Contemporary Jewish Enmity—Economic Harm

 

Medieval Jewish moneylenders

Illuminated manuscript of Jewish money lenders in France at the time of Louis XI

In the southern areas of Europe, where Jews had long been settled, Jewish economic activities were relatively diversified. In the north, where Jews were often invited by rulers to fill perceived lacunae in the local economy, Jewish economic activities tended to be fairly limited. These Jews were unable to break out of these early constraints and diversify into the local economies.

During the eleventh century, the limited Jewish economic contribution was centered in trade. As the European economy began to accelerate during the twelfth century, a new, rewarding, but problematic economic specialization emerged. The acceleration of the European economy coincided with an increasingly aggressive and effective Church hierarchy. One of the campaigns upon which Church leadership embarked was the effort to stamp out the sin of usury, defined as Christian taking interest from Christian for the lending of funds. The combination of Church curtailment of Christian lending and of the growing need for the transfer of capital opened the way for Jewish lenders to provide the flow of capital required for increasingly ambitious projects of all kinds.

To be sure, money-lending has never been a popular profession. Banking has always aroused considerable popular animosity. Such economically-grounded animosity readily combined with traditional imagery of Jewish enmity, with each reinforcing the other. A sense of the Jews as expressing their hostility toward Christianity and Christians through financial exploitation and manipulation became common throughout western Christendom.

Images

  1. Judas Receiving the Silver
  2. Jewish Money Lending
  3. Jewish Pawn Broking
  4. A Jewish Money Lender in Hell

Primary Texts

  1. Rigord of St. Denis’s Report on 1170’s-1180’s, Early-Thirteenth-Century Chronicle of King Philip Augustus
  2. Pope Innocent III, 1205 Papal Document
  3. Pope Innocent III, 1208 Papal Document
  4. Assault in York, 1190, William of Newburgh’s Early-Thirteenth-Century Latin Narrative
  5. Anti-Usury Agitation in Northern France, 1190’s, Anonymous Early-Thirteenth-Century Latin Narrative

Secondary Literature

  1. S. W. Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews (2 nd ed.; 18 vols.; New York- Columbia University Press, 1952-83), 11-139-146.
  2. J. Shatzmiller, Shylock Reconsidered- Jews, Moneylending, and Medieval Society (Berkeley-University of California Press, 1990), 43-70.
  3. S. Lipton, Images of Intolerance- The Representation of Jews and Judaism in the Bible moralisee (Berkeley- University of California Press, 1999), 30-53.

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