which the offence of usury was to be avoided by the substitution of a recompense in kind for interest in money. Other bonds for repayment of money alone are mentioned in the same registers as having been executed after 1275, and every one of the kind that was executed between that date and the date of the amendment of the Statute against usury may be safely considered to represent a transaction which was an offence, either veiled or open, against the prohibition.[152] The temptation to transgress the Statute of 1275 could appeal only to Jews with capital, but on the poorer Jews other temptations acted with even more strength and even worse results. The only reputable careers known to have been open to the poorer Jews were to become servants in the houses of their rich co-religionists,[153] or else to imitate in a humble way their financial transactions, either by keeping pawnshops,[154] or by carrying on, in towns where there was no recognised Jewry, business of the same kind as that of the rich money-lenders in the larger Jewish settlements. To follow these pursuits was now impossible, in consequence, not only of the prohibition of usury, but also of the strictness with which Edward enforced the old legislation against the residence of Jews in towns where there did not exist a chest for the deposit of Jewish debts, and a staff of clerks to witness and register them.[155] There was thus nothing to which the poorer Jews could turn. Crowded as unwelcome intruders into a small and decreasing number of towns,[156] without legal standing or industrial skill, hated by the people and declared accursed by the Church, they were bidden to support themselves under conditions which made the task impossible unless they could take by storm the citadel of municipal privilege which bade defiance to the “greatest of the Plantagenets” throughout his reign. Under such conditions degeneration was inevitable. Some of the Jews are said to have taken to highway robbery and burglary;[157] some went into the House of Converts, where they got 1½d. a day and free lodging.[158] But to the dishonest there was open a far more profitable form of dishonesty than either of those already mentioned, viz., clipping the coin.