AMORTIZATION. — In current commercial language, this word has various meanings that converge in indicating the extinction, generally gradual, of a debt or an annuity or pension (in this sense it is used in CIC, can. 536 § 5); or else the gradual and progressive replenishment of a capital. In several senses, the term ammortamento is more commonly used.
In medieval language, the word a. served to signify the transfer or holding of the ownership of immovable goods in the hands of moral persons or corporations, especially ecclesiastical ones, called manomorta (q.v.), inasmuch as such goods were withdrawn from the alienations of princes and from free circulation, their sale being prohibited or rendered extremely difficult by law or by factual circumstances. Subsequently, the term "pact" or "right of a." was used to denote the payment of compensation that princes imposed when authorizing the establishment of a manomorta. Thus, alongside the laws of manomorta, there arose the laws of a., more or less just and legitimate with regard to the Church, depending on whether they were promulgated and applied with the express or tacit consent of the competent ecclesiastical authority or without II.
Later, this right was imposed and exacted through actual amortization taxes (or also manomorta taxes or imposts), intended to compensate the treasury for the alleged damages caused by the manomorta. Astanteglio da Langaso.