The inheritance: usury, the Rentenkauf and the Gült

The canonical prohibition

The Reformers of Zurich inherited the problem of interest together with a doctrine more than a thousand years old. The Historical Dictionary of Switzerland summarises the development: with biblical arguments, the taking of interest was forbidden first to clerics in 314/315 and then, under Pope Leo the Great (440–461), to laymen as well. From the twelfth century the Lateran councils and those of Lyon and Vienne sharpened the prohibition, treating usurers as notorious sinners.¹ In the canonical sense, usura was any return on a loan beyond the principal, whether the loan was of money or of goods, whereas payment for the use of a thing let or leased was legitimate.² In a loan (mutuum), ownership of the money passed to the borrower and nothing more could be demanded, whereas in a lease or a sale a return could lawfully be agreed. This distinction was the lever with which late medieval law opened the door to credit while keeping the prohibition formally intact.

Outside the reach of canon law stood lenders who were not bound by it. Jewish lenders, Lombards and the so-called Kawerschen worked under princely and municipal privileges, often at rates that seem extraordinary today: the Historical Dictionary records annual rates of 43⅓ per cent in the fourteenth century, although some cities negotiated lower figures.³ The Jewish community of medieval Zurich, its lending to nobles and towns and its expulsion have been described in Part A of this volume. From the late fourteenth century, cities increasingly set up public exchange offices (Stadtwechsel) that took over part of the lending business.⁴

The Rentenkauf and the Gült

The decisive instrument of long-term credit in the German-speaking world, and above all in the Swiss countryside, was the Rentenkauf, the purchase of an annuity. The investor paid a capital sum and in exchange “bought” a yearly rent secured on land, while the landowner received the capital and owed the rent. Because the transaction was framed as the purchase of a revenue, and because the rent was tied to a productive asset, it escaped the canonical definition of usury. Pope Martin V confirmed in 1425 that real estate annuities with a right of redemption were not in themselves usurious, although the debate among theologians continued.⁵ In the Swiss lands the characteristic form of such an annuity was the Gült, a perpetual rent charge on land. The Historical Dictionary lists the forms of credit the Church tolerated: security on land (Grundpfandrecht) with rents dependent on the property, the Gülten, life annuities, exchange transactions, and pawnbroking in which fees were charged in place of interest.⁶

In the early modern period the Gült, despite its legal form as a rent, developed into a claim that either party could terminate, in substance a mortgage loan secured on land.⁷ This evolution is the key to what follows. When the Zurich Reformers spoke about Zins, the word covered a whole family of obligations: feudal dues in kind, ground rents, church rents and the money rents of Gülten that functioned economically as interest on capital. The German word itself derives from the Latin census, whose meanings ranged from an assessment of property to a levy of any kind.⁸ A sermon against Zins could therefore sound, to a peasant, like a promise of relief from all his burdens, and to a council whose institutions and citizens lived on rents, like an attack on the foundations of public and private wealth. Zwingli had to steer between these two hearings.

By the eve of the Reformation, therefore, Zurich possessed a mature system of credit secured on land, with a customary rate for money rents of around 5 per cent. It also had a municipal and ecclesiastical rentier class and a countryside that carried the weight of tithes, rents and taxes. A Zurich pastor writing on the peasant movement summarises the position: authorities and holders of tithes claimed a considerable part of the peasants’ labour in the form of interest, tithes and taxes, and agriculture bore the main burden of state and church finances.⁹

Notes

1. Anne-Marie Dubler, “Zinsen”, in Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz (HLS), version of 2005 (edited 3 February 2015), section “Der Umgang mit dem Zinsverbot der Kirche”, https://hls-dhs-dss.ch/de/articles/013923/. ↩
2. Hans-Jörg Gilomen and Anne-Marie Dubler, “Usura”, in Dizionario storico della Svizzera (DSS), version of 2011 (edited 18 November 2014), https://hls-dhs-dss.ch/it/articles/017472/. ↩
3. Gilomen and Dubler, “Usura”, DSS (as cited above). ↩
4. Dubler, “Zinsen”, HLS (as cited above). ↩
5. Gilomen and Dubler, “Usura”, DSS (as cited above), which records the papal decision of 1425 and the continuing controversy. ↩
6. Dubler, “Zinsen”, HLS (as cited above), section “Der Umgang mit dem Zinsverbot der Kirche”. ↩
7. Stefan Altorfer and Malik Mazbouri, “Kapitalmarkt”, in HLS, version of 2007 (edited 18 February 2010), section on the period before 1850, https://hls-dhs-dss.ch/de/articles/013913/. ↩
8. Dubler, “Zinsen”, HLS (as cited above), opening definition. ↩
9. Christian Scheidegger, “Bauern & Bauernkrieg”, Zwingli-Lexikon von A bis Z, Reformierte Kirche Kanton Zürich, 9 February 2002 (edited), https://www.zhref.ch/themen/reformationsjubilaeum/allgemeine-informationen/huldrych-zwingli/zwingli-lexikon-von-a-bis-z-1/lexikon-b/bauern-bauernkrieg. ↩

For general information only. This article does not constitute legal or tax advice, does not replace advice on an individual case and creates no lawyer-client relationship. It reflects the legal position as of September 2025.