Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 10.pdf/474

 Jurnet, Jew of Norwich, and his Wife.

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town on a busy market day, or he may have the thirty-fifth year of the reign of King been of the motley crowd that gazed at her as Henry II, in the presence of John, Bishop she sat high in the gallery at the tour of Norwich," and so forth and so forth, nament. We cannot tell. Yet meet they granted to the said Jurnet a messuage in did, and this bold, bright-eyed, young Jew the town of Norwich, " to be held by him won the love of the high-born lady, and and his heirs by the service of four shillings they were married in the year of our Lord, per annum." eleven hundred and eighty-six. Here we may believe that Jurnet and Now it was not lawful for a Jew to marry Miryld lived happily in the midst of the a Christian, and therefore Jurnet had to flee family which came to them, for we find that the realm of England and to take his newly- they had at least two children, a son Isaac wedded bride beyond the sea, and his char and a daughter Margaret, a son whom we ters and chattels were seized and sold to hope was worthy of a father so bold and other Jews, and the Lady Miryld escheated energetic and a daughter as fair and true as her lands, — all to the great profit of His her lady mother. Royal Highness, the King, who, as usual, From this time Jurnet and Miryld pros put the purchase price of the charters into pered, for the Pipe Rolls show that he made his pocket and took possession of the broad many new mortgages and succeeded again Norfolk meadows of the unfortunate lady. in building up his fortune, and the king This is but the beginning of the story, for showed only too often that he had not for Jurnet was a man of energy and resource, gotten this Jurnet, who was living in Eng and the Lady Miryld evidently loved her land "with his good will" for many were dear old England and was unhappy abroad. the heavy taxes which he levied upon him. Jurnet too probably had a love for England, But the tale has yet to run. We find where he had already made a fortune and that Jurnet and his father-in-law, Sir Humgained eminence in the community. We fry de Erlham, in a most curious way be suspect that he shrewdly had not left all his came friends. The proud old knight had money behind him in the forfeited charters, come to his son-in-law for help, and Jurnet but had taken precaution for flight, like the lent him money on mortgages. But even wise man that he was. So we are not sur this was not enough, and Sir Humfry got prised when three years later, in 1189, we into a dispute with his brother, Sir Ralf, find this entry among the king's accounts : — over a business transaction. We believe "Jurnet Juda;us de Nonvico debett M & that this was but a pretext. D C C C marcas, pro habenda residentia We suspect that Sir Ralf, for a suitable sua in Anglia cum benevolentia Regis." cash consideration had induced his august "Jurnet, Jew of Norwich, owes eighteen sovereign to make over to him the lands hundred marks for having residence in Eng which the Lady Miryld had escheated, and land with the good will of the King." that since then he had looked with envious So Jurnet and his family again return to eyes upon the goodly acres still left to Sir England. But this is not all. Not only Humfry. He was determined to own the had he the right to return to England " with Erlham estate, that he might set up as a the good will of the King," but he had pro country gentleman and take rank among vided a new and suitable home for his wife, the gentlefolk of Norwich town. But Sir the fair Lady Miryld. For five marks of Humfry would not sell, and what Sir Ralf silver, William Curzun, by an agreement could not get by fair means he determined made " in the court of our Lord the King to win by guile. So he went to a certain at Oxford, in the octave of St. Hilary, in disreputable Jew, Isaac by name, who had