Lombardstraat.....what's in a name?

Streets in the old centrum of Dordrecht often have old, literal names that describe who worked there. 

When we stayed here in 2010 it was in Schijverstraat, or writer's street. I'm guessing that literacy was low 500 years ago and here was a place to get letters and contracts and petitions and so on written up for a fee.

There is also the Wijnstraat, where the wine merchants concentrated, Visstraat, where the fish mongers hacked up the salmon once plentiful in the river Maas, the Vleeshouwersstraat...street of the butchers and more. Even the harbours have descriptive names, like the wool weaver's harbour, the Wolwevershaven.

So our current address, Lombardstraat, sounded out of the pattern to me. I expected Lombard to be an early notary, politician or explorer, who had a straat named after him. Wrong! Lombard is from Lombardy in Italy, who gave Europe many of its early usurers, such that the name became synonymous with pawn broking and lending. There are Lombard streets in lots of places, London and New York among them. And Lombard credit is a term for the still used practice of lending while holding collateral.

OK. There ends the history lesson!