On the rates of interest for the use of money in ancient and modern times. Part II

William Barwick Hodge

doi:10.1017/S2046165800023698

On the rates of interest for the use of money in ancient and modern times. Part II

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 August 2016

William Barwick Hodge

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William Barwick Hodge: Affiliation:
Institute of Actuaries

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On a former occasion I had the honour to lay before the Institute a historical sketch of this subject, from the earliest period of authentic records down to that of the legal establishment of the practice of taking interest, in the reign of Elizabeth.

The facts then adduced showed that very high nominal rates of interest were obtained in the ancient world, and during the middle ages; but such rates are, by no means, to be taken as measures of the profits made upon loans, which must always have been seriously diminished, and often entirely swallowed up, by the exactions and spoliations to which the lender was exposed, and the difficulties he experienced in enforcing his claims, from defective laws, and the prejudices entertained against him by the community.

Type: Research Article
Information: Journal of the Institute of Actuaries , Volume 7 , Issue 6 , July 1858 , pp. 311 - 333

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S2046165800023698 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © Institute and Faculty of Actuaries 1857

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^{page 311 note 1} Assurance Mag, vi., pp. 301–333.

^{page 311note 2} Taylor : Notes from Life, p. 26, Bentham's Works, 1843; iii, 17. McCulloch: Eney. Brit., 7th edit.; art., “Interest.”

^{page 311 note 3} Smith: Diet. of Antiq.; art., “Fenus.”

^{page 311 note 4} Grote: Hist, Greece iii. 125.

^{page 312 note 1} Arnold: Hist. Rome i, 136.

^{page 312 note 2} Ibid. ii. 21.

^{page 312 note 3} Ibid. i 137.

^{page 312 note 4} Ibid. i. 139.

^{page 312 note 5} Defencs of Usury, Letter x.

^{page 312 note 6} One celebrated English Judge took a very different view of the subject. “In the course of my experience,” said Lord Loughborough from the bench, “I have met with many hard-hearted debtors, but very rarely with as unmerciful creditor.” English lawyers bare invented a peculiar defence, of singular vagueness, to the effect that “advantage had been taken of the borrower's necessities”—as if these were not the only reasons for borrowing, and as if the whole fabric of civil society were not constructed upon the principle, that unless a man can find out some mode of taking advantage of his neighbour's necessities, he has very little chance of providing for his own. What, but necessity, and very hard necessity too, ever induced anyone to avail himself of the services of practitioners in courts of law ?

^{page 313 note 1} Arnold, i. 147; ii. 126. Suetonius: Life of Julius cæsar. Plutarch: Life of Solon. Ibid,: Life of Agis.

^{page 313 note 2} Grote. iii. 135.

^{page 313 note 3} Assurance Mag. vi. 321.

^{page 313 note 4} History of Europe during the Middle Ages i. 157.

^{page 314 note 1} History of Europe during the Middle Ages ii. 401.

^{page 314 note 2} Assurance Mag. vi. 227.

^{page 314 note 3} Chron. Load., 1839, i. 200.

^{page 314 note 4} Of all the extraordinary modes adopted by sovereigns for extracting money from the Jews, the most extraordinary is one ascribed to William Rufus, by Holinshed, , who relates (Chron. London, 1807, ii–45)Google Scholar, that certain Jews of Rouen having embraced Christianity, others of the same nation, resident in that city, offered to give William a sum of money if he would induce the converts to return to their original faith. The king undertook the task, and, calling the men Before him, so terrified them by his threats, as to cause divers of them

and again to adopt their former creed.

Another Jew, hearing of William's success, offered him sixty pieces of silver to bring about the same result with the Jew's son who had been converted by a dream. Williamtook the money, but failed in the attempt, although his majesty became so excited by the argument, that he called the young man “a dunghill knave,” and threatened “to have his eyes torn out.” Thereupon the father demanded back his money; but the king refused to return it, alleging he had done his part in persuading the young man as much as he might. However, the Jew becoming clamorous, the king, “to stop his mouth,” gave him back one half the sum, retaining the other half for himself. The coincidence of the thirty pieces of silver is certainly a suspicious circumstance when combined with the hatred towards William felt by the clergy, the only chroniclers of the time; but, even if invented, the story may still be evidence of the manners of the age, and tends to confirm the opinion already given, that the strong-handed pillage and oppression of the Jews did not commence until about the close of the twelfth century.

^{page 314 note 5} Hume: Hist. Eng., chap. xii.

^{page 314 note 6} Macaulay, : Hist. Eng. iii. 497 Google Scholar.

^{page 315 note 1} Assurance Mag. vi 304.

^{page 315 note 2} Grote, vol. iii, chap. ix.

^{page 315 note 3} Bœckh: Pub. Eco. of Athens; Lond. 1842, p. 592.

^{page 315 note 4} Ibid., p. 591.

^{page 315 note 5} Hist. Dec. and Fall, cbap, xliv.

^{page 315 note 6} Esp, des Lois, iiv, 22., chap. xi.

^{page 315 note 7} Arnold, ii, 74. Niebuhr: Hist. Rome i 461.

^{page 315 note 8} Esp, des Lois, liv. 22, chap. xiii.

^{page 316 note 1} Cab. Cye.: Hist. Ital. Rep., p. 85.

^{page 316 note 2} Bœckh, p. 294.

^{page 316 note 3} Ibid. p. 596.

^{page 317 note 1} Travels in Chaldea; Lond., Nisbet, 1857; p. 221.

^{page 317 note 2} Description de la Chine; La Haye, 1736; ii, 201.

^{page 318 note 1} Descriptiton de la Chine ii. 201.

^{page 318 note 2} According to a story current in Ireland, the insurgents, during the last great rebellion in that country, indulged their vindictive feelings against a family peculiarly obnoxious to them, by burning, whenever they fell into their hands, the notes of a bank in which the names of some members of the family appeared as the principal partners.

^{page 318 note 3} Statistical Journal iv. 348. The first Monte di Pieià was established A.D. 1491, at Padua, by Bernardino di Feltri, a monk of that city. In Italy,, the offerings of the faithful deposited in the churches for the benefit of the poor were called monti (heaps, or collections), and de Feltri named the subscriptions he obtained for the object he had in view “Il Monte di Pieià,”—the compassionate collection. From this the French adopted the expression, Mont de Piété, the literal meaning of which is very different.

^{page 319 note 1} St. Luke xix. 23.

^{page 319 note 2} Blackstone's Commentariesii, 453.

^{page 319 note 3} Defence of Usury, Letter x.

^{page 320 note 1} Kelly: On the Usury Laws; Lond. 1835; p, 26.

^{page 320 note 2} Discourse, &c., p. 28.

^{page 320 note 3} Ib., p, 35.

^{page 320 note 4} Ib., p. 74.

^{page 320 note 5} Kelly, p. 219.

^{page 321 note 1} The following epitaph upon John Combe, a usurer of Stratford-on-Avon, and an intimate friend of Shakespeare, was long attributed to the poet; but erroneously, as subsequent inquiries have shown—

^{page 321 note 2} See the character delineated is the “Hog that hath lost his Pearl.”—Dodsley's Old Plays, vol. x. A professional writer on the usury laws (Kelly, p. 115), has pointed cut that most of the pretences of Harpagon in L'Avare, and of Moses in the School for Scandal, might have been copied from the writings of St. Basil, published in the third century. If all the works of imagination produced since the creation of the world could be analysed and compared, the amount of original invention contained in them would probably be found exceedingly small. Dr. Johnson said, truly, in speaking of Homer, “that nation after nation, and century after century, had been able to do little more than transpose his incidents, new name his characters, and paraphrase his sentiments.”—Preface to Shakespeare. The usurer was attacked without mercy in the popular ballads of the time. In one entitled “When this old cap was new,” the following stanza occurs:—

And Gernutus the Jew, a money-lender, is thus described in the ballad of that name— one of the many versions of the story of Shylock (See Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry):—

^{page 322 note 1} See some luminous remarks upon the subject of these distinctions by Professor De Morgan (Companion to Almanack, 1851, pp. 15 to 18).

^{page 322 note 2} Macpherson, : Hist, Comm. i., pp. 427, 509, 555 Google Scholar.

^{page 322 note 3} Statutes of the Realm ii, 574.

^{page 322 note 4} Discourse, &c, p. 60.

^{page 323 note 1} Kelly, p. 11.

^{page 323 note 2} Ibid., p. 18.

^{page 323 note 3} Statutes of the Realm ii. 574.

^{page 323 note 4} Ibid. iv. 542.

^{page 323 note 5} Discourse, &c., p. 100.

^{page 323 note 6} Act iv., sc. 3.

^{page 324 note 1} Companion to Almanack, 1851. The learned Professor quotes (p. 17), the following poetical opening of Webster's Tables, published A.D. 1605, which shows how carefully the arithmetician, in giving rules for the calculation of interest, guarded himself against advocating the practice of taking it:—

^{page 324 note 2} Discourse, &c, p. 104.

^{page 324 note 3} Ibid., pp, 104–106.

^{page 324 note 4} Ibid.,p. 110.

^{page 325 note 1} De Morgan: Companion to Almanack, 1851.

^{page 326 note 1} This case, with the decision thereon, extracted from the Epistles of Père Daniel (Paris, 1697), was given as a postscript to a pamphlet published in London (A.D. 1698), of which I have only seen a fragment.

^{page 326 note 2} Ency. Brit., 7th edit.; art, “China,” p. 583.

^{page 326 note 3} ii. 204.

^{page 326 note 4} Bowring's, Sir John Account of Siam, i. 406 Google Scholar.

^{page 327 note 1} The following is the doctrine of Mahomet upon the subject, extracted from the second chapter of the Koran, entitled The Cow. “They who devour usury shall Dot arise from the dead, but as he ariseth whom Satan has infected by a touch (i. e., like demoniacs or possessed persons), this shall happen to them, because they say Truly, selling is but as usury; and yet God hath permitted selling and forbidden usury. He therefore who, when there cometh unto him an admonition from his Lord, abstaineth from usury for the future, shall hare what is past forgiven him, and his affair belongeth unto God. But whoever returneth unto usury, they shall be the companions of hell fire, they shall continue therein for ever. God shall take his blessing from usury and shall increase alms.” Sale's Koran, p. 52.

^{page 327 note 2} Mrs. Spier's Life in Ancient India: Loud. 1856; pp. 162,163.

^{page 327 note 3} The Essay of Usury did not appear until the ninth edition of Bacon's essays, published the year before his death,—See Montague's Life of Bacon, Appendix, note 3, i.

^{page 328 note 1} Assurance Mag. vi. 315.

^{page 329 note 1} “In this essay on usury, he does not go the whole length of the prejudices existing in his time, though he partakes of them in a great degree.”—Whateley's Annotations on Bacon's Essays : London, 1856.

^{page 330 note 1} Blackstone's Commentaries, book ii., chap, x.

^{page 330 note 2} Commons' Journals i. 303.

^{page 330 note 3} Hist. Eng., chap. xxxiii.

^{page 331 note 1} Book i., chap, i., conclusion.

^{page 331 note 2} Usury, &c., examined by T. Morley: Lond. 1662; p. 11.

^{page 331 note 3} In McCulloch's, Satistieal Account of the British Empire (vol. i., p, 553)Google Scholar, the average rent of land, in 1843, is given for England only at £1. 3s. 2½d. per statute acre; but as this result is obtained by dividing the gross rental of the kingdom by the aggregate acreage of the counties, without allowance for roads and wastes, the actual average must be somewhat higher.

^{page 331 note 4} Hist. Eng. i. 318.

^{page 331 note 5} The total rental of England and Wales is estimated to have been—

^{page 331 note 6} Byron : Age of Bronze.

^{page 332 note 1} W. of Nations, book ii., chap, iv.

^{page 332 note 2} Ibid.

^{page 332 note 3} Hist.Eng. i. 314.

^{page 332 note 4} Works: Lend. 1771; i. 359.

^{page 332 note 5} Essay of Usury.

^{page 332 note 6} See his Tract Against Usury.

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On the rates of interest for the use of money in ancient and modern times. Part II

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