The popular preachers constantly declaimed against all who took
interest. The medieval anecdote books for pulpit use are especially
full on this point. Jacques de Vitry tells us that demons on one
occasion filled a dead money-lender's mouth with red-hot coins;
Cesarius of Heisterbach declared that a toad was found thrusting a
piece of money into a dead usurer's heart; in another case, a devil
was seen pouring molten gold down a dead money-lender's throat.[[268]]
This theological hostility to the taking of interest was imbedded
firmly in the canon law. Again and again it defined usury to be the
taking of anything of value beyond the exact original amount of a
loan; and under sanction of the universal Church it denounced this
as a crime and declared all persons defending it to be guilty of
heresy. What this meant the world knows but too well.
The whole evolution of European civilization was greatly hindered
by this conscientious policy. Money could only be loaned in most
countries at the risk of incurring odium in this world and
damnation in the next; hence there was but little capital and few
lenders.
Pages:
1172
1173
1174
1175
1176
1177
1178
1179
1180
1181
1182
1183
1184
1185
1186
1187
1188
1189
1190
1191
1192
1193
1194
1195
1196