THE BRITISH ACADEMY,
established by Royal Charter in 1902, champions and supports the humanities and social sciences. It is an independent, self-governing fellowship of scholars elected for their distinction and achievement.
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Charity and Usury: Jewish and Christian Lending in Renaissance ad Early Modern Italy
This lecture took place on 19 February 2003
Professor Brian Pullan FBA, University of Manchester
In early modern Italy, poor relief depended not just on almsgiving, but on a system of cheap credit which would tide the poor – those who had goods to pawn – over crises. The lecture discusses the conflict and the rivalry between two kinds of moneylending, one practised by publicly licensed Jewish banks, and the other by the so-called Monti di Pietà. These were public pawn offices which attempted to divorce money lending from usury and drag it into the realm of Christian charity, lending only at moderate rates of interest and for moral purposes. But they were themselves accuses of condoning usury, ran into unforeseen difficulties, and for many reasons, failed to replace the Jewish banks they had tried to undermine.
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