Finance

Abstract

The financial concerns of The Merchant of Venice, like those of early modern England, are shaped by a tradition of religious teachings on poverty, lending, and trade. The sixteenth century brought substantial religious and economic change, which required renegotiations of the relationship between religion and the economic order. The Reformation altered institutions for and attitudes toward the poor: the dissolution of the monasteries resulted in a reduction of charitable institutions, while new beliefs that linked morality to success suggested that poverty was the result of sin and hence deserved (Clay I: 219; Thomas 102). Poverty increased during this same period, with shifts in the agrarian economy forcing more people to urban centers in search of employment (Clay I; 216 ff). While England was still primarily an agricultural society, industry and trade in urban centers began to rise, especially in London (Clay is 165 ff, 197 ff). Whereas in the past they had primarily exported raw materials and relied on German and Italian merchants, the English began to export finished cloth and establish native merchant companies (Clay a: 103, 105–06, 108 ff). Attitudes toward lending and interest also changed during this period, as Protestant doctrines reinterpreted and extenuated the concept of charging interest (Nelson 73 ff). The negative association of Jews with usury derives from Mosaic (or Hebrew) laws regulating the charging of interest as well as the fact that Jews were permitted periodically to charge interest throughout the medieval and early modern periods. Charging interest was generally condemned up to the early modern period. However, as economic development made it an increasingly necessary transaction, public attitudes toward the charging of interest became more accepting. Hence, merchants and moneylenders, whose moneylending was regularly condemned in the Middle Ages, were viewed in an increasingly positive light. Public opinion changed, however, only through the process of vigorous debate; the older perspectives did not disappear overnight.