326 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Vienne, presided over by Pope Clement V, declared tliat if any 

 one " shall pertinaciously presume to affirm that the taking of in- 

 terest for money is not a sin, we decree him to be a heretic, fit for 

 punishment." This infallible utterance bound the dogma with 

 additional force on the conscience of the universal Church. 



Nor was this a doctrine enforced only by rulers ; the people 

 were no less strenuous. In 1390 it was enacted by the city authori- 

 ties of London 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, both as regards Jews and 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. 



The popular preachers constantly declaimed against all who 

 took interest. The mediaeval anecdote books for pulpit use are 

 especially full on this point. Jacques de Vitry tells us that de- 

 mons on one occasion filled a dead money-lender's mouth with 

 red-hot coins ; Caesar, of Heisterbacho, 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.* 



* For an enumeration of councils condemning the taking of interest for money, see 

 Liegois, Essai sur I'histoire et la legislation de I'usure, Paris, 1865, p. 78 ; also the Catho- 

 lic Dictionary as above. For curious additional details and sources regarding mediasval 

 horror of usurers, see Ducange, Glossarium, etc., article Caorcini. The date, 306, for the 

 Council of Elvira is that assigned by Hefele. For the decree of Alexander III, see citation 

 from the Latin text in Lecky. For a long catalogue of ecclesiastical and civil decrees 

 against taking of interest, see Petit, Traits de I'Usure, Paris, 1840. For the reasoning at 

 bottom of this, see Cunningham, Christian Opinion upon Usury, London, 1884. For the 

 Salzburg decrees, see Zillner, Salzburgische Culturgeschichte, p. 232 ; and for Germany 

 generally, see Neumann, Geschichte des Wuchers im Deutschland, Halle, 1865, especially 

 p. 22 et seq. ; also Roscher, National Oeconomie. For effect of mistranslation of the passage 

 of Luke in the Vulgate, see Bollinger, p. 170, and especially pp. 224, 225. For the capitu- 

 laries of Charlemagne against usury, see Liegois, p. 77. For Peter Lombard, see his Lib. 

 Sententiarum, lib. iii, dist. XXXVII, 3. For St. Thomas Aquinas, see his works, Migne, vol. 



