Abstract

"THE CONTINUAL REINVENTION OF THE LOMBARD MONEYLENDERS'S SURVIVAL TACTICS IN THE LOW COUNTRIES (13th-17th Century)"

Myriam Greilsammer, Bar Ilan University (mgreilsammer@gmail.com)

This paper aims to underline the continual reinvention of the Italian moneylenders’s survival tactics in the Low Countries from the 13th to the 17thC. Usually from Northern Italy, the “lombards” provided a comprehensive range of commercial and banking services. They loaned money to state, religious and urban institutions and individuals and met the demands of consumption credit. Excluded from the Christian community, denied salvation and sacraments because of their condemned economic activities, they were socially and culturally stigmatized. In spite of their discrimination, their strong endorsement by the political institutions enabled the remarkable scale and duration of their economic success in the Low Countries. However, the erratic character of this support necessitated a constant reinvention of the moneylenders's tactics versus the princes. These adverse parameters generated a specific lombard “struggle for survival” mentality, and an enduring inventiveness and constant reinvention in the midst of changing/deteriorating conditions.
Their religious rejection and the hatred produced by their bad reputation, generated a cultural reaction emphasizing negative stereotypes in literature and in the figurative arts. This led to another aspect of their perpetual inventiveness in their social and cultural strategies. In order to be integrated and to amend their “sins”, they became major contributors as patrons of good deeds (opera) and arts. Consequently, they succeeded to somehow be integrated as “good” Christians, to acquire and secure their social integration in order to climb the social ladder (into the urban Patriciate and even the Nobility), and to gain political influence in the Low Countries. However, their remarkable reinvention along the centuries could not prevent the Archdukes Albert and Isabelle (1598-1621) to put an end to their economic monopoly in 1618 and replace their activities by the institutionalized Monts-de-piété. This somehow proves that the weight of mentalities can sometimes prevail on rational economic interests and even on impressive inventiveness.