754 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1294-1517.
reduction of interest from 40 % to 4 and 10 % in Italy, before the close of the 15th century.^ 'I hey met, however, with much opposition and were condemned as contravening the traditional law' against usury.
A foremost place in advancing the movement was taken by the Franciscans and in the Franciscan Bernardino da Feltre, 1439-1494, it had its chief apostle. This popular orator canvassed all the greater towns of Northern Italy, — Mantua, Florence, Parma, Padua, Milan, Lucca, Verona, Brescia. Wherever he went, he was opposed from the pulpit and by doctors of the canon law. At Florence, so warmly was the controversy conducted in the pulpits that a public discussion was ordered at which Lorenzo de' Medici, doctors of the law, clerics and many laymen were present, with the result that the archbishop forbade opposition to the mons on pain of excommunication. The Deuteronomic injunction, 24:12 sq., ordering that, if a man borrow a coat, it should be restored before sundown and the Lord's words, Luke 6, were quoted by the opposition. But it was replied, that the object of loaning to the poor was not to enrich the fund or individuals but to do the borrower good. Savonarola gave the institution his advocacy.^ The Fifth Lateran commended it and in this it was followed, 50 years later, by the Council of Trent.
The attempt to transplant the Italian institution in Germany was unsuccessful and was met by the establishment of banks by municipal councils, as at Frankfurt.^ In England also, it gained no foothold. So strong was the feeling against lending out money at interest that, at Chancellor jNIorton's importunity, parliament proceeded against it with severe measures, and a law of Henry VII. 's reign made all lending of money at interest a criminal offence and the bargain between borrower and lender null and void.
Notable expression was also given to the practice of beuev-
1 Holzapfel, p. 134.
2 Villari, 1.294 sqq.; Holzapfel, pp. 124, 135. According to Holzapfel, there were in Italy in 1896, 556 monti di pieta with 78,000,000 lire — §16,000,- 000 — out in loans.
8 Holzapfel, p. 102 sqq.; Janssen, I. 464, 489.
§ 79. WORKS OF CHARITY. 755
olence by the religious brotherhoo_ds of the age. These organizations developed with amazing rapidity and are not to be confounded with tlie gilds which were organizations of craftsmen, intended to promote the production of good work and also to protect the master- workers in their monopoly of trade. They were connected with the Chur^ and were, in pajrt, uji^der the ^rection of the priesthop^ althougli from some of them, as in Liibeck, priests were distinctly excluded. Like the gilds, their organization was based upon the principle of mutual aid^ but they emphasized the principle of unselfish sympathy for those in distress. Luther once remarked, there was no chapel and no saint without a brotherhood. In fact, nothing was so sure to make a saint popular as to name a brotherhood after him. By 1450, there was not a mendicant convent in Germany which had not at least one fraternity connected with it. Cities often had a number of these organizations. Wittenberg had 21, Liibeck 70, Frankfurt 31, Hamburg 100. Every reputable citizen in German cities belonged to one or more.^ Luther belonged to 3 at Erfurt, the brotherhoods of St. Augustine, St. Anna and St. Catherine.
The dead, who had belonged to them, had the distinct advantage of being prayed for. Their sick were cared for in hospitals, containing beds endowed by them. Sometimes they incorporated the principle of mutual benefit or assurance societies, and losses sustained by the living they made good. At Paderborn, in case a brother lost his horse, every member contributed one or two shillings or, if he lost his house, his fellowmembers contributed three shillings each or a load of lumber.
As there were gilds of apprentices as well as of masterworkmen, so there were brotherhoods of the poor and humble as well as of those in comfortable circumstances. Even the lepers had fraternities, and one of these clans had fief rights to a spring at Wiesbaden. So also had the beggars and cripples
1 The constitution of the Gild of St. Mary of Lynn contained the clauses, " If any sister or brother of this gild fall into poverty, they shall have help from every other brother and sister in a penny a day." The Gild of St. Catharine, London, had a similar stipulation. Smith: Engl. Gilds, p. 185.
2 Degenhard Pfaffinger, counsellor to Frederick the Wise, belonged to 35. Kolde, 437 ; Uhlhorn, p. 423.