ECCLESIASTICAL ANIMOSITY. 283 The prelates began to complain that the Jews were protected by the king's courts. Alas, for the protection! Boniface, the primate, who was honoured with the well-merited appellations of "this ruffian, this cruel smiter no winner of souls, but an exacter of money," convened a provincial synod, in which the prelates enacted several severe and cruel edicts respecting the Jews, which are the following: "That because ecclesiastical judicature is confounded, and the office of prelates obstructed, when a Jew offending against ecclesiastical persons and things is convicted of these or other matters, which belong to the ecclesiastical court of pure right, and yet is not permitted by the king's sheriffs or bailiffs to stand to the ecclesiastical law, but is rather forced to betake himself to the king's court; therefore all such Jews shall be driven to make answer, in such cases, before a judge ecclesiastical, by being for * M. Paris. A. Strickland. 284 HENRY SANCTIONS THE bidden to traffic, contract, or converse with the faithful and they who forbid and obstruct them, and distress judges and others on this account, shall be coerced by the sentences of excommunication and interdict." This primate" elected by female intrigue"-proved a great source of trouble and virulent persecution to the poor Jews. He being uncle to Queen Eleanor-who, in fact, was the sole monarch of England, and even of her husband-had, as a matter of course, great influence with the king. Henry, therefore, though he opposed the decrees of the Church against the Jews during Stephen Langton's primacy, as you heard on Friday evening last, entirely concurred with the Church in persecuting the Jews during the administraton of Boniface. Accordingly, by an edict enacted in the thirty-seventh year of this reign, Henry sanctioned Stephen Langton's decrees; and it was ordained that "no Jew should remain in England who did not render service to the king; that there should be no schools CRUEL EDICTS OF THE CHURCH. 285 for Jews, except in places where they were wont to be of old; that, in their synagogues, all Jews should pray in a low voice, according to the rites of their religion, so that Christians might not hear them; that every Jew should be answerable to the rector of his parish for parochial dues, chargeable on his house; that no Christian woman should suckle or nurse the child of a Jew, nor any Christian serve a Jew, eat with them, nor abide in their houses; that no Jew or Jewess should eat meat in Lent, or detract from the Christian faith; that no Jew should associate with a Christian woman, nor any Christian man with a Jewess; that every Jew should wear a badge on his breast, and should not enter into any church or chapel, except in passing to and fro, and then should not stay there, to the dishonour of Christ. That no Jew should hinder any other who was desirous to embrace the Christian faith. That they should not abide in any town without the king's special license, save in places where they were formerly wont to re 286 SANCHA'S FUNERAL. side." On offending against any of these provisions, their properties were to be immediately seized. In the year 1261, unfortunately for the Jews, died the queen's sister, Sancha, Countess of Cornwall and Queen of the Romans, for whom the king and queen made great lamentations, and gave her a magnificent funeral.* As usual, the poor Jews had to supply the needful, for the king ordered that new inventories should be made of all their lands, tenements, debts, ready money, plate, jewels, and household stuff. The king's commissioners were to be assisted in their strict search by all sheriffs, constables of castles, mayors, &c. The king's opposition to the barons proved a twofold scourge to the oppressed Jews. He took away their money, in order to be able to continue his opposition to the barons; whilst the barons took away their lives, with the remainder of their wealth, for * A. Strickland. HENRY BREAKS HIS AGREEMENT. 287 yielding to the intolerable pressure of that covetous monarch. It was, therefore, a cause of joy to the Hebrew congregations, that a truce was established between the sovereign and his barons, and that the former was prevailed upon to sign an amicable arrangement with the latter, by which he bound himself to confirm the provisions of Oxford. Henry, however, was not a man to abide any length of time by any agreement, and as a matter of course refused to adhere to the rules of the compact, under the pretence that his consent and signature were extorted from him. He withdrew to the tower of London. The offended barons unexpectedly entered the city, eager for plunder and athirst for blood, raised first a dreadful uproar there against the luckless Jews, which was the prelude to a personal attack upon the queen, the most unpopular of all the queens of England. The following are the particular details of this tumult, as related by Agnes Strickland, copied from T. Wikes, a contem |