Language:
English
Year of publication:
1992
Titel der Quelle:
Christianity and Judaism
Angaben zur Quelle:
(1992) 237-252
Keywords:
Catholic Church Relations
;
Judaism
;
Christianity and other religions Judaism To 1500
;
History
;
Jewish bankers History
;
Usury History
;
Antisemitism History
;
Jews Economic conditions Middle Ages, 500-1500
;
Jews Economic conditions 16th century
;
Jews Economic conditions 17th century
Abstract:
Analyzes papal policy regarding usury in the 13th-17th centuries, and the reasons for closing the Jewish banks in Rome in 1682. During the 13th-16th centuries, Jews were allowed to deal in usury but their interest rates were restricted. During this period, the secular rulers, especially the kings of England and France, were angered by Jewish financial practices and tried to stop them, first by attempts to convert them and, when that failed, by expulsion. In the 15th century there was a widespread belief in the Papal States, especially among Franciscans, that Jewish usury would destroy Christian society. Therefore, the Monti di Pietà were founded as Christian loan banks. From ca. 1668 a debate arose in ecclesiastical circles in Rome regarding the future of Jewish banking; it ended in the closing of the 50 Jewish banks in 1682 by Pope Innocent XVI. The reasons given were based on modern mercantilistic theory - that Jewish usury did not serve the interests of the state - but they rested, in fact, on traditional medieval beliefs that Jewish financial activities were harmful to Christian society and that Christians must act to improve the Jews by conversion.
Note:
Reprinted in his "Jewish Life in Early Modern Rome" (2007) ch. IV.
,
In Hebrew:
,
"דת וכלכלה" (תשנה) 161-177
URL:
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