| Aaron Of Lincoln |
Article Index for Aaron |
Website Links For Aaron |
Information AboutAaron Of Lincoln |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT AARON OF LINCOLN | |
| english businesspeople | |
| court jews | |
| english jews | |
| 1125 births | |
| 1186 deaths | |
|
Aaron not only advanced money on land, but also on corn, armor, and houses, and in this way acquired an interest in properties scattered through the eastern and southern counties of England. By the time he died, in 1186, he was the second richest man in Britain, after the king himself. Upon his death Henry II seized his property as the Escheat of a Jew ish usurer (see Usury ), and the English crown thus became universal heir to his estate. The actual cash treasure accumulated by Aaron was sent over to France to assist Henry in his war with Philip Augustus , but the vessel containing it went down on the voyage between Shoreham and Dieppe . However, the indebtedness of the smaller barons and knights still remained, and fell into the hands of the king to the amount of £15,000 ($75,000, probably equal to $2,500,000 at the present day), owed by some four hundred and thirty persons distributed over the English counties. So large was the amount that a separate division of the Exchequer was constituted, entitled "Aaron's Exchequer" (Madox, ''History of the Exchequer,'' folio ed., p. 745), and was continued till at least 1201, that is, fifteen years later, for on the pipe-roll of that year most of the debts to Aaron (about £7,500) are recorded as still outstanding to the king, showing that only half the debts had been paid over by that time, though, on the death of Aaron, the payment of interest ceased automatically, since the king, as a Christian, could not accept usury. The house of Aaron of Lincoln still stands, and is probably the oldest private stone dwelling in England the date of which can be fixed with precision (before 1186). Originally the house had no windows on the ground floor—an omission probably intended to increase the facilities for protection or defense. Pictures of the house are availabe here . Aaron's significance is due to the fact that his career illustrates the manner in which the medieval Jewish communities could be organized into a banking association reaching throughout an entire country; while the ultimate fate of the wealth thus acquired shows that, in the last resort, the state was the arch-usurer and obtained the chief benefit from Jewish usury. EXTERNAL LINKS REFERENCES
|
|
|