THE JEWS AND THE PRACTICE OF USURY.

     A  popular understanding is that usury is the levying of exorbitant interest on a loan. In the middle ages usury involved the automatic increase on the capital lent from the day of lending.  Interest on a loan arose only after a period of delay from the day of lending. The taking of interest on a loan was treated as a sin, and was forbidden in Europe until 13th. century, following the teaching found in Luke, ch.6,v.35. After that time interest was allowed in the matter of raising credit for trade. A Jew was permitted to raise interest by usury by a decision of the 4th. Lateran Church Council in 1215. This gave the Jews some advantage in money lending, but is also exacerbated resentment against them, as though they were preying on the vulnerable in society. Money lending was one of the few activities allowed to Jews because of the restrictions mentioned before.

    Thomas Aquinas considered that the possessions of the Jews could be expropriated since those possessions came to them through usury.The church generally was not committed to one view on the subject of lending at a fair profit. This form of business was seen as disreputable and it involved the risk of disinheritance of the children of lenders.The trade in usury had some protection from the civil authorities, but at the cost of opprobrium and hatred.

     Jewish usurers were never secure because of the threat of physical attack, mob violence, expulsion, arbitrary cancellation of loans to the “ owner “ or “ protector “ of the Jews, the diversion of repayment monies by the “owner”, or because of a moratorium  on the loans enforced by the Jews’  “owner.”

    The Jews themselves were often treated as “ chattels” by the “owners”, and a lust for their money sometimes prompted their murder. “The ready cash in the hands of the Jews was also a poison which killed them. Had the Jews been poor, they would not have been burned.” ( SOURCE: “Valley of Tears” by Joseph ha-Kahen.)

    Immense risks attended this form of livelihood, but money lending by the Jews gradually disappeared before the end of the middle ages, largely because of expulsions from England, France, Spain and various German cities. Heavy exactions were made upon them by their royal “protectors”, and Jewish wealth was exhausted in Europe by 15th. century as a result of these punitive measures.