List of figures and acknowledgements

Historians have mainly taken notice of Lombard pawnbrokers who, being omnipresent in legal sources, became the late medieval usurers par excellence. An account of a royal commission against usury lists 520 fines levied between 1400 and 1404 against 491 usurers in northern France; they include Lombards and other public pawnbrokers, as well as secret or casual French creditors. On examining the lists of names and of fines, one finds that native, secret moneylenders occupied important positions in the commercial centres and in the surrounding countryside. Some French usurers, of high standing, made use of their position to challenge the Lombard companies, even though the need for secrecy made them work alone and avoid more formal organisation. In addition, there existed a mass of modest usurers without special social standing, who were attracted by the prospect of easy profit. Partly because of a lessening in persecution and partly through assimilation, the casual French usurer began to occupy the position once held by the Lombards, whose services were rendered less vital by new financial methods.