ABSTRACT

Robert of Curzon's legatine mission to France was ended abruptly by Innocent III in 1216 because the king opposed his attack on usury, the clergy disliked the utopian rhetoric of his councils and the well-to-do detested his preaching the crusade to the poor, children and even the sick. As the prohibition of usury became prominent, so also did penitential restitution. The practice was old and tied to the Church's view of the rich, whom, Honorius warned: God wanted to be the fathers of the poor. Guild technological conservatism and monopoly excited resistance by consumers and import-export interests. By the end of the thirteenth century guilds had won their place in the sun, but were falling under ever more intense scrutiny. At the same time, the appearance of state-chartered companies, the spread of protectionism and the enactment of navigation acts, such as that of Barcelona in 1286, were compatible with guild corporatism.