Jews and Money 141
Usury was a sin, for which penance had to be done, and a canonical crime, for
which Church courts might impose penalties. it was not remittable by a local
parish priest and had to be referred to the bishop. during the late eleventh and
twelfth centuries, as the economy became more diversified and towns and cities
began to grow, incentives to disregard the Church’s ban on interest increased
and people began to question the reasons for the ban. Church councils, how-
ever, continued to issue decrees forbidding Christians to lend for profit. This
stipulation was based on several biblical passages. Texts from the Old Testament:
exodus 22: 25; deuteronomy 23: 19–20; and Leviticus 25: 35–7, all of which
forbade the exaction of usury, were frequently quoted,36 as also was Luke
6: 34–5:
And if you lend to those from whom you hope to receive what thanks can you expect?
even sinners lend to sinners to get back the same amount. instead, love your enemies
and do good, and lend without any hope of return.37This of course referred to deuteronomy 23: 19–20:38
You shall not lend upon interest to your brother, interest on money, interest on vict-
uals, interest on anything that is lent for interest. To a foreigner you may lend upon
interest, but to your brother you shall not lend upon interest.39it is not surprising that during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the papacy
increasingly legislated against usury as part of its duty of providing moral guidance
and spiritual care for Christian society. innocent iV condemned it for its evil con-
sequences: in moral terms, avarice; in social terms, poverty; while Alexander iV
officially identified it with heresy and placed it under the jurisdiction of the
inquisition. st Thomas Aquinas, following Aristotle’s Politics, declared usury a
logical anomaly, since it was selling something twice—the money and the use of
the money.40 in the fourteenth century the Council of Vienne of 1311 declared
that anyone maintaining that usury is no sin was a heretic.41
in order to understand the papacy’s position towards specifically Jewish usury
we need first to understand the Church’s position towards usury in general. The
36 exodus 22: 25, deuteronomy 23: 19–20, and Leviticus 25: 35–7, Biblia sacra iuxta Vulgatam
versionem, ed. R. weber (stuttgart, 1994).
37 Luke 6: 34–5, Biblia sacra iuxta Vulgatam versionem, Vol. 2, ed. weber: ‘... et si mutuum
dederitis his a quibus speratis recipere quae gratia est vobis nam et peccatores peccatoribus fenerantur
ut recipient aequalia verumtamen diligite inimicos vestros et benefacite et mutuum date nihil des-
perantes... ’
38 Parkes, The Jew in the Medieval Community, p.276; Jeremy Cohen, Under Crescent and Cross: the
Jews in the Middle Ages (Princeton, 1994), pp.82–3.
39 deuteronomy 23: 19–20, Biblia sacra iuxta Vulgatam versionem, Vol. 1, ed. weber: ‘... non
fenerabis fratri tuo ad usuram pecuniam nec fruges nec quamlibet aliam rem sed`alieno fratri autem
tuo absque usura id quod indiget commodabis’. For a discussion of the biblical texts, see Parkes, The
Jew in the Medieval Community, p.278; John Moore, ‘Pope innocent iii and Usury’, in Pope, Church
and City: Essays in Honour of Brenda Bolton, ed. F. Andrews, C. egger, C. M. Rousseau, The Medieval
Mediterranean, 56 (Leiden, 2004), p.60.
40 For Aquinas on usury see Summa Theologiae, ed. T. Gilby (London, 1975), Vol. 34, pp.260–2.
41 Jeffrey Richards, Sex, Dissidence and Damnation: Minority Groups in the Middle Ages (London,
1991), p.113.