Money and the hangman in late-13th-century England: Jews, Christians and coinage offences alleged and real (Part I)

<plain_text><page sequence="1">Money and the hangman in late-13th-century England: Jews, Christians and coinage offences alleged and real (Part I)* ZEFIRA ENTIN ROKEAH In 1290 England saw the first lasting, national expulsion of Jews in Western Europe, initiating a pattern later to be followed by others. Various explanations of the king's action were offered by a range of chroniclers. Contemporary comment on the scelera, or crimes, of the Jews (it is not clear whether the reference is to the Jews' rejection of Jesus and to the events surrounding his crucifixion or to contemporary crimes), and on the Jews' monetary offences (including the clipping and counterfeiting of coins), is to be found both in English records and chronicles as well as in the responsa of Rabbi Meir son of Baruch of Rothenburg.1 Rabbi Meir condemns coin clipping and 'currency falsifiers who have led to the destruction of our brethren, the inhabitants of France and the island [England]'. The charges against Jews and Christians alleged to have committed violations of the king's coinage in the late 1270s and early 1280s reflect contemporary anti-Semitism. It is with these accusations and with their results, as well as with their background, that I will deal in a three-part discussion. This includes a brief survey of events related to coinage in the 13th century; an examination of the records describing events in the 1270s and 1280s; and some conclusions concerning these events and their chroniclers. A study of the individual Jews and Christians involved, who number in the hundreds, is unfortunately beyond our present limits; the accused Jews will be listed in Part II of this paper. Offences against the coinage were spoken of in connection with both Jews and Christians in England throughout the 13th century.2 Charges of this type were made in earlier centuries as well, and one can find accusations concerning the abuse of coinage at all periods in which metallic coinage was current.3 Violations such as clipping the coinage were implicit in the very nature of metallic money as it was produced in the centuries before modern machinery and techniques were used, for money formed by hand, with dies from blanks, was irregular in both shape and weight. The metal alloy from which the blanks were prepared was also Paper presented to the Society on 7 December 1989. Part II is in preparation. Crown Copyright records in the Public Record Office, London, are cited here by permission of the Controller of H.M. Stationery Office. 83</page><page sequence="2">Zefira Entin Rokeah subject to manipulation by hard-pressed or unscrupulous rulers. English medieval coinage was of relatively reliable composition, and was imitated on the Continent because of its good reputation. However, even such coinage was subject to wear and tear - and to clipping, as we will see. Within a few years of the accession of Henry III, new coins (in the shape of the old 'short-cross penny') were being issued in his name; it has been suggested that round half-pennies and farthings were then also issued for the first time, replacing the nearly triangular quarters and semi? circular halves of the short-cross penny for small transactions. At about the same time, complaints were being made about coin-clippers.4 In 1232 proclamation was made that no one, Christian or Jew, was to exchange old and new money; only in the king's official exchanges was silver to be bought or sold.5 In 1238, rumours of coinage offences led the Jewish community to offer the king ?100 to ensure that all Jews convicted by law of 'clipping, robbing, or harbouring of clippers or robbers, might be banished from the realm' forever.6 By 1247 the money coined over twenty years earlier had been reduced by clipping, as well as by use, to perhaps two-thirds of its ostensible weight. Among those popularly accused were foreign, especially Flemish, merchants; thereafter, Jews, Cahorsins and Flemings were all blamed.7 It was proclaimed that any buyer or seller offering clipped pennies or half pennies would face having the offending coins bored through and thus rendered worthless. Henry III granted his brother Richard, Earl of Cornwall, a coining monopoly for twelve years, in return for half of the profits - which were very substantial. (Richard's profits amounted to nearly ?20,000 on the one million or so pounds worth of pennies minted between 1247 and 1261. )* The new coinage proved to be very expensive for the people because of the exchange rate. Prices also rose considerably. Oman notes that someone bringing coins in to be exchanged in 1247-8 would get back only as much as could be coined from them by weight, less 13d per pound, which was deducted for expenses and 'seigniorage' for the benefit of Richard of Cornwall, holder of the monopoly. Thus, one might receive only two thirds as much, by face value, as one brought in. (See his Coinage of England, p. 146.) These new 'long-cross' pennies were designed so that the cross reached the very edge of the coin; this may have been intended to make it easier to identify clipped coins.9 In 1250 large sums of money were extorted from the Jews; Matthew Paris commented that the Jews could not be made poor, because they were counterfeiters.10 In 1252 judges were appointed to 'amerce changers of money contrary to law and the custom of the realm' for ten counties.11 During the 84</page><page sequence="3">Money and the hangman in late-13th-century England 1240s and the 1250s various Jews were charged with having clipped the coinage.12 Because of his 'grave loss in his change by clippers' and counterfeiters, and because of counterfeit money imported from abroad, Henry III ordered, in 1270, a general examination of his coinage by Bartholomew de Castello, Warden of the Change, who was told to seize both corrupt coins and coinage offenders.13 In Henry's last years the coinage in circulation in the realm was again very much corrupted, some twenty years having passed since most of it had been minted. Such was the situation when Edward, the crusader son of Henry III, ascended the throne. During the earliest years of Edward's reign we hear relatively little of coinage violations; an attempt by one Jew to implicate another in the time of Henry III is mentioned, and the wife of an imprisoned Jew pays for a writ directing the sheriff of Oxford to release the Jew from prison if he is being held only for 'some trifling matter of false money' and so on. It is only after Edward's return from his crusade, and after the legislation of 1275 against the taking of interest by Jews, that offences by Jews against the coinage become prominent in the records.14 Let us now turn our attention to the events of these last fifteen years before the expulsion, and to the way in which they have been seen by chroniclers and historians. H. G. Richardson, in his pithy survey of the problem of coinage offences, noted that 'every class accustomed to handle money or to deal in bullion was suspected, and with reason, of making illicit profits' by 'clipping coins in circulation, before passing them on in the way of trade, and turning the clippings into ingots or sheet silver' or of coating base metal with silver and then passing it off as solid silver.15 He added that both Jews and Christians were active participants in this trade in London's Jewry, and that - in contrast to earlier practice - special judges were appointed in December 1276 to investigate such violations in London and Nottingham. He also noted that in 1276 Christians rather than Jews were seen as the main, though not the only, offenders, and that 'the justice meted out was not impeccable'.16 It is clear from the Calendar of the Plea Rolls of the Exchequer of the Jews that significant numbers of charges of coinage violations were being made against Jews from at least the Easter term of 1276; throughout 1277 this continued, to culminate in the trials of 1278.17 The record of the 1278-9 inquiry that cleared Isaac of Calne of coin clipping, notes that eighteen Christians (of Oxford, Wallingford and Henley) and six Judeos minus suspectos were to form the inquest jury (C 260/3, m. 44).18 Usually, jurors were to be 'good and lawful men' of the 85</page><page sequence="4">Z'efira Entin Rokeah district or county. This description of the Jews as those who were 'less suspect* may reflect an atmosphere in which every Jew was suspect. Such an atmosphere was to be found in a gaol delivery case of 1280-1: Henry of Cant' was suspected by his neighbours of coin-clipping and of exchanging old money for new because Jews frequented his house (Gaol Delivery Roll JUST 3/35B, m. 41 dorse). He was subsequently declared innocent. Richardson suggested, with reference to an alleged persecution of suspected Jews in 1278, that the 'estimates of the chroniclers' of the number of Jewish victims 'are not meant to be taken seriously'. He dismissed the chroniclers' figures (of 279, 280 or 293 Jews hanged in London alone) as derived 'from the same rumour' and said that 'the presumption is all against wholesale hanging'.19 However, Richardson commented 'the proceedings were unequivocally anti-Jewish' and their principal motive was the confiscation of the Jewry's wealth for the king's own benefit. He recognized that Edward's 'personal concern' was a key factor, in addition to his desire to 'finance the recoinage' - rather a case of having one's cake and eating it.20 Richardson added that the 'total amount realized from forfeitures and fines is not known, but it was evidently substantial.' (Documentary evidence I have published shows that the king received over ?10,000 from the accused Jews and Christians.)21 Richardson also commented on the merchants, especially foreign ones, who were suspected at roughly the same period of coinage offences such as clipping and counterfeiting, noting that the punishments with which they were threatened in 1291 were much more lenient than those meted out to the Jews in 1278-9. Richardson suggested that in 1278-9 the Jews had faced not banishment, formerly the 'extreme penalty' actually applied for coinage offences, but rather 'capital punishment'.22 In spite of Richardson's acknowledgement that the whole Jewry was cast into prison 'on suspicion of coin-clipping' and that much property was confiscated, he does not, as noted above, accept wholesale hanging as the result of these trials. We will return to his views below, when we examine available data on those involved in these trials, as well as on the kinds of punishment that might be meted out to offenders against the coinage. In the meanwhile, I must ruefully confirm the statement of J. M. Rigg that 'I am sorry to say that after much painful research I have failed to find the record of this case, which was tried by a special commission at Guildhall' in 1278-9, as well as 'the record of the proceedings which followed a subsequent arrest en masse of the Jewry which took place in 1287, and resulted in its amercement in ?12,000/23 Although I still hope that these records may some day be discovered and identified, my searches in the Public Record Office and other repositories have failed to 86</page><page sequence="5">Money and the hangman in late-13th-century England uncover these missing materials. At least one such roll was delivered to the Treasurer and Chamberlains of the Exchequer in December 1289 by John de Cobham; however, it may have been among the 'many rolls, writings, memoranda and muniments' in boxes in the custody of the justices of the Jews, housed in the chapel of St Katharine within the infirmary of the Abbey of Westminster, that went up in flames in the great fire in the king's palace and the abbey on the eve of Palm Sunday, 1298, when so many of the abbey's domestic buildings were destroyed.24 Equally, these records may be among those in the many sacks of records housed at the Tower which have still not been sorted or made available to researchers. Accordingly, I have endeavoured to reconstruct, at least in part, the story of these coinage trials, as well as a record of the punishments to which those tried were sentenced, on the basis of stray references to those tried, appearing in other records and fragments of records relating to coinage offences. Before attempting this reconstruction, let us turn to the general records, specifically to the Close and Patent Rolls, and to the (unpublished) Memoranda, Pipe and Chancellor's Rolls, to give us a somewhat fuller picture of the events of 1278 and the years that followed. One month after the Jews were imprisoned throughout England, we find royal orders being dispatched in December 1278 to the barons and bailiffs of Winchelsea port, telling them to search all foreign and domestic merchants - Jews and Christians passing outwards through that port - and to seize all 'silver plates, clipped money, or other broken silver' from them, lest these be exported without the king's special permission.25 In late December 1278, all the sheriffs of England were ordered to release the imprisoned goldsmiths, 'lately taken and imprisoned by the king's general order', other than those suspected of clipping coins, of buying clippings, of exchanging good for (more) clipped coins, or specifically accused of violations.26 At about the same time, orders were issued directing that forceps used for clipping, silver plates made of melted clippings and any coin clippings that were taken, be delivered to the men whom the king had appointed as receivers, Stephen de Penecestre and Philip de Wilgheby (Willoughby).27 Early in January 1279, commissions of oyer and terminer were issued to three groups of judges who were to deal with coin-clippers and their accomplices, exchangers of good for greater amounts of clipped coin, and men who had entered and robbed the houses of imprisoned Jews. Similarly, three men were appointed to act as receivers of the money and other things that the justices would deliver to them.28 The account (rendered in 1283-4) by William de Perton', for the year 87</page><page sequence="6">Zefira Entin Rokeah between February 1278 and February 1279, of money received from the Wardrobe, the Tower and the Jewry ad platas emendas (apparently for coining purposes), mentions platae argenti fusi, or plates of fused silver, and money spent on their acquisition and transportation to Westminster. Money was paid to Henry of Winchester and Matthew Checker, clerk, for plates of fused silver of the weight of ?3080 bought by them; ?3364 6s 8d, which weighed ?3080, was paid. If the coins paid were of legal weight, ?3364 6s 8d should have weighed ?3364 6s 8d; this may indicate the extent to which the value of the coinage had been reduced by clipping or counterfeiting.29 On 8 March 1279 the king ordered that the hanging of Jews be suspended until a fortnight after Easter because of the sanctity of the season and the danger to Christian observances (propter periculum sacrorum christianorum).20 The records for March and April 1279 contain mandates for the payment of expenses and fees to the judges dealing with coinage offences as well as orders and memoranda about the delivery of confiscated money and jewels, and the disposal of real property in the Icing's hands as a result of coinage convictions.31 Richardson commented that the instructions issued to the coinage justices in May 1279 made 'it plain that the proceedings were unequivocally anti-Jewish' and that the judges were also to investigate Jews' blasphemy, while noting that 'baser elements of the population' turned on Jews and Jewish property in the wake of these trials.32 The English version in the Calendar of the Close Rolls for 1272-9 suggests, however, that by May 1279 the official attitude to the trials had changed. It notes that all the Jews 'charged, indicted and convicted of clipping the king's money have now been punished with death, and certain of them have forfeited all their goods and chattels . . . and are imprisoned during the king's pleasure' but that, despite this, 'many Christians, through hatred of the Jews by reason of the discrepancy of the Christian faith and the rite of the Jews and by . . . divers grievances heretofore inflicted upon Christians by Jews, endeavour from day to day to accuse and indict certain Jews not yet charged or indicted with trespasses of money by light and groundless . . . accusations, charging them to their terror with being guilty of such trespasses, in order that they may by threats of such accusations strike terror into the Jews, and that they may extort money from them . . . .' The king accordingly ordered that all Jews who had not been accused by 1 May, and who would, at the justices' discretion, be ready to fine with the king, were not to be charged concerning 88</page><page sequence="7">Plate 1. A blindfolded man executed by hanging. (Worcestershire eyre roll of 1275, JUST 1 /1028, m. 4. Crown Copyright, Public Record Office. Reproduced by permission.) 89</page><page sequence="8">Zefira Entin Rokeah offences against the coinage committed before 1 May. (Of course, those accused earlier were to be tried.) Furthermore, at the judges' discretion, those Jews now in prison whose goods and chattels had been forfeited to the king, might fine with the king to obtain their release, as might Jewesses who were the wives of condemned or forfeited Jews.33 It would seem, therefore, either that the king had undergone a drastic change of heart, becoming friendlier to the Jews, or that he had obtained so much money and property from them as a result of the trials that he was - if only temporarily - sated, or that he had been offered a considerable additional payment by some or all of the members of the Jewish community in order to restrain his justices. I must emphasize that I have no evidence to offer on this point. However, the last suggestion, of a familiar enough procedure in the 13th century for general and Jewish cases alike, is certainly not the least likely of the three possibilities I have mentioned. A frequent entry in the records describes an amount paid by an accused person ad secta Regis relaxanda. These orders of May certainly suggest much greater concern with the payment of fines to the king than with the pursuance of a viciously anti-Jewish policy. We will comment further on the character of the trials after examining their results. These events were reflected in various documents aside from the Patent and Close Rolls, among them the Pipe and Chancellor's Rolls.34 The Pipe Roll for 1278-9, for example, notes that the sheriff of Gloucester was credited with the sum of ?7 14s 2d that he had spent at the king's order for the transporting of Jews and Christians accused of coinage offences from various parts of the shire to the Tower of London.35 The king's orders of late November 1279 directed that the archae of nineteen towns were to be examined by the same men as were acting as coinage justices and receivers: John Bek, Alexander de Kirketon, Ranulph de Dacre, Bartholomew de Suthleye, William de Brayboeuf, Adam le Botiler, John de Cobham, Walter de Helyun and Adam of Winchester. All chirographs and related materials belonging wholly or partly to Jews 'lately condemned, fugitive or converted to the Christian faith, and to other Jews whose chattels are forfeited to the king' because of coin-clipping were to be withdrawn from the archae and delivered to the Treasurer and Barons of the Exchequer.36 The Memoranda Roll of Hilary term, 8 Edward I, recorded these orders, noting that the documents were to be delivered a fortnight after Hilary, and that the king had assigned John de Cobham and Adam of Winchester to raise and collect the said chattels (the debts) according to the Law of the Jewry, for the king's use.37 The Barons of the Exchequer were told to place anything left over in a chest and deliver it to John and Adam.38 Coinage matters continue to be mentioned in the records for 1281, albeit 90</page><page sequence="9">Money and the hangman in late-13th-century England less frequently. For example, orders were issued for inquiries into the amount and whereabouts of condemned Jews' goods and chattels, and fines for coinage violations and for concealment of the goods of the condemned were noted.39 Some accounts rendered in the 1280s covered earlier years, mentioning matters of interest in connection with the coinage. For example, when Giles (or Egidius) de Audenarde accounted for his operations at the Tower of London for the period 7 Edward I to 9 Edward I, he noted among his expenses the following: 'and in payment to 30 foot-sergeants keeping custody of 600 Jews' (Et in vadia xxx. seruientium peditum custodientium DC. Judeos) of various counties in the Tower, the said 600 Jews having been arrested for trespasses of the king's money, for 140 days in the seventh year (of King Edward's reign), ?31 Iis Od disbursed in keeping with the king's writ.40 The second membrane of the same roll includes Robert Burnell's account of King Edward's finances before he became king, for the years from 54 Henry III until 57 Henry III inclusive, as well as for the period from Edward's accession until 9 Edward I; it included money received from Philip de Wyleby (Willoughby) and from Hugh de Kendale de Judaismo, ?100 and 25 marks, respectively. A later Chancellor's Roll, of 1286-7, containing Egidius de Audenarde's Tower account for the period 9 Edward I until the end of 13 Edward I inclusive, recorded the receipt of a total of ?1604 19s llfed from Philip de Wyleby or his agents for the years 8, 9 and 10 Edward I; these sums probably represent part of the coinage offences windfall.41 The King's Remembrancer's Memoranda Roll of 9-10 Edward I has several entries about the payment of sums derived from the chattels of condemned Jews to the king; one of these entries, with which I deal elsewhere, records the acknowledgement by Philip de Wyleby of the receipt of silver plates and clipped old money from the Treasury at Melton in Leicestershire, and is illuminated by a sketch of a dog or lioness.42 After this relatively quiet interval, there was a slight upsurge in action against coinage violations in 1283, to judge from the records. We find, for example, that H?mo Hauteyn, a justice of the Jews, was to inquire as to the dealings of some Jews with foreign merchants and others in connection with the sale of (silver) sheets made out of clippings and of false sheets of silver-plated tin.43 Judges were appointed in July 1283 to look into the alleged counterfeiting in Bury St Edmunds, while the mayor and sheriffs of London were told to proclaim that no one was to presume to receive money abroad in return for a promised payment in England, which action could decrease the amount of money or silver coming into the realm.44 However, other entries of these times seem to refer to the earlier 91</page><page sequence="10">Zefira Entin Rokeah trials, of 1278-9, and to their consequences. Queen Eleanor was granted all the concealed goods of condemned Jews that had not yet come to light, or had not yet been dealt with by the justices appointed to deal with money violations. She was also granted the silver and money which might be found. At the same time, Master Henry de Bray, who was the king's escheator for this side of Trent, was given a writ of aid in connection with his commission to inquire as to the concealed and forfeited goods and money of the condemned Jews.45 A similar writ of aid was issued to Salomon de Roff, Master Henry de Bray (again), and Henry le Waleys, who were appointed on 4 August 1284 to inquire about concealed and forfeited chattels of Jews, as well as about persons trading in silver plates and in silvered plates of base metal. It would appear that the concealed goods referred to here were of the Jews who had been condemned in 1278-9.46 Among the very miscellaneous materials in the class known as 'Accounts, Various' (E 101) of the Exchequer, in the Public Record Office, are three somewhat tattered accounts of money received, almost all of it from Christians, as part-payment of their financial penalties for having concealed the chattels of condemned Jews. The first of these fragments, partly illegible and partly torn away, is the account rendered by John of Berwick of various receipts related to coinage offences and condemned Jews' chattels, for the period between the end of May 1283 and the end of September, apparently the following year. The second account, which is similar in style and content to the first, and which has stitching-holes across its top, appears originally to have been part of the same larger account as that of John of Berwick.47 A fragment of a third account, of later date (there is a reference on the dorse to the death of Queen Eleanor, as well as one to a tallage of the fifteenth year in the account proper) is apparently the tail-end of a similar record of fines made in relation to the concealment of condemned Jews' chattels, but also mentions tallage payments (twice) and one payment on the account of a debt. The whole is nearly illegible, even under ultraviolet light; however, the total of the receipts given in it (of the two original rolls, at least one of which is wholly missing) is clear: ?1564 1 7s 41fed. Even if only part of this sum were for condemned Jews' chattels and for fines made for their concealment, the amount would be a considerable one for the period.48 However, we must add to it the amount of money noted in the first (John of Berwick) account, which is over ?2000, and that recorded in the second, which exceeds ?3000. Thus the receipts recorded in the records that still exist, and which have been identified so far as being connected with coinage offences, exceed a princely ?16,500 in a period of some five years.49 Early in 1284, Walter de 92</page><page sequence="11">Money and the hangman in late-13th-century England Helyun, late receiver' of condemned Jews' goods and chattels, was ordered to appear with his clerks and records before the Treasurer and Barons of the Exchequer in order to render his account of the relevant receipts, as the king wished to be informed of their amount. (Similar orders were sent to the other coinage justices.)50 In a later Chancellor's Roll, for 1290-1, the account for the 1284-5 proceedings of the Wardrobe, rendered by William de Luda, records the receipt from John of Berwick of ?2000 paid of the fine of some foreign merchants who had concealed condemned Jews' goods.51 The investigations into those who had concealed Jewish property seem to have continued for years: in 1288 Henry le Waleys was replaced as an investigating judge by one Hugh de Cressingham, who was also joined by William de Carleton; Salomon de Roff' and Master Henry de Bray thus had new colleagues in their search for the concealers of chattels and for traders in silver or silvered plates.52 In 1289, one-and-a-half years before the final expulsion of the Jews from England, we find Gregory de Rokesle and Baruncinus Galteri being appointed to oversee the proclamation and observation in the London area of the provisions of the king and his council against clippers and falsifiers of money.53 Thus, not with a bang but a whimper, the story of the Jewish involvement in coinage charges winds to its close. (The story had by no means reached an end as far as England itself was concerned - but that is not our concern here.) We come now to the essential questions connected with the coinage offences of the time of Edward I. They include the character of the English coinage; the nature of the offences against the coinage; the punishments seen as fitting for offences against the coinage; the nature of the records from which information may be gathered; and, most important, the offenders themselves: Jews, Christians and foreign (Christian) merchants. From the time of Henry II onwards, for 67 years from the minting of his first so-called 'short-cross penny', until 1247, only such pennies were struck, bearing Henry's name. 'Consistency of type added to the consistent fineness of the Anglo-Saxon penny and the consistent weight of the Norman sterling made the English coin the most satisfactory trading currency in Northern Europe', as we noted above. It was for this reason that it was worthwhile for the English penny to be counterfeited both in England and on the Continent.54 Henry II's English pennies, examined in modern times, have shown a purity of over 920 parts of silver per thousand, a quite respectable figure.55 Thus, not only was the coin as a whole tempting for counterfeiters, but its metal was tempting to the would-be clipper. As long as the small or short cross was retained, surrounded by its small inner circle, 'it was very easy to snip narrow sections from round its edge without 93</page><page sequence="12">Zefira Entin Rokeah attracting attention'.56 As we noted above, the design of the pennies was changed in 1247, possibly to foil clippers. Oman suggests that, aside from the depredations of the coin-clippers, there must have been a great deal of wear and tear on these pennies since the 'last general recoinage had been carried out by King John in 1205'. More than 40 years of use must have had their effect. Similarly, the years that elapsed between the 1247 recoinage and the coinage trials of 1278-9 must have taken their toll of the new, long-cross, pennies.57 (As the great recoinage of 1279-80 was not that whose products were involved in the coinage trials of the 1270s and 1280s, I will not deal with it here, nor with the 'Statute of Money' of 1284, although it was obviously related to these events.) What was the nature of offences against the coinage? And how are they described in the surviving records? First, and most obvious, was the making and distributing of counterfeit coinage, whether of English or Continental origin. No less obvious an offence was the clipping of English coin. Other offences, however, did exist: it was illegal to exchange specie or coin in any place other than an official exchange; those exchanging coin or specie elsewhere would, if convicted, face a monetary penalty as a rule. Such a penalty would be noted in the records as so-and-so many 'pennies because he exchanged' in full or, more likely, abbreviated form.58 In addition, as we have already noted, violators might be those who had made plates or sheets of silver or of base metals which they had then plated with silver so as to deceive the buyer; these plates, by law, were to be exchanged only at official exchanges, and dealing in them outside these was a serious offence. Similarly, the concealing of the chattels of condemned Jews - which were now the king's - was a punishable act. However, in all cases of clipping, counterfeiting or trading in plate, the records might present only the blanket statement: 'for a trespass of the [king's] money' while giving no details of the offence.59 It is only in the judicial records that a more specifically detailed set of offences can be identified, and these records are, unfortunately, incomplete in spite of the great volume in which they still exist.60 Thus, our information may be imprecise, and is certainly incomplete. A second problem affects the identification of offenders: most of the Christians whom I have identified as coinage offenders appear in the Exchequer records when they pay all or part of the fines agreed for their offences. Those who suffered other punishments are absent, unless part of their confiscated property is mentioned. Thus, there is a definite bias in the nature of the punishments revealed for the Christians, a bias only partially corrected by the examination of some judicial records of the period - which present their own problems, to which I will return. The 94</page><page sequence="13">Money and the hangman in late-13th-century England Jewish offenders, on the other hand, appear in a relatively small number of records, a large proportion of which are judicial ones. They were members of a much smaller community, and their names appear and reappear in the body of records that still exist; they are much more traceable, therefore, than the relatively obscure Christians with whom we must deal. What sort of punishment might be imposed for coinage offences? And why? In the late-12th century, Glanvill classed crimen falsi, or counterfeiting, along with sedition, robbery, rape and homicide, among others, as a crime of lese-majesty, and stated that these crimes were to incur the extreme penalty or the amputation of members (quae ultimo scilicet puniuntur supplicio aut membrorum truncatione).61 This last would be consistent with the amputation of guilty minters' hands, which was the practice from Anglo-Saxon times on,62 and to which we find references in the early-12th century.63 Thirteenth-century lawbooks are more expansive on the subject. Bracton, speaking of capital crimes, notes, following Glanvill, that they lead to corporal punishment, that is, death or dismemberment (quandoque ultimum supplicum [sic], quandoque membrorum truncationem . . .) according to the status of the person involved. He states that lese-majesty, for which the highest punishment is appropriate because the offence is against the king himself, includes the crime of forgery, which encompasses the counterfeiting of money.64 The punishment for the convicted offender (si condemnandus fuerit) includes 'the extreme penalty [supplicium] with torture [cum poenae aggravatione corporalis], the loss of all his goods, and the perpetual disherison of his heirs . . . ,'65 Bracton adds that the accused is to be held in prison as if a homicide, and is not to be released except on the king's special order. Below, he adds that forgery carries the 'supreme penalty' and is considered among the more serious crimes in the category of lese-majesty. He states specifically that the 'supreme penalty' (ultimum supplicium) is the penalty for money counterfeiters, as well as for those who 'make bad money out of good, as do the clippers of coins . . .' (qui de non reproba faciunt reprobam, sicut sunt retonsores denariorum .. O.66 His less-well-known fellows, responsible for the works known as Britton and Fleta, also deal with forgery. Britton is laconic on the subject, noting only that 'with respect to false and clipped money and money counterfeited ...' proceedings are to follow the coinage statutes or the provisions concerning false writs.67 Fleta is much more detailed on the subject, echoing Bracton's words and expanding on them, including with the counterfeiters and clippers of money those who make dies and those who strike coin from them, those who make coins without a die, those who add excess base metal to the silver, and so on, 95</page><page sequence="14">Zefira Entin Rokeah and all their associates. All of these, he says, 'are liable to be drawn and hanged and, if women, to be burned', if convicted; they are also subject to major excommunication. Illicit money-changers and Christian usurers 'forfeit, by the fact itself, all their chattels to the king*.68 One might doubt the extent to which the extreme penalties were imposed in practice (as did Richardson, despite his extensive knowledge of the records), were it not for the clear evidence of the financial and judicial records. The penalty of hanging (imposed for many crimes, including coinage crimes) was so often used and recorded in the records that, whereas on occasion it is specifically stated in its fullest form (suspensus or suspendatur), the scribes on other occasions satisfied themselves with the abbreviated forms (such as s'pSs or susp') but most often with an almost contemptuous s' in the margin. The text, which theoretically reads, 'and so he is sentenced to be hanged' is reduced in the lazy-scribal syndrome to Jdeo etc' - 'and therefore etcetera' - before the (to the scribe or his master, more important) statement of the amount that the criminal's chattels, forfeit to the king, were worth.69 As we have seen, then, theoretically and in practice, death, usually by hanging, was seen as a fitting punishment for certain crimes. As Ralph B. Pugh put it, 'every conviction resulted in death for laymen and lifelong imprisonment for clerks'.70 Let us now examine the question of the Jewish and Christian offenders in whom we are interested, and their fates. Like my predecessors, I had been inclined to scoff at the figures given for the Jews imprisoned - some 600 or, as it is put elsewhere, the whole of the Jewry - as well as at the number of Jews who were allegedly hanged in London alone: 293 or thereabouts, depending on your choice of chronicler, before I began to examine the records themselves.71 Despite an awareness of the fact that mass slaughter of Jews is not impossible, it still seemed that the number must be exaggerated. Then, I found a note to the effect (mentioned above) that 600 Jews had been guarded, for a period of 140 days, apparently at the Tower, along with accounts mentioning money spent on transporting Jews from all over the country to London in connection with the coinage. The likelihood is that these figures are accurate, if for no other reason than that the Exchequer's personnel would not let anyone get away with inflated expense accounts. If this is so, and 600 Jews were indeed imprisoned, it seems to me that it was most likely the heads of households (male or female) who were involved, for by no stretch of the imagination can one envisage the imprisonment of babes-in-arms for nearly five months along with their siblings as being suspected violators of the coinage. If indeed 600 heads of household were imprisoned, and their number be multiplied by 3.5 or 4 to allow for wives and children, but not for 96</page><page sequence="15">Money and the hangman in late-13th&lt;entury England unwed adults - a modest multiplier, I think - one arrives at a current Jewish population for England of between 2000 and 3000 individuals, a population whose size corresponds with most modern thinking on the size of the community at the time of the expulsion.72 Other evidence is available, however, in the records we have been discussing. From those whose data I have analysed up to the present (and there are others awaiting the reworking of their data), I have found the following information: Jews: those noted as 'condemned' those noted as 'forfeits' or whose property was confiscated those noted as 'hanged' those termed both 'condemned' and 'hanged' those noted as imprisoned those who paid (or promised to pay) fines for coinage violations (whether clipping, concealing of condemned Jews' property, or for 'having grace') those to be outlawed TOTAL 58 57 30 14 25 81 4 269 I add a caveat here: it is exceedingly difficult, given the incomplete nature of the records that survive, to be sure that a particular offence is connected with the 1278-9 trials; fines tend to be repeated year by year in the records until they are fully paid, and it is not possible always to know when they were noted first. However, the bulk of the Jews whom I have examined were offenders in the 1270s and 1280s, as were most of the Christians I have studied. Christians: those noted as Condemned' those noted as 'burned' those noted as 'hanged' those noted as 'forfeits' those termed both 'hanged* and 'condemned' those noted as imprisoned those who paid or would pay fines for coinage violations those who abjured the kingdom those to be outlawed TOTAL 1 2 7 4 0 51 255 5 9 334 97</page><page sequence="16">Zefira Entin Rokeah I may also suggest that, pace Richardson, the majority if not all of those classed as 'condemned' were hanged, with only those who could bribe their way out of this punishment escaping; we know that even some of the greatest capitalists of the day were not able or allowed to buy their way out of the hangman's noose. It is not enough, of course, to state blandly that in the case of coinage offences dampnatus is the equivalent of suspensus; one must provide some evidence. Aside from the Jews noted above who are specifically designated in various records as being both condemned and hanged, may I present the following suggestive material from a case in the Justices Itinerant Roll (JUST 1/575) for Norfolk, from 14 Edward I: one membrane (92 r.) lists the chattels of hanged men, for which the sheriff accounts; another membrane (89 d.) lists the escheated property of men called dampnati (the case concerned was quite a scandalous one, and involved the burning down of the conventual church of Holy Trinity, Norwich, in the wake of which the city was taken into the king's hand). Five of the men called suspensi in the one list appear as dampnati in the other. Thus, the evidence of about twenty cases indicates that the terms implied each other, that is, if one was condemned for the appropriate type of crime, one was, ipso facto, to be hanged. However, this is a smallish amount of straw with which to make many bricks. Therefore, I will leave this as merely a suggestion, that the Jews who were called condemned in connection with the coinage were also those who were hanged. (One must trace each of these Jews, if possible, in later records to be sure that they did not remain alive, and this enormous job is not yet completed.) Only after further work will I be able to give a definitive answer on this point. However, there is one more piece of evidence that seems to me conclusive concerning the question of hanging and Jews. The Pipe Roll for 7 Edward I records, in its account for London and Middlesex, that ?11 Os 4K*d had been spent on iusticiam facere tarn de CCLXIX Judeis quam de XXIX Christianis .... In the 13th century, facere iustitiam meant not 'to do justice' as we might tend to think, but rather 'to execute' or 'to punish capitally'.73 Thus, this amount was spent on executing (by hanging) 269 Jews and 29 Christians - in a year in which the reference can only be to those executed on coinage charges. The total number of the persons so executed in this entry is 298 - a number similar to that of the chroniclers' various totals (see n. 71), and remarkably close to the Bury St Edmunds' Chronicle's figure of 267 Jews. Thus, even from the materials I have already found and analysed, clearly, although cases involving Christians outnumber those involving Jews by about five to four, Jews suffered the death penalty in a ratio of 98</page><page sequence="17">Money and the hangman in late-13th-century England nearly ten Jews executed for every Christian so put to death. Further, about three-quarters of the Christians paid - or promised to pay - fines, and only about a third of the Jews were allowed to do so when accused. I cannot but conclude that religious prejudice was the crucial factor involved in the degree of punishment. It is clear that very many more Jews and Christians were accused of coinage offences in the 1270s and 1280s than has hitherto been believed, and that the punishments they suffered were more extreme than has usually been thought. Furthermore, it is clear that the often-maligned chroniclers of the time - in this instance at least - knew what they were talking about. APPENDIX The following text describes how, in late August-early September 1258, William of Kislingbury in 'Den' was taken with false and clipped coin in his possession. He claimed that he had received the coins as a loan when he pledged a tunic of dark blue cloth and a tablecloth twelve ells long as security with the Jew, Benedict of Colchester, who lived in Stamford. (It was another Jew, Salomon son of Deulesaut, who had declared the coins to be clipped when he saw them in the hands of Richard Pecke, the town treasurer.) A jury composed of twelve Christians and six Jews could not agree as to William's or Benedict's guilt. The Jews of Stamford had declared to the judge who wished to deal with the matter on a Saturday that their Law forbade them to plead or answer about a trespass on that day, and had offered to pay half a gold mark for a postponement; it was accepted, and the case postponed to Thursday 5 September 1258. When the jurors then disagreed, each of the Jews was interrogated separately, and discrepancies appeared in their accounts of when Benedict had left their morning prayers ('mass') on the Sunday in question - whether during the first hour of prayer, and thus in time to have made the loan, or during the third hour, and thus too late to have made the loan in question before the time of William's arrest. (Benedict's wife tried to persuade William to declare that he had received the coins from someone other than her husband.) Ultimately, the Jews' verdict was quashed and the Jews were imprisoned until they were 'redeemed* at the king's pleasure. The Christians' verdict, that Benedict was guilty of coin-clipping, was accepted, and he was to be hanged. William was acquitted. An inquiry as to Benedict's chattels was to be made when the king (Henry III) came to Stamford. JUST 111187, m. 16 dorse? Lincoln //de Corona: Willelmus de Kisselingebir' in Den captus cum falsa monena [sic, for monetal et cum denereriis [sic] retonsis venit et dicit quod illos mutuavit a quodam Benedicto de Colecestr' Judeo de Stanford apud Stanford' 99</page><page sequence="18">Zefira Entin Rokeah die dominica proxima ante decollacionem sancti Johannis Baptiste hoc anno super quandam Nappam longitudine .xij. ti. ulnarum et quandam tunicam de perseto que [sic, for quas] ipse75 inuadiauit pro eisdem denariis scilicet pro.ij. solidis. et vj. denariis. Et vocat ipsum Benedictum inde ad Warantum. Et quod Jdem Benedictus tradidit ei predictos denarios offert disracionare uersus eum per corpus suum vel sicut curia considerauerit. Et Benedictus alias coram Gilberto de Preston' per Hugone le Bygod ad hoc misso apud Stanford venit die Sabati proxima post Decollacionem sancti Johannis Baptiste. et ipse simul cum omnibus aliis Judeis eiusdem Burgi dicebat quod Sabatum eorum erat . et quod contra preceptum legis eorum esset, si ipsi placitarent uel ad aliquam transgressionem76 responderent in Sabato. Et ipse et alii Judei eiusdem Burgi offerunt domino Regi dimidiam marcam auri per sic quod differatur. Et recipitur. etcetera Et preceptum est vicecomiti quod tarn predictum Benedictum quam predictum Willelmum haberet coram .H. le Bygod apud Notingham die Jouis proxima ante Natiuitatem beate Marie, etcetera. Ad diem ilium venit predictus Benedictus Judeus. Et bene defendit quod predictus Willelmus predicto die nec uncquam ab eo mutuavit predictos denarios. nec predictam Nappam et tunicam ei inuadiauit pro predictis denariis . nec aliquos denarios illo die ab eo recepit.77 Et quod ita sit ponit se super Juratam ville scilicet tarn Cristianorum quam Judeorum scilicet super .xij. christianos ex consensu parcium Electos; et sex iudeos scilicet Samuelem filium Deulesaut Dyay de Holma. Sancto [sic] filium Jacobi. Jsaak filium Abraham. Elyam filium Maunsel de Eboraco. Samuelem filium Samuel. Qui Jurati non concordant quia predicti Cristiani dicunt super sacramentum suum quod predictus Benedictus mutuauit predicto Willelmo predictos Triginta denarios quadam die Dominica scilicet die sancti Egidij apud Staunford'. Et hoc bene intelligunt hac racione: Dicunt enim quod predictus Willelmus prius accomodauerat ab eo quamdam pecunie summam et quamdam cartam ei fecerat de debito et postmodum predicto die debuit ipse soluisse Cyrographario quasdam78 denarios se contingentes racione officij sui et alium [debitum] de quedam [sic, for quadam] minuta debita soluere. quos denarios tune non habebat ad manum. Jta quod necessitate compulsus adiuit predictum Benedictum in Hospicio suo ubi inuenit [?] et mutuo cepit ab eo predictos triginta denarios ac inuadiauit ei quandam tunicam de perseto quam ipse ep[iscop?] o eodem die prius fuerat indictus et quamdam Mappam de .xij. ulnis.79 Et dicunt quamcito predictus Willelmus exiit; idem Benedictus simul cum ipso exiuit a domo sua et sequebatur eum. usque in forum Stanford' vbi predictus Willelmus inuenit quendam Ricardum Pecke Arcarium eiusdem ville et ei quosdam de predictis denariis pacauit. Et dicunt quod incontinenti postea percepit quid am Salomon filius Deulesaut quod predicti denarii fuerant retonsi eo quod quidam eorum digitis80 predicti Ricardi herebant pendentes per retonsuram; ac ipsum arrestauit qui incontinenti vocat predictum Willelmum ad Warantum qui presens fuit et ei Warantizauit et dicebat quod predictus Benedictus qui presens fuit similiter mutuauit ei predictos denarios. Jta quod idem Benedictus nec concedens nec plane negans arestatus fuit et in Castro Stanford' inprisonatus. Et dicunt quod vxor ipsius Benedicti cito postea introspexit per quamdam 100</page><page sequence="19">Money and the hangman in late-13th-century England fenestram vbi predictus Willelmus detentus fuit in prisona et ipsum hortalatur quod per aliquam Cautelam cognosceret quod predictos denarios ceperat alibi quam a predicto Benedicto viro suo et hoc pluribus audientibus per quos ipsi rem istam inquisiuerunt. - Et predicti iudei penitus discordant a ueredicto isto quia dicunt quod moris est quod iudei hoc tempore a die sabati ante predictam diem dominicam manesurgant circa Officium suum Celebrandum et sic moram faciant vsque circa horam terciam et dicunt quod predicti Cristiani deponunt ut de intellectu t[ant?]ummodo ipsi vero ut de visu et auditu. Dicunt enim quod predictus Benedictus summo mane predicta die Dominica venit ad scolam eorum et ibidem eo die missam eorum celebrauit ubi fuit vsque altam horam tercie. et interim captus fuit predictus Willelmus cum predicta moneta retonsa antequam ipsi recederent de scola sua per magnum tempus. Et predicti Judei ob maiorem suspicionem separati abinuicem et examinati singillatim [sic] et per se; penitus discordant a ueredicto suo et quilibet ab alio. Eo quod predictus Samuel dicit quod predictus Benedictus recessit a scola circa altam horam prime. Et Dyay de Holma nichil deponebat nec de visu nec de audito Jmmo dicit quod eo die fuit ipse in partibus remotis et nichil seit nisi ex relatu aliorum. Et Sancto dicit quod predictus Benedictus recessit a scola circa81 ante horam primam. Et Jsaak dicit quod ad altam horam tercie et adiecit quod non recolebat quod predictus Benedictus eo die Missam celebrauit. Et predictus Elyas dicit quod recessit summo mane postquam celebrauerat missam set nesciuit quo deuenit. Et Samuelus filius Samueli dicit quod postquam celebrauerat missam recessit circa altam horam tercie. Et similiter super pluribus aliis articulis quesiti multiformiter discordant. Et Jdeo consideratum est quod omnes predicti iudei committantur Gayolam redimendi ad uoluntatem domini Regis. Et ueredictum eorum pro nullo penitus habeatur. Et predicti Cristiani vlterius quesiti si Benedictus culpabilis sit de retonsura ilia; dicunt quod sic. Et ideo consideratum est quod predictus Willelmus eat quietus quoad predictam retonsuram Et Benedictus. etcetera. [=suspendatur]. Jnquirendum de Catallis eius in aduentu domini regis apud Staunford'.82 NOTES 1 For usury, forgery and corruption of money, see The Chronicle of Walter of Guisborough Previously Edited as the Chronicle of Walter of Hemingford . . . , ed. H. Rothwell (London 1957) 226. Scelera are noted, for example, in the 1290-1 Lord Treasurer's Remembrancer's Memoranda Roll, E 368/62, m. 20, at the Public Record Office, London. See also Aron Owen's 'The References to England in the Responsa of Rabbi Meir Ben Baruch of Rothenburg, 1215 1293', in Trans JHSE XVII (1951-2) 73-8, and Salo W. Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews XII (2nd ed.; New York, London, Ph?adelphia 1967) 128,304 note 66. Baron stresses the 'Jews* relative non involvement in currency manipulations .. .* in medieval Europe (304 n. 66), and indicates 'it is truly remarkable how few of them were, rightly or wrongly, accused of mutilations* of the coinage (p.128). However, he suggests that the figures given for Jews hanged in London in 1279 (280 or 293) are 'almost certainly exaggerated* (p. 127). Michael Prestwich, Edward I (London 1988) 245 notes that the 'chroniclers are agreed that a bloodbath followed .... Record evidence, however, suggests that only nineteen Jews 101</page><page sequence="20">Zefira Entin Rokeah were executed in southeast England*. Prestwich errs here; 269 Jews were executed. See below. 2 See my 'Some Accounts of Condemned Jews* Property . . /Bulletin of the Institute of Jewish Studies I 1973) 19. 3 L. O. Pike, A History of Crime in England I (London 1873) 14, based on Codex Theodos., ed. J. D. Ritter, I, bk. 9, title 21, C. 5. 4 The following short survey is based on the following, except where noted otherwise: Rev. R. Ruding, Annals of the Coinage of Great Britain I (3rd ed.; London 1840) 181-90; J. J. North, English Hammered Coinage (London 1963, 1960) I: 27-8; II: 8-9, 16-24; C. H. V. Sutherland, English Coinage 600-1900 (London 1973) 60-9; Sir Charles Oman, The Coinage of England (Oxford 1931) 143-63. That round half-pennies and farthings were minted at this time is Ruding*s suggestion (pp. 181-2); more recent scholars tend to assign the first minting of such coins to the 1279 recoinage of Henry*s son, Edward I. 5 Calendar of the Patent Rolls [hereafter, CPR], 1225-32, 502. Offenders would forfeit 'body and goods* as well as any money or silver taken on their persons. 6 CPR, 1232-47, 228 (28 July 1238); Thomas Madox, The History and Antiquities of the Exchequer ... I (2nd ed. [London 1769] New York 1969) 245, and note z. At about the same time, standards were established for the quality of gold and silver used by gold and silversmiths, and gilding was limited. Ruding suggests that this was to avoid waste, but clearly the avoidance of deception was intended. See Close Rolls . . . 1237-1242, 85: De auro fabricando in civitate London', which states item nullus apponat alium colorem super aliquod aurum quam de seipso nisi super filium auri; item nullus apponat aurum super latonem vel cuprum nec aliquam petram de pretio neque aliquam aliam nisi de vitro super anulum vel firmaculum vel zonam de serico vel hujusmodi jocalia;. .. 7 Matthaei Parisiensis, Monachi Sancti Albani, Chronica Majora V, ed. H. R. Luard (London, etc. 1880) 15-16; see also N. Denholm-Young, Richard of Cornwall (Oxford 1947), chap. 4, 'Finance, Recoinage and the Jews*, 58-71. On 20 June 1246 Henry III ordered the Justices of the Jews to have all Jews and Jewesses accused of coin-clipping before the justices of the Bench on 1 July, in order to stand trial (Close Rolls, 1242-7, 433). The 1248 Gloucestershire eyre roll includes an entry recording that eight Bristol Jews (Sampsekin son of Belya, Bonamy of Tuarz, Benedict of Dursele, Josce son-in-law of Bonamy, Benyzun Calboc, Abraham son of Josce, Hagyn son-in-law of Michael, and Isaac of Caerleon) had been found guilty of clipping coins OUST 1/274, m. 14 dorse). Later, these Jews fined for thirty marks with the king to be released on bail until the king were consulted about their case. Pledges for the payment of this fine were Michael l'Eveske, Salomon of Andover, Bonamy son in-law of Isaac of Caerleon, and Simekin son of Salomon of Marlborough. This consultation with the king seems to indicate that the justices were uncertain what punishment would be appropriate for the crime. The discussion would be, most probably, with the king's council. See C. A. F. Meekings, Crown Pleas of the Wiltshire Eyre, 1249 (Devizes 1961) 106; and below for the views of H. G. Richardson, who suggested that there were no capital penalties for coin-clipping until 1279, nor, apparently, after 1283 (The English Jewry under Angevin Kings [London 1960] 218, 220 n. 5, and 222-3). Dr H. R. T. Summ er son kindly called this Gloucester? shire case to my attention. For additional references to clipped or counterfeit coins circa 1247/1248, see Close Rolls, 1247-51, 8-9; 41; 61; 63-4 (where it is noted that the king's council had decided to allow those arrested for clipping to be released on bail pending trial); 65; 102; 108; 117. 8 The entry concerning this grant was corrected from seven years to twelve. CPR, 1232-47, p. 511. See Close Rolls, 1242-7, 545; et si a termino illo [=A11 Saints* 1 aliquis denarius retonsus vel obolus retunsus proferatur ad emendum vel vendendum, statim perforetur in cujuscumque manibus hujusmodi moneta inveniatur .... Close Rolls, 1247-51, 8-9 notes that, despite earlier orders to prevent the circulation of clipped coin, such was still in circulation, and adds that proclamation was to be made throughout each sheriff's bailiwick (except for Herefordshire, Shropshire and Stafford? shire) that clipped coin was prohibited henceforth. Hereafter, any such coin found was to be pierced, and all cambitores of such coins were to be arrested and produced at the 102</page><page sequence="21">Money and the hangman in late-13th-century England king's order (26 Nov. 1247). Cf. CPR, 1247-58, 22 (22 July 1248). See also Natalie Fryde, 'Silver, Recoinage and Royal Policy. . .', Trierer Historische Forschungen. Bd. 7 (1984) 26. On Richard's profits see Denholm-Young (see n. 7) 62. 9 Den holm-Young, however, points out with reference to the new design's being intended to limit clipping that 'if a man would not hesitate to clip off the inscription (of the short-cross penny), it seems unlikely that he would be deterred by a lengthened cross' despite the commonly held view that such a deterrent was the design's aim (p. 61). See also the Waverley annals, s. a. 1247 (p. 339), which, after crediting Henry IV (!) with the plan to recoin at popular demand, notes that Earl Richard had the new coins made with imago usque ad singulas extremitates circumquaque ita se extendunt, ut non sine evidenti et valde notabili dispendio aliquid inde radi possit vel abscidi (= Annales Monastici; Vol. II: . . . Annales Monasterii de Waverleia . .., ed. H. R. Luard [London 1865]). 10 M. Paris, Chron. Majora, V : 114. 11 A similar order for the liberty of St Albans appears in 1254. See CPR, 1247-58, 141 (=6/6/1252) and 377 (1254). 12 Among them were Bona wife of Dyay (Diaia) of Wallingford, accused in 1244 (Cal . . .Exch. Jews, I: 73); Elias son of Isaac Lumbard in 1244-5 (Sei PI... Exch. Jews, II); Abraham of Berkhamstead, in 1250 (see M. Paris, Chron. Majora, V : 114-6; Aaron and Josce of Aylesbury, in 1248 (JUST 1/56, m. AAd.; this is an eyre roll for Buckingham? shire, in the PRO). For the 1258 case which led to the hanging of Benedict of Colchester, a Jew of Stamford, because he had lent a Christian clipped and false coins, see the Appendix and compare n. 22. 13 CPR, 1266-72, 438 (1 July 1270). 14 Cal . . . Exch. Jews, III: 102; Cal . . . Exch. Jews, 11:13 (1273). See Rigg's comments on alleged coinage violations by Jews in Sei. PI... Exch. Jews xiv-xv, xxxix. 15 See Eng. Jewry, 217. It had been ordered earlier, in 1275, that there should be no bail for those taken for false coin, and that offenders were to be punished severely. 16 H. G. Richardson, Eng. Jewry, 217. The judges for London, with reference to Christian usurers as well as to Jewish and Christian coin-clippers, were John de Lovetot (Luvetot) and Gregory de Rokesle. Those for Nottingham were Walter de Stirkesley (? Stirchley) and Henry de Tybotot (Tybetot). It should be noted that, in these commissions of oyer and terminer, the following is said about Christians of Surrey and London who take usury: vt accepimus illicita cupiditate ducti iudaizantes .... (In the Patent Roll, C 66/96, m. 26d.; CPR, 1272-81, 236, omits this phrase.) 17 See, for example, Cal... Exch. Jews, III: 119,124-5,185,196,205-6,264,290-2,309, 318-19; IV: 99,120,126; Sei PI... Exch. Jews, 91-2,95. 18 See my 4Crime and Jews in Late Thirteenth-Century England' in Hebrew Union College Annual [hereafter HUCA] 55 (1984) 140 and nn. 9-11 for Isaac of Calne. 19 H. G. Richardson, Eng. Jewry, 217,219 and n. 3,220 and n.l. 20 Eng. Jewry, 218 and n. 7 referring to Cal. Close Rolls, 1272-9, 529-30 concerning anti-Semitic aspects; see also Richardson's comments on pp. 222-3 about this, and cf. mine above, pp. 3-4. He deals with recoinage very briefly on p. 220, referring to CPR, 1272-81, 312, and to Cal. Close Rolls, 1272-9, 527. See my 4Some Accounts of Condemned Jews' Property . . .* Bulletin of the Institute of Jewish Studies II (1974) 62-4, where Hugh de Ken dale's payments of money to those in charge of the London Mint are recorded. 21 Eng. Jewry, 220; see 'Some Accounts of Condemned Jews' Property* which presents documentary evidence of this in its three instalments (in the Bulletin of the Institute of Jewish Studies in 1973, I: 19-42; 1974, II: 59-82; 1975, III: 49-73). 22 Eng. Jewry, 218,221-3. There is a case of 56 Henry III (1271-2) of a stranger taken in Essex with false coin; he was put on the (dung) cart (Tumberellum) and let go; because of this (overly lenient?) punishment, the jurors were to be produced. In a case of 21 November 1276, two Christians who were guilty of clipping and of selling silver plates were imprisoned until the king's council could be consulted, quia dubitatur de Judicio reddendo; subsequently, they faced Judicium per patriam, presumably a trial by a jury of the district. The outcome is not recorded (see the Gaol Delivery Roll, JUST 3/35B, m. 55). Pace Richardson, a Gaol Delivery Roll of the 1290s, JUST 3/87, has two cases of Christians convicted on coinage charges, one because of 103</page><page sequence="22">Zefira Entin Rokeah coin-clipping, who was drawn and hanged in 21 Edward I (m. 19d.); the second, an admitted counterfeiter of the king's money, turned approver and accused three others of aiding and abetting his counterfeiting. The jurors cleared all three, and so the approver went ad iudicium etcetera and was drawn and hanged (m. Id.; 19 Edward I). See also n. 12 above, and the Appendix below. 23 In the introduction to Cal. . . Exch. Jews, II: xix. I have found no evidence that there were trials in 1287. 24 Prof. G. O. Sayles has stated that 'it was customary to allow a judge to keep his rolls until his death as if they were his own personal property . . .' and that years might pass before they were handed over, if indeed they ever were. He adds that the Lord Treasurer's Remembrancer's Memoranda Roll of 18 Edward I records that John de Cobbeham (Cobham) delivered his rolls at the Exchequer on the morrow of St Lucy the Virgin, 18 Edward I; among them were thirteen de banco rolls, eleven eyre rolls including one roll of coinage transgressions by Jews and Christians, and two rolls of Jewish tallage (E 368/61, m. 5d.; also in the King's Remembrancer's Memoranda Roll, E 159/63, m. 7); see Select Cases in the Court of King's Bench under Edward I, I (London 1936) cxvii, clxi. Perhaps the roll of one of the other justices will turn up some day in a private collection or county archive in a region with which one of the judges had a family connection. For the fire, see C 260/14/12, m. 1. 25 Cal Close Rolls, 1272-9, 518 (7 December 1278). 26 Cal Close Rolls, 1272-9, 516 (29 December 1278). Those to be freed were to be released to those who would guarantee their appearance for trial, and their confiscated property was to be returned to them. The Chronicon Petroburgense, ed. Thomas Staple ton (London 1849) 26-7, notes, for 1278, that around St Martin's (11 November), all the Jews were arrested within a twenty-four hour period because of clipping coin; the king ordered soon thereafter the arrest of all gold? smiths, keepers of dies, and their assistants throughout England. (It gives a copy of the relevant orders for Northampton-shire, ordering the searching out of those suspected, indicted or to be indicted in connection with clipping; all of them and all of their goods were to be seized and sent to the Tower.) 27 Cal. Close Rolls, 1272-9, 517 (between 29 December 1278 and 6 January 1279, apparently). These tools and specie had been inter alia in the possession of the Jews taken into custody at Bristol and then sent to the Tower. Some of the precious metals were earlier in the keeping of Henry of Winchester, knight. 28 Some of these judges were also to look into the affairs of the king's exchanges at London, Canterbury and (Bury) St Edmunds; CPR, 1272-81, 338. The commissions to hear and determine these cases, dated 5 January 1279 at Windsor, were issued to the following: Stephen de Penecestre, Walter de Helyun, John de Cob(ham), for London and the counties of Middlesex, Surrey, Sussex, Kent, Essex, Hertford, Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridge, Huntingdon, Buckingham, Bedford, Oxford and Berkshire. (The judges were also told to examine the exchanges.) Bartholomew de Sutheleye, William de Brayboef and Adam le Butiller were appointed for the counties of Hampshire, Wiltshire, Somerset, Dorset, Devon, Cornwall, Gloucester, Worcester, Hereford, Shropshire and Staffordshire. Coinage offenders in the northern counties - York, Northumberland, Cumberland, Lancaster, Westmoreland, Nottingham, Derby, Lincoln, Northampton - as well as those in Rutland, Warwickshire and Leicestershire, were to be dealt with by John Bek, Alexander de Kirketon and Ranulph de Acre. (Cal. Close Rolls, 1272-9, 519, also mentions the appointment of Stephen de Penecestre, Walter de Helyun and John de Cobeham to deal with coinage matters.) See 'Crime and Jews' (above, n. 18) 131, n. 119, for an instance of imprisoned Jews' homes being robbed. The receivers were Philip de Wileby, for Stephen de Penecestre, Walter de Helyun and John de Cobham; John le Fauconer, for Bartholomew de Suthleye, William de Brayboef and Adam le Botiller; Hugh de Kendal, for John Bek and his (here unnamed) fellow justices. See CPR, 1271-81, 297. 29 In the Chancellor's Roll, E 352/77. An intriguing entry in this roll is the following: to Henry of Winchester, for his expenses in Bristol Castle dummodo recenter fuit ibidem in prisona et pro donis et alijs curialitatibus datis tarn christianis quam Judeis ad eos conuincendos in cambio per preceptum Regis, ?26 15s 6d, as noted (in the Roll of 104</page><page sequence="23">Money and the hangman in late-13th-century England Particulars). It is not clear exactly what is meant here; it seems that Henry was to be credited in his account with money he had spent at the king's behest for gifts and 'courtesies', i.e. bribes, given to some Christians and Jews. Why he gave such gifts is more of a problem; the sum involved is a considerable one and not likely to have been disbursed without some definite aim. 30 C 54/96, m. 9; the entry in Cal. Close Rolls, 1272-9 522, suggests 'by reason of the perils of holy Christians', which seems to be a less felicitous translation. 31 CPR, 1272-81, 305, 311, 312. Similar orders for June, July, August and later months appear ibid., 317, 318, 320, 323, 337, 352; related entries for 1280 may be found ibid., 363, 364. See also Cal. Close Rolls, 1272-9, 527, 565-6; Cal. Close Rolls, 1279-88,3, 6,12, 19,21,41, as well as E159/53, mm. 5 d. and 6. 32 Eng. Jewry, 218 and nn. 7,8; Cal. Close Rolls, 1272-9, 529-30 (re coinage violations) and 565-6 (re blasphemy). Part of the orders on 529-30 is printed in Foedera (I: 2:570), as well as in Ruding, Annals of the Coinage, 192. For blasphemy, see my 'Some Accounts of Condemned Jews* Property' I: 24 and n. 1; 111:52 and n. 1, as well as CPR, 1272-81, 287, 290. 33 Pp. 529-30. The original reads in part: plures Christiani in odium Judeorum propter discrepanciam fidei Christiane et ritus Judeorum et diuersa grauamina per ipsos Judeos Christianis hactenus illata . . . Below, it reads Et quod mulieres Judee que fuerunt uxores Judeorum dampnatorum et eciam uxores Judeorum quorum bona et catalla forisfacta sunt ... In the former instance, the contrast between fides and ritus may be instructive. In the latter, it is clear that the wives of the condemned Jews are all widows, the usual formula for a widow (X who was the wife of Y) being used, while the wives of those whose property was forfeit are not. In 1974-5, Dr Paul Brand, then of the PRO kindly allowed me to examine various records, mostly from Bundle 34 of the Chancery Miscellanea (C 47), on which he was working; these dealt with the coinage violations of c. 1278, and included a draft of the orders calendared on pp. 529-30 (formerly known as C 47/34/23 no. 2) (= Brand's number 97). Also in this collection is the draft of a mandate to Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester (and, apparently, others as well), noting that although magnates were not all? owed to have or maintain Jews without the royal consent, it appeared that fugitive and outlawed Jews had found shelter in his lands; they and all their goods were to be handed over, accordingly (formerly C 47/34/23 no. 5; = Brand's no. 87). Richardson suggested (Eng. Jewry, 219) that the trials were limited because of the fear that fair trials had become impossible, due to popular feeling and 'inadequate and perjured evidence*. 34 E 352/80, of 1286-7, contains the Mint account of 1279-80 of Gregory de Rokesle and Orlandinus de Podio; it records considerable receipts from Philip de Wileby, Hugh de Kendal, and William de Brayboef. The accounts of condemned Jews* property (see n. 21) are also from the Pipe and Chancellor's Rolls. 35 E 372/123, m. 7. Cal. Close Rolls, 1279-88,12 (May 1280) notes 100s allocated to the sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk for his expenses in carrying Norwich Jews and their belongings from Norwich to the Tower of London. The Chancellor's Roll for 1280-1 (E 352/74) notes that the sheriff of Hereford had spent 26s 8d to bring two prisoners accused of money trespasses from Hereford to Newgate. 36 Cal. Close Rolls, 1279-88, 41. The 19 places were York, Lincoln, Northampton, Warwick, Nottingham, Winchester, Wilton, Devon, Exeter, Bristol, Hereford, Gloucester, Worcester, Norwich, Huntingdon, Bedford, Cambridge, Oxford and London. E 159/53, m. 5 (Hilary 8 Edward I Memoranda Roll) substitutes Devizes for Devon, omits Cambridge, and adds Canterbury, Colchester and Sudbury to the list. 37 The full phrase, 'Law and Custom of the Jewry', appears frequently in the records, in its full or an abbreviated version, and refers to the body of traditional practices and specific regulations by which the Jews of England lived. See chap. 9 in Richardson's Eng. Jewry, and the introductions to Sei. PI.. . Exch. Jews and Cal... Exch. Jews, III. 38 E 159/53, m. 5; attested by the king himself at Marlborough, on 26 February 8 Edward I; cf. the related entry in CPR, 1272 81,364. 39 CPR, 1272-81, 470 (28 March 1281), 443 (12 June 1281); Cal. Close Rolls, 1279-88, 86 (28 May 1281). 40 E 352/74, m. \d. Additional evidence 105</page><page sequence="24">Zefira Entin Rokeah appears in Reginald R. Sharpe, ed., Calendar of Letter-Books Reserved . . . at the Guildhall Letter-Book A (c. 1275-98) (London 1899) p. v, which notes that the trials for coinage violations lasted until Lent, and then were begun again after Easter (see above, p. 6 and n. 30 for other evidence of this); p. 26 of the Letter-Books states, in connection with 30 November 1278, that it was 'when the Jews were at the Guildhall*; p. 225, speaking of December 1278, notes that it was 'when the Jews were at the Guildhall*; p. 27 ibid., in reference to 25 April 1279, says it was 'when the Jews found pledges [vadiati] at the Guildhall*. See also Vivian D. Lipman, 'Jews and castles in medieval England* Trans JHSE XXVIII (1981 2) 14-15 for Jews at the Tower and Guildhall in 1278. 41 E 352/80; cf. 'Some Accounts of Condemned Jews* Property.. .*, Ill: 59,61,64, where some ?1237 10s 5d are noted in connection with Egidius. 42 E 159/55, mm. Id., 10,12,16; m. 16 has the sketch. See my 'Drawings of Jewish Interest in Some Thirteenth-Century English Public Records', Scriptorium XXVI (1972) 5S 61. Wyleby sold them for ?15 0s 20fcd. 43 CPR, 1281-92, 56 (6 February 1283). See ibid., 86, for the inspection of money from abroad at the ports, due to clipping. 44 Cal Close Rolls, 1279-88, 244 (14 October 1283). 45 CPR, 1281-92, 62 (20 April 1283); E 159/57, m. 4. 46 CPR, 1282-91, 128. The commission issued to these men to conduct the inquiry is dated some 5 weeks later, and appears ibid., 134 (15 September 1284). Henry le Waleys was replaced by Hugh de Cressingham, and William de Carleton added to the men commissioned, in January 1288 (see below, and n. 52). 47 I am indebted to James Capua, then of the University of Chicago, who drew my attention to some of these materials. The first account, E 101/Bdle. 119/12, notes in the legible portion of its heading that the receipts accounted for came from trespasses (presumably of the coinage) as well as de Catallis Judeorum dampnatorum conuictis coram S. de Roff and his associates . . . 'that the king had granted to the queen' (?) Whereas Salomon de Roff does not appear among the coinage justices commissioned for the 1278-9 trials, it would seem that the subsequent investigation (of 1284), to conduct which he was appointed, is that which produced this list of amercements and fines. However, I think that the latter inquiry might be termed the 'follow-up* of the 1278-9 trials, and was designed to complete the proceedings then initiated (the second account, E 101/ Bdle. 119/20, has no heading). 48 E101/Bdle. 120/8. 49 See my 'Some Accounts of Condemned Jews* Property', esp. 1:20, for over ?10,000 received. Robert C. Stacey's Politics, Policy, and Finance under Henry III: 1216-1245 (Oxford 1987) 208, 226, 227, indicates that the king's 'total expendable income' in the early 1240s was usually between ?30,000 and ?35,000 per year. Nonetheless, his expenditure exceeded his income every year. 50 The recipients, John Bek, A(lexander) de Kirketon, Ranulph de Dacre, W(illiam) de Brayboef (Braibof), W(illiam) Gerberg, H(ugh) de Kendale, Philip de Wileby, J(ohn) de Cobham and Stephen de Penecestre, were to appear 5 weeks after Easter, to account (Cal. Close Rolls, 1279-88, 256). (A draft of this, formerly C 47/34/21 no. 2, appears among the documents with which Dr Brand dealt c. 1974.) An entry in the King's Remembrancer's Memoranda Roll, E 159/57, m. 5, for Easter term, 12 Edward I, notes that William de Brayboef had been appointed as a justice (itinerant) for Cornwall and would not be able to appear, therefore, at the Exchequer 5 weeks after Easter to render his account. The king ordered that he be given an alternative day to appear, the morrow of St John the Baptist's day. 51 E 352/84. See also CPR, 1281-92, 451 (23 November 1290) for 200 marks paid by the poor of Lincoln because of concealing such goods (apparently the rich men of Lincoln should have paid). 52 CPR, 1281-91, 291 (16 January 1288). 53 CPR, 1282-91, 313 (10 February 1289). Ruding, Annals of the Coinage 196-7, deals at some length with the 1283-4 inquiries. However, he follows Knyghton on the 300 persons allegedly convicted in the wake of these investigations. Knyghton is not exactly the best source for the period; his date for the expulsion of the Jews is 1285 rather than 1290, and it is probable therefore that he 106</page><page sequence="25">Money and the hangman in late-13th-century England was referring to the sequelae of the 1278-9 trials rather than to any events of 1283-4 in the passage upon which Ruding relies (col. 2463). 54 John Porteous, Coins in History (London 1969) 71. See also C. H. V. Sutherland, Eng. Coinage 63, as well as Ruding, Annals of the Coinage 196-7, for comments on the counterfeit coins produced on the Continent. 55 Sir John Craig, The Mint (Cambridge 1953) 15 and n. 1, which indicates Robert Austen's Cantor Lectures of 1884, 842, as the source of this information. 56 Oman, The Coinage of England, 143. 57 Oman, The Coinage of England, 143 4,158. Sutherland notes (Eng. Coinage, 63-4) that the number of mints in action, which had expanded greatly between 1247 and 1250, was reduced drastically in about 1250. This suggests that most of the work had been finished by that date. 58 For example: it is said of William de Tok that he escambiauit at York, changing ?10 of good money for ?10 3s of clipped money (JUST 1/1078, m. 69d.). In the case of Lumbard son of Licorice (Licoricia), who lived at Winchester, it was stated that he owed 40 marks (of his fine) pro transgressione cambii. (This was one fine that was never paid, as it appears in the roll of desperate debts, E 363/2, m. 38.) A similar entry is that for Nicholas Bonard, who paid 10s pro transgressione cambii in connection with the eyre of Salomon de Roff* (in the sheriff's account for Devon, 12 Edward I: E 199/8/1). The other usual formula is of payment by someone quia cambiuit, and appears most frequently in the Exchequer records (as, for example, in Receipt Rolls: E 401 /61: 20s from Robert Wale quia cabuit [sic] or E 401/88: % mark from Semannus Shakelok' quia cambiuit). 59 pro transgressione monete (Regis) - as in the case of Master Elias (=Elijah Menahem) of London, who had fined with the king for 1000 marks for a coinage trespass, but who never paid the last 450 marks due (E 363/2, m. 73 d.). 60 See M. T. Clanchy, The Roll and Writ File of the Berkshire Eyre of 1248 (London 1973) xvii, n. 3, where C. A. F. Meekings' estimate of the survival rate of eyre rolls is given as about a quarter for Henry Ill's earlier decades, about a third for his middle decades, and about half for the late decades of his reign. 61 Glanvill, De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Regni Angliae, ed. G. E. Woodbine (New Haven 1932) Book 1, chap. 2 (p. 42). Book 14, chap. 7, expounds the nature of crimen fed si, including falsa moneta in this category (p. 179). 62 Craig, The Mint, 8. 63 See, for example, Symeonis Monachi Opera Omnia - Historia Regum, ed. T. Arnold (London 1885) II: 281: Monetarii totius Angliae principales deprehensi adulterinos, scilicet non puros, ex argento fecisse denarios, jussu regis simul Wintoniae congregati omnes una die amputatis dextris evirantur. See also Henrici Archidiaconi Hunten dunen sis Historia Anglorum, ed. T. Arnold (London 1879) 247 (s.a. 1125): Monetarios enim fere omnes totius Angliae fecit ementulari, et manus dextras abscidi, quia monetam furtive corruperant. 64 Bracton, On the Laws and Customs of England, transl. S. E. Thorne (Cambridge, Mass. 1968) II: 334-5. (The Latin text is that edited by G. E. Woodbine, and appears on the facing pages.) 65 Bracton II: 335. Thorne indicates (335, n. 12) Glanvill i, 2 as the source of this dictum. 66 Bracton II: 336-8. 67 Britton, transl. and ed. F. M. Nichols (Oxford 1865) I: 34 (bk. I, chap. 5, no. 14): En dreit de faus deners et de deners retounduz et de deners countrefetz a nostre monee soit fet solum les estatuz de nostre monee, ou solum ceo qe dit est de faus brefs trovez en acuni seisine. (Those possessing false writs, he notes, are to be imprisoned until warranted; if those they have vouched are outlawed or are not known men, the false-writ possessors must 'either acquit themselves by the country or be put to penance'.) 68 Fleta. Vol. II: Prologue, Book I, Book II, ed. and transl. H. G. Richardson and G. O. Sayles (London 1955) 58-9 (bk. 1, chap. 22): omnes agentes et conscientes tractari et suspendi debent et femine concremari, ... and Cambiatores autem monete non ad hoc auctorizati necnon et vsurarii christiani omnia sua catalla eo ipso regi forisfaciunt. 69 The scribe may, of course, have been very scrupulous, if a cleric, and have wished to avoid noting extreme penalties in full. F. W. Maitland, in his introduction to Bracton's 107</page><page sequence="26">Zefira Entin Rokeah Note Book (London 1887) 1:123-4 comments on the practice of abbreviating certain phrases: 'Just because it was so very common, it was never written in full' (p. 124). C. A. F. Meekings (ed.) Crown Pleas of the Wiltshire Eyre, 1249 (Devizes 1961) 26-7 gives some of the most frequently used abbreviations, including 'hanging (s' or susp') which was replacing the full phrase in the textet ideo suspendatur, found in rolls to about 1241, after which the text itself normally ran et ideo etc .. .*. That the penalties indicated by Fleta were indeed used is clear from even a sampling of cases from the Gaol Delivery Rolls (=JUST 3) and the Pipe Rolls (= E 372): Henry le Orfeuere (= goldsmith) of Shropshire, a confessed counterfeiter-turned approver, and his associate Roger le Cotiller were both drawn and hanged for their money violations (JUST 3/36/1, mm. 22d.t 23); Reginald of Yarmouth, confessed counterfeiter-turned-approver, was drawn and hanged OUST 3/87, m. U.); Richard R?ssel de la Launde, taken because he had clipped coins, was drawn and hanged (JUST 3/87, m. 19d.); William of Mackworth, accused in a Kent case of association with counterfeiters and of receiving part of the counterfeit money so he would not accuse the counterfeiters, was drawn and hanged (JUST 3/36/1, m. 23). Matilda le Salerer of Bristol was combuste (burnt) because of false money, and her tenement was the king's escheat (E 372/133, m. 29 and E 372/134, m. 1); Sonyena (Sunthina) daughter of William le Engleys, taken in the company of William de Luda, an approver, was found guilty of consenting to counterfeiting and was combusta (JUST 3/36/1, m. 11). (These cases date from the years 13-21 Edward 1,1284-93.) 70 'Some Reflections of a Medieval Criminologist', Proceedings of the British Academy LIX (1973) 99. Pugh examined the charges laid at Newgate between 1281 and 1291; he found that 'forgery and coin clipping or their abetment' charges came to 2 per cent of all charges laid in the period, and that 33 per cent of those accused on these 'gravest charges' were condemned (ibid. 86). See also F. W. Maitland, ed., Pleas of the Crown for the County of Gloucester . . . 1221 (London 1884) 109-10,153, for an approver who habeat judicum suum sicut convictus (is to undergo punishment as an attainted/a convicted person), of whom Maitland comments (p. 153, case 466 entry) 'doubtless this means suspendatur*. 71 May I note in passing, in connection with the numbers mentioned by various chroniclers, how they vary: the Dunstable chronicler (Annales Monastici III) says 280 of either sex were executed in London, and maxima multitude* in other cities; he adds that the king received pecuniam infinitam in order to release some Christians from hanging, but that other Christians were hanged (p. 279); the author of the Annales Londonienses (in Chronicles of the Reigns of Edward I and Edward II, ed. W. Stubbs [London 1882] I : 88) says that 3 Christians and 293 Jews were distracti et susvensi; the Peterborough chronicle (above, n. 26) notes that an unspecified number of Jews convicti de tonsura monete susvensi sunt, paucis propter metum ad fidem conversis. Et multi Christiani convicti de escambio monete cum Jude is, graviter amerciati sunt. . . (p. 29); the Chroniques de London depuis Van 44 Hen. Ill jusqu'a Van 17 Edw. Ill (London 1844) 16-17, notes that 3 Christians and 293 Jews were treinez et penduz pur retundre del moneye (echoing the Annales Londonienses* version); Thomas Wykes recorded (Annales Monastici IV) that innumeram Judaeorum multitudinem, . . . suspendio condemnabant; nonnullis vero de Christianis, ejusdem sceleris perpetratores et fautores licet paucos, simili suspendio puniebant .... infinitam fere Judaeorum multitudinem suspendentes, . . . after Easter, when the justices vir?iter resumed their work (p. 279). The Chronicle of Bury St Edmunds: 1212 1301, ed. and transl. Antonia Gransden (London, etc. 1964) 67, states that Rex omnes ludeos et quosdam Christianos de retonsura aut alia monete falsacione conuictos fecit suspendi. Vnde London' xiiixx. et vii. Iudei mortis iudicium subierunt, quidam autem relegati, quidam eciam eorum perpetuo sunt carceri adiudicati, et quidam in Anglia remanserunt. Escambiatores quoque aut manucapi permisit aut salue per loca sua deputauit custodie qui redempcione facta liberi permissi sunt abire. (The figure 267 may be the result of a copyist's error, giving xiii.xx. instead of xiiij. xx.; the latter would give a total of 287, which is closer to the other versions' figures.) Thus, in most cases where a specific number is given, it is not a tidy, rounded number, but rather a very 108</page><page sequence="27">Money and the hangman in late-13th-century England definite one - 293,267 (? 287). Even allowing for copying from one chronicle to another, a common enough contemporary practice, the number is sufficiently distinctive to avoid arousing suspicion. It is certainly not a neat enough figure to catch the eye of an internal revenue inspector looking for doctored accounts. Furthermore, the emphasis in all the accounts is that a multitude of Jews, and only a few Christians, were hanged. See above, p. 97. 72 Ralph of Sandwich, the Constable of the Tower of London, accounted for ?23 6s Od paid - at 4d each by 1335 Jews, and at 2d each by 126 Jewish paupers - crossing (by sea) from London to 'Wytsond' at the time of the Expulsion; see E101/4/10, a bundle of Constables' accounts for the Tower, 13-34 Edward I, in the materials for 18-19 Edward I. These 1461 Jews were not the only ones to leave England; see my *Crime and Jews' in HUCA LV: 131-2 and nn. 118-20, for some others. These figures seem appropriate for a community of the size indicated, especially when the likelihood that young children were not counted is taken into account. (See also E101/4/25, which names their destination in 1290 as 'Whitsand' and has the same figures. 73 See J. F. Niermeyer, Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus (Leiden, E. J. Brill, 1976) 571, no. 7; and R. E. Latham, Revised Medieval Latin Word-List from British and Irish Sources (London, for the British Academy ... 1965) 265, s.v. justitia. 74 Dr H. R. T. Summerson kindly called this case to my attention. I have also benefited from the comments of Andrew Hershey. 75 In the margin at this point: T. 76 In the margin at this point, cancelled: dimidie marce auri. 77 From here on, text is in slightly darker and smaller writing. 78 The 's* of quasdam apparently replaced an 'n*. 79 If evo in the text means eviscovo (the usual meaning), this makes little sense, as he is unlikely to have been charged before the bishop. This may have been an error for ivo (=ipso). 80 Ita, but with abbreviation marks over the three letters *i'. 81 Cancelled in the manuscript. 82 In the margin at this point: t[rigint]a. s[uspendatur]. Jnquirendum. Staunford'. 109</page></plain_text>