The prior, when writing of the miracles performed by the body of that famous saint (which was preserved in his monastery), tells us that “whereas people flocked from all parts of the kingdom to worship St. Frideswide, and were cured by her of all manner of distempers; a certain Jew of Oxford called Eum Crescat, the son of Mossey, the Jew, of Wallingford, was so impudent as to laugh at her votaries, and tell them that he could cure their infirmities as well as the saint herself, and therefore hoped they would make him the same offerings. To prove which he would sometimes crook his fingers, and then pretend he had miraculously made them straight again; at other times he would halt like a cripple, and then in a few minutes skip and dance about, bidding the crowd observe how suddenly he had cured himself. Wherefore (the most devout amongst them wishing some exemplary judgment might befall him) St. Frideswide, no longer able to suffer his insolence, caused him suddenly to run mad and hang himself; which he did with his own girdle, in his father’s kitchen.” Upon which, says the historian, “he was, according to custom, conveyed in a cart to London, all the dogs of the city following his detestable corpse, and yelping in a most frightful manner.” The Jews having experienced so much favour and protection from the first three Norman monarchs, were naturally led to hope that they had found in this country a permanent asylum from their persecutions. Under this impression, they had employed the season of their tranquillity in the acquirement of property. They were, however, soon made to experience the fallacy of their expectations; for with the accumulation of wealth their security vanished, and as their riches increased, so, in proportion, did their oppressions. From the period of this monarch’s death to the time of their expulsion, your histories abound with details of their hardships. A melancholy monotony pervades the history of those two hundred years. Indeed, the treatment which they received in this country, during that period, was of a nature more disgraceful than that they received in other parts of Europe; for while elsewhere, as in Spain and Germany, the monarchs generally exerted themselves to repress the hostility of the clergy and people, the English kings, scarcely one excepted, manifested as persecuting a spirit as any of their subjects. It would be as useless as it would be tedious, to notice each particular instance of cruelty and tyranny which is mentioned to have been exercised towards them, for there is scarcely a year without some records concerning them, and hardly a record which relates to them but furnishes some evidence of their sufferings. Taxes and contributions to an exorbitant amount, were continually imposed upon them at the mere will of the crown, and payment enforced by seizure of their properties, by imprisonment, and frequently by the infliction of the most cruel and wanton bodily torture.