Abstract
Usury, in the scholastic economic thought of the Middle Ages, referred to a lender’s intention to obtain more in return than the principal amount of the loan. As a general rule this meant that any interest-taking was usurious and forbidden, whereas in modern parlance only exorbitant interest is considered usurious. Usury was outlawed by lay and clerical authorities, who addressed the prohibition at first only to the clergy but expanded it later to lay persons as well and repeated it frequently and in strong terms.
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Bibliography
Baldwin, J.W. 1970. Masters, princes and merchants, vol. 2. Princeton: Princeton University Press, Part IV.
Consult Spiegel (1983, pp. 63–9, 696–70, with ample bibliography); Noonan (1957), the work of a legal historian; Nelson (1969), a sociological study inspired by the ideas of Max Weber; Baldwin (1970, Part IV), an historical study of the views of 12th-century churchmen, and the other works cited below. Langholm (1984) offers a new interpretation of the scholastic theory of usury on the basis of recently discovered medieval treatises.
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Spiegel, H.W. (2018). Usury. In: The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95189-5_1371
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95189-5_1371
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