Religious Difference and Economic Cooperation: Christian-Jewish Business Relations in the Final Phase of the Holy Roman Empire (1648-1806)

该项目的总体目标是系统地研究和展示犹太和基督教经济行为者在十七世纪中叶和神圣罗马帝国末期之间的合作形式，以及在这些合资企业中采用的商业战略和做法。通过重建神圣罗马帝国最后阶段鲜为人知的犹太-基督教合作方式，该项目旨在为经济史和犹太史的整合、更广泛的早期现代德国经济史以及我们对国家形成、经济发展和宗教少数群体历史之间的联系和相互依存的了解做出实质性和创新性的贡献。在目前的情况下，经济合作指的是超越单一销售和信贷交易的商业互动形式，并启动(或至少打算)犹太和基督教行为者在较长时期内的合作。这些包括连续的佣金；基督徒对犹太商业公司的资本投资(反之亦然)；最初的援助和对贸易公司的默默参与；犹太-基督教商业伙伴关系的形成；以及合作车间和制造商。所研究的时期恰逢“犹太人宫廷时代”，当时许多中欧领土国家在重商主义经济政策的背景下雇用了犹太法院和军队承包商的服务，从而促成或至少支持了犹太经济精英的形成。在空间上，该项目涵盖了德国南部和中部的领土，这些领土可以被视为犹太人生活和文化的区域中心，因为他们的犹太社区(东斯瓦比亚、弗兰科尼亚、黑森州、图林根州、克雷希高)的数量、财政实力和文化意义。该项目始于2019年，在数据收集和分析层面上已经取得了很大进展。然而，由于发现了新的污染源，但最重要的是由于Covid 19大流行造成的延误，它不可能在该项目最初的三年时间框架内完成。除了一本将在一年延长期内完成的专著外，这个项目和申请人参与的第二个项目将产生一个创新的图形数据库，将为研究人员提供研究17世纪和18世纪德国犹太历史的必要分析工具。

It is the overall aim of the project, for which a 12-months-extension is sought, to systematically research and present the forms in which Jewish and Christian economic actors cooperated between the mid-seventeenth century and the end of the Holy Roman Empire as well as the business strategies and practices employed in the context of these joint ventures. By reconstructing the hitherto little-known ways of Jewish-Christian cooperation during the final phase of the Holy Roman Empire, the project intends to make a substantial and innovative contribution to the integration of economic history and Jewish history, to early modern German economic history more generally, and to our knowledge of the connections and interdependencies between state formation, economic development, and the history of religious minorities. In the present context, economic cooperation refers to forms of business interaction that went beyond single sales and credit transactions and initiated (or at least intended) the collaboration of Jewish and Christian actors over a longer time period. These include serial commissions; capital investments by Christians in Jewish commercial firms (and vice versa); initial assistance and silent participation in trading companies; the formation of Jewish-Christian commercial partnerships; as well as cooperative workshops and manufactures. The period under study coincides with the “age of the court Jews”, when numerous central European territorial states employed the services of Jewish court and army contractors in the context of mercantilist economic policies, thus enabling or at least supporting the formation of a Jewish economic elite. In spatial terms, the project covers territories in southern and central Germany which can be regarded as regional centers of Jewish life and culture on account of the number, financial prowess and cultural significance of their Jewish communities (eastern Swabia, Franconia, Hesse, Thuringia, the Kraichgau).The project, which began in 2019, has already far advanced on the level of data collection and analysis. Due to the discovery of new sources, but above all due to delays caused by the Covid 19 pandemic, however, it cannot be finished within the project’s original three-year time framework. Apart from a monograph, which shall be completed during the one-year extension period, this project and a second one in which the applicant is involved will result in an innovative graph database that will provide researchers with an essential analytical tool for the study of German-Jewish history during the 17th and 18th centuries.