The Jewish population in all these communities was prosperous and
respected. Jews were in favor with the Government, enjoyed equal rights
with their Gentile neighbors, and were especially prominent as traders
and farmers of taxes. Their monoxyla, or one-oared canoes, loaded with
silks, furs, and precious metals, issued from the Borysthanes, traversed
the Baltic and the Euxine, the Oder and the Bosphorus, the Danube and
the Black Sea, and carried on the commerce between the Turks and the
Slavonians. They were granted the honorable and lucrative privilege of
directing and controlling the mints, and that of putting Hebrew as well
as Slavonic inscriptions on their coins.[6] In the Lithuanian Magna
Charta, granted by Vitold in 1388, the Jews of Brest were given many
rights, and about a year later those of Grodno were permitted to engage
in all pursuits and occupations, and exempted from paying taxes on
synagogues and cemeteries. They possessed full jurisdiction in their own
affairs. Some were raised to the nobility, notably the Josephovich
brothers, Abraham and Michael. Under King Alexander Jagellon, Abraham
was assessor of Kovno, alderman of Smolensk, and prefect of Minsk; he
was called "sir" (jastrzhembets), was presented with the estates of
Voidung, Grinkov, and Troki (1509), and appointed Secretary of the
Treasury in Lithuania (1510). The other brother, Michael, was made
"fiscal agent to the king." In the eighteenth century, Andrey
Abramovich, of the same family but not of the Jewish faith, was senator
and castellan of Brest-Litovsk.[7] They were not unique exceptions.
Abraham Shmoilovich of Turisk is spoken of as "honorable sir" in leases
of large estates. Affras Rachmailovich and Judah Bogdanovich figure
among the merchant princes of Livonia and Lithuania; and Francisco Molo,
who settled later in Amsterdam, was financial agent of John III of
Poland in 1679. The influence of the last-named was so great with the
Dutch States-General that the Treaty of Ryswick was concluded with Louis
XIV, in 1697, through his mediation.[8]