Note 191-11 — Chapter IV

Of course, evaded in a thousand ways in practical life. Thus, for instance, people gave wheat, other commodities, and even uncoined gold and silver as loans, and had what interest they pleased promised them. In alienating the capital, they might stipulate à fonds perdu, as they thought best. (Turgot, I, c. § 29.) When debtors had promised under oath to make no complaint, the church ordered that they should be helped officially. When the temporal power showed itself lax, Alexander III. decreed that such questions should be brought before the spiritual courts. (Decret. Greg. V., tit. 19; 13 Innocent, Epist., VIII, 16; X, 61.) In England, Richard of Cornwall obtained a monopoly of the whole loaning business. (Matth. Paris, ed. 1694, 639: compare, also, 20 Henry III., 5.), from which fact the existence of the custom of taking interest about 1235, is apparent. Cases in which English kings borrowed and promised payment back cum damnis, expensis et interesse: Anderson, Origin of Commerce, a. 1274, 1339.