328 "JEWS IN CORNWALL"; AND "MARAZION." 



we are assured, being thought a moderate rate of interest ; 50 per 

 cent, being the ordinary rate. They were not allowed to return 

 in any numbers, we are told, till the time of the Commonwealth. 

 But the entry about Abraham the Tinner, A.D. 1358, would shew 

 either that individuals were tolerated, or that he was a converted 

 Jew or of Jewish extraction, like Roger le Jew in the previous 

 reign ; and though, as such, he would have a Christian name im- 

 posed on him at baptism, yet he might be better known, and 

 therefore described, by the Jewish name, possibly to distinguish 

 him from some other " tinner " having the same Christian name ; 

 and this might get the force of a surname as the other name Jew 

 did, and as in later times Brah'im and Disraeli have.'^ 



With regard to the story of the Jews working as slaves in the 

 Cornish mines in the times of the Plantagenets, as told by Htils, 



*'ward I, and these were continued in the reigns of Edward II and Edward 

 "III, and subsequently to a later period." In his letter to me Mr. Smirke 

 says : " That the Jews were prominent in the Stannaries in the Plantageuet 

 *' times is almost certain to those who have read the regulations of Wrotham, 

 "9 Eichard I"; and again: "I have from time to time noted various 

 " authorities for the employment of Jews by the Crown in financial transac- 

 ■"tions, but have not found any decisive and specific proof of it. This is 

 " not surprising ; for the regular series of such rolls as would tend to show 

 "this are those of the Exchequer, which hardly begin till Henry I, and but 

 ^' scantily till Henry II. Probably if anyone will go through the series of 

 " Pipe EoUs, beginning Henry II and ending Edward I (when the Jews were 

 " expelled) he would pick out this desideratum ; but it would occupy a good 



*' month of daily reading to search them thoroughly If you 



"have courage to go through the records of the Fleas before the Justices of 

 " the Jews, Henry III, you may fall in with some entries worth notice." The 

 writer had not the leisure for doing this, when he spent a little time in the 

 Eecord Office, searching for evidence on this question. 



* Something of the same kind occurred in Spain. Basnage, in his 

 " History of the Jews," (Book 7, c. 33 § 14), as quoted by Bp. Newton on 

 the Prophecies, says : " In vain the great lords of Spain make alliances, 

 change their names, and take ancient scutcheons ; they are still known to be 

 of the Jewish race, and Jews themselves." He tells us that many rather than 

 be banished the country and have their property confiscated, feigned con- 

 version, yea took orders and entered convents and nunneries. In proof of 

 his assertions he says: "There are in the synagogue of Amsterdam, 

 brothers and sisters and near relations to good families in Spain and 

 Portugal ; and even Franciscan monks, Dominicans, and Jesuits, who come 

 to do penance, and make amends for the crime they have committed, in dis- 

 sembling." The fourth cotmcil of Toledo ordered that all their chilch-en 

 should be taken from the Jews and committed to the monasteries to be in- 

 structed in Christianity. When banished Portugal, says Mariana, the king 

 ordered all children under fourteen to be taken from them and baptized. 



