15. FINANCES AND THE JEWS OF ENGLAND
INTRODUCTION
William the Conqueror brought the first Jewish communities to England from Normandy after 1066. Jews were restricted from owning land in most European kingdoms and were also often forced into certain kinds of jobs that Christians were not supposed to engage in. One such job was moneylending, which was forbidden officially by the church on the grounds that no one should make money from money. This prohibition, however, made it impossible to conduct business, so Jewish bankers and merchants were welcomed into medieval kingdoms in order to facilitate the flow of capital. Jewish families were international in scope, and their businesses were similarly international. As a result, they could operate as bankers for Christians in need of such services—and Christians were perpetually in need of money to borrow.
In England, by the late twelfth century, Jews were considered to be servants of the king—in other kingdoms they were legally considered to be serfs whose labor was owned by the king—and so all debts owed to the Jews were technically owed to the king. This made it possible for kings to exploit Jewish banking businesses mercilessly. At the same time, kings beginning with KING RICHARD I found it necessary to regulate interactions between Christian borrowers and Jewish lenders, as disputes between the two populations could not be adjudicated in the standard courts of assize or the King’s Bench. Hence, a series of statutes were drawn up, known collectively as “The Ordinances of the Jews,” in 1194, and a separate office of the treasury, the Exchequer of the Jews, was established. The court was designed to moderate disputes between Jews and Christians over debt. It was very active in the thirteenth century, in the reigns of HENRY III and Edward I, but was disbanded when King Edward expelled the Jews from England in 1290 and banned their return.
KEEP IN MIND AS YOU READ
Because of the intense levels of hostility against Jewish communities throughout Europe by the twelfth century, Jewish families lived under extremely insecure conditions and were often subjected to violence as well as exploitation on the part of the king, the local administration, and local elites. Although the laws and regulations regarding Jewish–Christian interactions (especially financial ones) were seemingly designed to protect both parties, in fact they were easy mechanisms for the king to use to gain revenue and assume control over debts of his vassals.
Document 1: The Ordinances of the Jews, 1194
All the debts, pledges, mortgages, lands, houses, rents, and possessions of the Jews shall be registered. Any Jew who hides any of these shall forfeit his body and the thing concealed to the King, and likewise all his possessions and chattels. It shall not be lawful for the Jew to recover the thing he hid.
Likewise six or seven places to which they will take all their contracts shall be provided, and two lawyers that are Christians and two lawyers that are Jews, will be appointed, [along with] two legal registrars, and before them and the clerks of William of the Church of St. Mary’s and William of Chimilli, they will make their contracts.
And charters in the form of indentures will be made from the contracts. One part of the indenture shall remain with the Jew, sealed with the seal of him, to whom the money is lent, and the other part shall remain in the common chest: wherein there shall be three locks and keys, whereof the two Christians shall keep one key, and the two Jews another, and the [two] clerks[: one clerk] of William of the Church of St. Mary and [one clerk] of William of Chimilli shall keep the third. And moreover, there shall be three seals to it, and those who keep the seals shall put the seals thereto.
Moreover the clerks of the said William and William shall keep a roll of the transcripts of all the charters, and as the charters shall be altered so let the roll be likewise. . . . From this point forward no contract can be made [between Jews and Christians] or any alteration to the charters [already made] without the presence of [the keepers of the rolls] . . .
Moreover every Jew shall swear on his Roll that he has enrolled all his debts and pledges and rents, and all his goods and his possessions, and that he shall conceal nothing as is aforesaid.
Source: Chronica Magistri Rogeri de Houdene. Edited by William Stubbs. Vol. III. Rolls Series. London, 1870. P. 266. Translated in The Jews of Angevin England: Documents and Records. Edited and translated by Joseph Jacobs. London, 1893. Pp. 156–159. Modernized and edited by editor.
Alternate translation: The Annals of Roger de Hoveden. Translated by Henry T. Riley. Vol. II. London: H. G. Bohn, 1853. Pp. 338–339.
Document 2: Extracts from the Court of the Exchequer of the Jews, Easter Term, 1244
Martin, prior of Bentley, causes Moses Crespin and his brother Isaac to be summoned to the court to answer him concerning his plea that Moses and Isaac unlawfully distrained him for a debt that Martin claims not to owe them; this distraint damaged him to the sum of ten marks. The Jews come and defend the distraint as being lawful, and they produce two chirographs. The first was made between the Prior of Bentley and Moses, son of Jacob Crespin on 8 December 1239, in which the Prior promises to repay his debt of 2 ½ marks on Michaelmas, 24 Henry III. The second, dated 8 February 1241, was between the Prior and Isaac Crespin, in which the Prior acknowledges a debt of 60 shilling, 10s of which will be paid on 1 November 1242 and the remaining 50s at Easter 1243.
The Prior answers that he is not required to acknowledge the 60s debt because he never received a loan from Isaac and claims he never received his copy of the chirograph, and he petitions the maintainers of the London Chirograph-Chest. Isaac also makes a petition and so the Chest is to be searched for the potentially missing chirograph.
Concerning the debt of 2 ½ marks, the Prior says that he was distrained unlawfully, because the two parties agreed to a date of payment in a month after Easter [that is, about two months after the court session]. Moses denies that any such agreement had been made, except the one concerning the 60s debt. The parties are summoned to court for the session heard a month after Easter, in order to hear the judgment; in the meantime the Prior’s goods are replevied.
Afterwards [before the court date], the two parties make an agreement, with the approval of the Justices, and the Prior gives half a mark for the agreement.
Robert Cristfinesse complains that he had gone to the house of Diaia, son of Soleil, on the Sunday before the celebration of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, in order to borrow 2s, presenting a bowl of mazer-wood with a silver foot and two silver buckles [as collateral for the loan, known as gages], and that Bona, wife of Diaia, at the command of her husband, gave Robert 3s in clipped coin in exchange for the bowl and buckles. After he had left Diaia’s house, he encountered Robert, bailiff of Chichester, who inquired about the clipped coins; Robert Cristfinesse told him that he had borrowed them from the Jewess Bona.
Diaia answered for himself and his wife that he never gave Robert those coins, or lent him any coins for the gages [the bowl and buckles], and that he had not clipped the coins. He and Robert both put themselves [in the hands of the jury] Henry Ketelbern, Geoffrey of West Street, and Ralph of La Sende. Diaia goes on to say that Jacob of Coutances, a Jew, by malicious contrivance, clipped the coins, and he pays the king half a mark for the verdict of the jury. The jurors say that they fully believe that Robert borrowed the coins from Bona, but not in the presence of Diaia, who was not in town at the time. They also say that Robert entered his suit by the advice of Jacob of Coutances.
Because Jacob is suspected of coin clipping, he must present pledges, if anyone has anything to say against him; they are Jacob son of Sluria, Deulecresse son of Genta, Manasser of Bedford, and Aaron of Colchester.
Afterwards, Diaia made an agreement [a fine] with Robert and paid 10s for the gages and damages; he must pay on the day after the feast of the Ascension.
Source: Select Pleas, Starrs, and Other Records from the Rolls of the Exchequer of the Jews A. D. 1220–1284. Edited and translated by J. M. Rigg. Selden Society, v. 15. London: Bernard Quaritch, 1902. Pp. 7–9.
AFTERMATH
The entire conflicted relationship between Jews and Christians in the British Isles culminated in the Edict of Expulsion of 1290. The edict related specifically to England and Wales; Jews might have fled to Scotland, which had no history of Jewish settlement, and to Ireland, which does not seem to have enforced the expulsion and where small Jewish settlements seem to have been established in areas where English rule was nonexistent. One reason why Jews were expelled from England, as well as from France, in the years around 1300 is that the church’s attitude about banking and moneylending had changed. In the wake of the rapid rise of merchant activity and the development of banking and investment instruments in Italy, Spain, and Portugal, the church changed its stance on banking, as well as its definition of “usury,” and these changes were first expressed in the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215. By the middle of the thirteenth century, Italian bankers—called in England the “merchants of Lucca”—began to establish branches in major cities and also became the preferred lenders to the crowned heads of Europe, English kings included. With Jewish bankers no longer so vitally necessary to the financial support of the Crown and the nobility, it became possible to justify their exploitation and eventual expulsion on religious grounds without adversely affecting the fisc. As a result, Jews had no supporters willing to advocate for them. And they were not permitted by law to return until the reign of the Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell in 1656.
ASK YOURSELF
In what ways did the Jewish community make the best of a difficult situation and establish a viable series of businesses even as they were restricted in their independence?
Was the king being genuine in establishing laws that regulated relations between Christian and Jews, or was this simply another cynical ploy for further exploitation?
Do you think that Jews were more successful than Christians in protecting their business interests or less successful when they went to court? Do the sources you have read suggest that they were fundamentally disadvantaged, or do they suggest a more egalitarian stance in the court?
TOPICS TO CONSIDER
Consider the conflicted relationship between Christians and Jews and how this could have been exacerbated by the financial relationships in which they engaged.
Compare the accusations of “blood libel” as demonstrated in the “Life” of St. William of Norwich (in Section 4, Religious Life and Religious Conflict) and the documents regulating financial arrangements between Christians and Jews. In what ways would the mistrust of the Christian population be heightened by stories of ritual murder, and how would this affect their business relationships?
Consider Bishop Robert Grosseteste’s admonition (in Section 2, Education and Professional Training) that the nobility should learn to manage their estates so that they would not have to rely on loans to get by in light of these financial documents. What does this juxtaposition suggest as to the financial efficiency of the nobility?
Further Information
Brand, Paul. “The Jewish Community of England in the Records of English Royal Government.” In Jews in Medieval Britain: Historical, Literary and Archaeological Perspectives. Edited by Patricia Skinner, 73–84. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2003.
Elman, P. “The Economic Causes of the Expulsion of the Jews in 1290.” The Economic History Review 7, no. 2 (1937): 145–154.
Stacey, Robert C. “The Jews under Henry III.” In Jews in Medieval Britain: Historical, Literary and Archaeological Perspectives. Edited by Patricia Skinner, 41–54. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2003.