The development of the joint-stock company was attended by increased activity in banking. In the early middle ages the lending of money for interest had been forbidden by the Catholic Church; in this as in other branches of business it was immoral to receive profit without giving work. The Jews, however, with no such scruples, had found money-lending very profitable, even though royal debtors occasionally refused to pay. As business developed in Italy, however, Christians lost their repugnance to interest-taking, and Italian (Lombard) and later French and German money-lenders and money-changers became famous. Since the coins minted by feudal lords and kings were hard to pass except in limited districts, and since the danger of counterfeit or light-weight coins was far greater than now, the "money-changers" who would buy and sell the coins of different countries did a thriving business at Antwerp in the early sixteenth century. Later, Amsterdam, London, Hamburg, and Frankfort took over the business of Antwerp and developed the institutions of finance to a higher degree. [Footnote: The gold of the New World and the larger scope of commercial enterprises had increased the scale of operations, as may be seen by comparing the fortunes of three great banking families: 1300--the Peruzzi's, $800,000; 1440--the Medici's, $7,500,000; 1546--the Fuggers', $40,000,000.] The money-lenders became bankers, paying interest on deposits and receiving higher interest on loans. Shares of the stock of commercial companies were bought and sold in exchanges, and as early as 1542 there were complaints about speculating on the rise and fall of stocks. Within a comparatively short time the medieval merchants' gilds had given way to great stock-companies, and Jewish money-lenders to millionaire bankers and banking houses with many of our instruments of exchange such as the bill of exchange. Such was the revolution in business that attended, and that was partly caused, partly helped, by the changes in foreign trade, which we call the Commercial Revolution. [Sidenote: New Commodities]