have made adequate satisfaction for the immediate burden. The Christians also … shall be compelled by ecclesiastical censure to abstain from commerce with them. We enjoin upon princes not to be hostile to Christians on this account, but rather to be zealous in restraining Jews from so great oppression.
One of those “cruel oppressions” condemned by the council was licensed pawnbroking carried out by Jews, especially in France and Flanders.20
To opponents of usury, charging a profit on loans corrupted society and consumed its victims as viciously as the wolf ripped apart its prey. It savaged the ←10 | 11→simple, devout people in their lust for wealth or pleasure, like “beasts of the forest [ways of the flesh]…which devour the Church and the faithful soul.” With a small number of Jews prominent in the moneylending business in Western Europe and Christians forbidden to enter into it, usury was labeled a Jewish profession. It was considered an “immoral” profession, only suitable to people who had denied Christ. We cannot know if there were Christians at this time who, on a non-professional and clandestine basis, lent money at interest to their friends and neighbors. If there were, then they would simply be labeled as “judaizers.” Every usurer was, for all intents and purposes, a Jew.21
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Demand for credit was growing and it would not be long before Christians would clamor to enter into the field of moneylending, even if it was officially prohibited to practice usury by religious and secular authorities. But, until that time, this meant that for a brief time at the end of the eleventh and early-twelfth century Jews were dominant in the field of moneylending in Western Europe. This is one reason why, despite the long and hostile association between Jews and usury that stretched back to antiquity, it was not until the twelfth century that serious debates about interest loans occurred in Western Europe. It was not until that time that the Lateran councils began to proscribe usury and issue punishment for those involved.
The reason for these changes in policy towards moneylending was the great economic change and expansion in Western Europe, whereby money in the form of coinage was more abundant and a larger number of interest loans were conducted as the demand for capital increased. In a short space of time, interest loans were to become an integral part of Western European societies that were slowly and unevenly adopting a surplus-rich, capital-based economy. Weekly markets linked the urban areas to the isolated rural villages, offering local everyday necessities to the townspeople and peasants. On a grander scale, fairs were annual or biannual events that became the hub of international finance and trade, with important fairs arranged in Troyes, Provins, Bar-sur-Aube, Lagny, Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen), Geneva, Cologne, Frankfurt, Bruges, Stourbridge and the hilly French province of Champagne. By the thirteenth century, an initiative by the authorities was needed to get markets and fairs recognized, with the time and place regulated, and these authorities also had the right to close down any market or fair if they were unlicensed. Feast days and trade were intertwined as people flocked to the fairs, often held on saints’ days, to buy and sell goods and make other deals. They were ←11 | 12→entertained by jongleurs who performed acrobatics, magic tricks, and juggling, as well as strolling players and musicians, while vendors sold food and drinks. These trading venues not only benefitted the merchants and traders. They became a vital source of revenue for the local authorities, who profited from taxes, rents, and other fees, as well as the religious houses, which were given the right to weigh and tax the goods. So crucial were these events that great effort was taken to prevent any disruption of the market and fair so that those conducting business could do so in peace.22
Many people today would agree with the French theologian and philosopher Peter Abelard (1079–1142) that Jews took up the “immoral” trade of moneylending because they had little or no choice. Yet it was often the case that Jewish moneylenders fought to retain their privileges and position as bankers, which does not indicate a forced profession that Jews were driven into due to a lack of other choices. Throughout Europe, Jews worked in a variety of professions, including as metal workers, vintners, dyers, glass workers, miners, smiths, tailors, butchers, bakers, sailors, and physicians. Only a small number of Jews ever sat at the banker’s bench and an even smaller number only sat at the banker’s bench as people commonly held two or more overlapping occupations. In addition, this monopoly was short-lived, which dispels the myth that only Jews were moneylenders. During the twelfth century, Christians, particularly Italians, entered into moneylending in significant numbers including the Riccardi of Lucca, Betti of Lucca, Ballardi of Lucca, Frescobaldi, and Spini. Italians who lent money to monarchs generally took their profits in the form of commercial advantages rather than a cash return on the principal. Cahors from southern France were so influential in banking that the Benedictine monk of St. Albans and chronicler Matthew Paris (c.1200–1259) equated the word “Caursines” (Cahors) with moneylender. They cloaked “their usury under the show of trade,” Paris wrote, plying their “horrible-nuisance” with “heavy rates of interest.” Paris had no love for any usurer, who, with the help of “the extortions of the pope and the cheating of the king” had enslaved England in a sea of debt. Criticism was also directed at the the Lombards, although there seems to be little difference between Cahors and Lombards and the two words appear to be used interchangeably. The Lombards had control over the moneylending trade in many lands and, like the Jews and the Cahors, they were reviled for their “ill-gotten gains.”23
With the growth in trade and commerce boosting the need for more bankers and their ready money, the ranks of usurers were swelled by these Christians who eagerly entered the financial trade in defiance of papal and royal prohibitions. This again suggests that moneylending was not a forced occupation but one that ←12 | 13→many Jews and Christians expected would provide them with a good living. So long as people paid their debts, moneylending could indeed be a highly profitable business. Interest rates were set at an average of 40 to 45 percent and could reach as high as 60 percent. The steep rates were determined by the high taxes imposed on foreigners for settlement and other tallages, and the risk involved in lending money—the possibility of default as well as the chance that the currency would be debased and inflation would make each coin less valuable on repayment. On the other hand, debased coinage benefited the debtor, who received the loan at a higher value and repaid his debt with devalued coins.24
In sum, Jews were not solely moneylenders nor were they unique players in the business of moneylending even if they were dominant for a short period of time. They did not, as traditional accounts often claim, invent banking or capitalism single-handedly and there was nothing to link the religion of Judaism and moneylending, as the nineteenth-century economist Werner Sombart claimed. At the same time, the fact that the number of Jews involved in moneylending was small in comparison to the Jewish population, does not make the presence of those individual Jewish moneylenders a “myth,” or irrelevant.25
In the Church’s efforts to keep Christians free from the sin of usury, an effort doomed to failure after the Italian Christians took up usury, the Jewish moneylenders played a key role. Theoretically, they provided the capital necessary for economic growth while ensuring that Christians kept their souls pure and their hands clean, spiritually untainted by the “immoral” profession. Christians could benefit from the results of usury, but they could not be seen to be practicing it. They could take loans off Jews while condemning them for immoral practices. They could assure themselves that participation in such a vile profession substantiated claims that Jews were spiritually bereft. It was a grand deceit. Because almost everyone—directly or indirectly—was involved in usury.
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Roman law was in the early stages of being rediscovered and being taught in the universities at Bologna and Paris. The Romans had ruled that the
