144 Popes and Jews, 1095–1291
This widespread condemnation of usury is not surprising since twelfth- and
thirteenth-century popes disliked the idea that Christians such as the Lombards
from northern italy and the Cahorsins—italian moneylenders who became prom-
inent businessmen in a number of towns and cities in Flanders in the thirteenth
century and who derived their name from the town of Cahors in south-central
France, one of the major banking centres in medieval europe—continued to lend
at interest despite papal prohibitions. Popes believed that usury was detrimental to
Christian society in general, and not least in relation to crusading.51
THe PAPACY, UsURY, And CRUsAdinG
As we saw in Chapter Three, one way in which the papacy sought to control the
effects of crusading on Jews was by its pronouncements regarding money-lending.
Popes were aware that many of those who responded to calls to take part in a cru-
sade could not raise sufficient cash on their own and turned to Jews to borrow it.
even Jewish women, as well as men, might lend money at interest.52 As early as
1095, realizing that many crusaders found it difficult to secure funds for the First
Crusade, Urban ii encouraged monasteries to lend them money as a pious contri-
bution.53 Yet, if crusaders could not attach themselves to a lord with connections
to monastic lands, they often had to borrow by pledging whatever land they them-
selves held, either with mortgages or, more commonly, vifgages—living pledges or
security—and many possessed inadequate land to pledge.54
in 1156 Alexander iii forbade the taking of mortgages on the grounds that they
were usurious—which added to the difficulties crusaders experienced trying to
raise money. such financial problems presumably encouraged them to borrow
money from Jews, particularly as, from the pontificate of eugenius iii onwards,
the papacy was stern in condemning money-lending by Christians, especially by
clerics.55 Papal prohibitions on the extortion of ‘heavy and immoderate usury’
(‘graves et immoderatae usurae’) from Christians by Jews, rather than an outright
ban, were therefore an attempt to prevent the exploitation of crusaders while at the
same time permitting Jews to engage in controlled money-lending—which they
51 Raymond de Roover, The Emergence of International Business 1200–18, Vol. 2, Money, Banking
and Credit in Medieval Bruges, A Study in the Origins of Banking (London, new York, 1999), pp.99–100;
James Murray, Bruges, Cradle of Capitalism, 1280–1390 (Cambridge, 2005), pp.138–48.
52 Judith Baskin, ‘some Parallels in the education of Medieval Jewish and Christian women’,
Jewish History, Vol. 5, no. 1 (spring, 1991), 45.
53 Jonathan Riley-smith, The First Crusaders, 1095–1131 (Cambridge, 1997), pp.125–9.
54 Marcus Bull, Knightly Piety and Lay-Response to the First Crusade: the Limousin and Gascony
(c.970–c.1130) (Oxford, 1993), pp.212–15; pp.268–71; pp.276–81; Robert stacey, ‘Crusades,
Martyrdom and the Jews of norman england 1096–1190’, in Juden und Christen zur Zeit der
Kreuzzüge, Vorträge und Forschungen 47, Konstanzer Arbeitskreis für mittelalterliche Geschichte, ed.
A. Haverkamp (sigmaringen, 1999), p.238.
55 eugenius iii, ‘Quantum praedecessores’ (1 december 1245), 3rd edn, ed. B. von simson,
Ottonis et Rahewina Gesta Friderici I Imperatoris 1 (Hanover, Leipzig, 1912), pp.55–7; ‘Quantum
praedecessores’ (1 March 1146), in Neues Archiv der Gesellschaft für ältere Deutsche Geschichtskunde 45,
ed. P. Rassow (Berlin, 1924), pp.302–5. see stacey, ‘Crusades, Martyrdom and the Jews of norman
england 1096-1190’, p.240.