wish."[632] It was one of the conditions imposed by the church on the
count of Toulouse, that he should allow no Jews to possess magistracy in
his dominions.[633] But in Spain they were placed by some of the
municipal laws on the footing of Christians, with respect to the
composition for their lives, and seem in no other European country to
have been so numerous or considerable.[634] The diligence and expertness
of this people in all pecuniary dealings recommended them to princes who
were solicitous about the improvement of their revenue. We find an
article in the general charter of privileges granted by Peter III. of
Aragon, in 1283, that no Jew should hold the office of a bayle or judge.
And two kings of Castile, Alonzo XI. and Peter the Cruel, incurred much
odium by employing Jewish ministers in their treasury. But, in other
parts of Europe, their condition had, before that time, begun to change
for the worse--partly from the fanatical spirit of the crusades, which
prompted the populace to massacre, and partly from the jealousy which
their opulence excited. Kings, in order to gain money and popularity at
once, abolished the debts due to the children of Israel, except a part
which they retained as the price of their bounty. One is at a loss to
conceive the process of reasoning in an ordinance of St. Louis, where,
"for the salvation of his own soul and those of his ancestors, he
releases to all Christians a third part of what was owing by them to
Jews."[635] Not content with such edicts, the kings of France sometimes
banished the whole nation from their dominions, seizing their effects at
the same time; and a season of alternative severity and toleration
continued till, under Charles VI., they were finally expelled from the
kingdom, where they never afterwards possessed any legal
settlement.[636] They were expelled from England under Edward I., and
never obtained any legal permission to reside till the time of Cromwell.
This decline of the Jews was owing to the transference of their trade in
money to other hands. In the early part of the thirteenth century the
merchants of Lombardy and of the south of France[637] took up the
business of remitting money by bills of exchange,[638] and of making
profit upon loans. The utility of this was found so great, especially by
the Italian clergy, who thus in an easy manner drew the income of their
transalpine benefices, that in spite of much obloquy, the Lombard
usurers established t