Edward began his reign in financial dependence on the Italians. His father had in the earliest period of his personal government incurred obligations to them which he himself, as heir apparent, had to increase considerably at the time of his Crusade.[109] When in later years he needed money to pay his army, he borrowed it from them; when he diverted to his own use the tenth that was voted for his intended second Crusade, they gave security for repayment.[110] So great were the amounts that they advanced to him, that between 1298 and 1308 the Friscobaldi Bianchi alone, one of the thirty-four companies that he employed,[111] received in repayment nearly £100,000.[112] He was compelled to favour them, although he attempted to stop their usury. He gave them a charter of privileges.[113] He presented them with large sums of money. He bestowed on the head of one of their firms high office in Gascony. At various times he placed under their charge the collection of the Customs in many of the chief ports in England.[114] Edward’s close connection with a body of financiers so rich and powerful made the Jews unnecessary to him. If he was not to disobey the decree of the Council of Lyons he must either withdraw his protection from them or else forbid them any longer to be usurers. To withdraw his protection from them would be to expose them to the popular hatred, the danger from which had been the justification of the relations that had been established between Crown and Jewry after 1190, and still existed. He chose the second alternative. In 1275 he issued a statute, in which he absolutely forbade the Jews, as he had just forbidden Christians,[115] to practise usury in the future. He gave warning that usurious contracts would no longer be enforced by the king’s officers, and he declared the making of them to be an offence for which henceforth both parties were liable to punishment. To ensure that all those contracts already existing should come to an end as quickly as possible, he ordered that all movables that were in pledge on account of loans were to be redeemed before the coming Easter.[116] VII.--EDWARD’S POLICY: THE JEWS AND TRADE. Thus the Jews, already shut out from the feudal and municipal organisation of the country, were forbidden by one act of legislation to follow the pursuit in which the kings of England had encouraged them for two hundred years.