I mean in the end you can not even enforce them to pay you back with the interest so why would your risk lending money to kings and nobles if you where an banker?
-
We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
There was often guarantees or favours involved. You lend me 10 000 Ducats for my invasion of the Sheikdom of Bohemia and of course you will get it back.. Meanwhile you get the right to buy this piece of land or tax this piece of land etc etc.
This. There was often not so subtle threat of force involved.
On the third hand, banks need to lend money to make money: If you didn't lend to nobles, not only might they fuck you over in various ways, but you'd have too small a base of people to lend to.
A interesting example of the balance or unbalance between power and money is the relationship of Maximilian I. of Habsburg and the "Fuggers", wealthy merchants and traders. Seems money was more important then. But I am sure you can find also other examples with a different balance.
Who else do you lend money to?
They have a constant stream of income (their lands) and they have expenses (wars, fancy shoes).
It made good business sense.
They have a constant stream of income (their lands) and they have expenses (wars, fancy shoes).
It made good business sense.
The bankers were primarily Jews, the Jews needed protection to operate protected from the masses, road gangs, and other nefarious lords of this sort or that.
There is a great thread in Ivanhoe where Cedric of York, Prince John's banker, uses the Jewish capital to free Richard from Austrian imprisonment against John's express wishes. His request is for Jews to be given equal treatment under the law under Richard's rule.
There is a great thread in Ivanhoe where Cedric of York, Prince John's banker, uses the Jewish capital to free Richard from Austrian imprisonment against John's express wishes. His request is for Jews to be given equal treatment under the law under Richard's rule.
already sort of mentioned, but nobles were practically the only people with money in a non-cash feudal economy. It's extraordinarily difficult to do financing, make wealth portable, or do bookkeeping and storage of wealth without money. Later on there were significant merchant and shipping businesses, but earlier, it was either do business with nobility, or don't get into banking.
I don't think it is so simple. If a monarch is not able to pay back the loan it would be very hard to loan Money when it is needed, same applies with modern governments. So from the banks view, lending Money to monarch was probably pretty safe way to eventually make more Money from interest or other compensations. It is probably much more risky to lend Money to smaller organisations than a government.
A government probably have the Resources to eventually make the loan profitable while smaller organizations may collapse and when the Money is gone. And if the government is unable to pay the loan it probably mean the end of the government.
It may seem so at first, but the Nobles needed to pay their debts because they might need to get loans again.
So once you would be known for not paying life would become very narrow pobably.
Also as far as I remember the noble conduct (laid down in sort of informal house rules) is still "one always pays his monetary debts".
This goes for almost all noble famiies.
If one would be part of such and not pay up legal debts (e.g. from gambling) it would become family buisness to pay your debt so "the name" stays clean.
Well, not always. The Spanish crown ruined the bankers at Genoa with their default.
Then they started lending from bankers in… Amsterdam (yeah, the same guys they were fighting)
Then they started lending from bankers in… Amsterdam (yeah, the same guys they were fighting)
If you didn’t eventually pay up, or work things out other nobles were likely to ‘help’ the foreclosure along and seize your assets for themselves.
No, not really. Jewish lenders were usually too small beer. Royal bankers were most frequently wealthy foreigners - Italians, Germans, etc. And got into it primarily because they were also big-time merchants who sought trading privileges & tax breaks for their other businesses or exclusive agency in managing royal revenues or rents of some kind.
Loans were effectively bribes to obtain royal guarantees of privileges of some sort.
No, nobles didn't have money. It was city merchants who had cash.
Nobles had huge expenses, but no cash. That's why they got into hock so badly.
There's a great passage in Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations" about how the nobles of Europe were basically hoodwinked out of their temporal power - effectively politically overthrown - by town merchants lending cash to them in return for increasing city rights.
Europe owes its freedom and prosperity to these brave little usurers.
Last edited:
Well the Knights Templar lending to the King of France went quite poorly when it was time to collect their due.
Considering that the insolvency of the royal house was part of what led to the English Civil War... not so much. you can only piss off your business leaders so far before they begin to be able to form coalitions and take you down. The burghers more or less won the ECW against the traditional nobility, exactly because King James tried to do what you are saying kings could just do, and managed to unite most of the nation's money against him as a result. Mercenaries and professional soldiers played a large role in how that war ended.
Did Templars actually lend to the crown? They were doing a lot of lending, sure, but I didn't get the impression the crown was a customer. AFAIK, it was merely a cash grab by Philip IV to seize their fortune, not that he actually owed them anything. And they were not his only targets - Jews, city merchants, nobles, etc. were all robbed or shaken down by Philip IV at different times. He was quite ruthless at squeezing money out of anybody who had any.
Well yes but for example Edward III did not pay the debts of his Italian banker who lend him money and the bankers became poor and bankrupt the same with his father and his father and his father and his father and then Richard I by the way the jews who payed his ransom and lend him money got jack shit in return.
You will think bankers and lenders will learn by now.
According to wiki, who sites an article by Slate Magazine (take that for whatever that's worth it to you), King Philip was heavily in debt to the Templars due to his wars with England. But he can be in debt to an order if he destroys that order. Kind of think that would have made anyone nervous to lend to him after that.
Hm. I'm going to take that with a grain of salt. Yes, he had debts. But Lombard bankers were the big lenders to the French crown at the time (the Pont au Change in Paris, is named after them - that was where they established themselves during his reign; he later expelled the Lombard bankers in 1311).
There is also a traditional story (take that also for what its worth) that Philip IV was quite unaware of Templar wealth until he took refuge in the Paris Temple during the Paris rent riots of December 1306 (riots he had himself provoked with his debasements) and saw the valuable gee-gaws the Templars had around. Philip had the Templars arrested and their property seized later that same year.
If it is true he only learned about it then, not sure he would have accumulated that much debt to them in that brief interval of ten months or so. Particularly since he was still digesting the fortunes he stole from the expulsion of French Jews in June 1306. It seems the greedy bastard just saw an opportunity to lay hands on more cash, and took it.
(P.S. - Remember, Templar activities were quite recent - they had only really established themselves in France after the fall of Acre in 1291.)
Last edited:
I know that when edward I expelled the jews from england he took control over their possessions and thus also the loans they had given which would now be owed directly to the crown
if philip did the same then it would have brought in a semi-long term source of revenue without necesarily being heavily in debt