Quotation from: Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period

Written by: Paul Lacroix


For a long time the French, through indolence or antipathy--for it was
more to their liking to be occupied with arms and chivalry than with
matters of interest and profit--took but a feeble part in the trade which
was carried on so successfully on their own territory. The nobles were
ashamed to mix in commerce, considering it unworthy of them, and the
bourgeois, for want of liberal feeling and expansiveness in their ideas,
were satisfied with appropriating merely local trade. Foreign commerce,
even of the most lucrative description, was handed over to foreigners, and
especially to Jews, who were often banished from the kingdom and as
frequently ransomed, though universally despised and hated.
Notwithstanding this, they succeeded in rising to wealth under the stigma
of shame and infamy, and the immense gains which they realised by means of
usury reconciled them to, and consoled them for, the ill-treatment to
which they were subjected.

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