The Jews were legally the personal property of the King and enjoyed royal protection, and as wards of the crown they had the freedom of the King’s highways and could hold property directly from the King. At this time Jews were barred from virtually all professions and Christians were prohibited from the business of usury, the charging of interest on loans, so usury was left to Jewish merchants whose financial acumen as bankers soon made the loaning of money a very profitable business. Their legal status left Jews open to the seizure of taxation [tallage] by the King, and this taxation could be very heavy and was often arbitrary with the King taxing the Jews whenever he needed money. Around the time that Hugh de Hotot was summoned before the Justices at Westminster the Jewish community made up less than 0.25 per cent of the population, but provided some 8 per cent of the King’s income.
There is no evidence of Jews in England before the invasion and conquest by William the Conqueror in 1066. Jews from Rouen, in William’s Duchy of Normandy, arrived soon after the conquest and quickly established a network of credit and trading links between William’s English and French possessions.
After the outbreak of the English Civil War between the Empress Matilda and Stephen of Blois, often referred to as “The Anarchy” , the subsequent breakdown of centralized law and order made travel for trade purposes extremely dangerous and it is thought that Jews abandoned trade almost entirely in favour of banking and loaning money during this time. Christians at this time were prohibited from the business of “usury”, the charging of interest on loans, so it was left to Jewish merchants whose financial acumen as bankers soon made the loaning of money a very profitable business. After the end of “The Anarchy” successive English kings profited greatly from the wealth generated by Jewish financiers.
Borrowing money from Jews was by no means unusual for members of the landed classes at this time, and even the Church borrowed money from them. Many of the great Christian cathedrals and churches of the time were built with money borrowed from Jews.
However, the increasing indebtedness of the landed classes and the Church to the Jews led to great resentment resulting in sporadic orchestrated outbursts of anti-Semitism which, despite their supposed royal protection, often resulted in massacres of the Jews and the destruction of their loan records. During the reign of Edward I the Lombard bankers from Northern Italy became more prominent in the international banking business and the King became less dependent on Jewish financiers for loads and taxation. Edward also brought in more legislation which restricted the Jews ability to make any profits from business which greatly reduced the usefulness of the Jews to him. Eventually political pressure and huge financial inducements from his barons led to Edward I expelling the Jews from the kingdom in 1290, and Jews were not officially re-admitted to England until 1655, during Oliver Cromwell’s Commonwealth.
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