The Catholic Church strictly forbade it, threatening usurers with excommunication from “Heaven” or denial of burial in Christian cemeteries. As noted in a study by Moroccan historian and anthropologist Khaled Tahtah, medieval Christians in Europe found clever ways to practice usury despite the ban, due to its economic importance. These methods included lending in one currency and collecting repayments in another, with the interest represented by the difference between the two currencies, thus securing profitable returns.
However, another solution emerged when Jewish merchants were hired to handle all loan-related matters directly, especially since their holy book, the Torah, permits them to practice usury with non-Jews while prohibiting it among themselves. Christian merchants and bankers took advantage of this and delegated usurious transactions to Jewish moneylenders as their agents. This situation led to increased hostility toward Jews in European society, as they became associated with everything forbidden or detested in Christianity.
This implicit arrangement also led Jews to form what are known as intermediary functional groups. The thinker specializing in Jewish and Zionist studies, Abdel-Wahhab El-Messiri, defined this phenomenon as a group imported from outside or recruited from within society to perform functions that members of society normally avoid because they are considered shameful. Thus, their relationship with society became purely contractual and utilitarian, lacking any sense of connection or belonging. As a result, they lived on the margins, isolated by society to preserve its social cohesion. This situation contributed to the development of deep-rooted stigma against Jews in Christian Europe. They were expelled from England at the end of the 13th century and from Spain two centuries later.
During the Catholic-Protestant conflict, Jewish communities faced accusations that extended beyond usury. They were blamed for crimes such as poisoning wells, practicing witchcraft, and kidnapping boys for use in sorcery. Protestantism was no more tolerant of Jews. In 1514, the reformer Martin Luther accused Jews of cursing and blasphemy, and he fiercely attacked them in his book ‘The Jews and Their Lies’. The resentment of peasants and borrowers over exorbitant interest rates also fueled growing stigma and hostility toward Jews. As commercial activity boomed, merchants’ need for capital increased, along with their animosity toward Jewish moneylenders, who were seen as profiting effortlessly, even while they slept. However, over time, the special status of Jews in financial dealings began to decline.
The Church introduced a new concept - the doctrine of “purgatory”, a place between Heaven and hell where sins could be purged after death before salvation is attained. Thus, the Church eventually opened the door for Christian merchants and money changers to practice usury, with the possibility of purchasing forgiveness, whether through indulgences or charitable acts that promised purification in the afterlife. At the same time, the rise of centralized nation-states, the emergence of the modern banking system, the expansion of global trade networks, and the growth of local bourgeois classes all contributed to diminishing the economic relevance of Jews in Europe.
By Ahmad alsarraf
