THE MEDIEVAL JEWISH COUNTERPART TO THE GILD MERCHANT.
C ONTEMPORANEOUSLY with the first mention of the gild merchant of Western Europe, i.e. about the middle of the eleventh century,' there arose among the Jewish communities of those countries which had the gild system, viz. Italy, Germany and France,2 an institution known as the Herein Ha-yishub (Prohibition against Settlement), whereby the Jewish community of a town could inhibit, on pain of excommunication and social and economic boycott, any stranger from coming to settle in their midst. Its establishment is ascribed to Rabbi Gershom of Mainz3 (960-iO40) and so firmly did it become established that the famous French Rabbi, Jacob Tam of Rameru (IIOO-7I), refers to it as an ancient institution, the origin of which was unknown.4 In the only work in English which mentions this institution, it is ascribed to the desire on the part of the Jewish authorities to keep the Jews on the land,5 while the ethical writer of the middle ages, Judah the Saint of Regensburg (d. I2I7), appears to suggest that it was sometimes applied in order to preserve the morals of the community from becoming contaminated by the lower standards of newcomers ;6 but a study of its application shows beyond possible shadow of doubt that the underlying reason for its institution was the economic protection of the community, and the establishment of a virtual trading monopoly, and, in fact, not only is the Heremn Ha-yishub the Jewish medieval counterpart to the gild merchant, which was such a determinant factor in the economic life of the middle ages, but there is a distinct possibility that it even antedates the gild merchant, which may therefore have been influenced by it. The fact that there is no coherent account of this remarkable institution, and that what references there are to it are scattered in the voluminous