Münzjuden unter Ferdinand II. nach den Akten des Hofkammerarchivs in Wien.

[Jews in the Coin-Minting-Business during the Era of Ferdinand II. as recorded in the files in the Hofkammerarchiv in Vienna.]

Jews in the coin-minting-business were seen as the main culprits of the inflation during the Thirty Years’ War, both by their contemporaries and by parts of the historiography. Using sources from the Hofkammerarchiv in Vienna, this study for the first time investigates what their real function was, why they were indispensable for the emperor’s court in the financial straits during the war, and how small their leeway was when it came to making own decisions. Their power was relatively small, but their network and their credit was of the utmost importance for getting the hands on „good“ old coins and minting them into „bad“ new coins.