Editing Pope Martin V (section)

===Annuity contracts===
Canon law prohibited interest upon a loan. To avoid this, annuities were paid, interest in effect but not in name. The dispute as to the legality of annuity contracts was brought before Martin V in 1423. He held that purchased annuities, which were redeemable at the option of the seller, were lawful.<ref>Lumley's Treatise upon the Law of Annuities and Rent Charges, 1st ed, 1833</ref><ref>Affirmed by [[Pope Calixtus III]], preserved 25 ATR 388 in the Corp Jur Canon Extra III tit 5.</ref> When the lawfulness of annuities was established, they were widely used in commerce; it seems that city states used them to raise compulsory loans from their citizens.