A favorable opportunity soon presented itself to the enemies of the Jews to prefer grave charges against them. Counterfeit coins, imported from abroad, were in circulation in England; the coin of the country also was often clipped. The charge was directed against the Jews, that they were the sole originators and circulators of the counterfeit coins. In consequence of this, on Friday, 17th November, 1278, all the Jews of England, together with their wives and children, were thrown into prison, and their houses searched. It was afterwards proved that many Christians, and even some noblemen of London, had been guilty of counterfeiting the coin of the realm, and that throughout the whole kingdom only 293 Jews had been convicted of the crime of which they were accused. Nevertheless, over 10,000 Jews were made to suffer for this act, and whilst the Christians who were implicated, with the exception of three, were liberated on payment of a fine, the 293 Jews were hanged, others sentenced to imprisonment for life, and still others expelled from the country and their possessions confiscated. But the hatred against them was not spent. The Jews continued to be accused of passing counterfeit coins, and their enemies tried to smuggle them into their possession, and then by threatening to denounce them, extorted money from them. Edward, who became acquainted with these intrigues, issued a law (May, 1279), which enacted that charges of tampering with the coin of the realm could only be brought forward till the May of the following year, and thus put a stop to all these denunciations.
The enemies of the Jews, however, did not tire of forging new charges against them. It was soon reported that the Jews of Northampton had crucified a Christian child. For this alleged crime many Jews in London were torn asunder by horses, and their corpses hung on the gallows (2nd April, 1279). Next, the Jews were charged with acts of disrespect to Christian emblems. The king thereupon issued a decree that the blasphemers were to be punished with death. As, however, Edward knew his people, he added that the accused were to receive punishment only if convicted by the evidence of honest, impartial witnesses of the transgression. In order to lead the Jews on to blasphemous acts, the Dominicans devised an infamous trick. They besought the king to permit them to preach to the Jews for the purpose of converting them. They knew that one or other of them would be transported by zeal for his religion, and would make use of an offensive expression. Edward granted them this permission at the request of the prior (1280), and warned the Jews to listen to the sermons of the Dominicans patiently, without turbulence, contradiction, or blasphemy. To promote their conversion, the king even sacrificed money. The extraordinary law, that the Jews who went over to Christianity were to forfeit their property to the treasury, Edward partly abrogated, and decreed that they might retain a half. He moreover ordered the erection of a house for converts of the Jewish race, and endowed it with a revenue, which, however, flowed mainly into the pockets of the overseer. A scholastic philosopher of that time suggested another means for the conversion of the Jews. The celebrated Franciscan monk, Duns Scotus (professor at Oxford, afterwards in Paris and Cologne), who had nurtured his mind with the thoughts of the Jewish philosopher Gebirol, held that it was the duty of the king, if he wished to show Christian zeal, to tear Jewish children away from their parents, and cause them to be educated in the Christian faith. Still more, it was perfectly justifiable to force the parents themselves, by all sorts of threats, to submit to baptism. How much respect the Jews entertained for the Christianity of the worldly-minded and rapacious popes, ferocious princes, and sensual monks, is shown by a peculiar incident. A Jewess complained to the king that her own and her husband's enemies had defamed her by calling her a convert, and she entreated him to secure her redress for this insult. Whilst the queen-mother, Eleanor, was exerting herself at the instance of the Dominicans to inflame the king and the people against the Jews, the queen, also named Eleanor, bestowed her favor on them. She prayed the king to confer the vacant chief rabbinate of the English congregation on her favorite Hagin (Chayim) Denlacres. The king granted her prayer, and installed Hagin as chief rabbi, with all the powers and privileges which his predecessors had enjoyed (15th May, 1281).
When the king settled the chief rabbinate of England on Hagin and his heirs, he had no thought of expelling the Jews from his kingdom. Gradually, however, the fanatical party and his mother gained more influence over him, and disturbed his clear perceptions. This party in England, probably the Dominicans, appeared before the newly-elected pope, Honorius IV, lodging the serious accusations against the Jews, that they not only held friendly intercourse with Christians, but that they encouraged the return of baptized Jews to Judaism, invited Christians on Sabbaths and festivals to the synagogue, made them bend the knee before the Torah, and enticed them to adopt Jewish customs. The pope accordingly sent a missive to the archbishop of York and his legate, bidding them employ every means to put a stop to this improper conduct. On the 16th of April, 1287, a Church assembly was held in Exeter, which renewed all the hateful canonical resolutions against the Jews. A fortnight later (2nd May) the king for the second time ordered the arrest of all English Jews with their wives and children, an act for which no cause can be assigned. Nor did he release them until he received a large ransom. Three years later, in 1290, Edward, instigated by his mother, issued an edict on his own authority, without the consent of Parliament, that all the Jews of England were to be banished from the country. They were given till the first of November to change their goods into money. Any Jew found on English soil after that date was to be hanged. But they had to restore all pledges of Christian debtors to their owners before that time. Edward was mild enough strongly to impress upon his officials not to molest the Jews on their departure, and he warned the sailing-masters at the five ports not to insult them. Although their respite lasted till the 1st of November, the 16,511 Jews of England left the country by the 9th of October. The real estate which they had not succeeded in selling, escheated to the king. In spite of the king's orders, the expelled Jews were exposed to all sorts of ill-treatment. One captain, who was employed to convey several families down the Thames to the sea, ran the ship against a sandbank, and made them disembark until the rising of the tide. When the tide began to return, he re-embarked, and his sailors went aboard, sailed away, and called out scornfully to the despairing Jews, "Cry unto Moses, who led your ancestors safely through the Red Sea, to bring you to dry land." The unhappy people perished in the waves. This affair came to the ears of the judges, and the ringleaders were hanged as murderers. How many similar incidents may have occurred and remained unpunished! The Jews of Gascony, which at that time belonged to England, were also expelled. The banished Jews directed their steps to France, the nearest refuge. There they were at first received by Philip IV, le Bel. But soon after the king and the Parliament together decreed that the Jews who had been driven out of England and Gascony were to leave French territory by the middle of Lent. Once more were they compelled to set out on their pilgrimage; some of them went to Germany, the others probably to northern Spain.
As if an evil destiny were pursuing the sons of Jacob, like a shadow, never leaving them for a moment, the short spell of fortune enjoyed through Saad-Addaula by the Jews of Asia soon turned to destruction. The physician of the Grand Khan of Persia had drawn attention to the fraudulent conduct of the finance officials; for which service he had been appointed commissary, and sent to Bagdad to investigate the condition of the revenue, and to bring the fraudulent administrators to account (end of 1288). Saad-Addaula succeeded in restoring the revenues to such order, that he was able to remit to the Grand Khan Argun considerable sums, which he had not expected. Argun, who loved gold, was delighted with his Jewish commissary, and distinguished him by all possible marks of honor. As Saad-Addaula acted disinterestedly, and was concerned only for the good of his master, he was able continually to put larger sums of money into the treasury, and thus won for himself ever more favor from this great khan. Ultimately Argun appointed him minister of finance for the whole Iranian (Persian) empire, and conferred on him the honorable title of Saad-Addaula, "Support of the Empire" (summer, 1288). He was ordered to employ only Jews and Christians in offices, as the khan disliked Mahometans on account of their rebellious attitude. It was natural that Saad-Addaula should employ his relatives, for he could best depend upon their zeal to assist him in his difficult office. Through the fidelity with which Saad-Addaula served his master, he won so much confidence, that nearly all state affairs went through his hands, and he had the authority to make decisions without referring the points to the great khan. Probably through his instrumentality and advice Argun established diplomatic connections with Europe, and even with the pope. Through the help of the Europeans, the Mahometans were to be driven out of Asia Minor, particularly out of Palestine. The pope, however, flattered himself that Argun would become a member of the Catholic Church.
The Jewish minister, indeed, deserved the high favor with which Argun honored him. Where hitherto there had prevailed license and abuse of power in the empire, he introduced law and order. The military captains were forbidden to interfere with the administration of justice, the legal tribunals were admonished to protect the weak and the innocent. As the Mongols had no judicial code, Saad-Addaula put the Mahometan laws into force, as far as they bore upon the civil and penal administration of justice. The peaceful population blessed him for the security of life and property for which they were indebted to him. Saad-Addaula also patronized learning, settled handsome annuities upon learned men and poets, and encouraged them in their literary undertakings. In consequence he was extolled and praised by men of letters in prose and verse.
The Eastern Jews felt themselves happy and exalted through the elevation of their co-religionist to the highest post of the empire. From the most remote countries there flowed a stream of Jews to the Persian Khanate, to bask in the favor of the Jewish minister. They unanimously said, "God has elevated this man in the latter days as a Lord of Redemption and to sustain our hope." Neo-Hebraic poetry, which had arisen in the East, but had sunk into jarring discord, or become altogether silent, appears to have recovered in order to proclaim his glory.
Saad-Addaula, however, had aroused many powerful enemies through his resolute administration and his love of justice and order. The Mahometans, who were shut out of every office, beheld, with deep vexation, that Jews and Christians, whom they were accustomed to despise as infidel dogs, were in possession of the government. They were, moreover, urged on by their priests and learned men to a most violent hatred of the Jewish statesman, to whom they imputed their humiliation. They accordingly spread the report that Saad-Addaula was contemplating the establishment of a new religion, and the proclamation of the great khan as the religious lawgiver and prophet. To excite their bigotry still more, they reported that Saad-Addaula had completed preparations for an expedition to Mecca, to transform the hallowed abode of the Kaaba into an idolatrous temple and to compel the Mahometans once more to become heathens. The order of the Ishmaelite murderers, the Assassins, which was organized for the purpose of putting to death actual or supposed enemies of Islam, immediately made arrangements clandestinely to remove Saad-Addaula and his relatives. But their plot was betrayed, and it was frustrated by him.
The Jewish minister had many opponents even among the Mongols. The military captains were incensed against him, because he had laid a restraint upon their license. A conspiracy was hatched also in Mongol circles. It was given out that he had commissioned a Jew, Neglib-Eddin, to proceed to Khorasan and put to death two hundred of the most distinguished Mongols; and that his relative, Shem-Addaula, had received instructions to remove many priests and chiefs of the city. Unfortunately, Argun fell seriously ill (November, 1290), and his sickness was a signal for the discontented to make a conspiracy against Saad-Addaula and his adherents. The minister, in vain, exerted himself to secure the recovery of the Khan, for he saw that the latter's death meant his own. He even sent a messenger secretly to Argun's son to ensure his speedy return to the court, in order that he might seize the crown immediately after his father's death. When they received intimation of these precautionary measures, the Mongol magnates, who observed that Argun's end was near, pushed the accomplishment of their conspiracy. They executed Saad-Addaula (March, 1291), and slew all Argun's favorites. Argun died seven days later. The conspirators thereupon despatched messengers to all provinces, ordered Saad-Addaula's relatives to be thrown into chains, their property to be confiscated, and their wives and children to be sold as slaves. The Mahometan population also fell upon the Jews in every city of the empire, to wreak their vengeance upon them for the degradation which they had suffered from the Mongols. In Bagdad there were numerous encounters between armed bodies of Mahometans and Jews, and on both sides many were killed and wounded.
Two months later the great Jewish community of St. Jean d'Acre (Accho), which shortly before had been put into a state of tumult by Solomon Petit, was completely blotted out. The Egyptian sultan, Almalek Alashraf, undertook a campaign to drive the last of the crusaders out of Palestine and Syria. He besieged the fortified city of Accho for more than a month, and then took it by storm (18th May, 1291). Not only all the Christians, but many Jews who happened to be in the city were executed. Others were cast into prison, and among them Isaac of Accho, a zealous but unintellectual Kabbalist, whose candor forced him, much against his will, to expose the halo of divinity, with which the Kabbala had surrounded itself, as mere mummery.