Introduction
It is well known that the Wittenberg theologian and Church reformer Martin Luther (1483–1546) and the pre-eminent businessman of his time, the Augsburg merchant-banker Jakob Fugger (1459–1525), were not particularly fond of each other. In his address « To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation », published in 1520, Luther took up the cause of the so-called anti-monopoly movement, which argued for legal restrictions on the activities of large mercantile companies at the imperial diets of the early sixteenth century. The reformer doubted that the companies’ profits could possibly be gained by honest means, and he therefore demanded that « a bridle be put into the mouth of the Fuggers and others of their kind ».
Four years later, Luther’s tract « On Commerce and Usury » stipulated clear limits to money-lending at interest and bemoaned the flow of bullion out of the Holy Roman Empire for the purchase of Indian spices and other luxury goods. For the Wittenberg theologian,...