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)[145] and for the registration of any new agreements 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,[146] by money advanced without interest; and owing to the progress of the change from payment of rents in kind or service to payment in cash,[147] it was steadily growing. It had been met by the money of the Italian bankers, of the Jews, of English citizens, and, as is freely hinted by writers of the time, of great English barons, who secretly shared in the transactions and the profits of the Jewish and foreign usurers.[148] The supply had suddenly been checked by the simultaneous prohibition of all usury whether of Jews or of Christians. Now a Jew who wished, by collusion with a borrower, to evade the law against usury, had only to study the methods that had been followed by the Caursines, and those that were still followed by the Italians and acquiesced in by the heads of the religious houses with whom they had dealings. The Caursines, for example, sometimes avoided the appearance of usury by lending 100 marks and receiving in return a bond, acknowledging a loan of £100.[149] Sometimes they lent money for a definite period, on an agreement that they were to get a “gift,” in return for their kindness in making the loan, and “compensation” in case it were not repaid in time.[150] Sometimes by a still more elaborate device, the Italians combined their two professions of money-lenders and merchants, by inducing a monastery which had borrowed money, to acknowledge the receipt, not only of the sum actually received, but also of the price of certain sacks of wool which it bound itself in due time to supply.[151] The Jews, no doubt, followed the example of the Caursines and of the Italians. In official registers, which are still extant, there are mentioned bonds which secured to Jewish creditors a large payment in money together with a small payment in kind, and which doubtless represent collusive transactions, in