Zwingli, the Reformation and the Moral Economy of Capital — a part of the book Zurich as an International Financial Centre by Dr Alexander Ressos.
Part B places the Zurich Reformation at the centre of the book’s argument. Between 1519 and 1531 Huldrych Zwingli and the Council of Zurich redefined the relationship between faith, work, property and the common good. Decided by the civic authorities, the reform reorganised public finance, poor relief, education and the moral rules that governed credit. Its institutional traces are visible in Zurich to this day.
Chapter I presents Zwingli’s reform as a civic project: the disputations of 1523, the authority of the Council over the church, the critique of mercenary service and foreign pensions, the secularisation of monastic property and the Kappel wars. Chapter II reads the Almosenordnung of 1525 as an early model of administered capital, in which ecclesiastical wealth became public welfare funds under the supervision of the Council. Chapter III examines the doctrine of interest and usury from Zwingli to Heinrich Bullinger, whose moderate teaching allowed credit to grow within moral and legal limits. Chapter IV links this volume with its companion on Geneva and compares the two Reformed economies. Chapter V follows the Protestant refugees from Locarno who arrived in 1555 and gave Zurich the capital, skills and Italian connections of its silk industry.
Together the five chapters describe the moral economy on which the later financial centre was built: public administration of capital, moderate and regulated interest, discipline and reputation as economic assets, and a city open to refugees who brought money and networks. Part C follows the transition from these merchant foundations to the first banks.
This part belongs to Zurich as an International Financial Centre by Dr Alexander Ressos, published here in full, section by section.
Huldrych Zwingli and the Zurich Reformation (1519–1531) — overview and summary
On 1 January 1519, his thirty-fifth birthday, a priest from the Toggenburg climbed into the pulpit of the Grossmünster and announced that he would preach through the Gospel of Matthew from beginning… Read more Zurich · Zwingli, the Reformation and the Moral Economy of CapitalFrom Wildhaus to the Grossmünster
Zwingli was born on 1 January 1484 in Wildhaus, a village high in the Toggenburg valley, then a territory of the prince-abbot of St. Gallen. Read more Zurich · Zwingli, the Reformation and the Moral Economy of CapitalThe printer’s kitchen: the sausage affair of 1522 and the business of print
The first public breach with church law in Zurich took place in the workshop of a printer. Read more Zurich · Zwingli, the Reformation and the Moral Economy of CapitalThe Council as judge of doctrine: the disputations of 1523
By the end of 1522 the conflict over Zwingli’s preaching had reached a point at which the council could no longer leave it to the ordinary ecclesiastical process. Read more Zurich · Zwingli, the Reformation and the Moral Economy of CapitalAgainst foreign money: mercenary service, pensions and the French alliance
The political economy of mercenary service and pensions in the late medieval Confederation has been described in Part A. Read more Zurich · Zwingli, the Reformation and the Moral Economy of CapitalChurch property becomes public property, 1523–1525
The Reformation in Zurich transferred to the civic authority the largest body of property in the territory that was not already in private hands or in the hands of the city itself. Read more Zurich · Zwingli, the Reformation and the Moral Economy of CapitalWorship, schooling and discipline after 1525
The year 1525 was the year in which the civic Reformation took institutional form. Read more Zurich · Zwingli, the Reformation and the Moral Economy of CapitalDissent from below: Anabaptists, peasants and the tithe
The civic Reformation depended on the council’s control of its pace, a control that was challenged from two directions in 1525. The first challenge came from within Zwingli’s own circle. Read more Zurich · Zwingli, the Reformation and the Moral Economy of CapitalKappel: war, defeat and the limits of the civic Reformation
Between 1525 and 1531 Zwingli’s influence extended into foreign policy. Zurich, isolated in the Confederation and threatened with exclusion from the Diet, sought allies among the other Reformed… Read more Zurich · Zwingli, the Reformation and the Moral Economy of CapitalConsequences for public finance and economic life
The Reformation changed the balance sheet of the Zurich state in a few years more profoundly than any event since the purchases of territory in the fifteenth century. Read more Zurich · Zwingli, the Reformation and the Moral Economy of CapitalLegacy for the financial centre
It would be anachronistic to look for the Paradeplatz in the Grossmünster of 1525. Read more Zurich · Zwingli, the Reformation and the Moral Economy of CapitalThe Almosenordnung of 1525 and the public welfare state — overview and summary
In the second week of January 1525, while the Zurich council was still absorbing the property of the religious houses it had closed a few weeks earlier, it adopted a short ordinance on alms. Read more Zurich · Zwingli, the Reformation and the Moral Economy of CapitalPoor relief before the Reformation
The late medieval understanding of almsgiving rested on a reciprocity that seemed obvious to contemporaries. The rich gave, the poor prayed, and each helped the other towards salvation. Read more Zurich · Zwingli, the Reformation and the Moral Economy of CapitalThe Almosenordnung of January 1525
The ordinance was the administrative sequel to a sequence of decisions taken in the last weeks of 1524. Read more Zurich · Zwingli, the Reformation and the Moral Economy of CapitalThe Almosenamt and the management of endowment assets
The ordinance of January 1525 created the purpose and the distribution machinery. The assets had to be organised separately, and here the Zurich solution was pragmatic. Read more Zurich · Zwingli, the Reformation and the Moral Economy of CapitalWork, begging and the obligation of the able-bodied
The prohibition of begging raised a question that the ordinance of 1525 answered only by implication: what was to become of those who could work but did not? The Reformation strengthened the answer… Read more Zurich · Zwingli, the Reformation and the Moral Economy of CapitalEducation: the Prophezei, the Latin schools and stipends
The second great purpose to which the secularised wealth of Zurich was devoted was education. Read more Zurich · Zwingli, the Reformation and the Moral Economy of CapitalZurich among the Reformed welfare orders
Zurich’s ordinance belongs to a wave of municipal welfare reforms that swept the cities of the Empire and the Low Countries between 1520 and 1530. Read more Zurich · Zwingli, the Reformation and the Moral Economy of CapitalFrom the Almosenamt to the foundation location: continuities
The institutions created in and after 1525 proved remarkably durable. The Almosenamt continued to supply bread, money and clothing to rural communities until 1839, while the Hinteramt in the former… Read more Zurich · Zwingli, the Reformation and the Moral Economy of CapitalInterest, usury and the ethics of wealth: Zwingli and Bullinger — overview and summary
Anyone who takes out a consumer loan in Zurich today signs a contract whose price is capped by federal law. Read more Zurich · Zwingli, the Reformation and the Moral Economy of CapitalThe inheritance: usury, the Rentenkauf and the Gült
The Reformers of Zurich inherited the problem of interest together with a doctrine more than a thousand years old. Read more Zurich · Zwingli, the Reformation and the Moral Economy of CapitalZwingli: divine and human righteousness
The first Zurich disputation of January 1523 brought official recognition of Zwingli’s teaching. Read more Zurich · Zwingli, the Reformation and the Moral Economy of CapitalHeinrich Bullinger and the long consolidation, 1531–1575
Heinrich Bullinger was born on 18 July 1504 in Bremgarten in the Aargau, the son of Heinrich Bullinger and Anna Wiederkehr. Read more Zurich · Zwingli, the Reformation and the Moral Economy of CapitalThe magistrate and the rate: five per cent and the Zurich credit market
The practical expression of the moderate doctrine was a maximum rate. The figure of 5 per cent had been customary for long-term credit since the fifteenth century. Read more Zurich · Zwingli, the Reformation and the Moral Economy of CapitalStewardship, frugality and discipline
The Zurich ethics of wealth were not confined to rules on interest. They formed part of a comprehensive programme of moral discipline, embodied in the Sittenmandate. Read more Zurich · Zwingli, the Reformation and the Moral Economy of CapitalCalvin’s letter of 1545: a brief comparison
The most celebrated Reformed text on interest was written in Geneva. In 1545 John Calvin replied to a request for advice from a friend, identified as Claude de Sachin (Sachinus), with a letter that… Read more Zurich · Zwingli, the Reformation and the Moral Economy of CapitalThe Weber debate and what it means for Zurich
No discussion of Reformed economic ethics can avoid Max Weber. His essay Die protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus appeared in two parts in the Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und… Read more Zurich · Zwingli, the Reformation and the Moral Economy of CapitalLegacy for the financial centre
The line from the sixteenth-century rate ceiling to the present runs through several stages. After 1800 the cantons initially kept the old usury rules and the 5 per cent maximum. Read more Zurich · Zwingli, the Reformation and the Moral Economy of CapitalZurich and Geneva: two Reformed economies compared — overview and summary
Anyone who works in Swiss finance for long enough learns to hear two dialects of the same language. Read more Zurich · Zwingli, the Reformation and the Moral Economy of CapitalTwo Reformations, two constitutions
The Zurich Reformation was, from its first day to its last, an affair of the city council. Read more Zurich · Zwingli, the Reformation and the Moral Economy of CapitalOne Reformed family: Calvin, Bullinger and the Consensus Tigurinus
The relationship between Zurich and Geneva in the sixteenth century was first of all a relationship between two churchmen. Heinrich Bullinger was the great correspondent of the Reformed world. Read more Zurich · Zwingli, the Reformation and the Moral Economy of CapitalOrdering daily life: the Zurich marriage court and the Genevan Consistory
Zurich’s instrument of moral discipline was a court of the state. In 1525 the council created the Ehegericht, composed of six judges: two of the city’s people’s priests and two members each of the… Read more Zurich · Zwingli, the Reformation and the Moral Economy of CapitalMoney, interest and the magistrate
Before Geneva could legislate on interest, it had to become a monetary authority. Under the bishops the right of coinage had belonged to the prince-bishop. Read more Zurich · Zwingli, the Reformation and the Moral Economy of CapitalWelfare as institution: the Hôpital général and the Bourse française
Welfare reform came early in both cities. In Zurich the council adopted the Almosenordnung in January 1525, centralising the alms of the city and funding them from the property of the dissolved… Read more Zurich · Zwingli, the Reformation and the Moral Economy of CapitalRefugees, printing and networks
No single factor did more to differentiate the two economies than the scale of immigration. Read more Zurich · Zwingli, the Reformation and the Moral Economy of CapitalGuild city and patrician republic; language and hinterland
The constitutional difference outlined in section I had economic consequences. Zurich’s government was a government of guilds. The craft guilds held a guaranteed share of seats in the councils. Read more Zurich · Zwingli, the Reformation and the Moral Economy of CapitalThe Weber question revisited
Any comparison of two Reformed economies must address the thesis that Max Weber published in 1904–1905 and revised in 1920 under the title Die protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus. Read more Zurich · Zwingli, the Reformation and the Moral Economy of CapitalLong paths: Protestant banking in Geneva, industrial finance in Zurich
After 1600 the two paths diverge further. Their later history belongs to Part C of this book and to the companion volume on Geneva. Read more Zurich · Zwingli, the Reformation and the Moral Economy of CapitalTwo financial centres today: contrast and common ground
The Zurich financial centre of 2026 is the largest in Switzerland by a wide margin. Read more Zurich · Zwingli, the Reformation and the Moral Economy of CapitalThe Locarno refugees of 1555 and the birth of the silk industry — overview and summary
On 3 March 1555 a column of men, women and children left Locarno, the small market town at the northern end of Lake Maggiore, and turned their backs on houses, vineyards, family tombs and a lordship… Read more Zurich · Zwingli, the Reformation and the Moral Economy of CapitalLocarno: a common lordship and its Protestant community
Locarno became Swiss by conquest. The Rusca family, who had held the town and its territory as a fief from the dukes of Milan, lost their dominion when Confederate troops occupied the Locarnese in… Read more Zurich · Zwingli, the Reformation and the Moral Economy of CapitalOver the Alps: the journey and the reception in Zurich
The exiles did not initially intend to go to Zurich. Their first stop was Roveredo in the Mesolcina, a valley under the Grey Leagues where Beccaria had found refuge five years earlier and where the… Read more Zurich · Zwingli, the Reformation and the Moral Economy of CapitalThe families and the terms of their integration
The Locarnese community in Zurich was small, socially mixed and bound together by kinship. Read more Zurich · Zwingli, the Reformation and the Moral Economy of CapitalFrom shop to Verlag: trade links, Zanino and the silk enterprise
The economic history of the Locarnesi in Zurich begins modestly, in rented shops. Aloisio Orelli, the founder of the Zurich line, is recorded in 1557 as the owner of a shop dealing in leather goods,… Read more Zurich · Zwingli, the Reformation and the Moral Economy of CapitalGuilds, councils and the long road to merchant banking
The failure of Zanino and the success of the Werdmüller have often been read as proof that the Locarnesi merely prepared the ground for native entrepreneurs. Read more Zurich · Zwingli, the Reformation and the Moral Economy of CapitalRefugee capital: the Locarnesi and the Geneva Refuge compared
The Locarnese emigration was one current in a much larger movement. After the reorganisation of the Roman Inquisition in 1542, Italian Protestants from the great commercial cities of Lucca, Genoa,… Read more Zurich · Zwingli, the Reformation and the Moral Economy of CapitalLegacy: from silk capital to financial centre
The Zurich silk industry of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, organised by the merchant-manufacturers of the Saffron guild and based on the rural Verlag, is the subject of Part C. Read more