ABSTRACT
Ever since the right to mint money had passed, in the Middle Ages, from the Emperor to the Estates of the Holy Roman Empire, each prince and each bishop as well as each city magistrate had the right to coin his own money and to set up his own monetary standards. Both the contemporary world and posterity had as little understanding of the activity of the Court Jews as mint purveyors as they had of their activities as war commissaries and commercial agents. The fatal consequences of such an inflationary policy were not realized at the time. Like many of the mint entrepreneurs Jud Suess began his career as a gold and silver purveyor. The general lessees were merely mint contractors and made only an 8% profit on the metal they supplied, while the huge profits made by the mints naturally went to the State and to the war treasury.”
