Before he left to head another costly crusade in 1270, Louis IX ordered the property of Jews to be seized if it had been gained through usury. This had a two-fold purpose. It satisfied the resentment and anger that many people held against moneylenders, especially those who charged high rates of interest, and it added to the king’s treasure, helping to fund his crusade campaign. The crusade never made it to the Holy Land but was instead diverted to North Africa by Charles of Anjou, the king’s brother, for his own political purposes. It was in Tunis that Louis died from dysentery at the age of fifty-six. When Louis’ son, Philip III (the Bold) took the throne in 1270, there was an easing of these anti-usury ordinances, although they continued to exist on the books. Contrary to his father, Philip acknowledged pawnbroking as a valid profession for Jews, bestowing the pawnbroker with legal rights. He was also lax in applying Louis’ stringent laws. Therefore, despite the prohibitions, by 1273, Jews were engaged in regular moneylending in the Ile-de-France due to the non-enforcement of anti-usury laws. Philip, it seems, was more concerned with the economic health of France than with the moral rights and wrongs of usury.31
Philip was not the only French ruler keen to harness capital for their own purposes. In the 1270s, Marseille was forced to recognize the suzerainty of Charles of Anjou, along with Arles, and Avignon. Under Charles, the city was incorporated into Provence and usurious transactions were restricted to twice a month with a general interest rate of 12 percent. After a revolt, he enacted harsh penalties against moneylenders but, in general, Charles’ lands were hospitable to their profession. Intrigued by the idea of profit, he set about encouraging trade and commerce, creating a royal monopoly on salt, mining for precious metals, and collecting fees for exempting people from the onerous Sicilian subventio generalis tax. Those exemptions, however, meant that the tax pool was smaller and so those left paying tax paid a greater amount. To promote trade and commerce, he gave protection to merchants attending fairs in Anjou and encouraged Jews and Italian Christians to develop credit. He also stipulated that Jews did not have to wear the insignia that had been ordered by the French king. With such policies, Florentines settled in his dominions as moneylenders and merchants under his protection so ←39 | 40→that by 1274, Italians had a monopoly in the profession of moneylending in his realm, lending Charles large sums of money in exchange for privileges.
Jews under Charles’ control were particularly involved in the economy of the Regno, which was comprised of the Kingdom of Sicily and parts of southern Italy. Sicilian Jews had a near monopoly on the dyeing trade while others acted as moneylenders under his protection like the Italians. Between Charles’ large number of indirect taxes and the monopolization of industries, the economic benefits fell on the few rather than the many. Still, he brought his expanding state under one administration operating with one set of laws. With this more competent and consistent government, the presence of Lombards to provide credit, and new connections in the Mediterranean, profits were robust, even though Charles’ expenditure was steep. This acceptance of usury was halted during the reign of his grandson, Robert I, who, in 1322, issued an edict against usurers. But by the middle of the century, the economic needs for loans outweighed moral concerns. Robert’s successor was his granddaughter Jeanne (Joanna or Giovanna) of Naples, who permitted a maximum interest payment of 10 percent. It was not an overwhelming victory for moneylenders, who valued their risk at rather more than 10–12 percent, but it was an indication that the tide was turning in the attitude towards usury.
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In England, the tallaging of Jews increased during the twelfth century but became a less profitable form of revenue for the Crown as the community’s wealth declined, either because of the heavy taxation or loans that went unpaid. It may also be the case that income was hidden from the financially voracious monarch. Repeatedly denied taxes from parliament, Henry had become reliant on his sheriffs, foresters, and justices to bring in the necessary revenue and fines which were collected with growing oppression. In 1241–42, a massive tallage of 20,000 marks was imposed on the Jewish community. About half of the paid amount was provided by Aaron of York, David of Oxford, and Leo of York. This was followed up by a 60,000 tallage in 1244–45. In an effort to comply with the king’s demands for taxes, moneylenders called in their debts, such as the one contracted between John de Carun of Sherington and Elias le Eveske. In the early 1240s, John de Carun was in need of money after joining Henry III’s military expedition to Gascony. With the expense of his knighthood, the cost of military equipment, and the upkeep of his estate while he was overseas, he sought a loan from Elias, one of the most influential Jewish moneylenders in the thirteenth century. When Henry imposed ←40 | 41→his enormous tallage on the Jews, Elias, like other moneylenders, was obliged to seek repayment. After a judicial inquiry, that assessed his lands, John of Carun was ordered to pay an annual instalment of six marks to his creditor in repayment, much to the dissatisfaction of Elias. The debt was paid after the sale of thirty acres of John de Carun’s land. Some Jews sold off their loans with deep discounts. These were eagerly bought by wealther courtiers such as William de Valence and Richard of Cornwall who had their eyes on the land on which the loan was pledged. In this way, the estates of vulnerable landowners fell into the hands of the wealthy elite, causing resentment and hostility on the part of the debtors towards the Jewish moneylenders and the courtiers who benefitted from their distress.32
The discontent of the barons and knights of the shire over the transfer of land from debt-ridden nobility to their creditors, who were often Jews but sometimes the Cistercian monks of Meaux, and then into the hands of wealthy Christian courtiers, forced a solution to the issue of usury. Having already rebelled against King John at the beginning of the century, action that led to the signing of Magna Carta, kings were well aware that the barons and knights had the ability to rebel successfully.33
A series of statutes in the 1250s promulgated that no Jew was permitted to reside in England unless he was in service to the king. These laws, combined with the tallages and the downturn in profits, convinced some Jews that there was no future for themselves as moneylenders in England. This included Aaron I le Blunds who, along with his son Samuel, his brother Elias, and their wives, attempted to leave England in 1252 with their realisable assets. They were apprehended before they departed, their houses and property held until they had paid their fine in full, and ordered to give a security bond to ensure that they would not attempt to flee again. These hefty communal taxes effectively destroyed the capital of these magnates. By 1255, Aaron of York was bankrupt.34
Violence and revolt surfaced once more after disease and torrential storms moved through the kingdom, bringing famine and plague and leaving the dead in the streets, their stomachs swollen with hunger. In 1260, the Jewish Exchequer that kept a record of the debts owed to Jewish moneylenders was ransacked and the rolls were stolen. A number of attacks on Jews followed a revolt against King Henry by his brother-in-law and friend-turned-enemy, the French nobleman and crusader, Simon de Montfort, the earl of Leicester and one-time ally of the king’s son, Edward. Simon had expelled the Jews from Leicester, accusing them of causing Christians to suffer because of their usury. In leading the Second Baron’s War (1263–64), Montfort ousted the king, removed his authority, and included ordinary townsmen in the parliament. With the country in chaos, an incident in ←41 | 42→London in which a Jew supposedly wounded a Christian with a knife resulted in a mob-hunt for the Jewish culprit.35