Lumbard and Son: The Businesses and Debtors of Two Jewish Moneylenders in Late Thirteenth-Century England
This article attempts to consider the credit operations of two individual thirteenth-century Jews. In order to gain a more complete picture of Jewish credit activities, great emphasis has been placed on an analysis of their Christian debtors. Over seventy individual transactions and other material f...
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Penn Press
1991
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| In: |
The Jewish quarterly review
Year: 1991, Volume: 82, Issue: 1/2, Pages: 137-170 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | This article attempts to consider the credit operations of two individual thirteenth-century Jews. In order to gain a more complete picture of Jewish credit activities, great emphasis has been placed on an analysis of their Christian debtors. Over seventy individual transactions and other material from the Public Record Office in London have been considered. The article demonstrates the historical value of the catalogue of Christian debtors represented within the copious records of the Exchequer of the Jews. The study demonstrates the change which the Edwardian "Statutum de Judaismo" of 1275 brought about in the credit brokering activities of the Jews. This significant change by which Edward transformed Jewish usurers into wool and cereal brokers is examined in some detail. The study of the businesses of father and son over a period of almost fifty years illustrates this change on a local level. Questions are also raised about the traditional view of the Jew as being urban based. The information revealed about these two Jewish businesses shows that the later Jewish credit brokers who operated between 1275 and 1290 were no different from their competitors, the Christian legales mercatores of Edward's "Statutum de mercatoribus." All of this shows the impact of two Jewish financiers on Christian rural society. It proves conclusively that while the Jewish credit broker might have had connections with major towns, his clientele were essentially free rural borrowers from manors and villages, with enough security for a loan. |
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| ISSN: | 1553-0604 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: The Jewish quarterly review
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.2307/1455005 |