moneylending as the Riccardi still contracted usurious loans after the proclamation.41
In the following year, legislation was written specifically against Jewish moneylenders, which was a concession to the knights in return for yet another tax. In October 1275, the Statute of the Jewry was sealed and sent to the Justices of the Jews before being widely circulated. It acknowledged that Edward and his ancestors had “received great benefit from the Jewish people in the past” and in return they had been “safely preserved and defended by his sheriffs and other bailiffs and faithful me” so that no harm should come to them “in their bodies or in their goods.” Nonetheless, the statute stated, Jewish usury pushed Christians into debt and destitution. The new legislation prohibited loans being secured on rents and limited the amount of money and goods that could be seized by a Jew from a Christian. The larger aim was to turn Jews away from moneylending and into other employment. The Statute ordered all Jews to “gain their living by lawful merchandise and their labour … by selling and buying.” This meant as “legal merchants” who traded cereal and wool. Lending money at interest was once more pitted against “honest” work that was physical in nature. Jews were only permitted to live in towns with an archa (chest), the repository where the contracts and deeds were kept recording loans, mortgages, vifgages, other pledges, lands, rents, houses, and chattels belonging to Jews. They were not to mingle with ←44 | 45→Christians and, just so there was no chance of mistaking a Jew for a Christian and vice versa, Jews were to wear a yellow felt badge so they were easily identified. Being separated from Christians it was thought unlikely that usury could continue. This was, as has been recently pointed out, a functional regulation, not akin to the Nazi yellow star of David. Jews did petition Edward to protest but their pleas fell on deaf ears, although it is not known whether Jews evaded wearing the badge or whether any effort went into enforcing the law.42
While Edward was trying to stamp out Jewish moneylending, his wife, Eleanor of Castile, was eagerly acquiring land and estates with the help of Jewish moneylenders. Eleanor, therefore, was complicit in the issue that was paramount in the knight’s argument for restricting Jewish usury. In particular, Aaron, son of Vives, acted as an intermediary in her transactions under the authority of Eleanor’s brother-in-law, Edmund, the new Earl of Leicester who had been granted all of Simon de Montfort’s estate. In 1276, Licoricia’s son, Benedict (who had married into the le Blunds family) was nominated to be the new keeper of the queen’s gold at the Exchequer of the Jews. He was to “receive her gold at the exchequer and to act in all matters to her benefit.” Benedict had little choice in the matter. Like her husband, Eleanor had use of the Jews’ loan debt and also seized the property of condemned Jews. Agreements drawn up between debtors and creditors, such as the one between Stephen Cheindut and Manasser, son of Aaron, were often withdrawn from the chest of the chirographers and sent to Eleanor. With a debt owed to a Jewish creditor in her possession, she was able to appropriate Leeds castle, which had been used as security. Resentment towards Eleanor swelled, especially on the part of the knights and the Archbishop of Canterbury, John Pecham, denounced her purchase of land which was possible only through usury by Jews “under the protection of the royal court.” Not only was she admonished for committing the sin of usury, Walter of Guisborough composed a poem that complained of her, and her husband’s, greed: “The king desires to get our gold/the queen, our manors fair to hold.”43
It has been argued that the heavy taxation on the Jews by Henry III had depleted the wealth of the Jews to such an extent that Jewish moneylending had greatly diminished by Edward’s reign. Edward was therefore led by “a usury discourse disconnected with the historical reality of Jewish economic occupations.” It is certainly the case that Jewish moneylenders were poorer, but it is hard to know how many loans were made off the books between neighbors, friends, and business associates. What is recorded in ledgers does not necessarily give us the full picture. Certainly, the complaint over the loss of pledged land indicates usury was still being practiced by some Jews. Whatever the extent of usury, the ←45 | 46→Statute was either redundant and would have no real consequences for the Jewish community or Jews were still engaged primarily in moneylending and the new regulations were an attempt to eradicate that completely. Regardless, the upshot of Edward’s new law was a restriction on Jewish occupational freedom in return for new taxes and peace from potentially rebellious lords. In this increasingly hostile environment, Jewish moneylenders had roughly three options: move into a different occupation, leave the country to find a community that welcomed moneylenders and their services, or carry on lending money furtively. But it was not only the Jews that the Statute affected; it had unintended consequences for some of the Christian poor. Usurers may not have been loved, but they were necessary in the new economy. Fewer moneylenders meant less competition in the loan business and that enabled Italian moneylenders to increase their rates of interest, “causing great suffering to the people.”44
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After the military campaign against the Welsh, who were described as lazy, savage barbarians, Edward was once more in the red. The war had cost £23,000, which had been borrowed from the Riccardi bankers. In addition to the debt, money was needed for road clearance, canals, and castle building. Further loans from the Riccardi did not cover all the expenses, nor did the money he received by forcing all landowners with property worth £20 annually to become knights. As knighthood was an expensive affair, many opted to pay a fine for exemption, which went straight into Edward’s treasury. Eager not to go cap in hand to parliament again, he soon found another source of revenue. The coins in circulation were in a bad state, due to natural deterioration of everyday use of coinage. One escheator complained that the inferior coinage made it next to impossible to collect taxes. With the coins devalued, the price of livestock and grain rose, making everyday living more expensive and poor-quality coinage also discouraged foreign merchants. With reminting, the king profited from the fees charged to his subjects and from the small changes in weight and silver content.
One of the biggest problems with coinage was counterfeiting and coin clipping, which was the most widespread monetary crime and the one with which financiers were most often charged. Before mill marks were introduced during Edward’s reminting, it was relatively easy to clip slivers of silver from the metal’s edge without it being detected. The charge of coin clipping dovetailed with the ongoing debate over usury. A loan transacted with clipped coins and repaid in unclipped coin was a way to disguise usury and circumvent usury laws. Rabbi ←46 | 47→Meir, son of Baruch of Rothenburg, denounced coin clipping and “currency falsifiers who have led to the destruction of our brethren, the inhabitants of France and the island [England].” Matthew Paris wrote that English coinage was “so intolerably debased by money-clippers and forgers, that neither natives nor foreigners could look upon it with other than angry eyes and disturbed feelings.” The guilty, he continued, included “certain Jews and notorious Caursins [Cahors], and also some Flemish wool-merchants.” Yet, it was not only financiers and merchants who debased coins. Monarchs who controlled the mint intervened in the economy to bolster the amount of currency in circulation to meet their spending needs, thus debasing it and causing a cycle of inflation. Whoever had a monopoly over the money supply were the only ones to benefit from this greater increase in currency.45
A sound currency was a key element in regulating the money economy and debasement the source of much misery, therefore convictions of coin clipping bore severe consequences. The law permitted the punishment of torture and death as well as confiscation of property, which went to the Crown, and the disinheritance of heirs for the offence of counterfeiting. Those accused were held in prison until a special dispensation was issued by the king. A 1232 edict in England prevented the exchange of old and new money, a restriction that was commonplace throughout Europe. All coins had to be bought and sold only in the king’s official exchanges to avoid the “false money” that was in circulation. Further changes were made in 1247 to the coins in an effort to make counterfeiting more difficult but these would turn out to be unsuccessful.46
In October, 1278, a council meeting was held at Windsor to discuss the coin clipping problem. The decision was taken to arrest all of the Jews in England, along with all goldsmiths and officials at the mints and exchanges
