The coronation of King Richard on September 3, 1189, was disgraced by a massacre of the Jews—the first example of anti-Jewish feeling. Perhaps when they first came over these unfortunate people hoped that no traditional hatred of the race existed in England. Experience, alas! might have taught them, perhaps had taught them, that hatred grew up round the footsteps of the Infidel as quickly as the thistles in the field. When the Jew arrived in England what could he do? He could not trade because the merchants had their guilds; and every guild had its church, its saint, its priests, its holy days. He could not hold land because every acre had its own lord, and could only be transferred by an Act including a declaration of faith; he could not become a lawyer or a physician because the avenues to these professions lay also through the Church. Did a man wish to build a bridge, he must belong to the Holy Brotherhood of Bridge-Builders—Pontifices. Was an architect wanted, he was looked for in a Monastery. The scholars, the physicians, the artists were men of the cloister. Even the minstrels, gleemen, jugglers, tumblers, dancers, buffoons, and mimes, though the Church did not bless their calling, would have scorned to suffer a Jew among them. That was the position of the Jew. Every calling closed to him, every door shut. There was, however, one way open, but a way of contempt, a way accursed by the Church, a way held impossible to the Christian. He might practise usury. The lending of money for profit was absolutely forbidden by the Church. He who carried on this business was accounted as excommunicated. If he died while carrying it on, his goods were forfeited and fell to the Crown. In the matter of usury the Church had always been firm and consistent. The Church, through one or two of the Fathers, had even denounced trade. St. Augustine plainly said that in selling goods no addition was to be made to the price for which they were bought, a method which if carried out would destroy all trade except barter. So that while the usurer was accursed by the Church, to the King he became a large and very valuable asset. Every Jew who became rich, by his death enriched the King. It was calculated (see Joseph Jacobs, _The Jews of Angevin England_) that the Jews contributed every year one-twelfth of the King’s revenues. The interest charged by the usurer was in those days enormously high, forty per cent and even more: so that it is easy to understand how rich a Jew might become and how strong would be the temptation to squeeze him. [Illustration: FIRST SEAL OF RICHARD I.]