APPENDIX 533 brought to penury, standing on the brink of starvation, had no resource but to purchase bread for themselves and their families by making over their little farms to rich neighbours. For this was the only condition on which the magnates would give them credit. The distress of these years in the reign of Romanns formed an epoch in the hi.story of peasant proprietorship. It was clear that the farmers who had pledged their land would have no chance of recovering themselves be- fore the ten j-ears, after which their land would be irreclaimable, had expired. The prospect was that the small farmer would wholly disappear, and Romanus attempted to forestall the catastrophe by direct legislation. His Novel of a.d. 934 (see above, p. 209) ordained that the unfair dealings with the peasants in the past years should be righted, and that for the future no such dealings should take place. The succeeding Emperors followed up the policy of Romanus. They en- deavoured to prevent the extinction of small farmers by prohibiting the rich from acquiring villages and farms from the poor, and even by prohibiting ecclesiastical institutions from receiving gifts of landed propert}'. A series of seven laws ^ on this subject shows what stubborn resistance was offered to the Imperial policy by the rich landlords whose interests were endangered. Though this legislation was never repealed, except so far as the Church was interested, and though it con- tinued to be the law of the Empire that the rich landlords should not acquire the lands of peasants, there is little doubt that the law was evaded, and that in the last ages of the Empire peasant farms were rare indeed. In the 11th century Asia Minor consisted chiefly of large domains.
- It must be remembered that, though the formation of these large estates gave
their proprietors wealth and power which rendered them dangerous subjects, they were formed not with the motive of acquiring political influence, but from the natural tendencj- of capital to seek the best mode of investment. In studying the Imperial land legislation, and the relations of landlord and tenant in South-eastern Europe and Asia Minor, it is of essential importance for a modern student to bear in mind two facts, which powerfully affected that development in a manner which is almost inconceivable to those who are familiar with the land questions in modern states. These facts — both of which were due to the economical inexperience of ancient and mediaeval Europe — are: (1) the legislation was entirely based on fiscal considerations ; the laws were directly aimed at filling the treasury with as little inconvenience and trouble as possible on the part of the state : the short-sighted polic}' of making the treasury full instead of making the empire rich ; (2j the lamentably defective credit-S3-stem of the Roman law, discouraging the investment of capital and rendering land almost the onl}' safe speculation, reacted, as we have seen, in a peculiar wa3' on the land question. Something more is said of this economical weakness in the later Empire in the following note. 13. INTEREST, CREDIT, AND COMMERCE— (THE RHODIAN CODE) 1. The interest on a loan of money was fixed by the two parties to the trans- action, but could not, according to a law of Justinian, exceed (a) in ordinary cases, 6 per cent, per annum, {b) when the lender was a person of illustrious rank, 4 per cent., (c) when the lender was a professional money-changer or merchant, 8 per cent., (d) when the money was to be employed in a transmarine speculation, 12 per cent, (luiuticv.m fienus). This system of interest was calculated on the basis of a division of the capital 5(a) A.D. 947, Nov. 6 of Constantine VII. ; (6) a.d. 959-63, Nov. 15 of Romanus II. ; {c,d, e) A.D. 964, 967, Nov. ig, 20, 21 of Nicephorus Phocas ; (f) a.d. 988, Nov. 26 of Basil II. ; (g) a.d. 996, Nov. 29 of Basil II. ; all ap. Zacharia, Jus Graeco-Romanum, iii. 6 Basil II. repealed the law of Nicephorus that Churches, &c., should not acquire real property
