Free city Frankfurt with the early medieval period attracted the Jews for its location in the center of bustling trade. During the last millennium there were successfully trade and financial transactions. Before the French Revolution in Frankfurt there were 35 thousand. Residents, one-tenth of them were Jews. Since 1462 it has been allocated a special Jewish Quarter.


Many centuries ago, in one of those cramped ghetto, only 12 meters wide, between the city wall and moat, 'squeezed in a cage' ancestors lived and the House of Rothschild. It was a family Khans that formed later one of the branches of the dynasty. In Frankfurt they migrated in the XVI century. Their name derives from Frankfurt 'house with a red sign' <Rothschild (it.) - Rotschild: rot red, das Schild - sign>, where the family lived. But it should be noted that the name Rothschild is common in Jewish communities. In 1585, Isaac Elchanan first appeared nickname 'in red signs', while at the grave of his father wrote only Elhanan. After almost a hundred years, the family moved to another house 'Hinterpfann', but the name Rothschild left. The livelihood of the Rothschild family, like other Israelis, gave trade as to the XVIII century there was no other financial banking. Status They had little, lifestyle - a modest. From 1567 to 1580, Isaac Elchanan paid the tax status of 2 thousand. 700 guilders, and his great-grandson Calment, who died in 1707, in 1690 the state had already in the 6 th. Florins. Kalman's son in 1733 - 1735 years had on their hands a bill known Württemberg court factor to 38 thousand. Florins, which suggests the presence of large cash transactions. But Amschel Moses, the father of our Mayer Amschel had a condition just 1 thousand. 375 florins. All of this - a very small amount when compared with the income and the state of the major factors of the court of Berlin and Vienna, where almost all the courtiers financiers were millionaires ...