Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1895 edition. Excerpt: ...and made to landholders advances of money to be repaid in corn and wool.3 1 Liber Custumarum (Rolls Series), xxxiv.-xlviii., 61-72; Liber Albus, xcv., xcvi., 287; Macpherson, Annals of Commerce, I. 388-9. Liber Custumarum and Liber Albus, as referred to in preceding note: Cunningham, Growth of English Industry and Commerce, Early and Middle Ages, 181-6; Oohenkowski, Englands wirthschaftliche Entwickelung, 180; Calendar of State Papers (Venetian), lx.-lxix.; Peruzzi, Storia dei Banchieri e del Commercio di Firenze, 70. VIII.--The Temptations Of The Jews. But even for those Jews who were rich enough to take part in wholesale trade, there was still a great temptation to transgress the prohibition against usury. All the legal machinery that was necessary for the due execution and validity of agreements between Jews and Christians--the chest in which the deeds were deposited, and the staffs of officers by whom they were registered and supervised--were still maintained in some towns, since they were necessary alike for the recovery, by the ordinary process, of the old debts (many of which, in spite of the order for summary repayment in the Statute of 1275, still remained outstanding)4 and for the registration of any new agreetnents that might be made for the delivery of corn and wool, or for the repayment of money lent ostensibly without interest. There was no lack of would-be borrowers to co-operate with the Jews in using this machinery in order to make agreements on which, in spite of the prohibition of usury, money might profitably be lent. The demand for loans was great, far too great to be satisfied, as the Church thought it reasonable to expect,1 by money advanced without interest; and owing to the progress of the change from payment of...
