Ruling authorities may have accumulated a lot of money but they also spent vast amounts and found themselves almost constantly in need of funds. Wars were not only bloody affairs, they were costly and the price of waging a war often far exceeded the financial rewards gained by the victor. In addition to military endeavors, rulers had many other expenditures and were left with little option but to take out large loans to cover their expenses. Taxes may have been the obvious choice to increase revenue but it was an unpopular one that could lead to civil unrest and worse. The taxes demanded by the archbishop of Mainz were ←26 | 27→so exacting that he was murdered in 1160 in front of the monastery of St. Jakob. Rulers in need of funds were, therefore, forced to look for a variety of financial sources.4
Throughout Europe, Jews were, effectively, the “king’s Jews,” a status formally recognized in the thirteenth century. Everything they owned, effectively was the monarch’s property. For this reason, rulers had a vested interest in the Jews not only thriving but in their debtors paying their loans fully and in a timely manner. Jewish moneylenders, after all, could not pay their substantial tithes to the king if their loans went unpaid. But this relationship between moneylenders and monarchs—based on protection by the ruler and a thriving and steady banking business by the Jews—had the potential to breed serious resentment on the part of debtors and critics who were far removed from the seats of power. This was especially true if the king exacted heavy taxes or fines, impelling people to take out loans, and then forcing them to repay their loans under duress.
After nineteen winters of “chaos, anarchy, and suffering” under King Stephen, the reign of Henry II (1154–1189) was fortuitous for Jewish moneylenders in England. Henry had inherited a disatrous economy and, with war against France approaching, he needed to right the financial ship as quickly as possible. In 1177, at Henry’s request, the Bishop of London and the treasurer of the exchequer Richard FitzNeal wrote Dialogue Concerning the Exchequer. The purpose of his book was to explain the auditing and registration of the sheriff’s accounts. In the process, he tackled the subject of usury. Unlike the depiction of it as theft and injustice, usury was not an evil in Fitzneal’s estimation. Far from it. Capital was vital for a strong kingdom and those without it would always find themselves at the mercy of their enemies. Henry certainly knew this. When he amassed his tremendous army in the summer of 1159 for the invasion of France, he had to cover the cost of the mercenaries which amounted to nine thousand pounds. That sum exceeded the king’s revenue for the entire previous year. With war and daily expenses draining the treasury, Henry spent much of his time trying to find ways to fill the coffers, as well as asserting his control over wayward nobles. He grabbed what he could from his subjects in the way of taxes, including between a quarter and a third of the Jews’ property. As a number of England’s Jewry helped to supply the capital he needed, either by loans or taxes, he also protected them so that they could collect their debts without the overreaching arm of the Church interfering.5
Even with high taxation levied on them, by the mid-twelfth century certain Jews profited from moneylending, enabling them to purchase land, the main source of wealth in the medieval world. Men such as Isaac and Abraham of London, Jurnet and Benedict of Norwich, Brun and Josc Quatrebuch of London, ←27 | 28→and Aaron of York, and especially Aaron of Lincoln (c.1125–1186) amassed great fortunes. In fact, his wealth was so immense, Aaron of Lincoln warranted his own exchequer (Scaccarium Aaronis), which led to the recording of all debts owed to Jews in the Exchequer of the Jews (Scaccarium Judaeorum), a detailed account of all financial transactions concerning the Jews of England. During his lifetime, Aaron was said to have lived in great splendor in his father’s London house that he rebuilt, and he reportedly helped to fund multiple ecclesiastical buildings, including St. Albans Abbey, Lincoln Minster, and Peterborough Cathedral. Aaron’s income came from lending money at interest to the higher echelons of society, including the monarchy, leading to criticism of the Jews being the “king’s usurers.” It was commonly said that he was the richest man in England, with more money than even the king. After Aaron’s death, Henry confiscated his entire estate and his outstanding debts were collected in a more thorough and harsh manner.6
In 1187, after Jerusalem fell to Salah ad-Din, Henry imposed the largest tax ever experienced in England. Everyone, with the exception of crusaders, was responsible for a 10 percent tithe on his revenue and movable goods. This Saladin Tithe was to fund the third crusade and those who tried to avoid the payment risked imprisonment or excommunication. The chronicler Gervase of Canterbury assessed the amount given by the small minority of Jews to be £60,000, while the Christians gave £70,000. These numbers have since been revised downward with the amount for which the Jews were responsible being £10,000 initially, with a further £2,000 the following year, although the actual amount demanded and the amound paid are unknown.7
Two years after Jerusalem’s capture, the thirty-two-year-old son of Henry and his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine was crowned King Richard I of England. According to Raphael Holinshed’s chronicle, Jews from London and other counties gathered at Westminster palace to present the new monarch with a gift to show their loyalty. They also wanted to assure themselves that Richard would retain the privileges and liberties that had been given to them by previous monarchs. Richard, however, was not inclined to give the Jews an audience. A rumor quickly spread that the king had ordered the destruction of the Jews. Crowds tried to force their way into the Jews’ homes, and when this proved unsuccessful, their houses were set on fire. The flames not only consumed Jewish buildings but those of their Christian neighbors “so hideous was the rage of the fire.”8
Informed about the riot, the king sent some of his councilors and officers to quell the violence. Not only did he want to maintain law and order, Richard wanted to make sure revenue from the Jews was not interrupted or damaged. The crowd, however, was in no mood to listen to Richard’s advisors. Intent on robbing ←28 | 29→the homes and shops of the Jews, the ransackers turned on the councilors who fled for their lives. As the fire blazed, lighting up the night, Jews inside the homes were either smothered to death with the smoke or burned. Those who tried to escape, were butchered by “the furious and disordered people” with spears, swords, and bills (a type of polearm with a hooked, chopping blade and protruding spikes). The massacre continued until the afternoon of the following day, when, exhausted, the crowd dispersed.9
Shortly after the riot, Richard departed English shores to join the third crusade leaving England without a monarch. His crusade was costly. The ships being readied for the campaign were stocked with silver, furs, food and spices, weapons, and much more. Funding came from taxes that were exacted from all quarters of society. Heretics’ property was confiscated, donations were expected from all towns, and tariffs were imposed on the Jews. Richard’s need for military campaign funds prompted him not only to tax Jews in England but also to levy a special tax on the Jews in Normandy, which was part of the Angevin empire under English rule during the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. As usual, non-payment of government taxes meant fines, confiscation of property, and imprisonment.10
It was not only heavy taxation that was a problem. With the king absent and his troops assembled as they prepared to follow him, lawlessness increased. More attacks on Jews spread throughout England in spite of Richard’s command that the Jews should be left unmolested. The reason for the violence, in Holinshed’s opinion, was the “unmercifull usurie practised [by the Jews] to the undooing of manie an honest man.” In Lincoln and Norfolk, Jews were slaughtered while in other towns they were beaten and robbed. The worst attack occurred in York on the sabbath before Passover, March 16, 1190 which was also the eve of Palm Sunday.