Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of maps
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- INTRODUCTION
- 1 AN ALIEN ABROAD
- 2 THE REIGN OF KING JOHN
- 3 THE JUSTICIARSHIP
- 4 MAGNA CARTA AND CIVIL WAR
- 5 THE KING'S GUARDIAN 1216–1219
- 6 DECLINE AND DISGRACE 1219–1227
- 7 DES ROCHES AND THE CRUSADE 1227–1231
- 8 THE FALL OF HUBERT DE BURGH
- 9 THE COALITION
- 10 DES ROCHES IN POWER
- 11 THE GATHERING STORM
- 12 THE MARSHAL'S WAR
- 13 THE FALL OF PETER DES ROCHES
- 14 THE FINAL YEARS 1234–1238
- Bibliography
- Index
- Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought Fourth series
11 - THE GATHERING STORM
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 October 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of maps
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- INTRODUCTION
- 1 AN ALIEN ABROAD
- 2 THE REIGN OF KING JOHN
- 3 THE JUSTICIARSHIP
- 4 MAGNA CARTA AND CIVIL WAR
- 5 THE KING'S GUARDIAN 1216–1219
- 6 DECLINE AND DISGRACE 1219–1227
- 7 DES ROCHES AND THE CRUSADE 1227–1231
- 8 THE FALL OF HUBERT DE BURGH
- 9 THE COALITION
- 10 DES ROCHES IN POWER
- 11 THE GATHERING STORM
- 12 THE MARSHAL'S WAR
- 13 THE FALL OF PETER DES ROCHES
- 14 THE FINAL YEARS 1234–1238
- Bibliography
- Index
- Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought Fourth series
Summary
The king's coffers were now well supplied. Yet throughout his life, Henry III exhibited a remarkable talent for spending more than he possessed. Besides taxation and the income from escheats, in March 1233 he turned to the Jews to provide even further money. The Jews had been used the previous year to finance loans from Italian merchants. The intention in 1233, as on that earlier occasion, appears to have been to use Jewish money to fund subsidies to the king's allies in France. On 2 March, a Jewish tallage of 10,000 marks was announced, £1,000 of it to be paid by Easter 1234, the rest at £2,000 a year thereafter: a scheme witnessed by des Roches. Not only was this the heaviest single tax as yet demanded from the Jews, but it fell upon those least able to pay, the great Jewish money-lenders of Norwich and Hereford being exempt by virtue of the heavy fines they had already made with the crown. The tallage appears to have been part of a wider attack. In April 1233, whilst the king was spending Easter at Canterbury, he issued legislation restricting the rate of interest on Jewish loans to twopence in the pound per week, insisting that loans be made by cyrograph not tally, prohibiting the use of church goods as security and ordering that Jews unable to find pledges for good conduct by Michaelmas be banished from the realm.
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- Peter des RochesAn Alien in English Politics, 1205–1238, pp. 363 - 398Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1996