[62] Pol. i. 3, 23.
[63] Fifth Homily.
[64] We hear, for example, that early in the thirteenth century interest was fixed by law at 12½ per cent. at Verona, while at Modena towards the end of the same century it seems to have been as high as 20 per cent. The Republic of Genoa, a hundred years later, despite Italy’s commercial prosperity, paid from 7 to 10 per cent. to her creditors. Much more oppressive were the conditions of the money market in France and England. Instances occur of 50 per cent., and there is an edict of Philip Augustus limiting the Jews in France to 48 per cent. At the beginning of the fourteenth century an ordinance of Philip the Fair allows 20 per cent. after the first year of a loan, while in England under Henry III. there are cases on record of 10 per cent. for two months.
[65] The notorious legend of Hugh of Lincoln is placed by the chronicler, Matthew Paris, in the year 1255. The prolific nature of monkish imagination on this subject is shown by the subjoined facts due to Tyrwhitt’s researches: “In the first four months of the Acta Sanctorum by Bollandus, I find the following names of children canonized, as having been murdered by Jews:
| XXV. | Mart. | Willielmus Norvicensis, 1144; |
| Richardus, Parisiis, 1179; | ||
| XVII. | Apr. | Rudolphus, Bernae, 1287; |
| Wernerus, Wesaliae, anno eodem; | ||
| Albertus, Poloniae, 1598. |
I suppose the remaining eight months would furnish at least as many more.” Quoted by Dr. W. W. Skeat, Chaucer, Intr., p. xxiii.
[66] A contemporary historian pathetically states that in 1248 “no foreigner, let alone an Englishman, could look at an English coin with dry eyes and unbroken heart.” Henry III. issued a new coin; but it was not long ere it reached the condition of the older one. In England the penalty for the crime was loss of life or limbs.
[67] W. Cunningham, The Growth of English Industry and Commerce, p. 187.
[68] The original charter of expulsion has recently been discovered; it was, by a gracious irony of history, found at Leicester at a time when a Jew had been thrice mayor of the town.
[69] See above, p. 98.