Wucher als Thema bei spätmittelalterlichen didaktischen Autoren

Abstract

Abstract We have often heard in medieval sources the vicious and violent accusation of Jews being usurers who terribly exploited their Christian debtors. Indeed, loaning money or giving credits was one of the major, if not almost only option for Jews to earn a living in the late Middle Ages, though we have recently learned that even that concept is not quite true. Nevertheless, usury was traditionally associated with Jews, as medieval authors consistently emphasized. However, when we comb through the evidence of thirteenth-century didactic literature, we normally do not discover Jews as involved in that business, even though usury is commonly condemned vehemently. This forces us to acknowledge that the discourse on usury was already fully in swing when the public did not even associate it with Jews. The later accusation was hence the result of deliberate strategies by Christian bankers who needed an effective screen to divert attention from their own financial businesses.