Title: Wirtschaftsgeschichte der mittelalterlichen Juden
Abstract: Christian Perceptions of Jewish Economic Activity in the Middle AgesThe most common and long surviving Jewish stereotype elaborated by Christian culture during the Middle Ages is the image of the Jewish usurer.On the double and interconnected subject, the economic activity of the Jews in the Middle Ages and its Christian representation or description, one can read in historical studies or manuals several common places.They are summed up by the idea that usury actually was, still in the high Middle Ages, the more typical economic activity of the European Jews 1 .Before analysing that strange encounter between medieval and historiographical stereotypes 2 , I believe it is essential to have in mind the texts regarded as basic by medieval Christian authors when they utilised the word "usury" usura to represent Jewish economic activity as a manifestation of greed.In fact, the formation of the Jewish usurious stereotype is deeply rooted in the inner logic and vocabulary of Christian economics.When we read Medieval Latin sources on economic arguments, it is important to understand that these representations of economic activity are in most cases sections of ecclesiastical sources regarding both the real and symbolic representation of Christian society.So they draw on the traditional ecclesiastic language concerning both the earthly and eternal happiness of the Christians.It is well known that medieval Christian authors ignore Jewish economic culture and laws or do not pay attention to them, with the consequence that Christian economic sources represent economic Jewish activities as totally subordinate to the Christian vision of the world 3 .We cannot however deduce from that Christian misrepresentation that Jewish economic culture and laws did not exist or 1 On this problem, G. Todeschini, I mercanti e il tempio.