s cupboard, with so much
more in odd vessel going about the house, three or four feather beds,
so many coverlids and carpets of tapestry, a silver salt, a bowl for
wine (if not a whole neast), and a dozen of spoons to furnish up the
suit. This also he takes to be his own clear, for what stock of money
soever he gathereth and layeth up in all his years it is often seen
that the landlord will take such order with him for the same when he
reneweth his lease, which is commonly eight or six years before the
old be expired (sith it is now grown almost to a custom that if he
come not to his lord so long before another shall step in for a
reversion, and so defeat him outright), that it shall never trouble
him more than the hair of his beard when the barber hath washed and
shaved it from his chin.

[1] This was in the time of general idleness.--H.

And as they commend these, so (beside the decay of housekeeping
whereby the poor have been relieved) they speak also of three things
that are grown to be very grevious unto them--to wit, the enhancing
of rents, lately mentioned; the daily oppression of copyholders,
whose 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
L