compared of corn and cattle may be looked on as
contemporary; and they were drawn, not from one particular year, but
from an estimation of the middling prices for a series of years. It
is true, the prices assigned by the assize of Richard were meant as a
standard for the accompts of sheriffs and escheators; and as
considerable profits were allowed to these ministers, we may naturally
suppose, that the common value of cattle was somewhat higher: yet
still, so great a difference between the prices of corn and cattle as
that of four to one, compared to the present rates, affords important
reflections concerning the very different state of industry and
tillage in the two periods.

Interest had in that age amounted to an enormous height, as might be
expected from the barbarism of the times and men's ignorance of
commerce. Instances occur of fifty per cent paid for money [a].
There is an edict of Philip Augustus near this period, limiting the
Jews in France to forty-eight per cent [b]. Such profits tempted the
Jews to remain in the kingdom, notwithstanding the grievous
oppressions to which, from the prevalent bigotry and rapine of the
age, they were continually exposed. It is easy to imagine how
precarious their state must have been under an indigent prince,
somewhat restrained in his tyranny over his native subjects, but who
possessed an unlimited authority over the Jews, the sole proprietors
of money in the kingdom, and hated, on account of their riches, their
religion, and their usury: yet will our ideas scarcely come up to the
extortions which, in fact, we find to have been practised upon them.
In the year 1241, twenty thousand marks were exacted from them [c]:
two years after money was again extorted; and one Jew alone, Aaron of
York, was obliged to pay above four thousand marks [d]. In 1250,
Henry renewed his oppressions; and the same Aaron was condemned to pay
him thirty thousand marks upon an accusation of forgery [e]: the high
penalty imposed upon him, and which, it seems, he was thought able to
pay, is rather a presumption of his innocence than of his guilt. In
1255, the king demanded eight thousand marks from the Jews, and
threatened to hang them if they refused compliance. They now lost all
patience, and desired leave to retire with their effects out of the
kingdom. But the king replied: "How can I remedy the oppressions you
complain of? I am myself a beggar. I am spoiled, I am stripped of
all my reven