Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 10.djvu/424

398 398 HARVARD LAW REVIEW. and presumably later, or when the debtor can make better terms, It is the pledgee whose profits depend on a contingency, the principal sum being cut down by a fixed yearly or monthly amount from the fruits.^ (3) Still a third way was for both parties to risk the con- tingencies, dividing the gains equally.^ b. Was there any way in which the abschlagung varied the nature of the pledge, so that the res itself ceased to be thought of as the equivalent of the sors (or principal sum), and the use or profits, i. e. the usufruct, was regarded as the real subject of the pledge? If there was, we may be in presence of a new and wholly distinct species of pledge, as Franken maintains. There were two arrangements which on their face might be open to that construction, (i) The application of the entire profits of the res to diminishing the principal sum.^ Here no interest is mentioned; and it might seem that the profits or the use was treated as equivalent to the capital when spread out in instalments without interest. But, by the simple expedient of increasing nomi- nally the principal sum, the pledgee could, and undoubtedly did, protect himself, and the transaction did not differ from that with the ordinary abschlag of the surplus.* (2) The assignment of a interest rate ("zu rechter gulte ") of i for 15; the pledgee to take the profits " nacht antzale der obgeschriben gulte von funfftzehen guldein einen guldein," and ** was aber uber dieselben gulte daselbst gefellet" the pledgee is to " ungehindert werden und. volgen lassen uns " (Id. 335). 1 The pledgee is authorized " predictum pignus ingredi et habere godimentum pro lucro [naming amount] denariorum, et habere de omni libra omni mense denarios sex donee debitum sit solutum " (Kohler, 108); pledge of a house, "quod [naming pledgee] singulis annis ad diminutionemdebitiunam marcam argenti, quousque dictam v/ donum redimamus, in sortem computabit " (Id. in); pledge of a serf for a 6-mark claim, I mark to be counted off yearly (Id. 259). But we are not to assume, perhaps, that the pledgee was here less favored ; for obviously the res pledged might be so large that the fixed abschlag left a relatively high interest to the pledgee. 2 " Als oft auch ein totslak in dem obgenanten gericht geschee, was davon zu busse und besserung mak gevallen, dieselbe besserung schol uns und unsern erbe halbe, und das ander halbtheil dem [pledgee] und seinen erben ongeverde volgen und gevallen " (Kohler, 258). 8 For example : " Nee ego [pledgor] nee aliquis heredum nos intromittemus nisi [naming pledgee] primitus et ante omnia receperit et requisierit de ipsis bonis et eorum redditibus debitum quinque marcarum " (Kohler, 130) ; " ut omnis introitus. . . per- cipiatis usque ad solutionem vestri prestiti " (Id. 131). debt of 150 pounds by deed, a debt of 50 pounds for loss suffered in rendering help in a war, and another of 50 pounds " for the service which he shall now do us," making in all 250 pounds; and for this he pledges " unser gerihte ze Hembau " providing that the income "von dem stab und von dem chorngiilt " shall be " niht abslahen," but the income " von den stiuren und von zinzen " shall be " alles abslahen," and the pledge
 * Thus (Kohler, 308), a certain Rudolph, in 131 5, recites in favor of the pledgee a