On the death of Henry the Third, a.d. 1272, his son Edward the First became King of England, and very soon afterwards a law was made, which promised to improve the condition of the Jews; as it fixed a yearly tax to be paid by them, instead of leaving them liable to be called upon for contributions on every occasion, at the will of their enemies. This law also permitted them to possess houses and lands wherever they pleased. But, on the other hand, it was forbidden for any Christian to lodge in the house of a Jew; and every one of the Hebrew race above seven years of age, was obliged to wear a distinguishing mark upon his upper garment: this mark was a figure of two ropes joined together.
In the latter part of his reign, Edward changed his conduct towards the Jews, and they were treated with much injustice and even cruelty. The oppression suffered by these unhappy people, had not unnaturally raised up in them a spirit of retaliation; it made them think, that it was justifiable to use every possible means, right or wrong, to repay themselves for all the money unjustly taken from them by the Christians: their attempts to do this, increased the hatred entertained for them. They were accused of coining false money, and of cheating in every possible way. A great outcry being raised against them, they were, in all parts of the kingdom, thrown into prison, and many of them were executed, whilst their houses, lands, and goods, were sold for the use of Government. But to show the people that these measures were not taken merely for the sake of the plunder, the king ordered, that half the money produced by this sale should be put by, and given to such Jews as would renounce their religion and become Christians. Very few, however, could be brought, for the sake of worldly advantages, to embrace the religion of their persecutors; nor can we be surprised, that the very unchristianlike conduct of the followers of the blessed Jesus, should have increased the hatred and contempt felt by the Jews for the Christian religion.
Towards the end of the thirteenth century, about a.d. 1290, Edward the First, who had already banished the children of Israel from those parts of France which were under his dominion, now commanded them all to leave England, and never to come back on pain of death. He took whatever property they had, only allowing them to keep enough money to pay the expenses of removal into foreign countries; and of this miserable sum many of them were robbed by the seamen at Dover and other ports, whilst some hundreds of the poor wretches were even thrown into the sea and drowned: for this crime, however, many of the guilty seamen were punished by death.
The clergy in England were so delighted to get rid of the Jews, that they willingly gave the king very considerable sums of money to make up for the loss of a people, from whom former monarchs had always obtained help in time of need.
After this banishment of the Jews by Edward the First, they never appeared in any considerable numbers in England, until the seventeenth century.
In France we have seen the Jews banished by Philip the Second, and then recalled by the same monarch at the end of the twelfth century (p. 408). They immediately returned to all their former ways of making money by usury, so that early in the thirteenth century they had again become rich, and purchased lands of the lords who had large estates; but on certain conditions, which made them in some degree the property of the liege lord, of whom they held their lands. This "feudal tenure," as it was called, was common over Europe in those times; and all, whether Jews or Christians, who thus held lands under a liege lord, were called his "vassals," and were bound to do him certain services, whenever called upon to do so.
For some time Philip allowed, or at least did not try to put a stop to, the usurious practices of the Jews, because they gave him large sums of money in return for letting them alone; but at last the complaints of his subjects forced him to make some laws to check the evil. Philip the Second died a.d. 1223; Louis the Eighth, who succeeded him, reigned only three years: but when Louis the Ninth, surnamed Saint Louis, became king, a.d. 1226, he immediately made a law, forbidding any of his subjects to borrow money of a Jew. The condition of the Jews in France at this time was miserable enough; their property was at the mercy of those lords, in whose territories they had fixed their residence; without his leave, they could not change their place of abode, and if they ventured to do so, their liege lord had a right to follow them, and seize upon them as runaway, slaves! If one lord sold land to another, the Jews living on such land, also became the property of the purchaser: sometimes even, they were sold apart from the land, the price asked for them varying according to the talent and industry of each individual. But there was something worse still; if one of these Jews did become a Christian, the whole of his property was forfeited to his liege lord. So that these unhappy people were at the same time oppressed and persecuted for being Jews, or for becoming Christians; and this, by persons calling themselves Christians, who should have rejoiced at every conversion, and done all in their power to make them more frequent. Louis the Ninth, although called St. Louis on account of his remarkable piety and devotion, not only approved of these cruel and unjust laws, but added others; forbidding Christians to have any intercourse with the Jews, who were, in short, treated with the greatest harshness and injustice.
But the most terrible persecution of this unhappy race, took place in a.d. 1238, when they were accused of having, in mockery of the Christians, crucified some children on Good Friday: on this supposition, multitudes of the Jews were put to death with the most cruel tortures, until the Pope, Gregory the Ninth, interfered to save them from further slaughter. During the imprisonment of Louis the Ninth in the Holy Land, whither he had gone upon a Crusade, he ordered the Jews to be driven out of his dominions; but when Philip the Third (the Bold) became king, in a.d. 1270, he recalled the Jews, because he stood in need of their money. In other parts of France, which were governed by Dukes or Princes of their own, subject more or less to the king, the Jews met with much the same kind of treatment; but in some provinces they did become magistrates, and possessed Christian slaves. Philip the Fourth (the Fair), who succeeded his father as king, a.d. 1285, followed the example of Edward the First, who was then King of England, and banished the Jews altogether from France; seizing all their wealth, with the exception of a small sum to pay the expenses of their journey: many died of fatigue and want by the way, and the rest sought refuge in Germany. Some avoided banishment by being baptized: most of these returned afterwards to Judaism; but the conversion of some of them, at least, was sincere. Amongst those who became true Christians, was one Nicolas de Lyra, who spent the remainder of his life in explaining the Scriptures; and even wrote a book to prove from Scripture, that the Jews were wrong in not acknowledging Jesus Christ to be indeed the promised Messiah.