The ecclesiastic tendencies gradually forced their way into secular legislation. The fanatics of the Church exerted their influence not only on the King but also on the landed nobility, the _Shlakhta_,[36] which at that time began to take a more active interest in the affairs of the state. At the convention of the Shlakhta in Varta[37] (1423) King Vladislav Yaghello sanctioned a law forbidding the Jews to lend money against written securities, only loans against pledges being permitted. The ecclesiastic origin of this enactment is betrayed in the ugly manner in which the law is justified in the preamble: "Whereas Jewish cunning is always directed against the Christians and aims rather at the property of the Christian than at his creed or person...." 5. THE JEWS OF LITHUANIA DURING THE REIGN OF VITOVT An entirely different picture is presented at that time by Lithuania, which, in spite of its dynastic alliance with Poland, retained complete autonomy of administration. The patriarchal order of things, which was nearing its end in Poland, was still firmly intrenched in the Duchy of Lithuania, but recently emerged from the stage of primitive paganism. Medieval culture had not yet taken hold of the inhabitants of the wooded banks of the Niemen, and the Jews were able to settle there without having to face violence and persecution. It is difficult to determine the exact date of the first Jewish settlements in Lithuania. So much is certain, however, that by the end of the fourteenth century a number of important communities were in existence, such as those of Brest, Grodno, Troki, Lutzk, and Vladimir, the last two in Volhynia, which, prior to the Polish-Lithuanian Union of 1579, formed part of the Duchy. The first one to legalize the existence of these communities was the Lithuanian Grand Duke Vitovt, who ruled over Lithuania from 1388 to 1430, partly as an independent sovereign, partly in the name of his cousin, the Polish King Yaghello. In 1388 the Jews of Brest and other Lithuanian communities obtained from Vitovt a charter similar in content to the statutes of Boleslav of Kalish and Casimir the Great, and in 1389 even more extensive privileges were bestowed by him on the Jews of Grodno.