Israel in Europe

by G. F. Abbott

Henry III. died in 1272, and Edward I. was proclaimed King. Edward as heir-apparent had distinguished himself by his piety, no less than by his valour and public spirit, and at the time of his accession he was actually fighting the infidels in the Holy Land. His loyalty to the Church prejudiced him against the Jews both as “enemies of Christ” and as usurers. His scrupulous regard for the interests of his subjects was calculated to deepen the prejudice. Edward’s political ideal was a harmonious co-operation and contribution of all classes to the welfare of the State. The Jewry, as constituted under his predecessors, formed an anomaly and a scandal. Measures of restriction had already been taken against the Jews, and supplied a precedent for further proceedings in the same direction. One of these measures was the statute of 1270, which forbade the Jews to acquire houses in London in addition to those which they already possessed, to enjoy a freehold howsoever held, to receive rent-charges as security, and obliged them to return to the Christian debtors, or to other Christians, the lands which they had already seized, on repayment of the principal without interest. A petition, preferred by the victims of this Act, to be allowed the full privileges which accompanied the tenure of land under the feudal system—namely, the guardianship of minors, the right to give wards in marriage, and the presentation to livings—had elicited an indignant protest from the Bishops, who expressed their outraged feelings in language that was wanting neither in clearness nor in vigour. The “perfidious Jews” were reminded that their residence in England was entirely due to the King’s grace—a sentiment with which Prince Edward had fully concurred. ♦1274♦ On his return from Palestine, he resumed the work of administrative reform which he had commenced as heir-apparent.

Despite the statute of 1270, he found the Jews still absorbed in the one occupation which they had practised for ages under the pressure of necessity and with the sanction of custom and royal patronage. The religious sensitiveness of a pilgrim fresh from the Holy Land, acting on the political anxiety of a statesman honestly desirous to do his duty by his subjects, compelled him to new measures of restriction. Moreover, the reasons of self-interest which had influenced his predecessors had lost much of their force. John’s and Henry III.’s merciless rapacity had sapped the foundations of Jewish prosperity; the barons’ even more merciless cruelty had accomplished their ruin; and while the fortunes of the Jews waned, those of their Italian rivals waxed; so the Jews, an unholy and unpopular class at the best of times, had now also become an unnecessary one. About the same time the Church renewed the campaign against usurers. ♦1274♦ Pope Gregory X., by a decree passed at the Council of Lyons, requested the princes of Christendom to double their efforts to suppress the accursed trade. Edward hastened to obey the orders of the Church. The transactions of the Florentine bankers in England were subjected to enquiry and restriction by his order, and then he proceeded against the Jews.

There were two ways open to him: either to withdraw his countenance from the Jewish money-lenders, or to compel them to give up the sinful practice. He was too humane to adopt the former course; for the withdrawal of royal protection would have been the signal for instant attack on the part of the people. How real this danger was can be judged from the fact that in 1275 the Jews were driven out of Cambridge at the instigation of Edward’s own mother. ♦1275♦ He, therefore, chose the latter alternative, and issued a general and severe prohibition of usury, accompanied with the permission that the Jews might engage in commercial and industrial pursuits or in agriculture. The Jews were asked to change at a moment’s notice a mode of life which had become a second nature to them, and one which they had been encouraged—one may almost say compelled—to pursue in England for two centuries. The hardship of the prohibition was aggravated by the impossibility of profiting by the permission. So long as the Jew was liable to violence from his neighbours, he could hardly engage in any occupation which involved the possession of bulky goods. Jewels and bonds were the only kinds of moveable property that could easily be secured against attack. As a writer who can scarcely be accused of undue partiality to the Jews has observed: “The ancient house at Lincoln seems to suggest by its plan and arrangements that the inhabitants were prepared to stand a siege, and men who lived under such conditions could hardly venture to pursue ordinary avocations.”[67] But there were more specific reasons explaining the Jew’s inability to conform to Edward’s decree. A Jew could not become a tradesman, because a tradesman ought to be a member of a Guild; as a general rule, no one could join a Guild, who was not a burgess; and the law forbade the Jews to become burgesses. But, even if the law allowed it, the Jews could not, without violating their religion, participate in the feasts and ceremonies of the Guilds. Nor were the handicrafts more accessible to the Jews; for most of them were in the hands of close corporations into which the despised Jew could not easily gain admittance. Moreover, an apprenticeship of many years was required, and apprenticeship necessitated residence in the master’s house. Now the Church forbade the Christians, on pain of excommunication, to receive Jews in their houses, and, therefore, a Jewish boy, even if his own parents’ prejudices and the scruples of the Synagogue were overcome, could not become a Christian’s apprentice. Agriculture was likewise out of the question, because, even if the landlords would have them, the Jews, being forbidden by their religion to take the oath of fealty, could not become villeins. The popular hatred of the Jew rendered the profession of peddler or carrier equally perilous. His Semitic face and conspicuous yellow badge, which he was compelled to wear from the age of seven, would have made him a target for insult and assault on every road and at every fair in the country.

Thus the Jew, after two hundred years’ residence in England, found himself labouring under all the disabilities of an alien, the only occupation left open to him being that which foreign merchants were allowed to pursue—namely, the export trade in wool and corn; but for this occupation, limited at the best, a great capital was needed, and, therefore, after the recent sufferings of the race, few could find profit in it. For all these reasons, Edward’s alternative remained a dead letter, and, as the Jews could not suffer themselves to starve, usury continued rampant, and the second error proved worse than the first. The distemper was far too complex to be cured by Edward’s simple remedy. It might have been encouraged by impunity; it certainly was accentuated by severity. The money-lenders, no longer under official supervision, exceeded all bounds of extortion: the peril of detection had to be paid for. The demand for loans increased as the supply diminished, the rate of interest rose, and, as the transactions had to be kept secret, all sorts of subterfuges were resorted to: a bond was given for a multiple of the sum actually received, and the interest often figured under the euphemism of “gift” or “compensation for delay,” or, if the money-lender combined traffic in goods with traffic in money, the interest was paid in kind. It was contrary to common sense and human experience to expect that a royal statute should have prevailed over what really was an inevitable necessity, and the abuses that followed were only such as might have been anticipated in a society where the borrowers were many and needy, the lenders few and greedy, and the two classes were impelled to deal with each other by the strongest of motives—the motive of self-preservation.

But even clandestine usury required capital, and the poorer Jews, devoid of industrial skill or legal standing, despised by the people, denounced by the clergy, helpless, hopeless, and unscrupulous, betook themselves to highway robbery, burglary, coin-clipping, or baptism. The penultimate source of revenue, which, as has been noted, supplied already one of the most common charges brought against the Jews, forced Edward to strike hard and quickly. His severity was proportionate to the magnitude of the evil. The depreciation of the currency due to the prevalence of forgery had led to an alarming rise in the price of commodities; foreign merchants had left the country, and trade fallen into stagnation. The greater share of the blame was generally, and not unjustly, attributed to the Jews. In one night all the Jews in the country were thrown into prison, their domiciles were searched, and their effects seized. Edward, in his anxiety to punish none but the guilty, issued an edict, in which he warned his Christian subjects against false accusations, such as might easily have been concocted by people eager to gratify their religious bigotry, private malice, or cupidity. The enquiry resulted in the conviction of many Jews and Christians. Of the latter, three were sentenced to death and the rest to fines. But no mercy was shown to the Jews. Two hundred and eighty of them were hanged, drawn, and quartered in London alone, and all the houses, lands, and goods of a great number were confiscated. A very few took refuge in conversion, and received a moiety of the money realised by the confiscation of their brethren’s property.

This deplorable state of things convinced Edward of the futility of his policy. Other causes intensified his anger against the Jews. In the first year of his reign a Dominican friar embraced Judaism, a little later a Jew was burnt for blasphemy at Norwich, and, in 1278, a Jewess at Nottingham created great excitement by abusing in virulent terms the Christians in the market place; all this despite the King’s proclamation that blasphemy against Christ, the Virgin Mary, or the Catholic faith should be visited with loss of life or limbs, and the penalties, not less severe, which the Church reserved for apostates. ♦1281♦ Parliament now urged the expulsion of the Jews. Edward, his native moderation notwithstanding, could not defy public opinion. The precedent of his mentor, the brave and wise baron Simon de Montfort, also pointed in the same direction. ♦About 1253♦ The latter had expelled the Jews from Leicester and given to the burgesses a solemn promise that they should never return.[68] The example could not but have its influence upon Edward, and his own mental attitude was too orthodox to render him impervious to the overwhelming prejudices of the age. He had endeavoured to reconcile duty with humanity, and had failed. Neither did the Christians wish to receive the Jews amongst themselves, nor would the Jews have embraced such an invitation. So long as they remained in England, mutual antipathy and mutual bigotry would bar amalgamation, and therefore, under the feudal system, the only calling which the Jews could pursue, in a Christian country, would be the sinful traffic in money. Since the Jews could not be improved, they ought to be removed.

While Edward was slowly coming to the one inevitable conclusion, there arrived in England, at the end of 1286, a Bull from the Pope Honorius IV., addressed to the archbishops and bishops. After a lengthy enumeration of the familiar charges brought against the Jews—their obedience to “a wicked and deceitful book, called Talmud, containing manifold abominations, falsehoods, heresies, and abuses”; their seduction of brethren snatched from infidelity, and their perversion of Christians; their immorality, their criminal intercourse with Christians, and other “horrible deeds done to the shame of our Creator and the detriment of the Catholic faith”—Honorius bade the bishops increase their severity, and their “spiritual and temporal penalties” against the “accursed and perfidious” people. ♦1287♦ In consequence of this mandate, we find a synod at Exeter passing ordinances restricting still further the Jew’s discretion in matters of dress and behaviour. The apostolic epistle accelerated Edward’s decision. It is also probable that the King, on the eve of his struggle with Scotland and France, thought it prudent to conciliate his English subjects by yielding to their demand for the expulsion of the hated people.

On the 18th of July, 1290, a decree was issued ordering that all Jews should leave England before the Feast of All Saints, sentence of death being pronounced against any who should be found lingering in the country after the prescribed date.

The severity of the measure was somewhat mitigated by the king’s sincere anxiety to spare the exiles gratuitous insult and injury. The officers charged with the execution of the decree were ordered to ensure the safe arrival of the Jews on the coast, and their embarkation. They were permitted to carry away all the effects that were in their possession at the time, together with any pledges that were not redeemed by the Christian debtors before a certain day. As a further inducement for the payment of debts, the latter were given to understand that, if they did not pay a moiety to the Jews before their departure, they would remain debtors to the Treasury for the full amount. A few Jews, personally known and favoured at Court, were even allowed to sell their real property to any Christian who would buy it. In a word, everything that could be done to alleviate the misery of the exiles, was suggested by Edward.

The autumn was spent in hurried preparations. Those who had money out at interest hastened to collect it, and those who had property too unwieldy for transport hastened to part with it for what it would yield. It is easy to imagine the enormous loss which this compulsory liquidation must have entailed on the wretched Jews. Their goods were sold at such prices as might have been expected from the urgency of the case, and the knowledge that all that could not be disposed of would have to be left behind. Their houses, their synagogues, and their cemeteries fell into the hands of the King, who distributed them among his favourites. Their bonds and mortgages were also appropriated by the Royal Exchequer; but the debts were imperfectly collected, and the remainder, after many years’ delay, were finally remitted by Edward III.