Reynette

Reynette Bonenfant , better known as Reynette von Koblenz (* around 1340 , † after 1390 ) was a Jewish money dealer in Koblenz and on the Middle Rhine .

Reynette's maiden name is not known. In 1358 she lived in her first marriage to Leo von Münstermaifeld in this electoral city ​​of Trier . Together they worked as moneylenders and pawnbrokers. Shortly afterwards they moved to Koblenz, where Leo bought a dozen bonds of the city of Andernach from 1361 until his death in 1365, worth 1960 Rhenish gold guilders (fl.) And 365 marks .

City of Andernach

After Leo's death, Reynette von Münstermaifeld, as she was called since her marriage, expanded the business so that in 1369 she was the first Koblenz money dealer to be able to grant a loan of 1000 florins. At the time, the Andernach citizenry was in the chalk with her at 1600 florins. Three years later it was already 8,000 florins and the city was threatened with insolvency, which was averted through an agent of the Archbishop of Trier . Their financial dealings with the city lasted until the late 1370s.

Koblenz

In 1377 she married the moneylender and son of a rabbi Moses Bonefant and has been called Reynette Bonenfant (Gutkind) since then. She now had a sufficient capital base to turn to larger customers. More profitable and less dubious, as provided with more reliable securities, was Adolf I of Nassau , who aspired to the archbishopric of Mainz and achieved it in 1381. He constantly needed cash for his territorial-political disputes with the Rhineland Count Palatine , so Reynette Bonenfant was able to invest several thousand guilders and received the income of the Mainz customs from Oberlahnstein as security .

Of 132 documented credit transactions in Koblenz at that time, she carried out 60 between 1000 and 8000 florins, with her customers being counts, noblemen , collegiate clergymen, knights and municipal ministerials in addition to the aforementioned .

King Wenzel's second repayment of Jewish debts in 1390 prompted Archbishop Werner von Falkenstein of Trier to intervene in the Jewish financial affairs that had been unhindered for over 30 years, for example to achieve interest rate reductions. Reynette Bonenfant was only occasionally active at the time, and her daughter Mede, who had the same job, had already moved to the Upper Rhine .

In 1418, Falkenstein's successor, Otto von Ziegenhain, drove the Jews out of the ore monastery, but Koblenz was again in debt to Jews around 1430. In 1518 these were then allowed again.

Credit terms

The annual interest rate on the loans was around 50% at the time. If the repayment period expired, further interest between 43 and 72% was due. The term increased with the amount of the credit line from two weeks to several years with precisely defined partial repayment amounts and dates.

In addition to armaments, weapons, clothes, jewelry and shares in customs income, the loan was also secured by immobile goods, so Reynette Bonenfant also worked as a real estate dealer. In the Middle Rhine region, the yields of the grape harvest in Fuder (1 Fuder = 800–1800 liters) or their income were taken in pledge.

A debt deed by Reynette Bonenfants and three other moneylenders contained the Hebrew note in the margin " until the time of darkness ", which was a polemical Jewish paraphrase of the feast of Maria Candlemas on February 2nd, when Christians lit candles in honor of Mother Maria .

literature

• Franz-Josef Ziwes: On the Jewish capital market in late medieval Koblenz , in: Hochfinanz im Westen des Reich 1150-1500 , hrgg. by Friedhelm Burgard, Alfred Haverkamp, ​​Franz Irsigler and Winfried Reichert (Trier Historical Research; 31), Trier 1996, pp. 49–74.
• Franz-Josef Ziwes: Reynette von Koblenz. Jewish women's life in the late Middle Ages , in: Portrait of a European core region. The Rhine-Maas area in historical life pictures , hrgg. by Franz Irsigler and Gisela Minn, Trier 2005, pp. 138–146.

Web links

• Reynette von Koblenz in the portal Rheinische Geschichte

swell

1. ↑ Franz-Josef Ziwes: On the Jewish capital market in late medieval Koblenz in " High Finance in the West of the Reich ". Publishing house Trier historical research. Volume 31. 1996. ISBN 3923087306