The Jewish Exchequer is not a new subject. William Prynne in the seventeenth century, and Thomas Madox a century later, were the first scholars to devote sustained attention to the institution. In their wake, a series of twentieth-century historians have followed, each making valuable contributions. But despite the attention that has been devoted to the workings of the institution, the historical context within which we should understand the Jewish Exchequer's emergence, and the significance of its emergence for the subsequent history of the medieval English Jewish community, are subjects that will still repay more careful investigation. Three points in particular deserve our attention, and will be the focus of this paper. First, the jurisdictional monopoly that thirteenth-century English kings claimed and exercised over their Jewish subjects is unique among contemporary European monarchies. How this royal jurisdictional monopoly came to exist is therefore an important question, to which historians have devoted too little attention. Second, this jurisdictional monopoly developed gradually in England between the 1170s and the 1230s. Although this monopoly was substantially in place by the end of John's reign, the last seigneurial Jewish communities in England did not disappear until the 1230s. Third, the emergence of the Jewish Exchequer during the 1190s, including the creation of the ‘archae’ system for enrolling Jewish debts, needs to be understood against the background of this evolving royal claim to sole lordship over all the Jews of England, rather than being seen as a fiscally-driven response to the destruction of Jewish debt records during the massacres of 1189-90.