[87] See above, p. 93, note 2.
[88] The Church law forbade the taking of interest on loans of money.
[89] During the Middle Ages all questions touching marriage and divorce, including, therefore, the question of the legitimacy of children, were governed by the laws of the Church, on the theory that marriage was a sacrament.
[90] i. e., By buying dispensations.
[91] The sums paid or special dispensations were so called.
[92] The toll which the "robber-barons" of the Rhine levied upon merchants passing through their domains.
[93] Ja wend das blat umb szo indistu es—The translators have adopted the interpretation of O. Clemen, L's. Werke, I, 383.
[94] The Fuggers of Augsburg were the greatest of the German capitalists in the XVI Century. They were international bankers, "the Rothschilds of the XVI Century." Their control of large capital enabled them to advance large sums of money to the territorial rulers, who were in a chronic state of need. In return for these favors they received monopolistic concessions by which their capital was further increased. The spiritual, as well as the temporal lords, availed themselves regularly of the services of this accommodating firm. They were the pope's financial representatives in Germany. On their connection with the indulgence against which Luther protested, see Vol. I, p. 21; on their relations with the papacy, see Schulte, Die Fugger in Rom, 2 Vols., Leipzig, 1904.
[95] Certificates entitling the holder to choose his own confessor and authorizing the confessor to absolve him from certain classes of "reserved" sins; referred to in the XCV Theses as confessionalia. Cf. Vol. I, p. 22.
[96] Certificates granting their possessor permission to eat milk, eggs, butter and cheese on fast days.