Reddit mentions of Life in a Medieval City (Medieval Life)

>the people they live among consider them outsiders and don't really let them do more "honorable" professions, and the people around them are heavily discouraged from doing those same professions.

That's actually not entirely accurate. Jews did normal stuff too. They tended to cluster in population centers for a number of reasons:

1: Strength in numbers.

2: It's where banking was in most demand.

3: Cities were run somewhat more meritocratically than areas run by nobility. Cities typically had councils/mayors that were at least somewhat representative of the leading citizens of the town. These folks tended to be a bit smarter, on average, than those who just won the birth lottery. This led to cities having far more sensible rules regarding Jews and citizens in general.

In large cities Jews could frequently expect:

1: The right to have their own synagogue.

2: Equal protection under the law of the city.

3: Slight protection from the more capricious and arbitrary rules of the Princes. Jews who lived in large cities were often spared the worst of royal decrees confiscating their property and/or banishing them. The city government would frequently run interference on a Prince banishing/robbing Jews by some combination of obfuscating their Jewish heritage, fabricating Christian family-members, or even making up a christening record for the Jew, insisting that the Jew had left, and have the Jew continue to exist in the town and own his property under his fake name until the heat died down. They had an incentive to do this for multiple reasons:

A: If the Jews had their property taken, it was usually not the city who got it. It was the King/Duke/whomever. So the city was really getting the raw end of the deal.

B: Business was a messy thing in the medieval era and a large scale transaction may involve three or four parties. If a Jew was part of your business agreement and was banished, he obviously can't uphold his part of the contract and it all falls apart.

C: Jews actually helped Christians observe their religious holidays and vice versa. Jews could labor on the majority of Christian holidays.

D: Because separation of church and state were not a thing and many city services/funds went towards religious causes, Jews were taxed equally but did not use city services/funds equally. Modern day equivalent would be people who pay school taxes but don't have kids.

Jews were perfectly able to go into whatever profession they wanted provided it was not towards a religious end (like doing stuff for a Church/Cathedral). But they were drawn disproportionately to lending simply because they had such an advantage there. There were also clever work-arounds so that Jews could borrow money from Jews and Christians could loan money to Jews without either violating their beliefs.

If a Jew needed money, he would involve a Christian to accomplish it:

1: Jew A gives Jew B 100 ducats. Let's say the "interest" is 1.1% per year.

2: When it comes time for interest of 1 ducat to be paid, Christian A pays Jew A 1 ducat then and there in exchange for a short-term debt (usually forty-five days) owed him by Jew B for 1.1 ducats.

3: Jew B pays Christian 1.1 ducats and pays principal back to Jew A normally.

In this way:

-Jew A has profited.

-Christian A has profited.

-Jew A has not charged Jew B interest.

-Christian A has not charged anyone interest at all.

Whether or not it actually followed the spirit of the two religions' laws was much discussed by both religions' clerics, but nevertheless it did happen. And, to be fair, there were also Christians who simply ignored the religious code and loaned money for interest or found other work-arounds. I'm sure some Jews did similarly.

Highly recommended reading on the subject:

https://www.amazon.com/Life-Medieval-City-Frances-Gies/dp/0062415182

I've been doing some world-building myself, and these are the links that I've found that help me the most:

- medieval demographics, based on data found in this book

- magical medieval society, a 3e reference book

- travel speed discussion

Life in a Medieval City this book covers every thing i've ever wondered about the renaissance era. next up is the calamitous 14th century.

I'm looking into how cities work and urban planning. How they decide what goes where and when and how big. I love the idea of how my city works, within its walls and everything, but I need to plan out its inner workings and its streets and neighborhoods to make the peoples fit into it. So I read a lot of things like Life in a Medieval City and I look at maps a lot.