their release, because there was no proof of felony against them.  We hear nothing of restitution.  The scholars might indeed hate the Jews whose interest on loans was limited by Bishop Grostete to twopence weekly in the pound—­between 40 and 50 per cent.  Probably the poor scholars’ security was not overgood.  Later, the studies in the university are said to have been interrupted, the scholars being unable to redeem their books pledged to the Jews.

Twenty-four years after the outbreak of the scholars, years of bitterness and spoliation and suffering, while the chancellor and the whole body of the university were in solemn procession to the reliques of St. Frideswide, they were horror-struck by beholding a Jew rush forth, seize the cross which was borne before them, dash it to the ground, and trample upon it with the most furious contempt.  The offender seems to have made his escape in the tumult, but his people suffered for his crime.  Prince Edward was then at Oxford; and, by the royal decree, the Jews were imprisoned, and forced, notwithstanding much artful delay on their part, to erect a beautiful cross of white marble, with an image of the Virgin and Child, gilt all over, in the area of Merton College, and to present to the proctors another cross of silver to be borne at all future processions of the university.  The Jews endeavored to elude this penalty by making over their effects to other persons.  The King empowered the sheriff to levy the fine on all their property.

The last solemn act of Henry of Winchester was a statute of great importance.  Complaints had arisen that the Jews, by purchase, or probably foreclosure of mortgage, might become possessed of all the rights of lords of manors, escheat wardships, even of presentation to churches.  They might hold entire baronies with all their appurtenances.  The whole was swept away by one remorseless clause.  The act disqualified the Jews altogether from holding lands or even tenements, except the houses of which they were actually possessed, particularly in the city of London, where they might only pull down and rebuild on the old foundations.  All lands or manors were actually taken away; those which they held by mortgage were to be restored to the Christian owners, without any interest on such bonds.  Henry almost died in the act of extortion; he had ordered the arrears of all charges to be peremptorily paid, under pain of imprisonment.  Such was the distress caused by this inexorable mandate that even the rival bankers, the Caorsini, and the friars themselves, were moved to commiseration, though some complained that the wild outcries raised in the synagogue on this doleful occasion disturbed the devotion of the Christians in the neighboring churches.