Ethan Margolis - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
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The collective Western mind still today erroneously sees “the Jews” of medieval England as moneyl... more The collective Western mind still today erroneously sees “the Jews” of medieval
England as moneylenders. It is generally accepted that the Jews functioned to create a more
liquid economy and to provide the crown with much needed financial support. However,
while it is true that a select handful of Jews did operate as professional moneylenders, I will
argue that the vast majority of Jews could not, and did not, operate as professional financers.
The method I have employed to prove this thesis is to conduct a close economic analysis of
the document E. 101/249/4. This document is the result of an archa scrutiny (an archa was a
chest, held in each major town, within which were deposited any and all loans contracted
within the town) that King Henry III ordered in preparation for the collection of his 1241-42
tallage of 20,000 marks. It is composed of two sections. The first section is found on
membrane one recto. It is a summary of the returns of the aforesaid tallage and is especially
valuable because it provides the names of every adult Jew in Lincoln in 1241-42. The second
section provides the actual results from Henry III’s archa scrutiny. It contains eight hundred
and eighty-six loans and takes up the vast majority of the document. The results of this
economic study convincingly refute the idea that all Jews lent money and that all
moneylenders were Jews.
Of the one hundred and fifteen Jews listed in the first section (membrane one recto)
only thirty-eight had loans in the Lincoln archa; the remaining seventy-seven Jewish
residents of Lincoln simply did not lend money. Further, by carefully analyzing the loans
found in the archa, one finds that a full seventy-four percent of all loans found in the archa
were held by only ten men, and thirty-two percent were held by Aaron of York alone! The
remaining seventy-five Jews with loans in the archa collectively held only twenty-six percent
of the value of all the loans contained in Lincoln’s archa. These results are significant, for
they overturn the nearly ubiquitous assumption that “the Jews” functioned only as
moneylenders in medieval England. It is an assumption that is well entrenched in even
academia today, and one that I hope to begin to dissolve with this thesis.
The collective Western mind still today erroneously sees “the Jews” of medieval England as moneyl... more The collective Western mind still today erroneously sees “the Jews” of medieval
England as moneylenders. It is generally accepted that the Jews functioned to create a more
liquid economy and to provide the crown with much needed financial support. However,
while it is true that a select handful of Jews did operate as professional moneylenders, I will
argue that the vast majority of Jews could not, and did not, operate as professional financers.
The method I have employed to prove this thesis is to conduct a close economic analysis of
the document E. 101/249/4. This document is the result of an archa scrutiny (an archa was a
chest, held in each major town, within which were deposited any and all loans contracted
within the town) that King Henry III ordered in preparation for the collection of his 1241-42
tallage of 20,000 marks. It is composed of two sections. The first section is found on
membrane one recto. It is a summary of the returns of the aforesaid tallage and is especially
valuable because it provides the names of every adult Jew in Lincoln in 1241-42. The second
section provides the actual results from Henry III’s archa scrutiny. It contains eight hundred
and eighty-six loans and takes up the vast majority of the document. The results of this
economic study convincingly refute the idea that all Jews lent money and that all
moneylenders were Jews.
Of the one hundred and fifteen Jews listed in the first section (membrane one recto)
only thirty-eight had loans in the Lincoln archa; the remaining seventy-seven Jewish
residents of Lincoln simply did not lend money. Further, by carefully analyzing the loans
found in the archa, one finds that a full seventy-four percent of all loans found in the archa
were held by only ten men, and thirty-two percent were held by Aaron of York alone! The
remaining seventy-five Jews with loans in the archa collectively held only twenty-six percent
of the value of all the loans contained in Lincoln’s archa. These results are significant, for
they overturn the nearly ubiquitous assumption that “the Jews” functioned only as
moneylenders in medieval England. It is an assumption that is well entrenched in even
academia today, and one that I hope to begin to dissolve with this thesis.