It was the gold of the Jew that filled the royal treasury at the outbreak of war or of revolt.

It was in the Hebrew coffers that the foreign kings found strength, to hold their baronage at bay.
[Sidenote: Popular Hatred of the Jews] That the presence of the Jew was, at least in the earlier years of his settlement, beneficial to the nation at large there can be little doubt.
His arrival was the arrival of a capitalist; and heavy as was the usury he necessarily exacted in the general insecurity of the time his loans gave an impulse to industry.

The century which followed the Conquest witnessed an outburst of architectural energy which covered the land with castles and cathedrals; but castle and cathedral alike owed their erection to the loans of the Jew.

His own example gave a new vigour to domestic architecture.

The buildings which, as at Lincoln and Bury St.Edmund's, still retain their name of "Jews' Houses" were almost the first houses of stone which superseded the mere hovels of the English burghers.