In the same Statute of Merton there is a sentence against usury, "no
usury permitted against minors"; and there are two things to note
here. One is, that the secular legislature is also taking jurisdiction
of minors, who were claimed at that time to be solely under the
jurisdiction of the church; and the other is the reference to usury.
Mind you, usury is interest. It didn't mean excessive interest, as
it does now. As you probably know, the notion prevailed in the early
Middle Ages that all usury--interest--was a sin and wrong; and even
Ruskin has chapter after chapter arguing that principle, that it is
wrong to take interest for money. I should perhaps add another reason
why interest was so disliked in early England: There was very little
money in early England; and it mostly belonged to the Jews. It was
a good deal as it is in Russia to-day; the Jews were persecuted in
Russia as in early England, because, in the country districts of
Russia, the Jews have all the money, and money-lenders are always
unpopular. So in early England. The great barons had their land and
their cattle and crops, but they had little money. When they wanted
money they got the value of it out of their tenants. Nobody carried
large sums of money around with him then, any more than a woman does
to-day--she relies on her husband or father; they went to the nearest
Jew. When the king wanted cash, he also extorted it from the Jews. One
of the early Henrys said seriously, that he regarded the Jews as a
very convenient sponge! That is, they sucked all the money in the
kingdom and got it into a place whence he could easily get it out. But
it made the Jews very unpopular with the masses of the people and with
the Parliament; hence, their great dislike of usury. I doubt very much
if they would have cared much about usury if one gentleman had been in
the habit of loaning money to another; but all the money came from the
Jews, who were very unpopular; and the statutes against usury were