To bring an action for treason or felony.
[77] Surety or pledge.
[78] Surveyed.
[79] The results of this enquiry were embodied in the Hundred Rolls and served as a basis for the Placita de quo warranto; these records are as important for the thirteenth century as is Domesday Book for the eleventh.
22. Wreck of Sea [Fine Roll, 10 Edward III, m. 1], 1337.
The King to the sheriff of Kent, greeting. Because we have been given to understand that a great mass of a whale lately cast ashore by the coast of the river Thames between Greenwich and Northfleet in your county, which should pertain to us as our wreck, and whereof a great part has been carried away by certain evildoers in contempt of us, remains still in your keeping, to be delivered to us or others at our command, as is fitting: We order you, straitly enjoining on you, that you cause all of the whale aforesaid, which is thus in your keeping, to be entirely delivered without any delay to our beloved and trusty Nicholas de la Beche, constable of our Tower of London, to be kept to our use, as has been more fully enjoined on him by us; and that you in no wise neglect so to do; for we have commanded the same Nicholas to receive from you that mass, to be kept in the form aforesaid. Witness the King at Westminster 14 January. By the King himself.
SECTION III
THE JEWS
1. Charter of liberties to the Jews, 1201—2. Ordinances of 1253—3. Expulsion of a Jew, 1253—4. Punishment for non-residence in a Jewry, 1270—5. Grant of a Jew, 1271—6. Ordinances of 1271—7. Removal of Jewish communities from certain towns to others, 1275—8. Disposition of debts due to Jews after their expulsion, 1290.
The documents in the following section illustrate the anomalous position of the Jews in England, the nature of the royal protection, which accorded them a security due to them as the king's personal property (No. 1), the restrictions put upon their religious and social life (No. 2) and upon their possession of land (No. 6), the summary treatment dealt out to them if they failed to fulfil their function (No. 3), or dwelt outside the narrow range of a Jewry-town (No. 4), the arbitrary manner in which they were transferred from person to person, or uprooted from one town and transplanted (Nos. 5 and 7), and the manner of their expulsion (No. 8).
Their function in the state was twofold, to supply the crown at any moment with ready money, and to act as a channel for the conveyance to the king of the property of his subjects. The degree of their usefulness must be gauged by the provisions of their charter (No. 1). It is reasonable to suppose that their expulsion was only determined on when the crown had drained their resources, or when, as was the case, there were other supplies available from a class of financiers less obnoxious to the racial and religious prejudices of the age. The place of the Jews was immediately occupied by the merchants of Lucca, and later by the Friscobaldi, the Bardi and Peruzzi and other wealthy societies of Italian merchant-bankers.
AUTHORITIES
The principal modern writers dealing with the subject in this section are:—Jacobs, The Jews in Angevin England; Jacobs, London Jewry (Anglo-Jewish Exhibition Papers); Gross, Exchequer of the Jews (Anglo-Jewish Exhibition Papers); Rigg, Select Pleas of the Exchequer of the Jews (Selden Society); Rye, Persecution of the Jews in England (Anglo-Jewish Exhibition Papers); Abrahams, The Expulsion of the Jews from England.
1. Charter of Liberties to the Jews[80] [Charter Roll, 2 John, m. 5.], 1201.
John by the grace of God, etc. Know ye that we have granted to all Jews of England and Normandy that they may freely and honourably reside in our land, and hold of us all things that they held of King Henry, our father's grandfather, and all things that they now hold reasonably in their lands and fees and pawns and purchases, and that they may have all their liberties and customs as well and peaceably and honourably as they had them in the time of the aforesaid King Henry, our father's grandfather.
And if a plaint shall have arisen between Christian and Jew, he who shall have appealed the other shall have witnesses for the deraignment of his plaint, to wit, a lawful Christian and a lawful Jew. And if the Jew shall have a writ touching his plaint, his writ shall be his witness; and if a Christian shall have a plaint against a Jew, it shall be judged by the Jew's peers.
And when a Jew be dead, his body shall not be detained above ground, but his heir shall have his money and his debts; so that he be not disturbed thereon, if he have an heir who will answer for him and do right touching his debts and his forfeit.
And it shall be lawful for Jews without hindrance to receive and buy all things which shall be brought to them, except those which are of the Church and except cloth stained with blood. And if a Jew be appealed by any man without witness, he shall be quit of that appeal by his bare oath upon his Book. And in like manner he shall be quit of an appeal touching those things which pertain to our crown, by his bare oath upon his Roll.
And if there shall be dispute between Christian and Jew touching the loan of any money, the Jew shall prove his principal and the Christian the interest.
And it shall be lawful for the Jew peaceably to sell his pawn after it shall be certain that he has held it for a whole year and a day.
And Jews shall not enter into a plea save before us or before those who guard our castles, in whose bailiwicks Jews dwell.
And wherever there be Jews, it shall be lawful for them to go whithersoever they will with all their chattels, as our own goods, and it shall be unlawful for any to retain them or to forbid them this freedom.
And we order that they be quit throughout all England and Normandy of all customs and tolls and prisage of wine, as our own chattel. And we command and order you that you guard and defend and maintain them.
And we forbid any man to implead them touching these things aforesaid against this charter, on pain of forfeiture to us, as the charter of King Henry, our father, reasonably testifies. Witnesses; Geoffrey Fitz Peter, Earl of Essex; William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke; Henry de Bohun, Earl of Hereford; Robert de Turnham; William Briwere; etc. Dated by the hand of Simon, Archdeacon of Wells, at Marlborough, on the 10th day of April in the second year of our reign.
[80] Printed in Selden Society Publications, Vol. 15, p. 1.
2. Ordinances of 1253[81] [Close Roll, 37 Henry III, m. 18].
The King has provided and decreed, etc., that no Jew dwell in England unless he do the King service, and that as soon as a Jew shall be born, whether male or female, in some way he shall serve the King. And that there be no communities of the Jews in England save in those places wherein such communities were in the time of the lord King John, the King's father. And that in their synagogues the Jews, one and all, worship in subdued tones according to their rite, so that Christians hear it not. And that all Jews answer to the rector of the parish in which they dwell for all parochial dues belonging to their houses. And that no Christian nurse hereafter suckle or nourish the male child of any Jew, and that no Christian man or woman serve any Jew or Jewess, nor
