[3] – See Dr. Jost.
The wealth which the Jews have accumulated in this country must have been enormously great; and the ten sureties must have been equal to raise any sum, be it ever so large, if we may judge from the wealth of individuals amongst them. From one, Aaron of York—who seems to have supplied a great part of the necessities both of the king and queen—in the short space of seven years, the king exacted upwards of 30,000 marks of silver; and to the queen the same Jew also paid upwards of 200 marks of gold.[1] Dr. Jost says, “that Aaron’s riches were immeasurable.”[2] The same Aaron also entered into a compact with the king to pay him annually, during the whole period of his life, the sum of one hundred marks, in order to be free from taxes.[3] Nor was Aaron the only one so gifted with this world’s riches. We read of another Jew of Hereford, Hamon by name, who must have been equally rich. We do not hear anything about him during his life-time; but we read, that when he died—which took place about two years prior to the above exaction—his daughter, Ursula, was obliged to pay 5,000 marks for a relief.[4]
[1] – Aurum Reginæ, or queen gold, a due which the queens of England were entitled to claim on every tenth mark paid to the king, as voluntary fines for the royal good will. Eleanor sometimes demanded it in a most unreasonable manner. Tovey. A. Strickland.
[2] – “Sein Reichthum war unermesslich.”
[3] – “Considering the different values of money, this, I believe, is as much as the richest nobleman pays at present.”—Anglia Judaica, p. 108.
“When we read or speak of any sum of money in our histories, from the Saxon times to the year 1344, we are to consider it, on an average, as about thrice the weight and value of the like sum in our time.”—Introduction to the History of Commerce, by Anderson.
[4] – “Though, by Magna Charta, the relief of an earl’s son, for a whole county, was settled but at one hundred pounds; of a baron’s heir, for a whole barony, at but one hundred marks; and no more than one hundred shillings was to be paid for the relief of a knight’s fee—all which were called the antiqua, or accustomed reliefs of the kingdom.”
In order to diminish the enormity of the incessant persecutions the poor Jews were subject to, recourse was continually had to many mean and unworthy acts of vilifying them. Some of them were imprisoned at Oxford, under the pretence of having forcibly taken away a young Jew who had been converted and baptized—a charge which, as it was unjustly grounded, was properly opposed, and in which their innocence so plainly appeared, that the king very soon after commanded them to be released.
No offence was, indeed, too improbable to be laid to their charge. They were even accused of plotting against the state, and of attempts to overturn the government; but the most absurd accusation brought against them was, that a party of them had collected together large quantities of combustible materials at Northampton, for the purpose of employing them in the destruction of London, by fire. Upon this incredible charge, many Jews were burned alive, and their effects seized and delivered into the king’s hands. Matthew Paris, who lived in this reign, and was an eye-witness of the oppressions to which the Jews were subjected by the crown, gives a distressing picture of their sufferings. He concludes his account of the manner in which the king practised his extortions with these words: Non tamen abrando, vel excoriando sed eviscerando extorsit.[1]
[1] – Matt. Paris, p. 831; Blunt, p. 42.