What stopped borrowers from running the jews out of town? And how were the Jews so successful that they became wealthier than the average Christian, despite the anti-semitism?
One of the ways to think about the presence and status of Jewish communities in medieval Latin Europe is, "who benefited?" You probably have the basics of this idea already with the moneylending stereotype. Medieval Christian theologians and preachers tried very hard to make usury a sin, and no self-respecting rich person is going to risk loaning out the vast sums needed for major economic start-up costs without the potential gain from interest. Jewish lenders could provide a way around this (increasingly theoretical) problem. "Christians" benefited.
Surely it would have benefited an individual Christian, in the short-term, not to have to pay back a particular loan. But urban artisans and merchants aren't the only factor here. Jews were also highly prized taxpayers, since their religious minority status generally accrued for them an extra tax. Typically, Jews were "servants of the royal chamber" or the local equivalent of that Aragonese designation--that is, subject directly to the king for extra tax and protections. So long as the king benefited from those taxes above and beyond any inconvenience or alternate way of profiting from Jews (say, expulsion), it would be most unwise to seriously anger the king by blanket-remission of loans. City councils, too, had an incentive to keep the moneylending system going for the economic power of the city.
Like other residents of medieval cities, Jews had access to the local court when business deals went wrong, crimes were committed, or other problems arose. In the Christian Iberian kingdoms, Jewish (and Muslim) communities operated their own courts, which were supposed to have sole purview of all cases involving only members of that religion. However, we know that even cases with Jewish parties on both sides could and did wind up in a Christian court when the driving side thought the Christian judge would favor them!
I focus on Jew-vs-Jew case ending up in Christian courts because it shows that Jews trusted these courts. Of course any case involving a Christian would be heard by the main, Christian court regardless of the other party's religion. If Jews perceived themselves as the losers every. single. time. regardless of the justice of their side, surely they would not trust the Christian courts enough to take their own problems there.
The history of Jewish-Christian relations in medieval Europe, of course, shows that the system was ultimately not sustainable in the west. Increasingly, kings found that the problems of Jewish presence outweighed the benefits and looked for other ways to secure economic profit. A "lump sum" approach rather than periodic guaranteed payouts, one might say--except the metaphor needs a good dose of violence, paranoia, and hatred on top.
The Holy Roman Emperor in particular was known to pawn off his taxation privileges onto city councils to raise quick cash, as in 16C Frankfurt. Well, cities had a great gig going, if they wanted. They could expel Jews from city limits, enabling the seizure of all their property...and then let them back in five or ten years later to repeat the process. Rising anti-Semitism fueled by economic competition and religious teaching spurred outbreaks of violence that increasingly vexed city officials, making expulsion even more attractive. (Yes, the solution to Christians attacking Jews was to...exile the victims.) Christians either flouted the anti-usury laws or found ways around them. Expulsions became country-wide, became permanent.
It's not that Jews had no power in medieval Europe. We find wealthy Jews, poor Jews, landowners in Spain, advisers at royal courts, scholars, servants in Christian homes, employers of Christian servants. But that power always depended precariously on, ultimately, Christians benefiting.
Further reading:
Sort of a side question, but my Russian Jewish Grandfather used to tell me that pogroms (and anti-semitism as a whole) back in the day were orchestrated by governments as a way to get out of paying their debt. Is there any credence to this?
[the Jews] became wealthier than the average Christian
Is this true?
Apparently there were individuals who could lend money, but were Jews as a group on average wealthier?
Relatedly, I've read that defaults were in fact much more common at that time, and that that led to interest rates that seem shocking to modern eyes. Is that accurate?
Thanks a lot for this insightful discussion. Was just wondering how did Jews have access to so much of cash, despite the contact harassment, discrimination, and social exclusion? What made Jews get into the business of lending, was it the fact, that they were not allowed to take up other professions.
Please can you suggest some books for beginners on the history of anti Semitism. How did it start and why? Thanks a lot.
To focus on the example of England, where Jews are known to have settled between the Norman Conquest (it isn't clear when the first communities arrived) and their expulsion in 1290, it is true that Jews had little to no power, and were sometimes run out of time. As you have pointed out however, some Jewish moneylenders amassed enormous wealth, and prospered.
A starting point would be to look at the massacre of Jews in York in 1190. The entire Jewish population of York was massacred. Most had fled to the castle, where they locked out the constable, not trusting him to protect them. Some committed mass suicide. Others agreed to convert, but were massacred anyway when they opened up the castle.
Now, there's certainly a case for some anti-Semitic motivation. There had been rioting at Richard's coronation, and crusading feeling was strong. But more than this, the York rioters, led by Richard Malebisse, seem to have had more secular concerns. These nobles, who had borrowed from the Jewish community, burned the records of these debts that were kept in York minster. Their concerns were economic.
The Jews in England were under the king's protection. He is often said to have 'owned' the Jews: a better way of thinking about this would be to say that he owned all of their property. When a Jew died, everything that was owed to the individual Jew became the property of the king. This meant that Jewish communities were not only useful economically (in stimulating trade and directly lending money) but financially, for the crown. On the death of Aaron of Lincoln in 1186 he had lent to the English and Scottish crowns, as well as countless lesser individuals. To collect his debts, a separate exchequer was set up to collect only the debts from his estate. I've heard one researcher estimate that his assets would amount to £21.6 billion pounds today. Individuals like Aaron could be taxed heavily during their lifetimes (particularly because taxes on the Jewish community as a whole might be disproportionately paid by the wealthiest individuals) and become a huge asset to the crown on their death.
It was therefore in the crown's interest to ensure that their debts could be collected, partly by protecting Jewish communities from violence. Most Jewish communities in England lived in towns, and near to castles, for protection, and they were often granted this. Nevertheless, in the York case they did not trust the constable.
As I stated, at York, the records in York minster were burned. This meant that the king had no record of the sums of Jewish debts in York, and couldn't tax them. Records were kept in chests, in the form of chirographs bipartate, and after (I believe) 1233, tripartate. These were duplicated documents cut unevenly down the middle. They were supervised by two christian chirographers, and two Jewish, with clerks writing the bonds. Every so often an appuramentum (cleansing) took place to see which had been paid in full etc.. This usually took place in preparation for a tallage- a large and arbitrary tax on the Jewish population by the king. After the 1190 destruction of these chests at York, and due to the potential of the Jewry to fund Richard's expensive ventures abroad if his government had a firm grasp of how much the community was worth, the Exchequer of the Jews was set up in 1194. Duplicates of all of the records were henceforth kept centrally as well.
This is really just a snapshot of how some Jewish lenders' debts were enforced. During the thirteenth century, as the Jewish community in England were taxed to breaking point and alternative forms of royal revenue developed, the king's protection decreased- to the point that the Jews were expelled in 1290. But when individual Jews were successful, it was because they had the machinery of royal justice behind them, and the protection of the sheriffs and constables of the king. This was to protect the king's assets. Additionally, although there certainly was antisemitism and anti-Jewish hostility- again particularly with the rise of the blood libel in the thirteenth century- there are also examples of inter-community cooperation and friendship. A Hereford community in 1286 protested a ban on Christians attending a Jewish wedding. Hostility was not inevitable.
Religious identity differentiated people for certain, and different laws could apply in different ways in different places. But Jews were more often than not subjects of the same sovereign as their Christian neighbors, both bound and protected by the same laws. A debt was a legal agreement, and if a debtor shirked his obligations, the debtor could take him to court, sue him, get him thrown in jail, force him to pay, etc.
I study the late medieval Crown of Aragon. The documentary records there are full of complaints and court cases between Jews and Christians over debts and other things. Jews and Muslims had legal recourse, and according to Brian Catlos in The Victors and the Vanquished, Muslims (for example) seem to have been at no real disadvantage when it came to cases against Christians. The law was the law, and subjects were subjects.
Thanks a lot. But would be grateful for any book suggestions, as asked in my last message.