This seems somewhat problematic for a Jewish moneylender in the middle ages. Your business is money lending, because Christians are forbidden from doing it. Perhaps you have some wealth because of it, but you are a social pariah. You lend money to someone, and he or she never pays it back. What are you going to do?
If you go to the courts, will you face systematic discrimination? Are there more shadowy means to collect your dues? And if you have no proper recourse in the case of a bad loan, why would you take the risk in the first place? If you do have proper recourse, what is the nature of antisemitism in your society if it doesn't extend to the law?
I'm curious to hear if anyone can illuminate some of the answers. It seems like an interesting intersection between economics, law and discrimination.
This answer will only apply to England, which was a special case. In England, before their expulsion in 1290, the Jews had a very anomalous legal position. While they held all the attributes of free people, the most important of which was to petition the king's court for writs, they were technically all the king's serfs -- his direct property. To take one example in the Vita of William of Norwich the Jews refer to themselves to king Stephen as justice “We Jews, [who] are yours, your tributaries year in and year out, often required by you for your needs and always loyal and useful to your kingdom.” As such they were under his protection and anyone who victimised them could expect royal reprisals. Further, as property, they did not have the automatic right to transfer chattels to their heirs, in many cases it went to the king and then some of it might be restored to the Jew's family. To take one example Aaron of Lincoln's estate was so large on his death that Henry II had to create a whole new division of the exchequer to manage the vast sums. Indeed, the crown would often put pressure on landowners to pay up, even to the point of their estates being liquidated, on the death of a Jew so as to increase the size of the dead mans estate and the cash windfall which the crown would then receive. There was a further benefit for the crown that these estates could then be redistributed as a form of patronage either to ecclesiastical estates or to up and coming nobles in the kings court. Jewish money lending in this respect killed multiple birds with one stone for the king. In the same way, as slaves in the King's gift, the crown was free to take their money and rights to their debts -- John for instance extracted 66,000 marks from the Jews at the beginning of his reign. The point being however that the state was the ultimate beneficiary of the Jew's financial activities and therefore had a pressing reason to protect them and ensure the payment of their debts.
Now, it is likely that most debts were paid promptly -- and unfortunately they leave no legal record -- and there is not much to be said about those. Unpaid debts however leave a much bigger record because they end up in the courts of the common law, which seem to have treated the Jews evenhandedly in most cases. The following case might be viewed as somewhat typical. A sacristan of Norwich borrowed 40 marks and kept on deferring repayment until he had accrued interest of £100, at which point the creditor took the matter to the kings court.The £100 bond was then renewed with a further £100 advanced – meaning £400 to be repaid. This was again not paid and it was increased to £880 to be paid in 80 per year instalments. We can see that the court tried to mediate as best it could, both deferring payment of the debt to a later stage and increasing the monetary compensation which the moneylender would receive for patiently waiting for the payment of his debt for years after it was due to be paid. If perchance repayment was impossible, then the court might take the debtor's estate and give it to a jewish creditor as well. Now while Jews could own land, they could not farm it themselves, and would have to give it to a Christian and then pocket the profit.
One final point to make is that the threat of recourse to the courts could have violent consequences for the Jews involved. In one notorious instance (and the original blood libel) a minor knight called Simon de Novers owed money to a Jew of Norwich called Eleazar. The vita of William of Norwich records that “the knight was in dire straits, because he did not have the means to repay the debt and daily renewed his requests to defer payment." He then lay in wait for Eleazar and killed him, as a way of expunging his debt. This was actually a common strategy for knights who found themselves in debt to the Jews. One of the main posited motivations for the York massacres 1190 and various other nasty incident during the Baron's wars during the reign of Henry III were to destroy both the jews and the scrolls which contained the records of their debts, making it impossible to bring the matter to a court which would decide against them.
azdac7. What an amazing response! Super informative, sources cited, and overall just "A+" material. Thank you!