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492 Banking-

THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA

Bankruptcy

Nathan Official in France, were associated with the royal treasuries of their respective countries, and in every instance their property fell into Medieval the hands of the crown so that thenFinance, banking operations were in the nature of indirect taxation. Details are not sufficiently clear to make a general statement. In several cases, however, the capital utilized by these

financiers probably belonged in some measure to other Jews; so that their operations were really in

the form of banking corporations, though the conditions were so dissimilar from those of modern Banking that it would be misleading to treat them as of the same order. In more modern times the financial operations of Jews have been more of the order of finance loan corporations than of banks of deposit and issue; but as a large part of the business of modern Banking consists of similar loan operations, there is less impropriety in using the word for the modern form of Jewish financial transactions (see

Finance, Stock Exchange). the spread of the Maranos throughout the world-empire of Spain and Portugal (which countries were united 1580-1640), Jewish commerce entered a new phase, which is represented by the career of Don Joseph Nasi, who began his life as a banker in the firm of Mendes at Antwerp, the center of Spanish commerce. The Maranos became large factors or merchants, and, owing to the unwise economic policy of the Spanish monarch, were enabled to accumulate large capital from the profits of im-

also

With

portation into Europe of the raw products of the East and West Indies. The firm of Gradis at Bordeaux, a branch of the Mendes family, established relations with Amsterdam as well as with the New World so that ultimately they became the chief exporters from France to Canada (9,000,000 francs during the Seven Tears' war), besides maintaining relations with the Maranos in Spain itself (Jacobs, "Sources," No. 13, p. 5; Griitz, in " Monatsschrif t,

new

But among the

series, vii.-viii.).

chattels im-

ported by such merchants was bullion; and thus their operations as merchants led to their activity as bankers. Ferdinand de Carvajal is thus reported to have brought into Source of Jewish England no less than £100,000 per anFortunes. num ("Trans. Jewish Soc. England," ii. 18). During the latter part of the seventeenth century and the early part of the eighteenth, a number of Marano merchants are found acting as loan agents for European monarchs. Thus Isaac Suasso, Baron Auvernes de Gras, is said to

have advanced 2,000,000 florins to William of Orange for the invasion of England. With the great movements of Continental armies in connection with the wars of Louis XIV. large fortunes were gained by the Jews as commissaries; and these were then loaned out in banking operations. Thus, on the one side, Marlborough's troops were supplied by Sir Solomon Medina ("Diet. National Biography," x. 336) and Joseph Cortisos while Jacob Worms performed a similar office for the opposing army of

Louis XIV.

Worms

afterward settled in Paris as a

banker (Kahn, "Histoire des Juifs a Paris dans

XVIII e

la

imitation of the Amsterdam bank; this still exists under the name of the " Hamburger Bank. " Among the chief founders of the new venture was a Marano

named Diego Teixera de Mattos and of the forty original members of the bank twelve were Jews

(Gratz, "Gesch. der Juden," x. 17, note). Later on, with the Hamburg bank were the two Aisensuhs, financial representatives of the king of

in connection

They represent another source from which Jewish capital was drawn the posiHamburg tion of the Jews as " factors " to the

Poland.



and Am-

Polish nobility in some degree resembling the standing and functions of the Court Jews who slowly collected around the smaller German courts and who managed their finance much in the way modern banks do in the case of court estates. Among these may be mentioned Michael of Berlin, court Jew to Joachim II. of

sterdam.

(Griitz, ib. ix. 305, 314); Samson Wertheimer at Vienna, and Bassevi von Treuenberg at Prague (the last two connected with the imperial In the middle of the finances of the Hapsburgs). eighteenth century the Pintos, Delmontes, Bueno de Mesquita, and Francis Mcls of Amsterdam were the leading financiers of northern Europe; while in London, which, owing to the relations of William III. with Holland, was financially dependent on Amsterdam, Mendes da Costa, Manasseh Lopez, and Baron d'Aguilar held prominent positions. The very first work on the operations of the Amsterdam Exchange was written by a Spanish Jew named Joseph de la Vega. When French influence became prominent in Holland in 1803, the financial operations of the powers opposing Napoleon were transferred to Frankforton-the-Main (Ehrenberg, " Das Zeitalter der Fugger,

Brandenburg

and the financial control of the anti-NapoLeague fell into the hands of Mayer Amschel Rothschild, court Jew of William I., elector of Hesse-Cassel. His father, Frederick II., had died in 1785, leaving about £8,400,000, derived chiefly from the hire of soldiers to the British government to supii.

in

Hamburg a bank had been opened in

318),

leonic

press the rebellion in America. As the fortune of the Rothschilds was ultimately dependent on the manipulation of this, it is curious to reflect that their financial predominance in the nineteenth century is in the last resort due to America. It is impossible in this place to

pursue the financial

Rise of the career of the Rothschilds, which is the Rothskey to the history of Jewish Banking but it may be remarked that the London house between 1818 and 1832 undertook loans amounting to £21,800,000, and that as early as 1824 the Paris house had risen to the position of financial magnates, undertaking in conjunction with Lafitte and Baring the French loan of 1824 (Nervo, " Les Finances Francaises sous la Restauration," ii. 294). (For the ramifications built up by Mayer Amschel Rothschild throughout western Europe, see Rothschild.) The plan adopted by him of establishing branches in the more important European capitals, over which he placed his sons, was followed by other Jewish bankchilds.

in the nineteenth century



ing-houses.

With the

Siecle,"p. 39).

Meanwhile

492

of

Napoleon

reconstruction of Europe, after the fall in 1815, a new financial era began in