During the era of the Babylonian Captivity and the Great Western Schism, Italian bankers started to charge interest on loans, becoming the first Christians to defy the church’s ban on “usury” in an on...During the era of the Babylonian Captivity and the Great Western Schism, Italian bankers started to charge interest on loans, becoming the first Christians to defy the church’s ban on “usury” in an ongoing, regular fashion. Much of the prosperity of northern Italy was based on the trade ties maintained with the Middle East, which by the fourteenth century meant both the remains of the Byzantine Empire in Constantinople as well as the Ottoman Turkish empire.
