Banishing Usury: the Expulsion of Foreign Moneylenders in Medieval Europe, 1200-1450
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Banishing Usury: The Expulsion of Foreign Moneylenders in Medieval Europe, 1200-1450 The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Dorin, Rowan William. 2015. Banishing Usury: The Expulsion of Foreign Moneylenders in Medieval Europe, 1200-1450. Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University, Graduate School of Arts & Sciences. Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:23845403 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA Banishing Usury: The Expulsion of Foreign Moneylenders in Medieval Europe, 1200-1450 A dissertation presented by Rowan William Dorin to the Department of History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the subject of History Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts July 2015 © 2015 Rowan William Dorin All rights reserved. Banishing Usury: The Expulsion of Foreign Moneylenders in Medieval Europe, 1200-1450 Abstract Starting in the mid-thirteenth century, kings, bishops, and local rulers throughout western Europe repeatedly ordered the banishment of foreigners who were lending at interest. The expulsion of these foreigners, mostly Christians hailing from northern Italy, took place against a backdrop of rising anxieties over the social and spiritual implications of a rapidly expanding credit economy. Moreover, from 1274 onward, such expulsions were backed by the weight of canon law, as the church hierarchy—inspired by secular precedents—commanded rulers everywhere to expel foreign moneylenders from their lands. Standing threats of expulsion were duly entered into statute-books from Salzburg to northern Spain. This dissertation explores the emergence and spread of the idea of expelling foreign usurers across the intellectual and legal landscape of late medieval Europe. Building on a wide array of evidence gathered from seventy archives and libraries, the dissertation examines how the idea of expulsion expressed itself in practice, how its targets came to be defined, and how the resulting expulsion orders were enforced—or not. It shows how administrative procedures, intellectual categories and linguistic habits circulated and evolved to shape the banishment not only of foreign usurers, but of other targets as well, most notably the Jews. By reconstructing these expulsions and their accompanying legal and theological debates, this dissertation weaves together broad themes ranging from the circulation of merchants and manuscripts to conflicting overlaps in political jurisdictions and commercial practices; from the resilience of Biblical exegesis to the flexibility of legal hermeneutics; and from shifts in political iii thought and church doctrine to definitions of foreignness and the limits of citizenship. It reveals the impact of expulsion on the geography of credit in the later Middle Ages and sheds new light on the interpenetration of law and economic life in premodern Europe. Above all, in treating expulsion as contagious and protean, this dissertation frames late medieval Europe as a society in which practices of expulsion that had fallen into abeyance since late antiquity once again reasserted themselves in European practice and thought. iv Table of Contents Acknowledgments......................................................................................................................... vii Abbreviations ............................................................................................................................... xiii List of Maps ................................................................................................................................. xvi A Note on Usage ......................................................................................................................... xvii Introduction: Credit, Contagion and the Rise of an Expelling Society........................................... 1 Chapter One: Aliens, Schismatics, and Merchant-Bankers—Inventing Expulsion in Thirteenth-Century England ............................................................................................... 39 Chapter Two: Sin and Sanctity—Modelling Expulsion in Thirteenth-Century France ............... 80 Chapter Three: From the Particular to the Universal—Canonizing Expulsion .......................... 109 Chapter Four: Synods, Sermons, and Summas—Disseminating Expulsion ............................... 150 Chapter Five: The Ignorant, the Irregular, and the Damned—Implementing Expulsion ........... 201 Chapter Six: From Foreigners to Jews—Reinterpreting Expulsion ........................................... 280 Epilogue: Expulsions and their Aftermath .................................................................................. 322 Appendix A: Expulsion and Exegesis—Late Medieval Commentary on the Cleansing of the Temple ....................................................................................................... 349 Appendix B: References to Usurarum voraginem in Ecclesiastical Legislation, 1274-1400 .... 360 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................... 374 Unpublished Manuscripts and Archival Materials ............................................................... 374 Printed Primary Sources ....................................................................................................... 385 Secondary Sources ................................................................................................................ 422 v To my grandparents vi Acknowledgments A photograph of Angeliki Laiou looks down on the desk where most of this dissertation was written. Although she did not live to see its completion, or indeed even its beginning, her presence lingers over every page. While I was still an undergraduate, she introduced me to the economic history of the Middle Ages and, in particular, to the Italian merchants who crossed the Alps and sailed the Mediterranean. So too did she spark my interest in the history of economic thought, the interaction of legal norms and social practice, and the integration of foreigners into their host societies—all themes that loom large in this study. Were it not for her encouragement, I would never have pursued graduate studies in history. Her incomparable example guides me still. It was at her prompting that I attended a conference in Asti, Italy, in June 2007, organized by what is now the Centro Studi “Renato Bordone” sui Lombardi, sul credito e sulla banca. The impact of that experience is clear from the topic of this dissertation, and I am grateful to the Centro’s steering committee for their generous support of my research. I am likewise indebted to the Mellon Foundation, which sponsored my dissertation research through fellowships from the Council on Library and Information Resources and the American Council of Learned Societies. An Arthur Lehman Merit Fellowship from the Graduate School at Harvard University allowed me to make early headway on writing. Harvard’s History Department generously offset conference costs and much else beside, and I sincerely appreciate the kindness of all the staff members who have made my eleven years in Robinson Hall such happy ones, especially Janet Hatch, Ann Kaufman, Mary McConnell, and Laura Johnson. For feedback and encouragement, I am especially grateful to the participants of the Medieval History Workshop and the Graduate Workshop of the Center for History and Economics, both of vii which have been inspiring intellectual communities during my time at Harvard. In Bologna, Maria Giuseppina Muzzarelli provided me with a forum to test out some of my early ideas about expulsion in the Middle Ages; I thank her for that opportunity, and for her encouragement of this project since its inception. I am still wrestling with many of the ideas that emerged from a conference on “Finance in Religious Law” at Harvard Law School in 2013, and particularly from the volley of searching questions posed by its organizer, Noah Feldman. I have learned much from the comments and critiques of audiences at the American Historical Association, the American Society for Legal History, the European University Institute in Fiesole, the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, and Yale University. In the course of writing my dissertation, I have turned repeatedly to colleagues at Harvard and elsewhere for guidance. For sharing their expertise and experience, I would like to thank David Abulafia, Joel Anderson, Lawrin Armstrong, Christine Axen, the late John Baldwin, Thomas Bisson, Antoine Bonnivert, Martin Brett, Peggy Brown, Menachem Butler, Julie Claustre-Mayade, Cristoph Cluse, Marie Dejoux, Delphine Diaz, Laurent Feller, Carla Heelan, Peter Johanek, Elizabeth Papp Kamali, Ira Katznelson, the late Mark Kishlansky, Deanna Klepper, Sally Livingston, Stuart McManus, Joey McMullen, Paolo Ostinelli, Sylvain Piron, Charles-Marie de la Roncière, Hervé Martin, Randall Morck, the late John Munro, Cédric Quertier, Alex Rehding, Sebastian Roebert, Emmanuelle Roux, Kirsi Salonen, Karl Shoemaker, Maria Elisa Soldani, Josh Specht, Bob Stacey, Stefan Stantchev, Sita Steckel, Steve Stofferahn, Kenneth Stow, Danica Summerlin, Valérie Theis, Andrea Tilatti, Giacomo Todeschini,