Bishops supported with eagerness the charge of child-murder repeatedly brought against the Jews,[264] though Popes and Councils had declared it to be groundless[265]; and the judge who showed the greatest eagerness for the punishment of the Jewish prisoners who were accused on the monstrous charge of having murdered Hugh of Lincoln, was a man who was held in especial honour by his contemporaries as a scholar and “a circumspect and discreet man.”[266] Thus the Christians were not likely to endure the Jews as neighbours and fellow-workers, and the Jews, even if they had been permitted, would have been as little willing to live the life and follow the ordinary pursuits of citizens. It was not that they loved usury as a calling. On the contrary, they entered willingly into all those professions that gave them the opportunity of being their own masters and living according to their own fashion. Many of them were physicians, and among the most esteemed in Europe.[267] In Italy, where the municipal and gild organisations were easier to enter, and less narrow and exacting in their constitution, than those of England,[268] they worked at trades.[269] In Sicily, under Frederic II., some Jews were employed as administrators, and many more were agriculturists.[270] In Rome, one was treasurer of the household of Pope Alexander III., and in Southern France another filled the same office under Count Raymond, of Toulouse.[271] In Austria, they were the financial ministers of the Archduke,[272] and in Spain, one was chamberlain to Alphonso the Wise, and many others were in the service of the same king.[273] In England, some Jews were attached to the Court of Henry III., and treated with special favour; others were useful and valued adherents of Richard, King of the Romans,[274] and, after the prohibition of usury, others, as we have seen, became corn-merchants, and wool-merchants. But the whole character of the Jews, their religious beliefs, and their national hopes, were such as to make repellent to them those close relations with Christians and Englishmen which would have been necessary if they had entered into the feudal or municipal organisations of the Middle Ages. Though there was no religious obstacle to prevent them from entering a Gild, still they could not, without violating their religion, eat at a Gild feast, or take part in its religious ceremonies. Their teachers, like those of the Church, warned them against social intercourse with the Christians, “lest it might lead to inter-marriage.”[275] They did not speak the English language.[276] They remained willingly outside the national and municipal life.