CAURSINES, or Coursini, were Italians who came into England about the year 1235, terming themselves the pope's merchants, but driving no other trade than that of lending money; and, having great banks in England, they differed little from Jews, save that they were rather more merciless to their debtors. Some think that they were called Coursines, quasi Causa Ursini, bearish, or cruel in their causes; and others Caorsini or Corsini, as coming from the isle of Corsica; but Cowel affirms that they derived their name from Caorsium, Caorsi, a town in Lombardy, where they first practised their arts of usury and extortion, and whence they carried their unpopular trade through most parts of Europe, and were regarded as a common plague to every nation which they visited. The then bishop of London excommunicated them; and King Henry III. banished them from the kingdom in the year 1240. But, being the pope's solicitors and money changers, they were permitted to return in the year 1250; though in a very short time they were again driven out of the kingdom on account of their usurious exactions.