tinner,
who employed 300 men in the stream-works of Brodhok," it would require
stronger proof than the mere name to make us believe that this Abraham was
a Jew.

I had endeavored to show that there was no evidence as to the Earl of
Cornwall, the brother of Henry III., having employed Jews in the Cornish
mines, and had pointed out a passage from Rymer's "Foedera" where it is
stated that the Earl spared them (_pepercit_). Dr. Bannister remarks:
"Though we are told that he spared them, might not this be similar to
Joseph's brethren sparing him,--by committing their bodies as his slaves to
work in the tin-mines?" It might be so, no doubt, but we do not know it.
Again, Dr. Bannister remarks: "Jerome tells us that when Titus took
Jerusalem, an incredible number of Jews were sold like horses, and
dispersed over the face of the whole earth. The account given by Josephus
is, that of those spared after indiscriminate slaughter, some were
dispersed through the provinces for the use of the theatres, as
gladiators; others were sent to the Egyptian mines, and others sold as
slaves. If the Romans at this time worked the Cornish mines, why may not
some have been sent here?" I can only answer, as before; they may have
been, no doubt, but we do not know it.

I had myself searched very carefully for any documents that might prove
the presence even of single Jews in Cornwall, previous to the time when
they were banished the realm by Edward I. But my inquiries had not proved
more successful than those of my predecessors. Pearce, in his "Laws and
Customs of the Stanaries," published in London, 1725, shares the common
belief that the Jews worked in the Cornish mines. "The tinners," he says
(p. ii), "call the antient works by the name of the Working of the Jews,
and it is most manifest, that there were Jews inhabiting here until 1291;
and this they prove by the names yet enduring, viz. Attall Sarazin, in
English, The Jews Feast." But in spite of his strong belief in the
presence of Jews in Cornwall, Pearce adds: "But whether they had liberty
to work and search for tin, does not appear, because they had their
dwellings chiefly in great Towns and Cities; and being great Usurers, were
in that year banished out of England, to the number of 15,060, by the most
noble Prince, Edward I."

At last, however, with the kind assistance of Mr. Macray, I discovered a
few real Jews in Cornwall in the third year of King John, 1202, namely,
one _Simon de De