Note 116 — Chapter XXII · : Industry and Trade in Pontdebois. The Great Fair.

The extreme difficulty of collecting loans made to powerful seigneurs went far to explain these astonishing rates of interest. The chances of an unfriended Jew being unable to collect any part of his loan were extremely great. As a rule his hopes lay in becoming the indispensable man of business and financier of a king or other great lord who would support him in recovering principal and interest from lesser debtors, in return for great favors to himself. Thus Richard I of England is alleged to have made the Jews settled in his realm furnish nearly one third of his entire revenues, as recompense for allowing them to use his courts to collect from their private debtors.