Purgatory, Usury, and the World’s Oddities

support-for-the-purgatory

 

Partendo dai rapporti stabiliti da Jacques Le Goff tra usura e Purgatorio, questo articolo ripercorre brevemente la storia di un fenomeno che, secondo Le Goff, fu altresì alle origini del sistema bancario. Si affronta qui anche la questione di come gli usurai riuscirono a guadagnarsi un comodo soggiorno in Purgatorio. La cosa sembrerebbe impossibile, ma riuscì perfettamente.

 

 

“The birth of Purgatory is also in his words.” (Jacques Le Goff).

 

Jacques Le Goff, one of the best historians of the world, was the first to found the relationship between  Purgatory and usury, because Purgatory was created by the Catholic Church to save usurers from eternal Hell fire. The great historian of ideas discovered that, when Catholic theologians literally invented Purgatory, a sort of medium between Heaven and Hell, it was looking for a pretext for Christian usurers, permitting them to escape from Hell. Until the usury was exercised only by the Jews, this fact had been considered  as totally insignificant, but when Christians applied themselves “body and soul” to usury , the whole thing became embarrassing to Catholic theology, because the despicable usurers had ever been condemned into the depths of hell.

 

The Church maintained throughout the centuries strong religious sanctions against  Christian usurers, who were denied burial in consecrated grounds. Usurers  were excluded from the Christiana societas, because often their interest rate was 10, 20 or 30%  (plus the capital loaned). So they were considered vile speculators and just like vampires drinking blood of miserable people. Usurers ran counter to the  principle that transaction costs were zero-sum. This principle was applied by the Catholic Church throughout the Early Middle Ages and during the 12th century, and therefore usurers  were damned to Hell forever.

 

However, one important fact to consider is that usurers were not ordinary people, but wealthy merchants and bankers with aristocratic connections, who, in a moral point of view, were in an embarrassing situation in the Roman Catholic Christianity. They knew with absolute certainty that inevitably they would end up in Hell, and it was not easy for  [Christian?] usurers. They appeared on the threshold of capitalism, and they were not so much feared by the Church, as by the anguish of Hell,   J. Le Goff stated.

 

Given the breadth of the phenomenon, involving both the upper social classes, and a significant amount of priests, at some point, and after both the pros and cons had been analyzed,  the Church meet  usurers halfway, creating for them a place that would allow them access to Heaven. We can easily understand  how it happened. Around the 13th century the capitalist system became the dominant economic system in Italy and Europe, so the establishment of loan interest rates provided a great profit, thanks to  manufacturing activities and international trade exchanges.

 

In short, because of almost all usurers and bankers belonged to the ruling class, the vile usurer was able to redeem himself across his passage  through Purgatory, with the valuable opportunity to ascend to Heaven. The Church  abandoned the threat of eternal damnation and the usurer had hope of saving his soul. This was also considered by J. Le Goff as one of the major factors in the evolution of banking system, The birth of Purgatory is also the dawn of the banking system, he said.

 

One thing, however, was necessary in order that usurers could receive pardon, namely that the obligation to repay the full amount of the loan.  Family members, including wives and relatives, were involved in the  restitutio (restoring):

 

“Nam si restitutio differatur pro eis quousque absolvantur a purgatorio, non valebit tunc eis aliquid ; sed dum sunt in purgatorio valebit eis ad celeriorem absolutionem.” (In fact, if restoring would have been deferred, [absolution] has no value to them, but when restoring is made on time, they will speedily be absolved).

 

So the Church forgot the ancient religious beliefs:

“О homo, an ignoras, quod radix omnium malorum avaritia est et  […] mater usura ? »

“O man, maybe have you forgotten that avarice is the root of all evil and the mother of usury?”

“Usura contra naturam est, quia usura sua natura est sterilis necfructum habet”.

“Usury is opposed to nature, because usury in itself is sterile and unfruitful.”

“Secundum H(uguccionem) qui  dicit quod in nulla casu est usura licita”.

Uguccione said that under no circumstances usury is allowed by law.

But, at some point we read:

“Sunt tamen casus, in quibus usura est permissa”.  However there are some cases where usury is allowed.

So usury, which was assimilated with the  worst sins and the worst vices, became a venial sin.

“Non usura est.” (In some cases there is no usury).

 

But the world’s oddities no longer surprise me.

 

Sources:

J. Le Goff, “Usurer and Purgatory,” in Dawn of Modern Banking, New Haven, Yale university Press, 1979, pp. 25-52.

D. Quaglioni, “Inter Iudeos et Christianos commertia sunt permissa.” (questione ebraica e usura in Baldo degli Ubaldi (c. 1327-1400), in Aspetti e problemi della presenza ebraica nell’Italia centro-settentrionale (secoli XIV e XV). Quaderni dell’Istituto di Scienze Storiche, Università di Roma, 2, Roma, 1983, pp. 273 sgg.

E. Grande, “Povero nemico. Diritti negati negli Stati Uniti d’America,” Quaderni fiorentini, 2009, No. 38, p. 1083.

R. K. Schaeffer, Understanding Globalization: The Social Consequences of Political, Economic, and Environmental Change, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Inc., 2009, p. 75.

Pubblicato da Enzo Sardellaro

Ho insegnato per molti anni letteratura e storia, e scrivo articoli e saggi relativi a questi settori.