[Footnote 1:  Op. cit., IV. xv. 11.  Lecky attributed the invention of the trinus contractus to the Jesuits—­who were only founded in 1534 (History of Rationalism, vol. ii. p. 267).]

[Footnote 2:  Ashley, op. cit., vol. i. pt. ii. pp. 439 et seqq.; Cleary, op. cit., pp. 126 et seqq.]

We should also refer to the contract of bottomry, which consisted of a loan made to the owner—­or in some cases the master—­of a ship, on the security of the ship, to be repaid with interest upon the safe conclusion of a voyage.  This contract could not be considered a partnership, inasmuch as the property in the money passed to the borrower; but it probably escaped condemnation as usurious on the ground that the lender shared in the risk of the enterprise.  The payment of some additional sum over and above the money lent might thus be justified on the ground of periculum sortis.  The contract, moreover, was really one of insurance for the shipowner, and contracts of insurance were clearly legitimate.  In any event the legitimacy of loans on bottomry was not questioned before the sixteenth century.[1]

[Footnote 1:  Ashley, op. cit., vol. i. pt. ii. pp. 421-3; Palgrave, Dictionary of Political Economy, art.  ‘Bottomry’; Cunningham, Growth of English Industry and Commerce, vol i. p. 257.]

Sec. 10. Concluding Remarks on Usury.

It is to be hoped that the above exposition of the mediaeval doctrine on usury will dispel the idea that the doctrine was founded upon the injustice of unearned income.  Far from the receipt of an unearned income from money or other capital being in all cases condemned, it was unanimously recognised, provided that the income accrued to the owner of the capital, and not to somebody else, and that the rate of remuneration was just.  The teaching on partnership rested on the fundamental assumption that a man might trade with his money, either by using it himself, or by allowing other people to use it on his behalf.  In the latter case, the person making use of the money might be either assured of being paid a fixed remuneration for his services, in which case the contract was one of locatio operarum, or he might be willing to let his remuneration depend upon the result of the enterprise, in which case the contract was one of societas.  In either case the right of the owner of the money to reap a profit from the operation was unquestioned, provided only that he was willing to share the risks of loss.  But if, instead of making use of his money for trading either by his own exertions or by those of his partner or agent, he chose to sell his money, he was not permitted to receive more for it than its just price—­which was, in fact, the repayment of the same amount.  This was what happened in the case of a mutuum.  In that case the ownership of the money was transferred to the borrower, who was perfectly at liberty to trade