f the Jews.]

If under all these obstacles, whether created by barbarous manners, by
national prejudice, or by the fraudulent and arbitrary measures of
princes, the merchants of different countries became so opulent as
almost to rival the ancient nobility, it must be ascribed to the
greatness of their commercial profits. The trading companies possessed
either a positive or a virtual monopoly, and held the keys of those
eastern regions, for the luxuries of which the progressive refinement of
manners produced an increasing demand. It is not easy to determine the
average rate of profit;[625] but we know that the interest of money was
exceedingly high throughout the middle ages. At Verona, in 1228, it was
fixed by law at twelve and a half per cent.; at Modena, in 1270, it
seems to have been as high as twenty.[626] The republic of Genoa,
towards the end of the fourteenth century, when Italy had grown wealthy,
paid only from seven to ten per cent. to her creditors.[627] But in
France and England the rate was far more oppressive. An ordinance of
Philip the Fair, in 1311, allows twenty per cent. after the first year
of the loan.[628] Under Henry III., according to Matthew Paris, the
debtor paid ten per cent. every two months;[629] but this is absolutely
incredible as a general practice. This was not merely owing to scarcity
of money, but to the discouragement which a strange prejudice opposed,
to one of the most useful and legitimate branches of commerce. Usury, or
lending money for profit, was treated as a crime by the theologians of
the middle ages; and though the superstition has been eradicated, some
part of the prejudice remains in our legislation. This trade in money,
and indeed a great part of inland trade in general, had originally
fallen to the Jews, who were noted for their usury so early as the sixth
century.[630] For several subsequent ages they continued to employ their
capital and industry to the same advantage, with little molestation from
the clergy, who always tolerated their avowed and national infidelity,
and often with some encouragement from princes. In the twelfth century
we find them not only possessed of landed property in Languedoc, and
cultivating the studies of medicine and Rabbinical literature in their
own academy at Montpelier, under the protection of the count of
Toulouse, but invested with civil offices.[631] Raymond Roger, viscount
of Carcasonne, directs a writ "to his bailiffs, Christian and
Je