244 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2nd s. VIII. Sept. 24. '59. 



he never spared them when his own wants were to 

 be gratified. 



He would give away their houses and chattels 

 with impunity ; sometimes to the most unworthy 

 favourites, in liquidation of a gambling debt, or as 

 a reward for an after-dinner jest. Sometimes one 

 Jew was robbed for the advantage of another : 

 thus he bestowed upon Abram, the cross-bowman, 

 a Jew, the house of one Isaac, son of Jacob, and 

 Bona his wife, at Canterbury. 



Many Jews appear from an early date to have 

 resided at Canterbury ; the designation " Jury 

 Lane " suggests the locality they inhabited. 



It is not perhaps generally known that the Jews 

 formed part of the population of England even in 

 Anglo-Saxon times. In a charter of WitglafF, a 

 king of Mercia, conceded to the monks of Croy- 

 land, the Jews are recognised as holding, or having 

 held, possessions. This charter, if authentic, was 

 granted a.d. 833. In the "Canonical Excerptions," 

 published by Egbricht, Archbishop of York, a.d. 

 740, Christians are forbidden to be present at 

 Jewish feasts. 



The exact period at which the Jews entered 

 this country is uncertain. A brick of Roman 

 manufacture is said to have been found in some 

 excavations in London, having in relief a repre- 

 sentation of Sampson driving the foxes into a field 

 of corn. From this very doubtful evidence it has 

 been supposed that the Jews, after the destruc- 

 tion of Jerusalem, -extended their wanderings to 

 Britain, when under subjection to Rome. 



From the time of William the Conqueror to the 

 18th Edward the First, when the Jews were ex- 

 pelled the kingdom, they suffered almost every 

 variety of extortion and oppression, paying for the 

 commonest rights of mankind, justice and protec- 

 tion, the most exorbitant sums. 



King John for a few years relaxed this cruel 

 policy, and gave them a charter of protection ; in 

 the eleventh year of his reign, however, he recalled 

 this grant, althou^jh he had received for it four 

 thousand marks, and suddenly ordered all the Jews 

 in Enifland to be imprisoned until they had made 

 a disclosure of their wealth. 



The Jews were the earliest bankers and money 

 lenders ; and as from the precariousness of their 

 possessions, and from the general insecurity of all 

 property in the Middle Ages, they demanded a 

 high rate of interest, they might fairly be classed 

 as usurers. 



Henry III. prohibited them from taking more 

 than twopence a week for every twenty shillings 

 they lent the scholars at Oxford. 



The Jews at Canterbury were probably not 

 more liberal than their countrymen elsewhere : 

 Peter of Blois, Archdeacon of Bath, complains of 

 " being dragged to Canterbury to be crucified by 

 the perfidious Jews;" he had borrowed money of 

 them, and he writes to his friend the Bishop of 

 Ely, begging him to interfere for his protection, 



beseeching 'him " to become bound to Sampson, 

 the Jew, for six pounds," which he says, " I owe 

 him, and thereby deliver me from this cross." The 

 figurative cross to which the worthy archdeacon 

 alluded became a material one with the antiquary, 

 William Somner, historian of Canterbury, who 

 believed that the Jews crucified every child they 

 could get at about Christmas. 



King John, whose name we have introduced in 

 connexion with the Jews of Canterbury, issued 

 some decrees so extraordinary and unkinglike, 

 that we are tempted to introduce one or two as 

 they are recorded in the Close or Patent Rolls. 



In one missive he sends to the knights, barons, 

 and freeholders of Sussex, begging they would 

 assist in carrying his timber to Lewes, assuring 

 them " that he asks the same as a favour, and not 

 as a right, so that it may not be turned into a 

 custom for their prejudice." 



Occasionally he usurped high spiritual powers, 

 transcending even the attributes of the Pope him- 

 self. Thus by " letters patent " he gives a licence 

 to a certain Peter Buillo " to enter into any reli- 

 gion* he pleases." 



He had a most exalted opinion of his preroga- 

 tive, and in another decree threatens all who dis- 

 obey him, " that thereby they will incur not only 

 the anger of God, but every curse by which an 

 anointed and consecrated king can curse." 



The " anointed king " then orders on another 

 occasion, " that Peter the clerk be exchanged for 

 Ferrand the cross-bowman, if sound ; but if dis- 

 membered, Peter be dismembered also." " Men 

 were fined," says Hallam, " for the king's good 

 will, or that he would remit his anger, or to have 

 his mediation with their enemies." Fines were 

 levied in mere sport, and their exaction was 

 decreed in the public records of the kingdom. 

 Thus, as Hume informs us, " the Bishop of Win- 

 chester paid a tun of wine to King John for not 

 reminding him to give a girdle to the Countess of 

 Albemarle," and Robert de Vaux gave his five 

 best palfreys to the king, " that he would hold 

 his peace about Henry Pinel's wife." 



John Bbekt. 



Canterbury. 



COUNTT UBBABIES. 



" It will also be of advantage — often in more ways 

 than one — to collect the productions of local printers on 

 whatever subject, however trivial, especially if the town 

 or city have been the seat of an early press." — Edwards's 

 Memoirs of Libraries, vol. ii. p. 574. 



Such works give very interesting glimpses of 

 the spread of feeling and information, and, in this 

 respect, the study is more profitable than that of 

 local numismatics. 



The list below is one of books and pamphlets in 



[* Meaning probably a religious order.— Ed,] 



