It has been argued that the heavy taxation on the Jews by Henry III had depleted the wealth of the Jews to such an extent that Jewish moneylending had greatly diminished by Edward’s reign. Edward was therefore led by “a usury discourse disconnected with the historical reality of Jewish economic occupations.” It is certainly the case that Jewish moneylenders were poorer, but it is hard to know how many loans were made off the books between neighbors, friends, and business associates. What is recorded in ledgers does not necessarily give us the full picture. Certainly, the complaint over the loss of pledged land indicates usury was still being practiced by some Jews. Whatever the extent of usury, the ←45 | 46→Statute was either redundant and would have no real consequences for the Jewish community or Jews were still engaged primarily in moneylending and the new regulations were an attempt to eradicate that completely. Regardless, the upshot of Edward’s new law was a restriction on Jewish occupational freedom in return for new taxes and peace from potentially rebellious lords. In this increasingly hostile environment, Jewish moneylenders had roughly three options: move into a different occupation, leave the country to find a community that welcomed moneylenders and their services, or carry on lending money furtively. But it was not only the Jews that the Statute affected; it had unintended consequences for some of the Christian poor. Usurers may not have been loved, but they were necessary in the new economy. Fewer moneylenders meant less competition in the loan business and that enabled Italian moneylenders to increase their rates of interest, “causing great suffering to the people.”44
* * *
After the military campaign against the Welsh, who were described as lazy, savage barbarians, Edward was once more in the red. The war had cost £23,000, which had been borrowed from the Riccardi bankers. In addition to the debt, money was needed for road clearance, canals, and castle building. Further loans from the Riccardi did not cover all the expenses, nor did the money he received by forcing all landowners with property worth £20 annually to become knights. As knighthood was an expensive affair, many opted to pay a fine for exemption, which went straight into Edward’s treasury. Eager not to go cap in hand to parliament again, he soon found another source of revenue. The coins in circulation were in a bad state, due to natural deterioration of everyday use of coinage. One escheator complained that the inferior coinage made it next to impossible to collect taxes. With the coins devalued, the price of livestock and grain rose, making everyday living more expensive and poor-quality coinage also discouraged foreign merchants. With reminting, the king profited from the fees charged to his subjects and from the small changes in weight and silver content.
One of the biggest problems with coinage was counterfeiting and coin clipping, which was the most widespread monetary crime and the one with which financiers were most often charged. Before mill marks were introduced during Edward’s reminting, it was relatively easy to clip slivers of silver from the metal’s edge without it being detected. The charge of coin clipping dovetailed with the ongoing debate over usury. A loan transacted with clipped coins and repaid in unclipped coin was a way to disguise usury and circumvent usury laws. Rabbi ←46 | 47→Meir, son of Baruch of Rothenburg, denounced coin clipping and “currency falsifiers who have led to the destruction of our brethren, the inhabitants of France and the island [England].” Matthew Paris wrote that English coinage was “so intolerably debased by money-clippers and forgers, that neither natives nor foreigners could look upon it with other than angry eyes and disturbed feelings.” The guilty, he continued, included “certain Jews and notorious Caursins [Cahors], and also some Flemish wool-merchants.” Yet, it was not only financiers and merchants who debased coins. Monarchs who controlled the mint intervened in the economy to bolster the amount of currency in circulation to meet their spending needs, thus debasing it and causing a cycle of inflation. Whoever had a monopoly over the money supply were the only ones to benefit from this greater increase in currency.45
A sound currency was a key element in regulating the money economy and debasement the source of much misery, therefore convictions of coin clipping bore severe consequences. The law permitted the punishment of torture and death as well as confiscation of property, which went to the Crown, and the disinheritance of heirs for the offence of counterfeiting. Those accused were held in prison until a special dispensation was issued by the king. A 1232 edict in England prevented the exchange of old and new money, a restriction that was commonplace throughout Europe. All coins had to be bought and sold only in the king’s official exchanges to avoid the “false money” that was in circulation. Further changes were made in 1247 to the coins in an effort to make counterfeiting more difficult but these would turn out to be unsuccessful.46
In October, 1278, a council meeting was held at Windsor to discuss the coin clipping problem. The decision was taken to arrest all of the Jews in England, along with all goldsmiths and officials at the mints and exchanges regardless of religion. Over a period of two days in November, those detained were dispersed to fortresses around the country. An estimated 600 Jewish males were taken from all parts of the realm and transported to the Tower of London and commissions were established to hear the charges against the accused. Officers of the king ransacked the homes of the accused looking for evidence of coin clipping and counterfeiting. The king let it be known that Jews might gain their release by paying a fine and some Jews bought their freedom. But the burden of heavy and increased taxation over the thirteenth century meant that the Jewish moneylenders no longer had the wealth or influence they possessed in the previous century.47
An unknown number of those arrested were found guilty and executed, including Benedict of Winchester who, along with a fellow Jew from Winchester, Deudone, was imprisoned before he could take up the position of queen’s gold ←47 | 48→keeper. He was taken to the Tower of London on charges of “certain trespasses concerning the king’s money.” Four of his properties were seized and then forfeited before he was found guilty of the charges. On a cold day in January 1280, he and Deudone were “hanged for felony” and their chattels sold. Where large sums of money were at stake, there was always the risk that the eradication of debt and the appropriation of property were motivating factors in the imprisonment and punishment of moneylenders or that such concerns ran roughshod over judicial procedures. It may also have been the case that he was guilty of the common crime of coin clipping.48
Around 200 Jews were executed and 29 Christians, including the king’s Master of the Exchange at the London mint, Philip de Cambio, and the assayer, William Harlewyn, who were hanged, drawn, and quartered for making and distributing inferior coinage. The prosecutions were an attempt to end a serious problem but in trying to stop coin clipping, money flowed into the king’s coffers. Primarily, Edward’s motivations, had more to do with solving the issue of debased coinage and filling his treasury, than it had to do with pursuing a policy based on prejudice toward Jews.49
After the appropriations and fines resulting from the arrests and executions, the king began the process of recoinage which netted him around £36,000 in profit. An increase in the money supply does not necessarily enrich society but it does enrich the person or government that monopolizes it; in this case, the king. In May 1279, it was announced that,
all