What is a COURT JEW?

In the early modern period, a court Jew, or court factor (German: Hofjude, Hoffaktor; Yiddish: היף איד, romanized: Hoyf Id, קאַורט פאַקטאַר, Kourt Faktor), was a Jewish banker who handled the finances of, or lent money to, European,

mainly German, royalty and nobility. In return for their services, court Jews gained social privileges, including, in some cases, being granted noble status.

Examples of what would be later called court Jews emerged in the High Middle Ages[a] when the royalty, the nobility, and the church borrowed money from money changers or employed them as financiers.

Among the most notable of these were Aaron of Lincoln and Vivelin of Strasbourg.

Jewish financiers could use their family connections to provide their sponsors with finance, food, arms, ammunition, gold, and precious metals.[citation needed]

The rise of the absolute monarchies in Central Europe brought many Jews, mostly of Ashkenazi origin, into the position of negotiating loans for the various courts.

They could amass personal fortunes and gain political and social influence. However, the court Jew had social connections and influence in the Christian world mainly through the Christian nobility and church.

Due to the precarious position of Jews, some nobles could ignore their debts. If the sponsoring noble died, his Jewish financier could face exile or execution.

The most famous example of this occurred in Württemberg when, after the death of his sponsor Charles Alexander in 1737, Joseph Süß Oppenheimer was put on trial and finally executed.[1]

In an effort to avoid such fate, some court bankers in the late 18th century—such as Samuel Bleichröder, Mayer Amschel Rothschild, or Aron Elias Seligmann—successfully detached their businesses from these courts

and established what eventually developed into full-fledged banks.[2]

Prohibited from nearly every other trade, some Jews began to occupy an economic niche as moneylenders in the Middle Ages. Only they were allowed to take interest on loans,

since—while the Church condemned usury universally—canon law was only applied to Christians and not to Jews. Eventually, a sizable sector of the Jewish community were engaged in financial occupations,

and the community was a financially highly successful part of the medieval economy.[3][4] The religious restrictions on moneylending had inadvertently created a source of monopoly rents,

causing profits associated with moneylending to be higher than they otherwise would have been.[5]

By most parameters, the standard of living of the Jewish community in Early Medieval period was at least equal to that of the lower nobility.[6]

However, despite this economic prosperity, the community was not safe: religious hostility increased to the extent that it manifested itself in the form of massacres and expulsions,

Culminating in the repetitive expulsion of all Jews from various parts of Western Europe in the late medieval period.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Court_Jew