Jewish history has a melancholy sameness—­perpetual exactions, the means of enforcing them differing only in their degrees of cruelty.  Under Henry III the Parliament of England began, 1250, to consider that these extraordinary succors ought at least to relieve the rest of the nation.  They began to inquire into the King’s resources from this quarter, and the King consented that one of the two justices of the Jews should be appointed by parliament.  But the barons thought more of easing themselves than of protecting the oppressed.  In 1256 a demand of eight thousand marks was made, under pain of being transported, some at least of the most wealthy, to Ireland; and, lest they should withdraw their families into places of concealment, they were forbidden, under the penalty of outlawry and confiscation, to remove wife or child from their usual place of residence, for their wives and children were now liable to taxation as well as themselves.  During the next three years sixty thousand marks more were levied.  How, then, was it possible for any traffic, however lucrative, to endure such perpetual exactions?

The reason must be found in the enormous interest of money, which seems to have been considered by no means immoderate at 50 per cent.; certain Oxford scholars thought themselves relieved by being constrained to pay only twopence weekly on a debt of twenty shillings.  In fact, the rivalry of more successful usurers seems to have afflicted the Jews more deeply than the exorbitant demands of the King.  These were the “Caorsini,” Italian bankers, though named from the town of Cahors, employed by the Pope to collect his revenue.  It was the practice of these persons, under the sanction of their principal, to lend money for three months without interest, but afterward to receive 5 per cent, monthly till the debt was discharged; the former device was to exempt them from the charge of usury.  Henry III at one time attempted to expel this new swarm of locusts; but they asserted their authority from the Pope, and the monarch trembled.

Nor were their own body always faithful to the Jews.  A certain Abraham, who lived at Berkhampstead and Wallingford, with a beautiful wife who bore the heathen name of Flora, was accused of treating an image of the Virgin with most indecent contumely; he was sentenced to perpetual imprisonment, but released, on the intervention of Richard, Earl of Cornwall, on payment of seven hundred marks.  He was a man, it would seem, of infamous character, for his brethren accused him of coining, and offered one thousand marks rather than that he should be released from prison.  Richard refused the tempting bribe, because Abraham was “his Jew.”  Abraham revenged himself by laying information of plots and conspiracies entered into by the whole people, and the more probable charge of concealment of their wealth from the rapacious hands of the King.  This led to a strict and severe