Court Jew
In early modern Europe, particularly in Germany, a court Jew (German: Hofjude, Yiddish: הויף איד, romanized: hoyf id) or court factor (German: Hoffaktor, Yiddish: קאַורט פאַקטאַר, romanized: kourt faktor) was a Jewish banker who handled the finances of, or lent money to, royalty and nobility.
Jewish financiers could use their family connections to provide their sponsors with finance, food, arms, ammunition, gold and other 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.
The most famous example of this occurred in Württemberg in 1737–1738, when, after the death of his sponsor Charles Alexander, Joseph Süß Oppenheimer was put on trial and executed.
While the Church condemned usury universally, canon law applied only to Christians, meaning that Jews were allowed to lend money at interest.
Although the phenomenon of "Court Jewry" did not occur until the early 17th century, there are some earlier examples of Jewish moneylenders who accumulated enough capital to finance the nobility.
Among them was Josce of Gloucester, who financed Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke's conquest of Ireland in 1170;[7] and Aaron of Lincoln, "probably the wealthiest person in England,"[8] who left an estate of about £100,000.
Josef Goldschmidt [de] of Frankfurt (d. 1572), also known as "Jud Joseph zum Goldenen Schwan", became the most important Jewish businessman of his era, trading not only with the Fuggers and Imhoffs, but also with the nobility and the Church.
Oppenheimer, who was appointed chief court factor, together with his two sons Emanuel and Wolf, and Wertheimer, who was at first associated with him, devoted their time and talents to the service of Austria and the House of Habsburg: during the Rhenish, French, Turkish, and Spanish wars they loaned millions of florins for provisions, munitions, etc.
Contemporaneous with him was Leffmann Behrends, of Hanover, court factor and agent of the elector Ernest Augustus and of the duke Rudolf August of Brunswick.
Fränkel, a circumspect, energetic, and proud man, possessed the confidence of the margrave to such a degree that his advice was sought in the most important affairs of the state.
Other court Jews of the princes of Ansbach were Michael Simon and Löw Israel (1743), Meyer Berlin, and Amson Solomon Seligmann (1763).
In rough chronological order: In fiction, Isaac the Jew in Walter Scott's Ivanhoe serves this purpose to Prince John and other nobles.
