Smol of Derenburg

Smol, also Samuel, of Derenburg was a Court Jew to four archbishops at Magdeburg, Germany. Smol is first mention in 1347, and it is known that he was a member of a commission arbitrating a dispute between the archbishop and the city of Hollefin in 1365. With the archbishop Peter, the last of the archbishops he served as financier, he was particularly close. Peter called him “our Jew” and granted him and his children protection in 1372. The archbishop was given warning about this relationship when the pope, Gregory XI, cautioned him that he would take strong measures if it were indeed true that he had permitted Smol to turn a church into a synagogue.