The State and the Jews—Economic Support

 

Rosheim Moneylender

Jew with money purse, Rosheim, France. By © Ralph Hammann – Wikimedia Commons – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11043730

Economic considerations moved many lay authorities in medieval western Christendom to foster Jewish settlement and simultaneously moved many Jews to remain in place in newly conquered territories or to immigrate into Christian domains. Thus, the lay authorities had an important role to play in facilitating Jewish economic success, if the Jewish settlement was to be maintained.

Assuring physical security and safety was the first step of course in facilitating economic success. Beyond this basic necessity, the rulers of western Christendom regularly provided important business safeguards for Jewish merchants, as reflected for example in the charter of Bishop Rudiger of Speyer. As Jews moved into the field of money-lending, even the most primitive form of lending—disbursal of funds against the security of physical pledges left with the lender—required business safeguards, many of which are in evidence in the charter extended by Duke Boleslav of Kalisch of Greater Poland.

As Jews in the western areas of Europe were attracted into more complex and lucrative forms of money-lending, governmental assistance became yet more important. Many Church leaders and moralists in fact saw in the intensified governmental support for Jewish lending a partnership, rather than assistance. The carefully drawn up and carefully protected loan instruments that became the norm in late-twelfth and early- thirteenth-century England and France suggest a partnership between Jewish lenders and governmental enforcers of loans, with both parties sharing in the rich profits accruing from these arrangements.

Images

  1. House of Aaron of Lincoln
  2. Receipt of Aaron of Lincoln
  3. Isaac of Norwich

Primary Texts

  1. Arrangements for Jewish Loans in England, 1194, Early-Thirteenth-Century Narrative of Roger of Hoveden
  2. Jewish Seals in France, 1206 Royal-Comital Agreement
  3. Jewish Seals in France, 1206-1219 Royal Decree
  4. Jewish Seals in France, 1219 Royal Decree

Secondary Literature

  1. H. G. Richardson, The English Jewry under Angevin Kings (London- Methuen, 1960), 67-82.
  2. W. C. Jordan, The French Monarchy and the Jews (Philadelphia- University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989), 56-72.
  3. J. Shatzmiller, Shylock Reconsidered- Jews, Moneylending, and Medieval Society (Berkeley- University of California Press, 1990), 71-103.

Videos

  1. To what extent did the Jews rely on governmental support for economic success? Prof. Robert Chazan.

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