Poor Jewish Families in Early Modern Rural Swabia

Abstract

“Jewish protection rights” (Judenschutzrechte) — the legal category according to which Jews were tolerated in a few territories of the old German Empire during the early modern period — made it difficult for Jewish subjects to establish a secure existence. There were, above all, two reasons for this. First, the personalized nature of protection rights enabled the respective authorities to develop selective settlement policies oriented consistently towards the fiscal interests of the state. The direct results of this were increased tributary payments and the withdrawal of one's “protection document” (Schutzbrief) if taxes were not paid. Second, legislators for the territories developed a multiplicity of restrictive decrees concerning the gainful employment of Jews. Consequently, there were only a few economic niches n i which “privileged Jews” (Scbutzjuden) were permitted to earn a living. In the countryside — which is where such settlements were mainly situated in the early modern period — Jews were thus dependent upon peddling foods, textiles and cattle as well as upon lending money. The specific methods of business which developed from this were reflected in the anti-Jewish legend of the deceptive travelling salesman who, by awakening ever new consumer needs, brought his Christian customers into increasing debt. If one confronts this legend with reality, one finds two characteristic methods of business which arose out of necessity: the cultivation of a varied palette of goods offered, and the development of a differentiated system of payment by instalments. At the same time, these business methods accorded with the model of an “economy of makeshift”. In the sense of such “makeshift trade”, Jewish peddlers were prepared to travel for days in order to make even the most insignificant profits.