Religion and the Rise of Capitalism

presbiteris parochialibus fidedignis, de memorato articulo legitime se purgavit; propter quod ipsum vicarium sic purgatum pronunciamus et inmunem sentencialiter declaramus, restituentes eundem ad suam pristinam bonam famam. In cujus rei testimonium sigillum nostrum presentibus est appensum.” ↩

Early Chancery Proceedings, Bdle. XVIII, no. 137; Bdle. XIX, no. 2155; Bdle. XXIV, no. 255; Bdle. XXXI, no. 348. See also A. Abram, Social England in the Fifteenth Century, 1909, pp. 215⁠–⁠17. In view of these examples, it seems probable that a more thorough examination of the Early Chancery Proceedings would show that, even in the fifteenth century, the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts in matters of contract and usury was of greater practical importance than has sometimes been supposed. ↩

Surtees Soc., vol. LXIV, 1875 (Acts of Chapter of the Collegiate Church of Ripon) contains more than 100 cases in which the court deals with questions of contract, debt, etc. The case which is dismissed “propter civilitatem causæ” occurs in 1532 (Surtees Soc., vol. XXI, 1845, Ecclesiastical Proceedings from the Courts of Durham, p. 49). ↩

Chetham Soc., vol. XLIV, 1901, Act Book of the Ecclesiastical Court of Whalley, pp. 15⁠–⁠16. ↩

Surtees Soc., vol. LXIV, 1875, Acts of Chapter of the Collegiate Church of Ripon, p. 26. ↩

Hale, A Series of Precedents and Proceedings in Criminal Causes, 1847, no. CCXXXVIII. ↩

See here. ↩

For parishes, see S. O. Addy, Church and Manor, 1913, chap. XV, where numerous examples are given. For a gild which appears to have acted as a bank, see Hist. MSS. Com., 11th Report, 1887, Appx., pt. III, p. 228 (MSS. of the Borough of King’s Lynn), and for other examples of loans, H. F. Westlake, The Parish Gilds of Mediæval England, 1919, pp. 61⁠–⁠3, Records of the City of Oxford, ed. Wm. H. Turner, 1880, p. 8, Statutes of Lincoln Cathedral, ed. C. Wordsworth, pt. II, 1897, pp. 616⁠–⁠17, and G. Unwin, The Gilds and Companies of London, 1908, p. 121. For a hospital, see Hist. MSS. Com., 14th Report, Appx., pt. VIII, 1895, p. 129 (MSS. of the Corporation of Bury St. Edmunds), where 20d. is lent (or given) to a poor man to buy seed for his land. A statement (made half a century after the Dissolution) as to loans by monasteries is quoted by F. A. Gasquet, Henry VIII and the English Monasteries, 7th ed., 1920, p. 463; specific examples are not known to me. ↩

W. H. Bliss, Cal. of Papal Letters, vol. I, pp. 267⁠–⁠8. ↩

For the early history of the Monts de Piété see Holzapfel, Die Anfänge der Montes Pietatis (1903), and for their development in the Low Countries, A. Henne, Histoire du Règne de Charles-quint en Belgique, 1859, vol. V, pp. 220⁠–⁠3. For proposals to establish them in England see S.P.D. Eliz., vol. CX, no. 57 (printed in Tawney and Power, Tudor Economic Documents, vol. III, sect. III, no. 6), and my introduction to Thomas Wilson’s Discourse Upon Usury, 1925, pp. 125⁠–⁠7. ↩

Camden Soc., A Relation of the Island of England About the Year 1500 (translated from the Italian), 1847, p. 23. ↩

Lyndwood, Provinciale, sub. tit. “Usura,” and Gibson, Codex Jur. Eccl. Angl., vol. II, p. 1026. ↩

Pecock, The Repressor of Overmuch Blaming of the Clergy, pt. III, chap. IV, pp. 296⁠–⁠7: “Also Crist seide here in this present proces, that ‘at God’ it is possible a riche man to entre into the kingdom of heuen; that is to seie, with grace which God profrith and geueth⁠ ⁠… though he abide stille riche, and though withoute such grace it is ouer hard to him being riche to entre. Wherfore folewith herof openli, that it is not forbodun of God eny man to be riche; for thanne noon such man schulde euere entre heuen.⁠ ⁠… And if it be not forbode eny man to be riche, certis thanne it is leeful ynough ech man to be riche; in lasse than he vowe the contrarie or that he knowith bi assay and experience him silf so miche indisposid anentis richessis, that he schal not mowe rewle him silf aright anentis tho richessis: for in thilk caas he is bonde to holde him silf in poverte.” The embarrassing qualification at the end⁠—which suggests the question, who then dare be rich?⁠—is the more striking because of the commonsense rationalism of the rest of the passage. ↩

Trithemius, quoted by J. Janssen, History of the German People at the Close of the Middle Ages, vol. II, 1896, p. 102. ↩

Cal. of Early Mayor’s Court Rolls of the City of London, ed. A. H. Thomas, pp. 157⁠–⁠8. ↩

See A. Luchaire, Social France at the Time of Philip Augustus (translated by E. B. Krehbiel), pp. 391⁠–⁠2, where an eloquent denunciation by Jacques de Vitry is quoted. ↩

Topographer and Genealogist, vol. I, 1846, p. 35. (The writer is a surveyor, one Humberstone.) ↩

See e.g. Chaucer, The Persone’s Tale, §§ 64⁠–⁠6. The parson expresses the orthodox view that “the condicioun of thraldom and the firste cause of thraldom is for sinne.” But he insists that serfs and lords are spiritually equal: “Thilke that thou clepest thy thralles been goddes peple; for humble folk been Cristes