45© A. D. 1290. 



vet and Walfingham lay, that the king feized all their property, leaving 

 them only as much as would bear their charges to France : but, accord- 

 ing to Wikes, they carried enough with them to tempt the feamen to 

 murder them on the palTage for the fake of their money. The number 

 of Jews driven out of England at this time was reckoned to be 16,51 1 : 

 and the king had previoufly expelled them from his territories in France. 

 Such was the general eagernefs to get rid of the Jews, that the parlia- 

 nient granted the king a fifteenth of the property of the people for that 

 purpofe, though, as the expulfion was managed, it was able very amply 

 to bear its own charges *. 



129T, April — Now (and how long before is unknown) coal mines 

 were worked in Scotland, as appears by a charter of William of Ober- 

 vill, granting liberty to the monks of Dunfermline to dig coals for their 

 own ufe in his lands of Pittencrief, but upon no account to fell any. 

 \_C/jart. in Statijl. account of Scotland, V. xiii,^. 469.] From the donor re- 

 llriding the monks from felling, it may be prefumed, that the fale of 

 coal was then a valuable obje6t, which he referved for himfelf. 



June 15*'' — The property of fome Flemifli merchants had been arreft- 

 ed by the jufliciary, or viceroy, of Ireland in the ports of Waterford, 

 Youghall, and Cork, on account of difputes between England and Flan- 

 ders. But the king, unwilling that any interruption fhould be given to 

 the trade, now defired that it fhould be reflored. [Foedera, V, ii, p. 528.] 

 Either thofe merchants were in the carrying trade between Ireland and 

 England; or the rigour of the law of the year 1288 was now relaxed.' 



Baptifta Burgus, the panegyrical hiflorian of Genoa, relates, that two 

 gallies, commanded by D'Oria and Vivaldo, were fitted out from that 

 city for the difcovery of weftern lands in the Atlantic ocean, but that 

 they were never more heard of. 



Soon after the expulfion of the weflern pilgrims from Jerufalem in 

 the year 1 187 they were confined to a narrow flip of the coafl ; and the 

 maritime city of S'. John de Acre (or Ptolemais) was the capital of the 

 Chriftian territory in the Eafi. Being thus occupied by people from 

 every European nation, it became a general emporium for the mer- 

 chandize of the Eafi: and theWefl ; and commerce, conduded chiefly by 

 the Venetians, Genoefe, and Pifans, flouriflied as much as a ftate of fre- 

 quent warfare with the neighbouring Mohamcdans, and the diflraded 

 condition of a city wherein there were feventeen fovereigns, or repre- 

 fentatives of fovereigns and republics, no one of whom acknowledged 

 himfelf fubordinate to any other, could permit. Without entering in- 

 to any detail of the bloody war between the Venetians and Genoefe for 



as might be expciftcd, thought they had as good a r,s.— Trivet, pp. 264, 266, 267. — IVUi-s,pp. 103, 



right to a (hare of the plunder. \_Ryley,Plac. pari. 114,122 — ^l. ll'^ejlm. p. 414. — Walfingbam, p. 



p. 131.] 476. — Rot. pat. 18,19 Edw. I. — Ryley> •?"»'■• /"ur/. 



♦ See Mailox't lii/l.o/tljc exchequer, c. J, § S,nolet p. 129. 



