Stacey, Robert C. "Parliamentary Negotiation and the Expulsion of the Jews from England" In Thirteenth-Century England, Vol. VI, edited by Michael Prestwich, Richard Britnell, and Robin Frame, 77-101. Durham: The Boydell Press, 1997.

Stacey, Robert C. "Parliamentary Negotiation and the Expulsion of the Jews from England" In Thirteenth-Century England, Vol. VI, edited by Michael Prestwich, Richard Britnell, and Robin Frame, 77-101. Durham: The Boydell Press, 1997.

•  The year 1290 saw many important events in England: the dismissal and trial of nearly all justices of the King's Bench and Common Pleas, the promulgation of Quo Warranto and Quia Emptores, the largest ever single grant of taxation to a Medieval English monarch, and the expulsion of the Jews. Instead of being isolated events, all of these developments should be viewed as part of extended negotiations between Parliament and King Edward I, beginning after his return from Gascony in 1289 (77).
• This perspective of parliamentary negotiations is particularly valuable for understanding the decision to expel the Jews. The Commons had repeatedly demanded action against the Jews and Jewish lending practices since 1268. This was a concession granted by King Edward in exchange for being voted additional taxes (77-78).
• Many grievances against the rule of Edward I had built up by 1290. His policies had significantly angered the bishops, Londoners, and the landed nobility (79-81).
• England was the site of significant political discontent in 1289, as the nobles were unhappy with Edward being absent in Gascony since 1286 and had refused to vote him any money until he returned. There had already been several grievances against the king before he left for Gascony, but these issues had all worsened during his absence (78-81).
• There were also several wars ongoing on the island: the earls of Gloucester and Hereford were at war, as was the town of Yarmouth with the Cinque Ports (78-79).
• Edward I banned all fairs and tournaments in England in 1289 and continued this ban throughout 1290. Fairs and tournaments were commonly sites of political disorder in Medieval England, as the large assemblage of knights could easily turn into a political rally or the camp of a private army against the king (78-79). 
• The Church disliked Edward I's policy of interference in Church affairs. Particularly, they disliked his interference on behalf of defendants in ecclesiastical courts and his attempts in 1285 and 1286 to challenge the jurisdiction of these courts (79-80). 
• They also disliked the 1279 Statute of Mortmain, which limited land acquisitions. It became more of an irritant when the King was abroad because exemptions could not be granted when he was in Gascony (79). 
• Edward I's policy vis-a-vis the Church did not satisfy the lay people either, as they felt he did not stand up to the Church enough and complained that ecclesiastical courts still imposed greater fines than any lay courts (80).
• The city of London was upset that Edward I had revoked their autonomy in 1285 and placed them under the direct rule of his bailiffs. His reforms to laws concern debt collection were also unpopular, particularly because they seemingly benefited royal officials over the general population (80).
• The behavior of the King's wife, Queen Eleanor, and his younger brother, Edmund, also caused tensions. Both were notorious for buying up debts, especially purchasing the rights to usury debts owed by Christians to Jews. Eleanor also known for buying up indebted estates to add to her own landholdings (80-81).
• The most significant source of discontent was the King's campaign since 1278 to claim royal lands and franchises using quo warranto suits. Anyone who held royal lands or franchises had to come before a court to prove under what authority he held them. This campaign became more aggressive from 1285 onward, as the courts stopped recognizing anything other than an explicit royal charter as proof in the quo warranto cases (81).
• Rights asserted on any other basis, such as long enjoyment or general charters, were transferred out of county courts to Westminster. Once this had happened, they could not be heard so long as the King was abroad (81).
• King Edward I was severely indebted by 1290, owing £110,000 pounds to the Riccardi merchant house of Lucca. This debt had arose from the costs of a military campaign to pacify Gascony, the courts of maintaining a court abroad, and several costly diplomatic initiatives, particularly paying £20,000 pounds to ransom Charles of Salerno (81-82).
• King Edward had not firm basis to demand taxes to help him pay these debts. There had not been a foreign war in Gascony and he did not have the date set for his next crusade, so these options for taxation were closed. He needed to ask Parliament for voluntary taxation (82).
•  Edward I's reaction to his indebtedness was informed by his previous indebtedness after returning from crusade in 1274-1275 and he employed similar tactics in 1289. Edward I did not view the current situation of indebtedness as a crisis, as based on past experience and his reputation he was confident he could drive a successful deal with Parliament (82).
• Upon his return to England, Edward I dallied at a number of palaces, prayed at shrines, and eventually met with an assembly of noblemen on October 13, 1289. At this meeting, he called for a Parliament to assemble in Westminster and also sent forth a proclamation that everyone with a complaint about the conduct of royal officials during the king's absence could bring their complaints to a special court of auditors in November (83).
• King Edward was very aware of complaints of the conduct of his bailiffs and other royal officials. He had even had to send men to arrest the Sheriff of Sussex while he was still in Gascony (83).
• The King had intended the appointment of a court of auditores querelarum to create goodwill upon his return by acting to punish abusive local officials; this had been a successful tactic in 1274. In 1289, however, the auditors were initially viewed with skepticism and few petitioners came forward. Only once proceedings of the Parliament led to the downfall of multiple royal officials did more petitioners come forward, making the court a success in retrospect (83-84).
• Parliament convened immediately following Christmas celebrations, although it was officially supported to start on St. Hilary's feast day of January 13, hence being called the 'Hilary Parliament'. It last until around February 17, 1290. This Parliament was consumed entirely by the trials of royal justices and of Adam of Stratton, as well as discussions with Rome about the next crusade and the proposed marriage between his son, Prince Edward, and the Queen of Scotland, Margaret, Maid of Norway. This meant that other matters, like taxation, were pushed onto another parliament to be held at Easter (84-85).
• Although taxation was not discussed, it is unlikely that King Edward considered the Hilary Parliament to be a failure. The trial of abusive royal officials had restored public goodwill towards him and fines against these officials raised some revenues. Moreover, it was now clear that a major part of negotiations with Parliament would be his quo warranto suits, which were deeply unpopular (85-86). 
• During the Hilary Parliament, there was a dispute over ecclesiastical jurisdiction. While attending Parliament, Edmund, the Earl of Cornwall, was served summons to the court of the Archbishop of Canterbury. He protested that this service infringed on royal rights during a parliament and the independent authority of the abbot of Westminster. The Royal Council agreed and arrested and fined both the prior who served the summons and the priest Bogo de Clare, who instigated the incident (85). 
• Between the first and second parliaments of 1290, the issue of the quo warranto suits became even more pressing, as the justices of the King's Bench met in April 1290 and began to issue judgment in favor of the king in all cases where land holdings or franchises were based on long enjoyment or vague charters (86-87).
• The chief justice of the court, Gilbert of Thornton, had previously taken a hardline in these cases in favor of the King and was likely appointed to this position in 1290 because he championed the royal perspective (87).
• The protests against the rulings in the quo warranto cases were immediate and came from both nobles and the Church. This issue was first on the agenda when the second Parliament opened on April 30, 1290 (87).
• The first issue brought before the second Parliament were the quo warranto cases. Under intense pressure from the Parliament, King Edward conceded the Statute of Quo Warranto, which held that all franchises held since 1189 and not abused would be granted by the courts and the king would issue a new royal patent for such. All cases brought since Easter 1290 would retroactively fall under this new provision and King Edward would also dismiss all quo warranto cases from the King's Bench and back to eyre courts (87).
• The compromise here was that, since franchises would be confirmed by issuance of new royal letters of patent, the King was still asserting his authority as the source of all franchises. This was, however, challenged by the nobility, and the dispute continued over whether long tenure was, in itself, sufficient to hold a franchise (87-88). 
• In return for resolving the issue of quo warranto suits, Parliament voted King Edward a tax of 40 shillings on the fee paid by a knight for his eldest daughter to get married. This was a paltry amount and Edward I did not even bother collecting it until 1302. He would have to make other concessions to resolve his debt problem (88).
• Around June 1290, Edward I was preparing to levy a tallage on the Jews, commanding sheriffs to seal the chests in which Jewish debts were recorded by June 28, and to subsequently present all debts outside the chests by July 16, after which date unrecorded debts would be void. This procedure was standard for the tallage of Jews and in fact different from the procedure employed in November 1290 when the Jews were expelled, which had debts outside the chests remain valid to be collected by the king. This shows that, in summer 1290, Edward I was not planning on expelling the Jews (89-90).
• Edward I was likely preparing a tallage of the Jews as a way to raise revenues, but this would have only raised a few thousand pounds, still insufficient to meet his needs (90).
• In June 1290, King Edward I ordered all shires to send knightly representatives to another Parliament to be conveyed in Westminster in July, commencing with the marriage of his daughter Margaret to John, Prince of Brabant. This new session included the Commons and was widely recognized at the time as a session of great importance (90-92).
• Edward I was tense and irritable during the summer of 1290, apparently consumed by thoughts of the ongoing negotiations with Parliament (90-91).  
• The first issues were confirming the statutes already decided upon with the Magnates of England: the Statue of Quo Warranto and the Statute of Quia Emptores. Both were conceded by the King in exchange for the support of the Magnates in demanding a tax from the Commons (92).
• The Statute of Quia Emptores prevented the feudal domains from shrinking through the sale of land. Feudal subjects could still sell their land, but the sale would not remove feudal obligations from the new owners. The land could be sold, but the new tenants would be still be the vassals of the original feudal lord (92).
• The negotiations with the Commons were rapid. The Commons approved a tax of 1/15th of the value of all moveable property owned by lay persons in exchange for King Edward expelling the Jews (92-93). 
• On July 18, 1290, orders for the expulsion of the Jews were issued to the sheriffs. By the beginning of November, all of England's 2,000 Jews had been expelled from the kingdom (92-93).
• At another Parliament held in Clipstone in November 1290, King Edward promised not to collect interest on the debts he took from the Jews. Moreover, he declared a new rationale for the expulsion, declaring it to be punishment for the Jews violating his 1275 prohibition on usury (92). 
• "Two things are clear about the expulsion. It was ordered by the king as quid pro quo for the fifteenth; and it was conceded at the specific request of the knights of the shire. What is much less clear, however, is why Edward's Christian subjects were willing to pay so much in 1290 to secure the permanent expulsion of an impoverished community of less than 2,000 Jews from the kingdom; and why it was that this demand was so specifically identified with the knights of the shire" (93).
• The Church did not make any concessions at the Parliament in June, but it did in October, granting King Edward a tax on 1/10th of all Church revenues (92). 
• In 1240, English Jews were the wealthiest group in Europe. The 4,000 to 5,000 Jews in England together owned 100,000 marks in principle on outstanding bonds plus another 100,000 marks in gold, jewels, and other moveable goods. This totally to Jews owning a sum amounting to 1/3 of all coinage in England (93).
• Between 1241 and 1258, the average annual taxation of Jews doubled, from 3,000 marks per year from the community to 6,000 marks. As a result, by 1258, around half of all Jewish wealth that had existed in 1240 had been transferred via taxation to the English crown (93).
• Jews responded to this taxation by selling their debts to Christians, especially those in the royal court, and by converting debts into perpetual annual rents. Both changes were unpopular with Christian debtors; they disliked the idea of perpetual rents paid to Jewish creditors, and the well-connected nobles who purchased debts from Jews were usually more able to be harsh about collecting on these debts, including seizing property placed as collateral (93-94).
•  The issue of nobles connected to the royal court purchasing debts from Jewish creditors was exacerbated by the massacres of Jews and burning of debt records carried out by Simon de Montfort in 1264. Creditors and debtors disputed how much was owed and the debts owned by dead Jews did not simply disappear, instead they were assigned to the king, who usually gave them out to family members (94).
• By the late 1260s, the knightly class had become severely indebted, particularly during the civil wars. These debts had initially been owed to Jews, but the purchase of these debts by Christian noblemen meant that many knights and burghers were now confronted with powerful creditors who sought to seize possession of their estates (94).
• Important noblemen were also in debt, but were not impacted by indebtedness in the same way that the minor gentry were. They had connections at court to resist the confiscation of their lands and had access to other sources of credit, neither of which were options for the minor gentry (94). 
• These grievances were repeatedly expressed at parliaments held between 1268 and 1270, during which the shire knights repeatedly refused to grant funds unless Jewish money-lending was reined in. In 1269, King Henry III submitted to these demands and prohibited the assignment of debts from Jewish creditors to Christians, as well as annulling all perpetual rents owed to Jews. Negotiations with Parliament continued and he, in exchange for taxes, he reiterate these same promises in 1270 and 1271 (95).
• The shire knights were unhappy with the outcome of these negotiations. Perpetual rents owned by Jews had been cancelled, but all those already sold to Christian creditors remained in force. Moreover, the sale of debts to Christian creditors continued as Henry III and Edward I both issued royal licenses for such transfers (95-96).
• The ineffectual nature of these laws was shown in 1274, when King Edward I imposed a tallage of 25,000 marks on the Jews. Unable to afford this tax, the Jews obtains writs of distraint to confiscate the property of debtors. Jews unable to pay were imprisoned and their debts were assigned to the king, who either collected them himself or assigned them to his wife, Queen Eleanor. Either way, the weight of the tax fell on the Christian debtors (96).
• The procedure of tallage forced much of the responsibility unto debtors, as the royal exchequer seized all bonds owned by Jews until the tallage had been paid. While in the exchequer, no interest was owed on these bonds, but this fact was not widely known. As a consequence, Christian debtors continued to paid interest on these seized debts and they continued to be sold and assigned to Christian purchasers (98).
• The Parliament assembled in 1275 complained vigorously about money-lending and debt and refused to grant King Edward the sums he had expected. In response to these complaints, he started a campaign against usury, targeting Italian merchant, who purchased pardons, but also English Christians who engaged in usury (96-97).
• The anti-usury campaign must have been successful because Parliament did grant a subsidy to King Edward when it conveyed in November 1275. This subsidy was, however, conditioned by further anti-Jewish measures, such as a total prohibition on Jews engaging in usury (97). 
• Jews were largely unsuccessful in adapting to these new laws. Some speculated in wool or grain future or became merchants, but only a few succeeded. Some, especially in rural areas, continued to engage in usury (98). 
• These measures were strictly enforced by King Edward, but did not result in a significant reduction of the indebtedness of the knights. It was good that new interest could not be collected, but this did not erase unpaid interest accrued nor the principle of the debt, both of which continued to be collected (97-98).
• Around 1285, King Edward I had considered removing the 1275 statute which prohibited the Jews from engaging in usury, recognizing that the practice continued regardless and that his royal house had previously benefited from allowing this activity and taxing the Jews. His proposal was that Jewish money-lending be tightly controlled, interest rates capped, interest existing only for set periods, debts could be assigned only with royal license, and all loans over 20 shillings recorded (99). 
• This measure was contemplated in response to a petition by the priesthood to control Jewish money-lending, which still continued. It never became law, but the fact that it was discussed raised the possibility that Jewish usury might be legalized again in the future, in repudiation of the 1275 laws (99-100). 
• The Parliament did not trust Edward I to keep his word, as he had a reputation for going back on his promises. This was seemingly shown throughout the whole history of anti-Jewish legislation, where the monarchy either did not enforce the laws or gave licenses to allow the hated assignment of debts to Christians to continue. Permanently expelling the Jews was a way to force a solution to the problem of Jewish usury that the king could not go back on (100).
• The nobles were right to distrust King Edward I, as he tried to circumvent two of the most important concessions granted during 1290, the statutes on quo warranto and quia emptores. By 1292, Edward I had against shifted quo warranto cases back to the King's Bench and rejected longstanding enjoyment as a basis. On quia emptores, he demanded royal licenses for the sale of feudal holdings (100-101).
• The idea of expelling the Jews from England was not new. It had been proposed as far back as the 1180s and the Jews had been expelled from individual towns and cities. Edward I had even temporarily expelled them from Gascony in 1287 (100). 
• A group of English Jews residing in France petitioned King Edward II to return to England in 1310, but no such petitions were made during the reign of Edward I. It is possible that the recent history of the Jews in England was so bitter that they did not wish to return. The other possibility is that they were aware that their expulsion was the essential piece of the compromise between Edward I and his country and that their return was politically impossible (101). 

 

This is another perspective on the history leading up to the 1290 expulsion of the Jews from England. The demand for the expulsion came from the Commons in Parliament, who were the representatives of the lower gentry and townsfolk. These classes had become heavily indebted to Jewish money-lenders during the civil wars of the 1250s and 1260s and, as a result, suffered from every aspect of royal policy on the Jews. Revenues to pay for royal taxation of the Jews were extracted from this class of debtors and also prompted the sale of those debts to well-connected nobles who seized mortgaged estates. The Commons had repeatedly demanded the the king take action to restrain usurious practices, but the policies employed did not change the fact that many were in debt to Jews or their Christian assignees. In the late 1280s, it seemed possible that King Edward I might reverse his 1275 decree prohibiting Jews from money-lending, so their expulsion was demanded as a way to permanently end what was perceived as the root cause of the lower gentry's indebtedness.

 -- Eunice Noh, December 2025