medieval England<\/a>. But the roots of these legal contracts, in which land is pledged for a debt and will become the property of the lender if the loan is not repaid, go back thousands of years.<\/p>\nHistorians trace the origins of mortgage contracts to the reign of King Artaxerxes of Persia, who ruled modern-day Iran in the fifth century B.C. The Roman Empire formalized and documented the legal process of pledging collateral for a loan.<\/p>\n
…<\/p>\n
Emperor Claudius brought Roman law and customs to Britain in A.D. 43. Over the next four centuries of Roman rule and the subsequent 600 years known as the Dark Ages, the British adopted another Latin term for a pledge of security or collateral for loans: Vadium.<\/p>\n
…<\/p>\n
Following William the Conqueror\u2019s victory at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, the English language was heavily influenced by Norman French \u2013 William\u2019s language.<\/p>\n
That is how the Latin term \u201cMortuum Vadium\u201d morphed into \u201cMort Gage,\u201d Norman French for \u201cdead\u201d and \u201cpledge.\u201d \u201cMortgage,\u201d a mashup of the two words, then entered the English vocabulary.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Read more here.<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n\n