describe him as a faux-monnayeur or counterfeiter. The practice of rulers manipulating currency would grow over the centuries and prompted the eminent medieval economist, Nicholas Oresme (c. 1320–1382) in the following century to protest. If usury was “bad, detestable, and unjust,” in his opinion, alteration of ←50 | 51→the coinage was far worse. Coinage belonged neither to kings nor princes but to the people, although the kings and princes would beg to differ as they brought the mints, and therefore the money supply, under their control. The rulers, Oresme wrote, had no right to alter or affect the value of that coinage as this was nothing more than a tyrannical act. By debasing the currency in order to lay their hands on more money they committed “robbery with violence or fraudulent extortion.” At least usury was a voluntary transaction between a willing usurer who lent money to a person who borrowed of his own free will. The borrower received some benefit from the loan and, generally, interest was not excessive or harmful to the public. This was especially true if there was competition in the moneylending profession. The alteration of coinage by royal authorities, by way of comparison, was “less voluntary and more against the will of [their] subjects, [who were] incapable of profiting” from such action at all, deeming them “utterly unnecessary.”55
Philip had no ethical qualms about usury, but, as with most monarchs, he was willing to manipulate and exploit ill will towards moneylenders for his own financial gain. Like the Riccardi, Jewish moneylenders had their goods confiscated, including gold and silver accessories and household goods, sacred objects, clothing, linens, and anything else considered valuable. This action on the part of the king’s men indicated to others that Jewish moneylenders were fair game and so encouraged physical attacks. Jews’ homes were looted as riots broke out in Paris and other towns but there was little more to take as the Jews were no longer a profitable source of plunder. It was more to Philip’s advantage to denounce usury and take on the role of protector of the people against “usurious transactions.” Philip had already rid himself of the Riccardi but he was still deeply in debt to Jewish moneylenders and the Order of the Knights Templar. With advice from his councilors, such as Guillaume de Nogeret, an ambitious and unscrupulous former law professor from Languedoc, Philippe decided it was time to rid himself of all of them.56
In 1306, Philip decreed the expulsion of the Jews, as had Edward I in England some sixteen years earlier. Over the summer and autumn, an unknown number of Jews left the kingdom of France for other, more welcoming, territories where usury was tolerated. Under Nogeret’s guidance, the king gladly took ownership of the exiled Jews’ property; as he had of the Riccardi’s. Not everyone greeted the exile of Jewish moneylenders with enthusiasm. The chronicler of Philippe’s reign, Geoffroi de Paris, wrote:
All the poor people complain
For the Jews were more generous
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In the handling of their deals
Than the Christians do at present.
These ask for collaterals and deeds,
Pledges also, and grab everything
Until they have stripped them bare …
But if the Jews had remained
In the kingdom of France,
Christian souls would have had great relief
they have no longer.
A Norman chronicler of the fourteenth century was of like mind:
After the expulsion of the Jews [from France] they could not find any money except by borrowing it through agents from certain Christians, both clerics and laymen, who lent at such an enormous rate of interest that it was double what was charged by the Jews, and who did it in such a way that the debtors did not know the lenders who were in possession of their pledges. This was a dangerous situation, for if the agents died or gave up the business, they did not know where to recover them.
The Knights Templar fared the worst of all. One of the most powerful and wealthy military orders in Europe, the Templars, renounced personal wealth and pledged their permanent defence of Palestine and the holy places. In 1307, an order secretly prepared a month prior, directed the arrest of every French member of the Templars without warning and their property seized. Philippe’s attack on the Templars was helped by a schism in the Church. At the beginning of the fourteenth century, Philip’s showdown with the papacy resulted in the abduction of Pope Boniface VIII. In 1304, the archbishop of Bordeaux was selected by the conclave as the new pope, Clement V. His decision to remain in France rather than Rome—settling in Avignon in 1309—resulted in a move away from Italian dominance of the papacy, especially as the next six popes were also French.
Beholden to the French king, Clement V called for a council to discuss the Knights Templar arrest and usury in general. In 1311, the Council of Vienne dissolved the Templars. With the Pope’s approval, fifty-four Templars accused of apostasy, sodomy, idolatry, and obscenity were burned to death at the Saint-Antoine gate outside of Paris. In 1314, the master of the order, Jacques de Molay, along with Geoffrey de Charnay faced the same fate on a scaffold erected opposite the cathedral of Notre Dame.57
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The Council also instructed the Inquisition to investigate monarchs who allowed usury. Because so many moneylenders hid interest payments, the Church decreed that lenders be forced to produce their record-keeping books for inspection. The Council further ruled that clergy be allowed to take their anti-usury preaching out onto the streets. This was a step too far for some rulers determined to exert their authority over an overweening pope. When the Inquisition attempted to go into various French towns to combat usury (including the southern towns of Carcassone, Limoux, and Pamiers), it was denied entrance. Philip made it clear that usury and its profits on French soil were solely the king’s affair, not the Church’s.58
In the same year that the Jews were exiled, Philip returned to currency manipulation to fill his coffers. He devalued the currency around 39 percent which led to a dramatic rise in prices. Creditors called in their debts at the higher rate, which had tripled as had rents. One satirist scorned the king as turning “twenty into sixty, then twenty into four; and ten into thirty … Gold and silver, all is lost/And none will be restored.” A riot ensued that was put down by force, with a number of craftsmen hanged as an example to other would-be rioters. Taxation and fluctuation of the currency continued with Philip’s reign and it was not long after their expulsion that Lombards and Jews began filtering back to France. They resettled in various towns between 1307 and 1311, even though the expulsion had not been formerly lifted. In November 1314, at the age of forty-six, Philip IV suffered a stroke while out on a hunt and died just over three weeks later at Fontainebleu. It was the new king, Louis X, who officially allowed Jews to return to France.59
* * *
The expulsion of Jews in England and France has long been a prime example of medieval antisemitism. Yet it is difficult to assess the actions of kings like Edward I and Philip IV as antisemitic. Their prime motivation did not stem from a personal animus towards Jews or their religion but from the demands for finance brought about by decades of costly wars, the expenditure for crusades, the building of defensive castles, upkeep of the royal household, maintenance of the kingdom, ransoms, bribes, and hospitality. No source of funding was sacred, as was clear from Edward’s raid on the clergy’s money and both kings attack on the Templars. Punishments for transgressions were harsh, and in some cases, obscenely brutal, with exile a convenient way to rid a monarch of a problem. Regardless of whether a few Jews were moneylenders, whether most had taken up other jobs, whether ←53 | 54→they were impoverished from years of taxation, or whether they were still active usurers, the perception and understanding in both England and France was that they were only
