The greatest rulers under the
sway of the Church--Justinian, in the Empire of the East;
Charlemagne, in the Empire of the West; Alfred, in England; St.
Louis, in France--yielded fully to this dogma. In the ninth century
Alfred went so far as to confiscate the estates of money-lenders,
denying them burial in Consecrated ground; and similar decrees were
made in other parts of Europe. In the twelfth century the Greek
Church seems to have relaxed its strictness somewhat, but the Roman
Church grew more severe. St. Anselm proved from the Scriptures that
the taking of interest is a breach of the Ten Commandments. Peter
Lombard, in his _Sentences_, made the taking of interest purely and
simply theft. St. Bernard, reviving religious earnestness in the
Church, took the same view. In 1179 the Third Council of the
Lateran decreed that impenitent money-lenders should be excluded
from the altar, from absolution in the hour of death, and from
Christian burial. Pope Urban III reiterated the declaration that
the passage in St.
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