From Convenient to Condemned: The Jewish Moneylenders’ Status and Role in Medieval Europe This paper will examine the role and status of the Jewish moneylender in Medieval European society using various course materials and articles. The figure of the Jewish moneylender was not an ancient stereotype, but a role produced by Christian legal and theological constraints and the monetary needs of the emerging early Capitalist system. The supersessionist logic advanced by Augustine had already provided a durable theological foundation for the charges that Jews were obstinate and blind. In Answer to the Jews had described Jews as the branches that had been stripped off for their unbelief (Romans 11) and framed them as having remained in “useless antiquity” for their refusal to recognise Christ as the fulfilment of the prophecies in the Old Testament and of administering the law while scorning the Gospel in an act of witness against themselves.[1] Christian opposition to usury reinforced this existing framework. From late antiquity Ambrose, Jerome and Augustine condemned the practice of moneylending for interest. The Third Lateran Council of 1179 and the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 intensified the ban, forbidding Christians to lend at interest and imposing social and economic sanctions on Jews that did so. However, credit remained essential and legitimate sources from Christians were forbidden so Jews enjoyed a short period where their money lending was vital as the source of credit for the emerging system of trade. The collapse of Jewish long-distance trade after the First Crusade left many Jews with few alternative sources of income. Rulers then extracted tallages from the communities forced to keep capital liquid which created a vicious cycle: society relied upon the Jew becoming a usurer and then condemned him for this role. By the twelfth century the words “Jew” and “Usurer” had become almost synonymous. Passion plays from the period cast Judas as a haggling Jewish moneylender while art showed the devil as a partner in Jewish finance. As Joshua Trachtenberg argued: the Devil, Jew, usurer and heretic became “one and the same creature.” The broken branch as framed by Augustine had acquired an economic dimension.[2] The events at Clifford’s Tower, York in 1190 show the societal response to this pattern and its violent consequences. Amid Crusading riots, approximately 150 Jewish residents of York took refuge in Clifford’s tower when indebted local Barons exploited the absence of Royal authority to effectively cancel their debts. A contemporary account by William of Newburgh describes that after the mob surrounding the castle demanded the Jews to convert or die that the vast majority inside chose to commit suicide rather than forced Baptism, and survivors who accepted conversion were killed by the mob and upon the death of all the Jews the debt records stored in York Minster were burned. The cancellation of obligations to settle the debt was accompanied by religious rhetoric about the enemies of Christ. Similar attacks, fuelled by debt occurred in England between 1189-1190 and had occurred earlier on the Continent. The 1290 expulsion under Edward I removed the creditors and the debt obligation permanently and Jewish property and assets were seized upon expulsion. The events at Clifford’s Tower represent an early, local example of a logic that was later systematised.[3] [4] Three centuries later in Spain, the Alhambra Decree of 31 March 1492 achieved the same economic result via legislation. King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella ordered unconverted Jews to leave by the end of July 1492, forbidding the export of gold, silver or coin and cancelling all Royal debts to Jewish creditors. The stated reason was religious subversion, but the practical effect was the cancellation of Jewish credit and the forcible transfer of assets.