of anything akin to justice in their administration of government. One of the most notable of these sources was the Jews, who during the middle ages had no rights of citizenship in Christianized Europe, and were held, in respect to their persons, goods, wives and children, at the absolute disposal of the chief of the state, to be taxed and despoiled by him at his pleasure. This utilization of the Jews as sources of revenue was far more thoroughly and systematically carried out in England than in any other country. "They were, in fact, the private property of the king; living instruments of his revenue; carefully protected by his government, unless in cases where exceptional necessity on his part or obstinacy on theirs made it expedient to bear upon them with unusual weight;[1] not serfs bound to the soil, but slaves of the highest value, to whom to allow free action in the acquisition of wealth was the needful condition of reaping the fruit of their labor. There is a writ of Henry III in which, in payment of a debt to his brother Richard of Cornwall, he assigns and makes over to him "all my Jews of England."[2]
William Rufus (William II of England) actually forbade the conversion of a Jew to the Christian faith. "It was a poor exchange," he said, "that would rid him of a valuable property and give him only a subject."
Under Edward I of England the Jews were plundered and amerced to such an extent that it is estimated that they paid over one tenth of the entire revenue of the crown.
An explanation of the apparently anomalous circumstance that the Jews, although deprived of all civil rights and debarred from following most occupations, were able to be plundered to such an extent, is found in the fact that they were the "royal usurers," and under the king's protection spoliated through extreme usurious interest the Norman barons, who were always in want of money, and were not the men to readily tolerate "benevolences," or any other form of direct taxation for supplying the king with money necessary for the support of the government. So that when the king plundered the Jewish money lenders, he in reality obtained indirectly the money he needed from his barons, with far less odium and more profit than if he had proceeded against them directly.
Very curiously, this mediæval idea of regarding the Jews as a
- ↑ Such a case of urgent necessity or inexcusable obstinacy must have been assumed as existing by King John, of whom it is related, that on one occasion he demanded the sum of ten thousand marks (thirty thousand dollars) of a Jew at Bristol, and on his refusal to pay, ordered one of his teeth to be drawn every day until he should comply. The Jew, it is chronicled, lost seven teeth and then paid the sum required of him.
- ↑ Oxford Essays. By J. Bridges, Fellow of Oriel.
