se lords seek to
bring their poor tenants almost into plain servitude and misery, daily
devising new means, and seeking up all the old, how to cut them shorter
and shorter, doubling, trebling, and now and then seven times increasing
their fines, driving them also for every trifle to lose and forfeit their
tenures (by whom the greatest part of the realm doth stand and is
maintained), to the end they may fleece them yet more, which is a
lamentable hearing. The third thing they talk of is usury, a trade brought
in by the Jews, now perfectly practised almost by every Christian, and so
commonly that he is accompted but for a fool that doth lend his money for
nothing. In time past it was _sors pro sorte_--that is, the principal only
for the principal; but now, beside that which is above the principal
properly called _Usura_, we challenge _Foenus_--that is, commodity of soil
and fruits of the earth, if not the ground itself. In time past also one
of the hundred was much; from thence it rose unto two, called in Latin
_Usura, Ex sextante_; three, to wit, _Ex quadrante_; then to four, to wit,
_Ex triente_; then to five, which is _Ex quincunce_; then to six, called
_Ex semisse_, etc. As the accompt of the _Assis_ ariseth, and coming at
the last unto _Usura ex asse_, it amounteth to twelve in the hundred, and
therefore the Latins call it _Centesima_, for that in the hundred month it
doubleth the principal; but more of this elsewhere. See Cicero against
Verres, Demosthenes against Aphobus, and Athenaeus, lib. 13, in fine; and,
when thou hast read them well, help I pray thee in lawful manner to hang
up such as take _Centum pro cento_, for they are no better worthy as I do
judge in conscience. Forget not also such landlords as used to value their
leases at a secret estimation given of the wealth and credit of the taker,
whereby they seem (as it were) to eat them up, and deal with bondmen, so
that if the lessee be thought to be worth a hundred pounds he shall pay no
less for his new term, or else another to enter with hard and doubtful
covenants. I am sorry to report it, much more grieved to understand of the
practice, but most sorrowful of all to understand that men of great port
and countenance are so far from suffering their farmers to have any gain
at all that they themselves become graziers, butchers, tanners,
sheepmasters, woodmen, and _denique quid non_, thereby to enrich
themselves, and bring all the wealth of the country into the