Joseph Mussaphia

Joseph Mussaphia (* 1678 probably in Tönning ; † November 1709 in Schleswig ) was a German court Jew .

Live and act

Joseph Mussaphia was the eldest son of the court Jew Jacob Mussaphia and his first wife Ribca. He worked in his father's company at a young age and visited the sample fair in Leipzig in 1696 . From 1698 he managed most of the company's business himself. At the beginning of the Great Northern War , he was supposed to transport coin silver and pay for soldiers to Tönning for Duke Friedrich IV of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf . During this project he was arrested by the Danish authorities and spent around four months at the Flensburg Fortress . The Danes confiscated gold and silver worth around 20,000 Reichstalers. After his father died in early 1701, he took over his position as the court Jew of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf and initially continued his father's company on behalf of the three younger brothers and two sisters.

Due to the war, the duke absolutely needed a court Jew and coin publisher who could obtain loans for him. In April 1701 he signed a contract in Hamburg that ran until 1706 and promoted him where possible. So he instructed the Minister Magnus von Wedderkop to audition for the Mussaphia brothers at the Hamburg council at the beginning of 1701. The Mussaphias had apparently fallen out with the Sephardic community in the city, whereupon the community leader had pronounced a ban. In May 1701, the duke ordered his councilors to pay “Mussaphia's heirs” an advance of 30,000 thalers so that they could grant him a loan.

After the death of Duke Friedrich IV in 1702, there was a power struggle between Wedderkop and his opponents at the Gottorfer Hof. Mussaphia had a dispute with the mint master von Tönning as early as 1701. The pension chamber wanted to investigate the apparent discrepancies, but did not really begin until after the Duke's death. In the spring of 1703 the trial against Mussaphia officially began. Since the late Duke had exonerated Jacob Mussaphia for his work during the tenure of Duke Christian Albrecht in 1695 , the investigations related to the period from 1695. The government referred to the coinage treaty of 1701 and therefore only went against Joseph Mussaphia and not the entire affected group The brothers' undertaking. According to the indictment, Joseph Mussaphia melted down good Reichstaler and Danish kroner and made coins of poorer value from them. In addition, he and his father sometimes did not pay Schlagschätze in accordance with the contract.

In June 1703, Mussaphia was imprisoned in Schleswig , which was converted into custody in the following month. He had to pay a total of 6000 Reichstaler fine. He and his brothers were thus to be persuaded to publish account books about the Tönninger Mint in Hamburg, which Joseph Mussaphia and his father had kept. The brothers followed suit, whereupon Joseph Mussaphia was released in September 1703. In doing so, he declared himself responsible for his father's management, certainly not voluntarily.

A few months before a new conviction, his siblings agreed with Mussaphia to divide the estate. According to a court decision of April 1705, he was then to pay an additional 12,000 Reichstaler fine and 4,600 Reichstaler Schlagschatz. He was also supposed to hand over the Tönninger mint. Mussaphia appealed against the judgment on the grounds that the entries in his business books had been forged. Wedderkop did this in order to conceal its own income. The process, which only concerned the accurate accounting of the impact treasure, launched only after Joseph and his brother Isaac Mussaphia in the summer of 1708 in the wake of the Lübeck Prince Bishop Christian August , the guardian of the minor Duke Karl Friedrich , at the Duchess mother Hedwig Sophie in Stockholm auditioned had. Hedwig Sophie died a little later, which led to Wedderkop's opponents coming to power at the Gottorfer Hof. The revision of the proceedings ended in March 1711 with a confirmation of the previous judgment. Mussaphia, who last had severe ascites , probably died unmarried. He did not live to see the end of the court hearings affecting him. Due to the mixing of the conflicts between politicians at the Gottorfer Hof and Mussaphia's accounts, it is almost impossible to judge which of the allegations were correct on the basis of documents received. Since he allowed mint masters and private individuals to have coins struck on their own account, he was clearly not at fault.

literature

• Dieter Lohmeier: Mussaphia, Joseph . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1982–2011. Vol. 11 - 2000. ISBN 3-529-02640-9 , pages 287-288.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Dieter Lohmeier: Mussaphia, Joseph . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1982–2011. Vol. 11 - 2000. ISBN 3-529-02640-9 , page 287.
2. ↑ Dieter Lohmeier: Mussaphia, Joseph . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1982–2011. Vol. 11 - 2000. ISBN 3-529-02640-9 , pages 287-288.
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Dieter Lohmeier: Mussaphia, Joseph . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1982–2011. Vol. 11 - 2000. ISBN 3-529-02640-9 , page 288.