David Sorkin
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780691164946
- eISBN:
- 9780691189673
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691164946.003.0002
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Jewish Studies
This chapter discusses the merchant colonies who invited Jewish merchants into their cities on exceptionally propitious terms, constituting the west European region of emancipation. Raison d'état and ...
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This chapter discusses the merchant colonies who invited Jewish merchants into their cities on exceptionally propitious terms, constituting the west European region of emancipation. Raison d'état and shifting trade patterns induced governments in such cities as Ancona, Livorno, and Venice to grant Jews extensive privileges of residence and trade, worship, and communal autonomy. In Bordeaux, Jews originally gained privileges as New Christians; over time they emerged as Jews and received confirmation of those privileges. In Livorno and Bordeaux, those privileges entailed virtual parity with Christian merchants. Meanwhile, Hamburg's Senate first attracted a Jewish merchant colony by extending privileges but later, by imposing heavy taxes, drove it away. In Amsterdam and London, which had ceased granting charters to foreign merchant colonies, Jews found themselves in the novel and ambiguous situation of functioning without a charter. They therefore gained rights on an ad hoc basis, becoming members of an emerging civil society. The Jews of Bordeaux, Amsterdam, and London were to make virtually seamless transitions from corporate or civic parity to equal citizenship.Less
This chapter discusses the merchant colonies who invited Jewish merchants into their cities on exceptionally propitious terms, constituting the west European region of emancipation. Raison d'état and shifting trade patterns induced governments in such cities as Ancona, Livorno, and Venice to grant Jews extensive privileges of residence and trade, worship, and communal autonomy. In Bordeaux, Jews originally gained privileges as New Christians; over time they emerged as Jews and received confirmation of those privileges. In Livorno and Bordeaux, those privileges entailed virtual parity with Christian merchants. Meanwhile, Hamburg's Senate first attracted a Jewish merchant colony by extending privileges but later, by imposing heavy taxes, drove it away. In Amsterdam and London, which had ceased granting charters to foreign merchant colonies, Jews found themselves in the novel and ambiguous situation of functioning without a charter. They therefore gained rights on an ad hoc basis, becoming members of an emerging civil society. The Jews of Bordeaux, Amsterdam, and London were to make virtually seamless transitions from corporate or civic parity to equal citizenship.
Francesca Trivellato
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780691178592
- eISBN:
- 9780691185378
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691178592.003.0005
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Finance, Accounting, and Banking
This chapter looks at the circumstances in which Étienne Cleirac composed his writings. Whether Cleirac coined or merely repeated it, the legend of the Jewish invention of marine insurance and bills ...
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This chapter looks at the circumstances in which Étienne Cleirac composed his writings. Whether Cleirac coined or merely repeated it, the legend of the Jewish invention of marine insurance and bills of exchange was his attempt at making sense of the changes in the legal, political, and social orders that the expansion of overseas commerce set in motion. Cleirac's life unfolded in a city where Jews were indistinguishable from local and foreign Christian merchants involved in long-distance trade, many of whom no longer belonged to a guild. It would not have surprised anyone in seventeenth-century France that New Christians, Catholics, and Protestants signed each other's bills of exchange and underwrote each other's marine insurance policies. Until 1723, however, crypto-Judaism was an institutionalized reality in Bordeaux. As such, the specter of crypto-Judaism infuses Cleirac's narrative of the origins of marine insurance and bills of exchange.Less
This chapter looks at the circumstances in which Étienne Cleirac composed his writings. Whether Cleirac coined or merely repeated it, the legend of the Jewish invention of marine insurance and bills of exchange was his attempt at making sense of the changes in the legal, political, and social orders that the expansion of overseas commerce set in motion. Cleirac's life unfolded in a city where Jews were indistinguishable from local and foreign Christian merchants involved in long-distance trade, many of whom no longer belonged to a guild. It would not have surprised anyone in seventeenth-century France that New Christians, Catholics, and Protestants signed each other's bills of exchange and underwrote each other's marine insurance policies. Until 1723, however, crypto-Judaism was an institutionalized reality in Bordeaux. As such, the specter of crypto-Judaism infuses Cleirac's narrative of the origins of marine insurance and bills of exchange.
