he
legitimacy of rent charges does not seem to have been questioned
by the theologians; the best proof of this being the absence of
controversy about them in a period when they were undoubtedly very
common, especially in Germany.[2] Langenstein, whose opinion on
the subject was followed by many later writers,[3] thought that the
receipt of income from rent charges was perfectly justifiable, when
the object was to secure a provision for old age, or to provide an
income for persons engaged in the services of Church or State, but
that it was unjustifiable if it was intended to enable nobles to
live in luxurious idleness, or plebeians to desert honest toil. It is
obvious that Langenstein did not regard rent charges as wrongful in
themselves, but simply as being the possible occasions of wrong.[4]

[Footnote 1: Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 409.]

[Footnote 2: Endemann, _Studien_, vol. ii. p. 104.]

[Footnote 3: Endemann, _Studien_, vol. ii. p. 109.]

[Footnote 4: Roscher, _Geschichte_, p. 20.]

In the fifteenth century definite pronouncements on rent charges
were made by the Popes. A large part of the revenue of ecclesiastical
bodies consisted of rent charges, and in 1425 several persons in the
diocese of Breslau refused to pay the rents they owed to their clergy
on the ground that they were usurious. The question was referred to
Pope Martin V., whose bull deciding the matter was generally followed
by all subsequent authorities. The bull decides in favour of the
lawfulness of rent charges, provided certain conditions were observed.
They must be charged on fixed property ('super bonis suis, dominiis,
oppidis, terris, agris, praediis, domibus et hereditatibus') and
determined beforehand; they must be moderate, not exceeding seven or
ten per cent.; and they must be capable of being repurchased at any
moment in whole or in part, by the repayment of the same sum for which
they were originally created. On the other hand, the payer of the rent
must never be forced to repay the purchase money, even if the goods on
which the rent was charged had perished--in other words, the contract
creating the rent charge was one of sale, and not of loan. The bull
recites that such conditions had been observed in contracts of this
nature from time immemorial.[1] A precisely similar decree was issued
by Calixtus III. in 1455.[2]

[Footnote 1: _Extrav. Commun._, iii. 5, i.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, c. 2.]

These decisions were univ