" This infallible utterance
bound the dogma with additional force on the conscience of the
universal Church.
Nor was this a doctrine enforced by rulers only; the people were
no less strenuous. In 1390 the city authorities of London enacted
that, "if any person shall lend or put into the hands of any person
gold or silver to receive gain thereby, such person shall have the
punishment for usurers." And in the same year the Commons prayed
the king that the laws of London against usury might have the force
of statutes throughout the realm.
In the fifteenth century the Council of the Church at Salzburg
excluded from communion and burial any who took interest for money,
and this was a very general rule throughout Germany.
An exception was, indeed, sometimes made: some canonists held that
Jews might be allowed to take interest, since they were to be
damned in any case, and their monopoly of money-lending might
prevent Christians from losing their souls by going into the
business. Yet even the Jews were from time to time punished for the
crime of usury; and, as regards Christians, punishment was bestowed
on the dead as well as the living--the bodies of dead money-lenders
being here and there dug up and cast out of consecrated ground.
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