=1. The Next Fifty Years.=――Throughout the minority and during the long reign of Henry III. (1216‒1272) things grew worse and worse for the Jews. The ‘_Hep, Hep_,’ had not sounded so often for the last century without leaving echoes. Even when and where the connection of the cry with the crusades had grown somewhat faint, it kept its full and terrible significance for the Jews. Church, and State, and people, all seemed to unite in oppressing them, and each to have its own separate cause and justification for oppression. The Church, which had grown fierce in its fanaticism, hated Jews simply as Jews, and persecuted them religiously. The State regarded them as a gold mine, to be worked as profitably, and with as little personal or familiar contact, as was possible. The populace, who were necessarily brought into closer relations with Jews than were either the priests or the barons, looked on them with a curious mixture of unwilling admiration and superstitious dislike. They could not but recognise that the superior intelligence and thrift of the despised Jews were at least among the causes which contributed to their greater wealth. It is not pleasant to have to acknowledge that one’s social inferiors are morally and intellectually superior to one’s self. The Jews of England at this period were very different from the Jews of Spain, but there are degrees of difference; low as they had fallen from the level of what Jews should be, they were yet far less ignorant and superstitious than were most of their neighbours. They prayed to God instead of invoking saints, and they trusted in temperance and cleanliness, rather than in doubtful ‘relics,’ to ward off physical ills. Their knowledge, however, like their religion, was often another danger to the Jews. If they tried to teach the child of some Christian neighbour, or succeeded in healing a sick person, or in helping a poor one, any such kindly ministration was more likely to be looked on with suspicion than with gratitude. Jews were compelled, too, in this reign to wear a distinctive dress, and how could the wearers of a white badge[27] move about among their fellows without a sense of aloofness which must have made any familiar and wholesome intercourse impossible? And often, in order that the royal treasury might be kept well filled, and the ‘protection’ of the king secured, the Jews were forced to prey upon the people. Their neighbours could not have liked them if they would, and thus, Jews were quite alone in the kingdom, left to themselves, without the chance of making a friend among the populace, or the priests, or the nobles.