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By Root 714 0

clear. This allows a range of rhetorical postures, from protestations of pure intent on the part of the lenders to the charges of evil intent levied by debtors who find themselves unable to repay the loans. While the usurers themselves frequently resort to extortion, defenders of a policy of liberalizing lending practices-precisely the neoliberal arguments that also underlie the current epidemic of real estate speculation-argue that it is often the debtors who levy charges of usury as a means of avoiding repayment on debts incurred on genuinely legal loans.24 For them, the banks may be guilty of bad manners ) scorrettezza, a lack of civil decency), and perhaps of a hasty disregard for people's sensibilities, but not of criminal intent to defraud the poor.25 Supporters of this approach attempt to justify the banks' actions on the grounds that loans to the very poor entail much larger risks, against which some minor incivility appears to be of little or no importance; and, while they recognize that the church has long held a very negative view of any kind of money lending, they draw a sense of justification from the inescapable fact that the papacy, too, was ineluctably drawn into the practice. Indeed, the standard argument seems to be that the disrepute associated with money lending is simply the result of historical accident, and was partially reversed by the rise, once in the Renaissance and then again in the industrial age, of families whose power and wealth derived entirely from banking.26

The fact that the papacy itself was implicated in, or at least tolerant of, usurious practices should be seen in conjunction with its attitude to the management of real estate in the city. In both cases, the ecclesiastical authorities are bound by the logic of both their theology and their bureaucratic organization to leave decisions to individual consciences. The intention behind each act is thus fundamental to the degree of its sinfulness; hence the early notion that even wanting to make a profit on usury was sinful.21 But intentions are known only to the individual in question. The church thus essentially adopts a policy that, by respecting the necessity for each of its officials to wrestle with temptation alone, ultimately serves its goals by enriching its coffers while binding the people to it with a bitter potion made of equal parts of church disapproval and church involvement.

That, at least, is the local perception. The clergy are no less subject to the weakness of original sin than are those whose lives they are supposed to shepherd. Much of their business is conducted with great politeness: civility masks abuses rendered socially and politically palatable, if not doctrinally ideal, by theological hindsight. And their flock-not only the friendly neighborhood loan-shark but also every householder who wants to create a more habitable home-follows their example. Faced with imminent eviction, a resident nonetheless urges his uncle to stop haranguing the proprietor's lawyer. The prelate who comes to evict a group of tenants congratulates them on the hard work they have put into beautifying their building-which is what has now enabled the church to raise the rents above an affordable level. The loan shark claps the hapless gambler on the shoulder and warmly invites him, as a friend, to stay in his house until the latest loan is fully paid up and only indirectly hints at the awful consequences of failing to comply). Because the church must operate in this material, flawed world, it thus also comes to terms with the necessity of usury-albeit with predictable expressions of distaste-and leaves the determination of intentions to the individual conscience." Indeed, that is what it must do; temptation is the necessary burden of all, in a sinful world, and civility and a willingness to "let it go" together comprise the tact with which each resident respects others' inevitable entanglement in its snares.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Extortionate Civilities

t may seem strange, as well as romantically nostalgic, to claim that civility was ever