Again, as a rule, though doubtless with many exceptions, the popes were more merciful to them than were the sovereigns of any other Christian land. Some pontiffs, as, for example, Gregory I., Innocents II. and IV., Alexander IV., Nicolases III. and V., Martin V., and others, showed them marked favour; while others, if they evinced no partiality, at least discouraged persecution, disregarded idle charges, and would allow no violence. Some doubtless issued harsh decrees and curtailed the privileges granted by their predecessors, but such oppression as John of England, Philip Augustus, and Philip the Fair of France exhibited in their dealings with their Hebrew subjects may fairly be said to have been unknown among them. This was in most instances due to the fact that the popes, however low may have been the moral standard of many among them, were as a rule men of cultivation and intelligence, in whose ears the popular charges against the Jews must needs have sounded as idle calumnies.[136] Many among them also were wise enough—if it was only worldly wisdom—to know that conversions effected by force were many degrees worse than unconverted obstinacy, and on that ground forbade such to be attempted.[137] But there was another and a weightier reason for the immunity from persecution enjoyed by the Jews; and that was, that they were not the sole—in truth, not even the chief—usurers and money-lenders in Italy. The Caorsini, as the Italian bankers were called (presumably from their having first practised their calling in Cahors), were the persons employed by the popes to collect their revenues, an office almost everywhere else entrusted to the Jews. The Caorsini carried on business, though only to a trifling extent, comparatively speaking, in other lands, notably France and England. Henry III. would have expelled them from England if they had not claimed the protection of the Holy Father. It is probably to them that Bernard of Clairvaulx refers when he speaks of usurers more exorbitant in their demands than the Jews themselves. If indeed it is true that their practice was to demand five per cent. per month (after the first month[138]) for their loans, this charge is justifiable enough. These Italian usurers drove a trade in their native land, which, if it did not monopolize the business of the country, at all events threw all competition into the shade. They farmed the tribute and taxes of all kinds levied by the popes on the Christian kingdoms of Europe. They provided subsidies for crowned heads, advanced sums on mortgage to the nobles, and loans to merchants and small traders, and were popularly said to be worse Jews than the Hebrews themselves. There were doubtless many Jewish merchants—and wealthy ones—in the great Italian cities, who carried on an extensive and profitable business in money-lending. But they were not, as in neighbouring lands, the universal creditors, and therefore escaped the general detestation