The teaching on partnership contains such a complete disproof of the contention that the mediæval teaching on usury was based on the unproductivity of capital, that certain writers have endeavoured to prove that the permission of partnership was but a subterfuge, consciously designed to justify evasions of the usury law. Further historical knowledge, however, has dispelled this misconception; and it is now certain that the contract of partnership was widely practised and tolerated long before the Church attempted to insist on the observance of its usury laws in everyday commercial life.[1] However interesting an investigation into the commercial and industrial partnerships of the Middle Ages might be, we must not attempt to pursue it here, as we have rigidly limited ourselves to a consideration of teaching. We must refer, however, to the _commenda_, which was the contract from which the later mediæval partnership (_societas_) is generally admitted to have developed, because the _commenda_ was extensively practised as early as the tenth century, and, as far as we know, never provoked any expression of disapproval from the Church. This silence amounts to a justification; and we may therefore say that, even before Aquinas devoted his attention to the subject, the Church fully approved of an institution which provided the owner of money with the means of procuring an unearned income. [Footnote 1: Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 411; Weber, _Handelsgesellschaften_, pp. 111-14.] The _commenda_ was originally a contract by which merchants who wished to engage in foreign trade, but who did not wish to travel themselves, entrusted their wares to agents or representatives. The merchant was known as the _commendator_ or _socius stans_, and the agent as the _commendatarius_ or _tractator_. The most usual arrangement for the division of the profits of the adventure was that the _commendatarius_ should receive one-fourth and the _commendator_ three-fourths. At a slightly later date contracts came to be common in which the _commendatarius_ contributed a share of capital, in which case he would receive one-fourth of the whole profit as _commendatarius_, and a proportionate share of the remainder as capitalist. This contract came to be generally known as _collegantia_ or _societas_. Contracts of this kind, though originally chiefly employed in overseas enterprise, afterwards came to be utilised in internal trade and manufacturing industry.[1] [Footnote 1: Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. ii. pp. 412-14.]