Definition
De Judaismo (Latin: "concerning Judaism") is the title of an English statute of uncertain precise date, generally attributed to the reign of Edward I (late thirteenth century), that prohibited usury. The statute is notable primarily as a historical artifact of medieval English law targeting Jewish financial practices and, by extension, the practice of moneylending at interest more broadly. It does not survive as operative law and has no modern legal application.
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Common Confusion
The title may suggest a statute concerned with the legal status, rights, or religious practices of Jewish persons in medieval England generally. In fact, its operative subject was usury — the lending of money at interest — which was at the time associated in English law and social practice with Jewish commerce. Researchers should not conflate De Judaismo with the Statute of the Jewry (Statutum de Judaismo, 1275), a related but distinct enactment of Edward I that addressed a broader range of restrictions on Jewish economic and civic life. Burrill's entry cross-references "Judaismus," the Latin term for usury as used in medieval English legal texts, which is the conceptual heart of this statute.
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Why It Matters in Research
This term is relevant almost exclusively to historians of medieval English law and researchers tracing the early development of usury doctrine. Several navigational points matter:
First, dating is disputed. Burrill notes the statute is attributed to 18 Edward I by most authorities but to 4 Edward I by the legal historian William Prynne. Daines Barrington called it incerti temporis — of uncertain date — in his Observations upon the Statutes (1766). Researchers consulting early English statute compilations should be alert to inconsistent placement and numbering.
Second, the title does not appear in modern statute indexes under usury. Researchers tracing usury law through standard doctrinal pathways will not encounter this term. It appears in historical and antiquarian legal scholarship, not in case law or treatise discussions of interest regulation.
Third, Crabb's History of English Law (referenced in Burrill at page 167) is the primary secondary source Burrill relies upon. Researchers seeking fuller treatment should go to Crabb directly. Burrill's entry is a minimal placeholder rather than a full account.
Fourth, De Judaismo sits within a cluster of medieval English enactments dealing with Jewish persons and commerce, including the Statute of the Jewry (1275) and the Edict of Expulsion (1290). Researchers working on any of these should map the full legislative sequence rather than treating individual statutes in isolation, as their provisions interacted and in some respects superseded one another.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's is the only source dictionary available for this entry, and its treatment is sparse: a Latin gloss, a disputed regnal date, a single secondary source citation, and a cross-reference to Judaismus. The entry does useful work in flagging the Prynne/standard dating discrepancy and Barrington's agnosticism, but it offers no account of the statute's provisions, its enforcement history, or its relationship to parallel ecclesiastical prohibitions on usury that operated concurrently in medieval England. Modern legal historical scholarship — particularly work on the legal position of Jewish communities in Angevin and Plantagenet England — has substantially expanded on what Burrill's brief notice conveys.
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Jurisdictional Note
De Judaismo is specific to medieval English law and has no counterpart in other common law jurisdictions. It has no operative legal force anywhere today.
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