Charles Lamb once observed that the human species was formed of two distinct races: those who borrow and those who lend. It is obviously true that the fate of one of these races must necessarily aff ect the other: the one is inevitably dependent on the other. It is therefore essential to turn our attention to the late thirteenth-century Jews' clients in more detail and to try to ascertain whether they were genuine beneficiaries of credit facilities or whether they were ensnared, as some contemporaries observed, in financial thraldom. It is also important to determine whether the Christian beneficiaries of Jewish capital were a real force in the decision to expel their creditors in 1290. It is a fair assumption that those using Jewish credit were comparatively few in number; but were they a minority who could have had some influence on the final expulsion? It is possible that those who had borrowed on credit may have had many reasons for wanting the wholesale expulsion of the Jews. Their motives may ave ranged from simple resentment fuelled by their indebtedness to strong nationalistic and racial motives. Or might it be argued that they preferred the service or interest charges of their own co-religionists to those of alien Jews?

This chapter will consider the historiography of the work on the Christian debtors of the Jews as well as the methodologies used byprevious studies. It will also examine the naming patterns which were used by contemporary scribes to record the financial transactions of the Jews. It is naturally very difficult to unearth, and to come to any firm conclusions about, the names of most Jewish debtors.