lly as a result of the debasement
of the coinage. In the latter part of the century the rise was much
greater, due now, no doubt, to the influx of new money. Most
commodities cost quite four times as much at the end of the sixteenth
century as they did at its beginning.

Another effect of the increased amount of currency appeared in the
greater ease with which the use of money capital was obtained. Saving
up and borrowing were both more practicable. More capital was now in
existence and more persons could obtain the use of it. As a result,
manufacturing, trade, and even agriculture could now be conducted on a
more extensive scale, changes could be introduced, and production was
apt to be profitable, as prices were increasing and returns would be
greater even than those calculated upon.

*46. Interest.*--Any extensive and varied use of capital is closely
connected with the payment of interest. In accord with a strict
interpretation of certain passages in both the Old and the New
Testament, the Middle Ages regarded the payment of interest for the
use of money as wicked. Interest was the same as usury and was
illegal. As a matter of fact, most regular occupations in the Middle
Ages required very little capital, and this was usually owned by the
agriculturists, handicraftsmen, or merchants themselves; so that
borrowing was only necessary for personal expenses or in occasional
exigencies. With the enclosures, sheep farming, consolidation of
farms, and other changes in agriculture, with the beginning of
manufacturing under the control of capitalist manufacturers, with the
more extensive foreign trading and ship owning, and above all with the
increase in the actual amount of money in existence, these
circumstances were changed. It seemed natural that money which one
person had in his possession, but for which he had no immediate use,
should be loaned to another who could use it for his own enterprises.
These enterprises might be useful to the community, advantageous to
himself, and yet profitable enough to allow him to pay interest for
the use of the money to the capitalist who loaned it to him. As a
matter of fact much money was loaned and, legally or illegally,
interest or usury was paid for it. Moreover, a change had been going
on in legal opinion parallel to these economic changes, and in 1545 a
law was passed practically legalizing interest if it was not at a
higher rate than ten per cent. This was, however, strongly