EN INGLATERRA.
In England as early as the reign of Alfred, penal laws were enacted against usury.-' By those laws it was enacted that the chattels of usurers should be forfeited to the king, their lands escheat to the lords of the fee, and they should not be buried in the sanctuary.^ A century and a half later, in the reign of Edward the Confessor, the severity of the law of Alfred was improved upon, and the statute then di- rected that the usurer should forfeit all his substance, should be outlawed, and his heir disinherited.^ Wil- liam the Conqueror afterwards added other punish- ments, such as whipping, exposure on the pillory, and perpetual banishment. But these statutes were much modified in subsequent reigns, and in the time of Henry the Second (12th century), according to Glan- ville,* the usurer was not liable to be convicted during his lifetime, and only forfeited his goods and chattels after death ; and that even after he had been convicted of usury he was permitted to expiate his crime by penitence, and so discharge himself from '2 Roll Abr., SOO. 'Slnstlbl. '2 EoU. Abr., 800. Et Grot. " Glanv., lib. 7, o. 16. 3 (33)
aquellos decomisos a los que sus bienes y chattels estaban por lo demás sujetos a su muerte.^
En el año vigésimo del reinado de Enrique III, D. C. 1235, fue aprobado el Estatuto de Merton,^ el primer estatuto en el que aparece la palabra usura. Entonces se decretó que «en adelante la usura no correría contra ningún menor de edad, desde el tiempo de la muerte de su antepasado (cuyo heredero era)
hasta su mayoría de edad". El objeto real de este estatuto parece haber dado lugar a mucha diferencia de opinión entre los escolásticos, y Sir