaism hitherto used and accustomed.
“But with respect to those lands and tenures in which the Jews were beforethis statuteinfeoffed, and which they now hold, our will is, that such infeoffments and grants shall be absolutely annulled; and that the said lands and tenements shall return to the Christians who granted the same; but upon condition that the said Christians shall make satisfaction to the Jews, without usury, for the money or consideration contained in the charters and writings, which was paid by the Jews to the Christians, for the said feoffments or grants. And also upon condition, that if the said Christians cannot make immediate satisfaction for the same, it may be lawful for the said Jews to make over thesaid tenements to other Christians, until the consideration paid by them can, without usury, be raised out of the rents and profits of the said estate, according to its true value by a reasonable assessment; saving, however, to such Christians their subsistence; and so as that the Jew may from thence receive the money or consideration by the hands of some Christian, and not of any Jew, as aforesaid.
“And if a Jew should hereafter happen to receive from any Christian a feoffment of any fee or tenement, contrary to thispresent statute, the said Jew shall absolutely forfeit the said tenement or fee, and the same shall be taken into, and safely kept in our hands; and the Christians or their heirs may recover the said lands or tenements out of our hands; but upon condition that they pay to us the whole money which they received from the said Jews for such a feoffment. Or if they have not sufficient wherewithal to do this, they shall then pay yearly to us and our heirs, at our exchequer, the true yearly valueof those tenements or fees, according to a just and reasonable assessment, until we have had full satisfaction of the said money or consideration.
“And with regard to the nurses of Jewish children, and the bakers, brewers, and cooks of the Jews, as they and the Christians are different in their faith and worship, we provide and enact, that no Christian man or woman shall presume to serve them in any of these capacities.
“And because the Jews have long since been accustomed to receive, by the hands of Christians, certain rents something like fee-farm rents, out of the lands and tenements of Christians, which likewise have been called fees, we will and ordain that the statute relating to them heretofore by us made, shall remain in full force, nor shall any way be derogated from by this present act; thereforewe commandand strictly charge you, that you cause the said provision, ordinance, or statute, to be publicly proclaimed, andduly observed and obeyed, throughout your whole bailiwick.
“In testimony whereof we have caused to be issued these our letters patent. Witness self at Westminster,24thday of July, and of our reign the54thyear.”1
1– I have here borrowed a couple of pages from John Elijah Blunt.—SeeAppendix U.
One would have fancied that such a statute as was just read, would have been the crown’s crowning act of violence towards the poor Jews; and since they had suffered so much of murder, plunder, and robbery both from the king and his subjects, a little respite, at least, would have been granted to them. But various as their oppressions were, so were they also incessant. Soon after the above decree was proclaimed, Prince Edward proceeded to the Holy Land, “that grave of immense treasures and innumerable lives.” His expenses were heavy; the Jews were therefore taxed at 6,000 marks. Now it was high time, after all their endurances, tobe completely drained of their silver and gold, as they really were; they were therefore unable to raise the demanded sum with the promptitude with which it was required. Earl Richard came forward again, and advanced the money on the security of the Jews. But they seem to have been mortgaged to him in the present instance for one year only, for the next year they were again very heavily taxed. Several individuals were assigned over to Prince Edward, who had to pay £1000.
The Christians of that reign seemed to have cultivated an unaccountable covetousness for every thing Jewish, not only their money, but also their public buildings, and particularly their synagogues. We are thus informed, that this year another synagogue in London—the principal one—was taken away from the Jewish congregation and given to the Friars Penitents, who were sadly in want of a church. Unfortunately for the poor Jews, the Friars’ dark hole of a chapel was standing close to that magnificent synagogue,upon which those “locusts,” as Tovey calls them, set their avaricious and malicious affection, and did not rest till they got the king to sanction their robbery. The pretext they fixed upon was of a most blasphemous nature. They complained, that in consequence of the great noise the Jews made in their synagogue during their worship,they were not able to make the body of Christ quietly. The king thought the reason was a cogent one, and without any further consideration, ordered the Jewish place of worship to be turned into a den of thieves. But the king was so gracious as to permit the Jews to build for themselves another synagogue in some other convenient place, if they chose. No doubt expecting to get another church for hisimpious subjects.
Henry the Third must have been tormented with the torturous apprehension—as was the tyrannical Herod—that the Jews anticipated his death with greatcomplacency.1Henry began to grow infirm, and did not expect to enjoy this world much longer: he determined therefore not to allow the Jews to be glad on that account. The cruelties, therefore, which he inflicted upon them in his last days, were of so barbarous a nature as to excite the commiseration of their most venomous foes. He called upon his unfortunate Jewish subjects to reckon up all their accounts with him, and pay him in the balance without delay. All arrears of his arbitrary tallages were to be settled in the short term of four months, but half of the aggregate sum was to be paid in seventeen days. Should any one be unable to pay, or give adequate security, he was forthwith tobe imprisoned, and the privilege of bail denied him, except by body for body. And if any of their sureties should fail to pay in their whole quota on the appointed days, any sums formerly paid in part were to be forfeited, and their persons, goods, and chattels to be at the king’s mercy. Numbers of them upon this occasion were imprisoned in the Tower of London, and other places. Nothing but weeping and lamentation were to be seen and heard in every corner of every street.Dr.Tovey states—“Even the friars, who had so lately taken possession of their synagogue, as it is said, pitied them; nor were the Caursini and the Caturcensian brokers (though their rivals in extortion) without compassion; for nothing could be more rigorous and unmerciful than the king’s proceedings at this time.”
1– That savage tyrant, Herod, when he was taken ill in Jericho, which dreadful illness terminated his life, apprehending the approach of his dissolution, and remembering the many cruelties which he inflicted on the poor Jews; he had every reason to believe that joy instead of mourning would succeed his death. He ordered, therefore, his sister and brother-in-law to seize the principal men of the city of Jericho, and to put them to the sword the moment of his decease, in order that mourning should be asine qua non.
I ended my last Lecture with the erection of a Jewish converts’ institution, which Henry had established “to deliver his father’s soul from the flames ofpurgatory,”1and with thesame subject will I conclude my lecture tonight; and I am truly glad that this protracted Lecture is coming to a close. It seems that at the end of Henry’s reign there were great numbers of Jewish converts. Before that institution was established, I doubt not that many were deterred from embracing Christianity, in consequence of the distressing prospect they had before their eyes, of being deprived of all they possessed, and without any means ofsupport.2The provision thus made for the Christian Jews induced many a one to make public confession of his faith. On one of the rolls of that reign, about five hundred names of Jewish converts are registered. But as all institutions, if not diligently looked after, become in process of time abused, so was that one, in an especial manner. The revenues were swallowed up by a few of the officers of that house, and the majority of the poor converts were subject to sheerstarvation.3Henry, therefore, thought that itwould be a meritorious thing on his part—especially as he expected ere long to be called before an awful tribunal to give an account of his stewardship—to give fresh encouragement to that asylum, and institute a strict investigation as to what became of the revenues assigned to that establishment; and he also enacted, that for the future none should receive any support from the house, except those who were really in want of it. The regulations of the house and chapel were also revised and improved. The king’s commissioners for that purpose were the mayor of London, and John deSt.Dennis, warden of thatasylum.4I repeat what I took the liberty to express in my last Lecture, that such institutions are most important in our own days, and I venture to cherish the hope, that I shall have the happiness to see institutions of that kind established in every town in England where the Jews reside, which, I am convinced, would be the means of makingMANYavow their secret belief in the truth of the Christian religion.