at hand, and might invariably be reckoned upon.  They created capital, for they always had funds to dispose of, even in the midst of the most terrible public calamities, and, when all other means were exhausted, when all expedients for filling empty purses had been resorted to without success, the Jews were called in.  Often, in consequence of the envy which they excited from being known to possess hoards of gold, they were exposed to many dangers, which they nevertheless faced, buoying themselves up with the insatiable love of gain.

Few Christians in the Middle Ages were given to speculation, and they were especially ignorant of financial matters, as demanding interest on loans was almost always looked upon as usury, and, consequently, such dealings were stigmatized as disgraceful.  The Jews were far from sharing these high-minded scruples, and they took advantage of the ignorance of Christians by devoting themselves as much as possible to enterprises and speculations, which were at all times the distinguishing occupation of their race.  For this reason we find the Jews, who were engaged in the export trade from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries, doing a most excellent business, even in the commercial towns of the Mediterranean.  We can, to a certain extent, in speaking of the intercourse of the Jews with the Christians of the Middle Ages, apply what Lady Montague remarked as late as 1717, when comparing the Jews of Turkey with the Mussulmans:  “The former,” she says, “have monopolized all the commerce of the empire, thanks to the close ties which exist amongst them, and to the laziness and want of industry of the Turks.  No bargain is made without their connivance.  They are the physicians and stewards of all the nobility.  It is easy to conceive the unity which this gives to a nation which never despises the smallest profits.  They have found means of rendering themselves so useful, that they are certain of protection at court, whoever the ruling minister may be.  Many of them are enormously rich, but they are careful to make but little outward display, although living in the greatest possible luxury.”

[Illustration:  Fig. 365.—­Costume of an Italian Jew of the Fourteenth Century.—­From a Painting by Sano di Pietro, preserved in the Academy of the Fine Arts, at Sienna.]

[Illustration:  The Jews’ Passover.

Fac-simile of a miniature from a missel of fifteenth century ornamented with paintings of the School of Van Eyck.  Bibl. de l’Arsenal, Th. lat., no 199.]

The condition of the Jews in the East was never so precarious nor so difficult as it was in the West.  From the Councils of Paris, in 615, down to the end of the fifteenth century, the nobles and the civil and ecclesiastical authorities excluded the Jews from administrative positions; but it continually happened that a positive want of money, against which the Jews were ever ready to provide, caused a repeal or modification of these arbitrary measures.  Moreover, Christians