To help the crusade he launched in 1248, Louis IX freed Christian borrowers and potential crusaders from a third of the registered amount of money owed to Jews if and while they were imprisoned. The new decree also forbade bailiffs to ←35 | 36→incarcerate Christians for unpaid debts to Jewish moneylenders or to force them to sell property to pay these debts, although the king’s authorities continued to try and collect the debts owed to Jews. A court returned to Lady Catherine of Cadros property which her husband had given to a Jewish moneylender as collateral for a loan. It was ruled that her husband had no right to give away the property without his family’s consent. In 1239, debtors were informed that, with some exceptions, they did not have to respond to Jewish demands for repayments. That the issue was usury and not religious antipathy is suggested by Louis’ expulsion of the Lombards, Cahors, and other foreign moneylenders from his kingdom in 1268, although this was a short-lived departure. By the end of the thirteenth century, Lombards had become the most influential moneylenders in France, as well as England, with the Crown receiving twice as much in revenue from the Italians than from Jewish usurers.23
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The southern port city of Marseille was a wealthy, free republic headed by merchants, and part of the independent county of Provence. It had the good fortune to be located on the crossroads of trade routes running from northern France to the Mediterranean and be in possession of a deep natural harbor. Merchants from many kingdoms, duchies, and republics traded and made contracts in this sun-drenched European center of commercial activity—traveling, in particular, from Tuscany, Toulouse, Lombardy, and the Rhone delta. Marseille was a place made wealthy during the crusades by profiting from the crusaders who boarded ships in its harbor and from the export of goods to the Levant. Cloths from Flanders arrived at the port ready to be shipped on to Sicily and Acre. Spices (such as cumin, ginger, cardamom, and cinnamon), herbs (such as myrrh and scammony), sugar, dyes, Brazil wood, medicinals, alum cordwain, and wax passed through Marseille before reaching their final destination. By the mid-thirteenth century, trade from Marseille stretched to Arras, Paris, Champagne, Ypres, Barcelona, Valencia, the Maghreb, Egypt, Pisa, Genoa, and Rome. The only routes from which the Marseille merchants were excluded were those under Venetian control in the Adriatic, Aegean, and Black Sea.24
Jews had settled in Marseille since the Merovingian period. During the thirteenth century they obtained the status of citizen, with the same privileges as Christians, such as the right to worship freely, and owned property in the city and on the outskirts. They had quarters in both the upper and lower part of the city, two synagogues, a hospital, schools, and their own market. Contrary ←36 | 37→to some studies that portray Jews as perennial “outcasts,” the business activity of Jews in places such as Marseille suggests there was a great deal of interaction with Christians and that integration was not unusual. There were restrictions, as there were for all citizens. Jews could not give evidence in court against a Christian, openly working on Sunday or a religious feast day was not allowed, and some sort of insignia indicating that they were Jewish was to be worn, a regulation that was regularly exempted, avoided, or ignored.25
Located on the north-east corner of the port was Carreria Portus, the hub of Marseille’s maritime and commercial business. Here, moneychangers sat at tables in front of the Isla dels Cambis building, rubbing shoulders with notaries, oar makers and caulkers. All merchants took an oath to trade honestly. They promised not to form monopolies, cheat, inflate the cost of goods, take bribes, steal, or contaminate produce. Some Jews participated in Mediterranean commerce, including Léon Passapayre, Abraham Bonehore, Abraham and Gardet de Bédarride, but, as most historians agree, the majority of these traders were of “middling status” and made up only a small percentage of Jews in the city. Unlike medieval England and France, the Jews of Marseille were not known for moneylending and chose instead the professions of physician, artisans, or worked in the coral, wool, almond, and tartar trades. What is difficult to know, however, is whether Jews and Christians offered loans to family, friends, neighbors, and others without formal contracts. To avoid the charge of usury or the grasping hands of government, it may be the case that some, maybe considerable, moneylending was on a more furtive level but, obviously, if this was the case we will never know.26
In the spring of 1248, the same year Louis IX began his crusade, fifty-four ships set sail from Marseille loaded with goods for other markets. On board some of these ships were seven Jews who were agents for investors and who, in partnership, had entered into a contract called a commenda, which allowed merchants to share risks and rewards. The use of this kind of contract illustrated how much Jews were involved in commerce and interacted with Christians in business enterprises. The commenda was a medieval commercial loan that involved a sedentary partner (commendator) and a tractator, who was the active partner. The first supplied capital to the active partner who might add their own capital to the amount, which made the commenda a bilateral rather than a unilateral one. The Jewish commendators in Marseille were either merchants who were, at various times, either commendator or tractator, investors in many commendae in a condensed time period, or investors in only one commenda, and they were usually low-level investors. Once formulated, the commenda was notarized with witnesses to sign it, which gave the commercial enterprise a legal standing. The tractator then took ←37 | 38→the capital, usually overseas, and used it in whatever way was agreed. When the particular venture had been completed, the tractator returned to report on the proceedings. This could occur even without the physical presence of the tractator. After deducting expenses and investment capital, the profits were split in whatever way had been agreed.27
The most important items traded in Jewish commenda contracts were saffron and cloves, followed by toile, silk, finished capes, and coins. After these came foods, dyes, and chemicals. These were items easily handled by low-level financiers, as they did not require extremely large sums of capital. Of 466 commenda contracts in the cartulary of Almaric, 11 percent had Jewish agents as either active partners or investors and out of the two contracts that had commendator partnerships, one of these was between a Jew and a Christian. The Jewish agent Bonanatus judeus filius Bonifilii and the Christian moneychanger Dulcianus de Sancto Victore gave a commenda contract for sulfur to three Jewish tractators in partnership. Bonanatus was also a tractator while Dulcianus was a witness to a contract, the commendator of which was a witness for Dulcianus and Bonanatus. Another Jewish merchant Mosse d’Accone entered into a contract with Petrus Cresteng, a Christian, in April 1248. From Mosse, Petrus took 40 capes from Metz worth £142.10d monete miscue, which were then transported to Sicily. Mosse then took 150 besants of millares from Petrus at a value of £45 monete miscue, which sailed to Bougie in the Maghreb. Mosse’s sons, Salomon and Joseph were also involved in commendae as both tractators and commendators.28
These were clearly fluid professions and most of the partnerships were devised on an informal rather than a permanent basis, with partnerships formed and dispensed with as needed. It was also the case that tractators, once they had accumulated enough capital, became commendators for a more settled existence. The Jewish tractators were, as Julie Mell points out, professional commercial agents but the values of the contracts they executed were moderate, “ranging from £100 to 10 shillings.” In Amalric’s cartulary, the contracts associated only with Jews averaged £17.4s per commenda, which was far below the entire average of £62, when Christians are included. As Mell concludes, Jewish tractators were active professionals in this business but they were of “modest means.”29
As shown, Jews and Christians interacted as partners