Les juifs courtiers parmi les chrétiens : l’échange sans la religion ?

Abstract

In the Crown of Aragon, where usury was permitted through regulation, especially in Catalonia and Mallorca, brokers were not all Jews who were usually seen as being the specialists in monetary transactions. Jews were certainly over-represented in trade but it is also now known that they could hold a wide variety of jobs. There are in fact few traders or lenders among the Jewish community from the 14th century, such roles tending instead to belong to members of urban and intellectual elites. This paper compares two social networks: that of Pons de Gualba, bishop of Barcelona, and that of Bartomeu de Mans, magistrate/provost of Vilafranca del Pénedes, who had links with Berenger de Finestres, a money-changer of Barcelona. The networks of these two eminent men were interlinked, in the sense that the roles played by Jews and Christians in the trading process were neither strictly segregated nor exactly the same, the precise distribution of these roles depending on the subtlest of nuances in terms of how the members of the two religions related to each other. The trade associations of Jews and Christians were different, as were the insults used to deprecate rivals. It is thus not that trade took no account of religion but rather that religious difference could be used as a means to colour the expression of the normal love-hate relationships between men who were involved in the business of trade.