 At the time of Mayer Amschel's birth, Frankfurt's Jews were still "serfs" in "slavery", as Ludwig Börne said, not mincing his words.Since the reign of Frederick II in the 13th century, they were "servants of the Imperial treasury".In spite of being restricted to a narrowly circumscribed range of retail, moneylending or pawnbrokerage businesses, a number of families managed to become prosperous by the end of the 18th century, foremost the "Speyer" family.