Note 191-7 — Chapter IV

The institution of rent-purchase (Rentekauf) was already developed in the Hanse cities at the beginning of the fourteenth century. (Stobbe, in the Zeitschr. f. deutsches Recht, XIX, 189 ff.) About 1420, the bishops of Silesia inquired of the Pope, whether such contracts which had been the practice in Silesia for a century were lawful. The answer was a favorable one, although he left the rate of interest free in this particular case (Extr. Com. III, 5, 1, 2); after Alexander IV., however, as early as 1258, had instructed inquisitors not to take part in litigations concerning usurious contracts. Formerly all such contracts were prohibited in express terms. (Decret. Greg., V. 19, 1, 2), although, in France, the ordinances of Louis IX. and Louis X. (1254 and 1315) had established fixed rates of interest therefor. Between pledge and rent-purchase, the right of the (virtual) loaner to expel the (virtual) borrower, which after fell into disquietude, occupies, so to speak, a middle place. (Compare Eichhorn, D. St.- und R.-Gesch., II, § 361, a III, § 450.) It was decreed, in France, in 1565, that all rent in kind should be converted into money rent. (Warnkönig, Franz., St.- und R.-Gesch., II, 585 ff.)