"Then came there a confessor, coped as a Friar ... Then he absolved her soon, and sithen he said 'We have a window a-working, will cost us full high; Wouldst thou glaze that gable, and grave therein thy name, Sure should thy soul be heaven to have.'"[135]
In other words, the Canon Law practically compelled the taker of interest to become a villain, as the old penal laws encouraged the thief to commit murder. Gower, if we make a little obvious allowance for a satirist's rhetoric, will show us how ordinary citizens regarded the usurious Lombards.[136] "They claim to dwell in our land as freely, and with as warm a welcome, as if they had been born and bred amongst us.... But they meditate in their heart how to rob our silver and gold." They change (he says) their chaff for our corn; they sweep in our good sterling coin so that there is little left in the country. "To-day I see such Lombards come [to London] as menials in mean attire; and before a year is past, by dint of deceit and intrigue, they dress more nobly than the burgesses of our city.... It is great shame that our Lords, who ought to keep our laws, should treat our merchants as serfs, and quietly free the hands of strange folk to rob us. But Covetise hath dominion over all things: for bribery makes friends and brings success: that is the custom in my country." Nor "in my country" only, but in other lands too; for the best-known firm of merchants now-a-days is Trick and Co. "Seek from East to the going out of the West, there is no city or good town where Trick does not rob to enrich himself. Trick at Bordeaux, Trick at Seville, Trick at Paris buys and sells; Trick has his ships and servants, and of the noblest riches Trick has ten times more than other folk. At Florence and Venice, Trick has his fortress and freedom of trade; so he has at Bruges and Ghent; under his care too has the noble City on the Thames put herself, which Brutus founded, but which Trick is on the way to confound...." Why not, indeed, in an age in which all the bonds of society are loosed? "One [merchant] told me the other day how, to his mind, that man would have wrought folly who, being able to get the delights of this life, should pass them by: for after this life is over, no man knoweth for truth which way or by what path we go. Thus do the merchants of our present days dispute and say and answer for the most part."