Cambistas: marching to hell, in front of the table and cutting off the language

Within the sin of greed, we can highlight the punishments of the money changers or moneylenders. These characters are represented three times in Tudela. In one voussoir, they appear marching towards hell, one with a bag of coins in his hand and another carrying the exchange table. In another, a banker seated before the mensa nummularia used for the official document is punished by two demons who open his mouth with pincers, either to make him swallow his riches or to cut his language, a punishment also suffered by another character in another voussoir. Indeed, it was considered that the sin of the usurer, in addition to fraud, was deception and lying, and a widespread idea in the Age average was that the sinful organ (in this case, the language) was the punished organ. Regarding the punishment of swallowing wealth, Gonzalo de Berceo said about usurers: "Mentranlis por las bocas el oro regalado: diran que non oviesen el tal aver ganado". Also in a legend collected by Jacques de Vitry it is told that a miser asked to be buried with a bag of his riches around his neck, and when his relatives opened his tomb they were horrified to discover some little devils that made him swallow incandescent coins.

     
Photos: Carlos Martínez Álava