Jewish Money Lenders in Medieval and Renaissance Italy

While staying in Orvieto, we had the opportunity to travel to many other nearby cities to learn more about their archaeological discoveries as well as the history behind the cities that surround Orvieto. We stopped in a city called Sorano, which is just one of the medieval hill towns that flourished between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. I was particularly focused on looking at the Jewish Communities in Sorano, Sovana, and Pitigliano.

Upon entrance into the community we took a look at the giant stone arch that was once used to close off the community at night with a large gate. The Jewish families were confined to these small communities and received virtually zero benefits from the town governments. However, the Jewish had one very important role in society – the served as money lenders to members of the entire village. The Jewish would provide loans to small households as well as the large, wealthy families. Additionally, they helped fund city projects such as repairing buildings and designing defense systems. They could charge a very high interest rate on these loans, which the town governments would then impose a tax on. The money collected from the interest rates on the loans would typically go back into the city to fund the military.

One interesting point that came up in our discussion of this topic is that the Jewish were deprived of most basic rights, but they were given an extremely important role in society to provide these loans for people. When we toured the small village we got to see how the buildings were actually structured to provide a sort of defense mechanism in the case of an intrusion, and the loans that the Jewish provided were a big part of making these projects possible. I felt very lucky that I was able to tour a place with such rich history and I really enjoyed getting to see how perfectly preserved the villages were so that this history can be appreciated and remembered.