Some 500 years ago, Jakob Fugger was the richest man alive. The German financed emperors and popes, and reshaped global trade and banking to set the economic course for the modern world.

For Greg Steinmetz, the Augsburg, Germany-born Jakob Fugger was "the first person to conduct trade on a truly global scale."

Steinmetz, a former correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, profiled Fugger in the 2015 biography The Richest Man Who Ever Lived.

 

How the world's first global trader, Jakob Fugger, got rich

BY Thomas Kohlmann

 

Speaking with DW, Steinmetz said global commerce barely existed at the time, until German Emperor Charles V extended European control into South America during his reign as Holy Roman emperor and king of Spain in the 16th century.

There wasn't much of a globe to trade with, Steinmetz noted, apart from trade with India, and what is now Indonesia and China.

But merchants could only travel west after Columbus had discovered America in 1492, meaning "only half the globe" had been known to Europeans, and Fugger was "at the beginning of that phenomenon" later known as global trade.

How education changed everything

Born into a prosperous Augsburg family whose wealth began with his grandfather, master weaver Hans Fugger, Jakob received his commercial training in Venice, Italy. The city not only shaped Jakob's taste for the Renaissance but also introduced him to a breakthrough that would accelerate his rise: double-entry bookkeeping.

Since there were no business schools back then, Steinmetz said, merchant families would "send their boys out to become apprentices," and Germans heavily traded with Venice.

"He [Fugger] took all of those Venetian secrets, including double-entry bookkeeping, back to Germany with him. And he was the first in Germany to employ these modern methods," Steinmetz said.

With meticulous records, Fugger always knew where his finances stood — unlike many rivals. He also built an intelligence network of agents across major European cities and even small German towns.

"People would feed him with information, by courier and horses … so that he would know about things before his competitors did, and he could use that to his advantage. Information today is everything, and it was everything back then, too," Steinmetz said.

Banker to emperors

After his brothers died, Jakob Fugger took sole control of the family enterprise in 1510 and strengthened its ties to the Habsburg monarchy, lending aggressively to Emperors Maximilian I and Charles V.

In return, he secured access to lucrative silver and copper operations in Tyrol and what was then Hungary. He did not own the mines outright, but held rights and stakes that proved extraordinarily profitable.

Europe had little to offer Asia at the time besides precious metals. "Europe wasn't exporting technology or luxury goods," Steinmetz explained. "But it had silver, gold, and copper — and that's where Fugger became indispensable."

 Copper powers an empire

Martin Kluger, CEO of the Context publishing house in Augsburg and Nuremberg, and also an author of several books on the Fugger family, said India — then technologically and economically ahead of Europe — suffered a chronic shortage of copper, which was a "stroke of extremely good luck" for the Fugger mining interests.

And timing amplified that advantage: "Vasco da Gama discovered the sea route to India in 1498, just three years after the Fuggers moved into large-scale copper mining in Neusohl [today Banska Bystrica in Slovakia]. Demand soared, and the Fuggers held the supply," said Kluger.

Copper consumption was rising in Europe as well — in shipbuilding, weaponry, cookware and monumental architecture. Kluger noted that the Habsburgs and the Hungarian crown often repaid debts by granting mining rights because they lacked other means.

"The aristocracy's limited commercial knowledge worked in the Fuggers' favor," he added.

Fugger also ensured that powerful yet hugely indebted borrowers kept paying. His strategy, Steinmetz said, was to "make himself indispensable."

"Emperor Maximilian was constantly fighting wars and had to pay mercenaries. The only one who could come up with money when Maximilian needed it quickly was Fugger."

A legacy that endures

Lars Börner, a German economic history expert, believes Fugger reshaped European finance because he persuaded the pope to relax the Catholic Church's ban on charging interest, which opened the door to modern lending practices.

"It's no secret that the pope also liked to pull in the highest returns possible. Interest ban or not," Börner recently told German public radio Deutschlandfunk.

In exchange, he said, Fugger shared in church revenues, including the controversial sale of indulgences used to fund St. Peter's Basilica in Rome — a practice that eventually sparked Protestant revolt, the Reformation.

Yet Fugger's most visible legacy is situated in his Bavarian hometown of Augsburg: the so-called Fuggerei, the world's first social housing complex, founded in 1521.

It still operates today, and like 500 years ago, residents pay only a nominal rent. Visitors from around the world tour the community, which remains a tangible symbol of his influence.

Historians estimate Fugger's total wealth at the equivalent of $300 billion to $400 billion today (€255 billion to €340 billion). In Fugger's time, this amounted to between 2% and 10% of the entire economic output of Europe — and well above the current wealth of Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos in comparison to the US gross domestic product.

While modern-day philanthropists such as Bill Gates work to shape their legacies through foundations, corporate historian Boris Gehlen told DW they are unlikely to match Fugger's long-term impact. "Their legacy won't be as significant as Fugger's," he said.

This article was originally written in German.

 

THE ARTICLE ABOVE GLOSSES OVER THE REAL REASON THE POPE "LIKE TO PULL THE HIGHEST INTEREST AS POSSIBLE". ACCORDING TO SOME STORY TELLERS, THE POPE WAS BROKE, HAVING TO FINANCE ARMIES AND SPIES AND ALL SORT OF ARTY-FARTY STUFF LIKE THE SAINT PETER BASILICA RECONSTRUCTION AND TO CONTROL THE CATHOLIC EMPIRE... ONE YOUNG PRIEST WANTED TO GET A MOST POWERFUL BISHOPRY, BUT HE WAS BROKE. SO, THE YOUNG MAN MADE A DEAL WITH JAKOB FUGGER TO BORROW THE CASH NECESSARY TO BUY THE EXPENSIVE BISHOPRY FROM THE CATHOLIC POPE. BUT EVEN WITH CASH RECEIPTS FROM THE "BELIEVERS" — POOR PEOPLE, BOURGEOIS AND NOBILITY — THERE WAS NEVER ENOUGH RETURNS TO REPAY THE LOAN. THE POPE AND THE NEWLY APPOINTED BISHOP OF MAINZ MADE A DEAL WITH JAKOB FUGGER THAT WOULD BRING MONEYS INTO THE COFFERS OF ALL THESE CROOKS... THE SOLD INDULGENCES...

 

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Looking Into Catholic Indulgences As A Protestant

BY CONNOR BRENNAN

 

I’ve wanted to learn about Catholic indulgences for a while now. Many Protestants, including myself, have heard poor opinions about what many believe was a dishonorable way to extol money from people. Learning about indulgences also meant learning about how they helped trigger the Reformation.

What Are Indulgences?

I found some more or less neutral definitions for indulgences on ThoughtCo and Britannica. Essentially, indulgences are assigned holy acts used to reduce one’s temporal punishment for sin.

Even after I did some research on Purgatory, the notion of temporal punishment (or, as Fr. Mike of Ascension Presents calls it, “consequences”) still throws me off a bit. Britannica pinpoints the term “temporal punishment” as another way of saying “penance”. In other words, “temporal punishment” is another way of saying “making amends in the aftermath of committed sins”.

Connotation is a big issue here, and this is bound to throw people off. It sure as heck threw me off!

From what I’ve read, indulgences originated not as “get out of Hell free” cards but as promises to hold ourselves accountable for our sins. When you obtained an indulgence, you created a note of accountability declaring your intention to make amends for your sins through specific faith-based actions.

This sounds like a great way to encourage and practice humility. The original form of indulgences likely helped individuals plan how to break off their ties to sin and stand stronger against temptations. I like that.

But the subsequent issue is why and how did indulgences become so corrupt at one point? While they’d been in practice centuries before the Reformation, it looks like a nasty spike in abuse around their usage directly inspired Martin Luther to write his famous 95 Theses.

The Effect of Indulgences on the Reformation

When indulgences became a means of procuring money in Luther’s home country of Germany, the fuse for the Reformation was lit.

Johann Tetzel, a Dominican friar, received authority from the archbishop of Mainz, who’d received permission from Pope Leo X, to sell indulgences in Germany. Pope Leo X wanted to rebuild St. Peter’s Basilica and needed plenty of funding for this project. To this end, he employed Tetzel and others to promote the purchase of indulgences.

These indulgences came with a misleading message that their purchase, when indulgences originally had no price, would confer special grace. When people came upon men like Tetzel, they heard that these indulgences would alleviate the temporal price of sin. Not just for themselves but also for other loved ones who’d already passed away.

These indulgences were “plenary”, as in, they would revoke the temporal punishment for all sins. This, of course, must’ve amplified their appeal at the time.

I hope I’m getting this right. All of this seems to imply, if not outright state, that these indulgences removed the need for accountability for sins. “Just pay, and you’ll be okay!”

This round of indulgences stands in stark contrast to their original intentions. Knowing now that indulgences weren’t supposed to have an attached price makes this much worse. No wonder Luther condemned them so strongly.

Martin Luther’s Condemnation of Greedy Indulgences

Martin Luther despised how indulgences were promoted as a means of essentially buying one’s way out of Purgatory. Tetzel’s selling of indulgences dishonored their true purpose. Luther’s understandable contempt for this mishandling directly inspired his 95 Theses and declaration of disgust with the Catholic Church.

I found one Catholic take on Martin Luther that refers to him as a heretic most infamous for his rejection of papal authority. They argue that Luther was wrong for his views against the Pope’s ability to dispense grace.

The Pope issued a statement in 1520, Exsurge Domine, condemning Luther’s views and giving reasons to excommunicate him. This video below showcases a poetic portion of this statement:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xd3ZJC85-M8

 

I’m not sure how I’m supposed to feel about Pope Leo X comparing Luther to wild beasts. While I know I’m saying this as a Protestant, it’s easy for me to think that Leo X reacted this way after Luther challenged his authority.

Not even National Catholic Register supports the notion of complete papal authority. They state that while the papacy usually gives good spiritual direction, Catholics aren’t obligated to comply if their guidance contradicts God.

I sure as heck wouldn’t want to obey a Pope who dishonestly disguised indulgences as a means of earning money. Even if his actions helped fund a beautiful building, Leo X should’ve funded the project through more honest means. His refusal to choose honesty is partly what fueled the Reformation.

Addressing Indulgences at the Council of Trent

The Catholic Church addressed the misuse of indulgences in one of the sessions of the yearslong Council of Trent.

Brittanica’s article on Trent states the Council’s intent that all financial abuses and hedonistic practices, such as what Pope Leo X did, would be disciplined. I found the exact section in the Council that addresses indulgences. It more or less states that the abuses behind indulgences had to cease while also condemning misinformation surrounding the practice.

If I were a Christian living in the time of the Reformation, I would’ve preferred that the Church took action against this corruption sooner. It shouldn’t have taken roughly 40 years after Tetzel’s misdeeds in Germany for a statement to come out. Pope Leo X never should’ve had the power to sell indulgences when they weren’t supposed to have an attached price in the first place.

I’ve been reading conflicting information about indulgences supposedly being free while Pope Leo X sold them to fund the Basilica. It’s bizarre, reading from Catholic sources, that Tetzel was an outlier when I read that Leo X authorized him to sell indulgences in Germany. What narrative should I believe?

Catholic Explanation of Indulgences

One of my favorite Catholic YouTube channels is Ascension Presents, which did a video on indulgences:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpdUZ3kWjM8

 

Fr. Mike points out that one of the consequences of sin is getting attached to it; we find it harder and harder to say “no” to it after the first time. We shouldn’t try to go at the healing process of overcoming that addiction alone, which is where God’s grace comes into play.

I like his analogy that indulgences are meant to strengthen your soul, similar to how physical therapy strengthens a previous wound. His description of what goes into an indulgence was also quite informative. It sounds like indulgences are supposed to be “accountability cards”,

He did a great job explaining this topic so that all audiences could understand. However, this message contradicts Pope Leo X deliberately selling indulgences to fund the Basilica. I understand Fr. Mike’s view that this could’ve been a misunderstanding, but I also take issue with the Church not clarifying this during Leo X’s era.

After all, alms and indulgences aren’t the same. Alms are freely given sums of money, while indulgences are acts of repentance for oneself or somebody who’s passed on. Pope Leo X never should’ve blended the two.

As a Protestant, I wonder, can other Church authorities overrule abusive papal actions? In this article from The Atlantic, a reader-submitted answer states that the Ecumenical Council has the power to remove popes from office. I wonder why they didn’t remove Pope Leo X after this indulgence fiasco?

Indulgences Today

In modern days, the Sacrament of Penance (Confession) is used to promote humility and remorse for our sins. Undergoing penance helps us let go of pride and instills a resolve to avoid repeating our transgressions.

READ MORE: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/quisutdeus/2022/06/looking-into-catholic-indulgences-as-a-protestant/

 

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PICTURE AT TOP BY GUS LEONISKY: MARTIN LUTHER STATUE IN DRESDEN...

 

SEE ALSO: 

WHY LUTHER HATED THE JEWS?...

Acquiring Hebrew books was a common practice among Christian humanists. More surprising, perhaps, is that a large group of Hebrew manuscripts was produced for a Christian library. A Jewish scribal workshop organized by Johann Jakob Fugger (1516–75) in Venice—here analyzed for the first time—is one of the rarest examples of this phenomenon that emerged out of Renaissance book culture. To understand Fugger’s extensive bibliophilic enterprise, this essay examines the circulation and dissemination of Hebrew texts from the Jewish bookshelf among Christians, the relationships between Christian patrons and Jewish scribes, and the role of manuscripts as agents of print and as objects of collecting.

https://www.academia.edu/35466826/