'Luther was not alone in the sixteenth century in grounding his opposition to usury on the Gospels. Indeed, the following was reaffirmed at the Fifth Lateran Council (1512–1517) in the context of formally condoning montes pietatis, institutions led by Franciscans that lent to the poor at very low interest rates upon the security of pawned goods: “Our Lord, according to the testimony of Luke the evangelist, has bound us by a clear command that we must not expect to receive back anything beyond the principal when we grant a loan. For that is the proper definition of usury: namely, when one seeks to acquire gain or profit from a thing which produces nothing—without labor, without cost, and without risk.” (Note: these institutions, called “mounts of piety,” were originally established to protect the poor from exploitation by usurers outside the church who charged extortionate rates, and they permitted a modicum of interest solely to defray the cost of maintaining the institutions themselves. Conceived as a reform of lending practices, their guiding principle remained the welfare of the borrower rather than the profit of the lender. In continuity with earlier councils, this council likewise maintained the prohibition against profiting from interest and based this prohibition on both the Old and New Testaments. And even within its decrees, institutions were encouraged to lend entirely gratis, as this was acknowledged as more consistent with the Gospel—a practice made possible in some cases through charitable endowments. Yet for all their apparent good intentions, such institutions arguably opened the floodgates to usury and laid the groundwork for the eventual normalization of usury within the Roman church.) '