Usury is an emotive word. In present-day vocabulary it evokes the image of loan sharks mercilessly profiteering off their poverty-stricken victims. In medieval times the imagery was much the same, but there is a significant difference between the medieval meaning of usury and the modern one. Whereas now in the secular West, usury signifies unreasonable, exorbitant rates of interest in the Christian Middle Ages usury was used to denote any kind of interest charged on a loan. The gradual acceptance of the legitimacy of making reasonable charges on loans is an important component of the history of economic thought in Latin Christendom. With the growth of manufacturing, industries, markets and trade from the late eleventh century a money economy developed which needed investment. The need for money penetrated all walks of life, and traditional views on lending and borrowing were ill-suited to the changing circumstances of the times. And, unsurprisingly, charging for all kinds of lending – from simple pawnbroking to more sophisticated money-lending to mortgages and other forms of raising cash – proliferated. And however much the medieval Church responded with repeated condemnation of such practices, the gulf between pious theory and the exigencies of temporal, as well as ecclesiastical affairs, grew steadily with time. It is fascinating how from the thirteenth century Roman law concepts were adapted to provide ideas about the legitimacy of lenders making a charge to compensate them for any losses they might incur by providing a loan or suffer on account of a late repayment of a loan they had made. Services charges on loans were contemplated as well as the idea that by granting a loan a lender might have foregone a lucrative investment in which a profit might have been made.

It is important to stress that all of the above concerned Christian lending because all too often medieval histories give the false impression that money-lending in Europe was mainly conducted by Jews. It was not. Apart from the professional money-lenders hailing from Cahors, Flanders and Italy indigenous Christian money-lenders plied their trade in the face of ecclesiastical opposition. This is the framework in which Dorin has pursed his research. Indeed one of the greatest strengths of the book is how Dorin fully integrates his analysis of Jewish usury with Christian usury. In this vein Dorin's particular goal is to reinterpret the manifold expulsions of Jews from the later part of the twelfth century by studying them in tandem with the expulsion of Christian usurers. To put it differently, were Jews expelled primarily as Jews or as usurers? This approach means that the Christian usurers Dorin concentrates on are predominantly the so-called Lombards who, for example, were expelled alongside the Jews from Anjou and Maine in 1289 by Count Charles ii. Italian ‘merchant-bankers’ faced repeated threats of expulsion from Henry iii of England, who at the same time imposed increasing pressures on the Jews of his kingdom. Crucial for Dorin's analysis is the genesis of canon 26 of the Second Council of Lyons (1274), Usurarum voraginem, ‘The abyss of usury’, and its reception. This canon reiterated existing prohibitions against Christian usury as well as forbidding Christians to facilitate foreigners to practise usury in their lands. These foreign usurers were to be expelled. Dorin meticulously traces the origins of the idea that expulsion was the fitting punishment for usury and painstakingly follows every conceivable trace of the effect of Usurarum voraginem on the fate of Italian money-lenders and Jews, especially in England and France. Impressive is the way Dorin weighs up the reasons why the canon was applied in some places and not in others. This involves careful consideration of a wide range of sources which shed light on the practical politics of different places at different times. Amid this plethora of material concerning the fate of Jews and Italian ‘merchant-bankers’ I wondered why the presence of the Riccardi of Lucca in Edward i's England was not mentioned. Edward's dealings with the Riccardi, from whom he borrowed large sums of money, are surely relevant to the expulsion of the Jews from England in 1290. The other matter which I think would have been worth considering is the foundation of the Monti di Pièta in various Italian cities in the fifteenth century. To be sure, they were not set up by foreign moneylenders; they were organised by Franciscans as pawnshops for the indigent. Loans did not incur interest but a service charge. Including the Monti would, I believe, have been beneficial for a number of reasons. First and foremost, they played their part in Jewish expulsions from cities where they were established; secondly, bringing them into the discussion would have balanced the argument about the perceived evils of what was deemed to be usury with a reminder that within the Church ideas of what exactly constituted usury and what could be deemed legitimate interest were in flux. One wonders whether this too could have influenced the level of enforcement of Usurarum voraginem.

None of this is meant to detract from the colossal achievement of this beautifully researched book. This book is not just about Jewish and Christian money-lenders; it is about the institutional Church in its multiple guises, highlighting its heterogenous nature as well as the pragmatics of temporal and ecclesiastical politics. What emerges is a convincing history of close interconnections between expulsion and usury which, apart from everything else, opens new lines of inquiry into medieval Jewish history.