Usury, Interest and the Reformation

Usury, Interest and the Reformation. By Eric Kerridge. [St Andrews Studies in Reformation History.] (Burlington, Vermont: Ashgate Publishing Co. 2002. Pp. xiv, 190. $79.95.)

This slim volume, -written with a measure of scholarly indignation, aims to set the record straight about the history of usury during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Many modern scholars have so far misinterpreted the teachings of the Protestant reformers as to make them appear to have broken with the medieval tradition that forbade usurious loans of money. The truth is quite otherwise. The reformers condemned usury. The medieval law had long drawn a distinction between usury and legitimate interest. For example, more than the amount of a loan could lawfully be paid where...