In medieval Catalonia the good behaviour of bankers was deemed so important that if they went bankrupt, they were publicly disgraced by town criers, and given nothing but bread and water to eat until creditors were paid off. If, after a year, the bankers had not paid the depositors, they would be beheaded and their property sold off locally to pay them off.

Nor was it just a threat: there's a recorded case in 1360 of a Francesch Castello whose head was chopped off in front of his counter. No $400 billion-TARP bailout programme for poor old Francesch.