ersally followed in the fifteenth century.[1]
It was always insisted that a rent could only be charged upon
something of which the use could be separated from the ownership,
as otherwise it would savour of usury.[2] In the sixteenth century
interesting discussions arose about the possibility of creating a
personal rent charge, not secured on any specific property, but such
discussions did not trouble the writers of the period which we are
treating. The only instance of such a contract being considered is
found in a bull of Nicholas V. in 1452, permitting such personal rent
charges in the kingdoms of Aragon and Sicily, but this permission was
purely local, and, as the bull itself shows, was designed to meet the
exigencies of a special situation.[3]

[Footnote 1: Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 410.]

[Footnote 2: Biel, _op. cit._, Sent. IV. xv. 12.]

[Footnote 3: Cleary, _op. cit._, p. 124.]

Sec. 9. _Partnership_.

The teaching on partnership contains such a complete disproof of
the contention that the mediaeval teaching on usury was based on the
unproductivity of capital, that certain writers have endeavoured
to prove that the permission of partnership was but a subterfuge,
consciously designed to justify evasions of the usury law. Further
historical knowledge, however, has dispelled this misconception;
and it is now certain that the contract of partnership was widely
practised and tolerated long before the Church attempted to insist
on the observance of its usury laws in everyday commercial life.[1]
However interesting an investigation into the commercial and
industrial partnerships of the Middle Ages might be, we must not
attempt to pursue it here, as we have rigidly limited ourselves to a
consideration of teaching. We must refer, however, to the _commenda_,
which was the contract from which the later mediaeval partnership
(_societas_) is generally admitted to have developed, because the
_commenda_ was extensively practised as early as the tenth century,
and, as far as we know, never provoked any expression of disapproval
from the Church. This silence amounts to a justification; and we may
therefore say that, even before Aquinas devoted his attention to the
subject, the Church fully approved of an institution which provided
the owner of money with the means of procuring an unearned income.

[Footnote 1: Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 411; Weber,
_Handelsgesellschaften_, pp. 111-14.]

The _