PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 725 



of anything akin to justice in their administration of govern- 

 ment. One of the most notable of these sources was the Jews, 

 who during the middle ages had no rights of citizenship in 

 Christianized Europe, and were held, in respect to their persons, 

 goods, wives and children, at the absolute disposal of the chief of 

 the state, to be taxed and despoiled, by him at his pleasure. This 

 utilization of the Jews as sources of revenue was far more 

 thoroughly and systematically carried out in England than in 

 any other country. " They were, in fact, the private property of 

 the king ; living instruments of his revenue ; carefully protected 

 by his government, unless in cases where exceptional necessity on 

 his part or obstinacy on theirs made it expedient to bear upon 

 them with unusual weight ; * not serfs bound to the soil, but 

 slaves of the highest value, to whom to allow free action in the 

 acquisition of wealth was the needful condition of reaping the 

 fruit of their labor. There is a writ of Henry III in which, in 

 payment of a debt to his brother Richard of Cornwall, he assigns 

 and makes over to him " all my Jews of England." f 



William Rufus (William II of England) actually forbade the 

 conversion of a Jew to the Christian faith. " It was a poor ex- 

 change," he said, " that would rid him of a valuable property and 

 give him only a subject." 



Under Edward I of England the Jews were plundered and 

 amerced to such an extent that it is estimated that they paid 

 over one tenth of the entire revenue of the crown. 



An explanation of the apparently anomalous circumstance that 

 the Jews, although deprived of all civil rights and debarred from 

 following most occupations, were able to be plundered to such an 

 extent, is found in the fact that they were the " royal usurers," 

 and under the king's protection spoliated through extreme usuri- 

 ous interest the Norman barons, who were always in want of 

 money, and were not the men to readily tolerate " benevolences," 

 or any other form of direct taxation for supplying the king with 

 money necessary for the support of the government. So that 

 when the king plundered the Jewish money lenders, he in reality 

 obtained indirectly the money he needed from his barons, with 

 far less odium and more profit than if he had proceeded against 

 them directly. 



Very curiously, this mediaeval idea of regarding the Jews as a 



* Such a case of urgent necessity or inexcusable obstinacy must have been assumed 

 as existing by King John, of whom it is related, that on one occasion he demanded the 

 sum of ten thousand marks (thirty thousand dollars) of a Jew at Bristol, and on his 

 refusal to pay, ordered one of his teeth to be drawn every day until he should comply. 

 The Jew, it is chronicled, lost seven teeth and then paid the sum required of him. 



f Oxford Essays. By J. Bridges, Fellow of Oriel. 



