One of the chief factors contributing to the development of industry was the wider availability of money for investment purposes.

During the so-called Dark and Middle Ages, what we think of today as "risk" capital was almost impossible to come by.

Historically, the Jewish populations of Europe, generally restricted to living in their ghettos in virtually every major city and forbidden by law and royal decree from engaging in most business enterprises, found themselves reduced to the banking business, which was under religious proscription but not under legal restraint.

The Catholic tradition held it sinful to borrow or lend, particularly when high interest was to be paid.

The Jews of Europe soon found themselves paradoxically valuable by making large sums of money available, if not to private industry, then at least to the ruling houses and families.

In spite of the church position regarding the sinfulness of receipt or payment of interest, members of royalty and the nobility generally considered themselves above such mortal restrictions.

It was the House of Rothschild, which is often cited by global conspiratorialists as part of the shadowy "Illuminati", who was a supporter of many governments for years, since it was governments who would be willing and able to pay a high rate of interest for borrowed sums - and which probably also lent itself to subsequent laws against "usury", and political demonization of such Jewish benefactors.

In fact, the House of Rothschild is traced back to the beginnings of the industrial era. Moses Amschel Bauer, a German Jew in Frankfurt-on-the-Main, was a banker and goldsmith, in the tradition of many European Jews of the day.

The Rothschild name was derived from the 'red shield' ('rotschildt') that hung over the door of the Bauer shop, and which had been the emblem of revolutionary Jews in Eastern Europe.

His son, Mayer Amschel took over the family business after the death of his father, and soon branched out into the buying and selling of rare coins, buying out several other coin dealers in the process.

In 1769, Mayer Amschel Rothschild became a court agent for Prince William IX of Hesse-Kassel, who was the grandson of George II of England, a cousin to George III, a nephew of the King of Denmark, and a brother- in-law to the King of Sweden.

Soon Rothschild became the middleman for big Frankfurt bankers like the Bethmann Brothers, and Rueppell & Harnier.

After expanding his business to antiques, wineries, and the importing of manufactured materials from England, the Rothschild family began to amass a sizable fortune, which was often used to finance various royal governments.

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