Volume 35, Issue 2 - Themenheft Jewish Moneylending and Documentary Culture in the Middle Ages II Hg. von Eveline Brugger, Sarah Ifft Decker und Birgit Wiedl

Medieval credit transactions operated in a landscape of uncertainty, where the presence or absence of written documentation did not guarantee financial security. While written debt instruments provided a formal record of obligations, lenders and borrowers navigated risk not only through documents but also through oral agreements, court acknowledgments, and physical collateral. This article examines the conditions under which creditors in fourteenth-century German towns opted for written documentation over alternative forms of collateral and the underlying factors influencing this choice. Rather than serving as static proof, written debt instruments could be undermined by shifting obligations, partial repayments, or contested claims. By tracing how creditors wielded physical documents in court and used them as instruments of negotiation, this article highlights the dual function of written collateral as both legal proof and material leverage, revealing how individual moneylenders navigated credit relationships and made strategic choices to manage risk within the shifting dynamics of medieval urban economies.

For a short time from 1240 to 1256, a Jewish community from Sijilmassa was resident in Palma de Mallorca and took part in a variety of economic and social relationships, participating in a culture of trust. Using the concept of »trust work,« this study explores mechanisms of risk, character, and uncertainty management, in the form of interest rates, guarantors, collateral/pledges, promise and fides phrases, oaths, and flexible repayment terms. Analysis is based on two small databases of transcribed contracts: one containing 69 contracts involving Jews from Sijilmassa identified in the registers of the Arxiu del Regne de Mallorca and a Comparative Set of 245 loans written between 1240 and 1256. Findings suggest that both Jews and Christians participated in a shared culture of trust in credit financing and that interpersonal relationships, rather than community identity, shaped decisions to engage in various forms of trust work.

The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to economist Muhammad Yunus in 2006 in recognition of his work on microcredit theory and its implementation has also given further impetus to historical research on small loans. While Jewish small loans in the fifteenth-century Holy Roman Empire, which are comparatively well documented, have already been the subject of some research, there is still a lack of relevant studies for the period before the Black Death pogroms. This is primarily because small-scale loans were rarely recorded in writing, and much of the relevant documentation has been destroyed. However, an evaluation of the few surviving written records suggests that small loans and microloans already dominated lending by Jewish moneylenders in the German Kingdom in the thirteenth and first half of the fourteenth centuries.

This article deals with two registers of outstanding loans contracted with Jewish moneylenders in the town of Mons and its surroundings (county of Hainaut). They were drawn up in the course of the persecutions at the time of the Black Death, during the summer of 1349. It is claimed that the registers, at least in part, constitute translations from the Hebrew account books kept by the moneylenders themselves. Where they give details, they allow insights into the Jews’ accounting practices, offering rare additions to what we know from the few extant Hebrew account books of the later medieval period. This concerns, inter alia , the practice of calculating interest. Given the short-term nature of the loan contracts, compound interest could accrue.

Jewish men and women appeared before various courts in medieval Austria. Many of the trials dealt with disputes arising from their activities as moneylenders and pawnbrokers. Jews defended their claims before municipal and manorial courts, especially for forfeited pledges, and sued their debtors for their rights, or found themselves as defendants accused, for example, of defaulting on levy or rent payments. The Christian courts made no distinction in their treatment of Jewish and Christian parties. As direct subjects of the ruler, however, Jewish moneylenders were also able to appeal to the ducal court. In addition to providing insights into the everyday practice of moneylending and pawnbroking and the problems associated with it, the court documents also reveal the knowledge that Jews had of the complex structures of medieval court systems.

The Viennese Jew David Steuss can safely be considered the richest and most successful Jewish moneylender in late medieval Austria. Sources on him consist mainly of business documents, most of which are debt instruments or related charters resulting from credit transactions. This article analyzes the information that can be gleaned from this kind of documentation with regard to David Steuss’ background and family connections, his social and business networks in Austria and abroad, his relationship with the territorial rulers, his general standing in Jewish and Christian circles, and his descendants’ handling of his legacy. Thus, the documentation of his exceptional career demonstrates the potential of sources on Jewish moneylending as a basis for research beyond the scope of purely economic history.