As the Jews in increasing numbers passed under territorial jurisdiction, the exemption from personal tax, which was granted them as long as they remained crown property, was no longer respected, for each territorial ruler considered himself entitled to levy taxes on all foreign Jewish subjects who passed through his territory. But these taxes continued as customs duties until, with the growing hostility of the free cities, and with the frequent expulsion from vast territories which became the rule in the fifteenth century, those rulers who had expelled the Jews from their domains determined on the adoption of a policy of keeping them away from their borders. International relations, however, would not permit of the disregard of a passport granted by a foreign ruler to one of his subjects, so when Jews visited a territory in which no Jew was permitted to settle they were subjected to the payment of a toll.
