The opening years of the sixteenth century found the Jews fully restored to the rights of which their enemies had attempted to rob them at the end of the preceding century. Alexander Yaghello, the very same Lithuanian Grand Duke who, from some obscure motive, had banished the Jews from his dominions in 1495,[45] found it necessary to call them back as soon as he ascended the throne of Poland, after the demise of his brother. In 1503, "having consulted the lords of the realm," King Alexander announced his decision to the effect that the Jews exiled from Grodno and other cities of Lithuania should be allowed to return and settle "near the castles and in the localities in which they had lived formerly," and should be given back the houses, synagogues, cemeteries, farms, and fields, which had previously been in their possession. The reasons for this change of front may easily be traced to the vast economic importance of the Jews of the Polish Kingdom, which had shortly before, in 1501, entered into a closer union with Lithuania, and to the invaluable services of the Jewish tax-farmers, on whom the royal budget to a large extent depended. One of these "royal financiers" was the wealthy Yosko,[46] who farmed the customs and tolls in nearly half of Poland. To stimulate the endeavors of his financier, King Alexander exempted Yosko and his employees from the authority of the local administration, placing him, after the manner of court dignitaries, under the jurisdiction of the royal court. But, taken as a whole, the King was even now far from friendly to the Jews. In 1505 he permitted the inclusion of the ancient charter of Boleslav of Kalish, the _magna charta_ of Jewish liberties, in the code of organic Polish laws, which was then being edited by the chancellor John Laski. But he was careful to point out that he did not thereby intend to ratify Boleslav's charter anew, but allowed its reproduction "for the purpose of safeguarding [the Christian population] against the Jews" (_ad cautelam defensionis contra Judaeos_).