[Footnote 191-3: Thus the emperor Basil, in the year 867, as _Justinian_ had before him, forbade the further payment of interest, once the amount already paid equaled the principal. (L. 29 seq.; Cod. IV, 32, Nov., 121, 2.) Compare Sachsenspiegel, I, 54. _Edward the Confessor_ is said to have issued the first prohibition of interest. (_Anderson_, Origin of Commerce, a. 1045.) _Edward III._ forbade all interest as the ruin of commerce. (Idem a., 1341.) About 1391, the lower House had its zeal aroused against the "shameful vice of usury;" and again, in 1488, all interest on money and all rent-purchases stipulated for on unlawful conditions, were threatened with a fine of £20, the pillory, and six months imprisonment. (_Anderson_, a., 1488.) In France, the edict of Philip IV. of 1312. Compare _Beaumanoir_, Coûtumes, ch. 67, des Usures, No. 2.] [Footnote 191-4: _Dante_, Inferno, XI, 106 ff., suggests that interest-creditors had violated the command of _Moses_, I, 3. _Macchiavelli_ seems to judge otherwise: Compare Istoria Fior., VII, a, 1464; VIII, a, 1478. Very interesting discussions on the legitimateness of the taking of interest in 1353 seq., in which the Dominicans, up to the time of _Savonarola_, defended the strictest opinion. (_M. Villan_, III, 106.) _Luther_, Tract on Trade and Money, 1524, and Sermon on Usury, 1519. Later still, _Luther_ became more moderate. Thus, in his letter to the Danzig counsel, 1525, in _Neumann_, Geschichte des Wuchers in Deutschland, 617 ff., in which, for instance, he blames the forcible carrying out of interest-prohibitions, draws a distinction between rich and poor, etc. So, too, in his letter: An die Pfarrherren, wider den Wucher zu predigen, 1540. _Melanchthon_, Phil. moral., 137 ff., is also more moderate. _Calvin_ was clearer in this matter, and no longer recognized the canonical prohibition of interest. (Epistolæ et Responsa, Hanov., 1597, epist. 383.) Similarly _Zwinglius_, who will not praise interest, but considers it a natural consequence of property (Opp. ed. Tugur., 1530, I, 319 ff.), and even _Erasmus_, ad. Evang. Luc., 6, 44. Adagia v. Usuræ nautt. In _Shakespeare_, compare Merchant of Venice. _Bodinus_ also rejects on principle, even Roman interest, which he held to be 1½ per cent. a year: De Republ., 1584, V. 2. Even the practical Dutch excluded the so-called "table-keepers," from the communion up to 1657. Compare the contests hereon in _Laspeyres_, Gesch. d. volkswirthsch. Ansich. d. Niederl., 258 ff.]