NOTES
CHAPTER I
[1] J. B. Say, Cours complet d’Economie politique pratique, vol. vi, 1829, pp. 351-2.
[2] R. Torrens, An Essay on the Production of Wealth, 1821, Preface, p. xiii.
[3] Lloyd George at Portmadoc (Times, June 16, 1921).
[4] J. A. Froude, Revival of Romanism, in Short Studies on Great Subjects, 3rd ser., 1877, p. 108.
[5] J. N. Figgis, From Gerson to Grotius, 1916, pp. 21 seqq.
[6] Locke, Two Treatises of Government, bk. ii, chap. ix, § 124.
[7] Nicholas Oresme, c. 1320-82, Bishop of Lisieux from 1377. His Tractatus de origine, natura, jure et mutationibus monetarum was probably written about 1360. The Latin and French texts have been edited by Wolowski (Paris, 1864), and extracts are translated by A. E. Monroe, Early Economic Thought, 1924, pp. 81-102. Its significance is discussed shortly by Cunningham, Growth of English Industry and Commerce, Early and Middle Ages (4th ed., 1905, pp. 354-9), and by Wolowski in his introduction. The date of the De Usuris of Laurentius de Rodolfis was 1403; a short account of his theories as to the exchanges will be found in E. Schreiber, Die volkswirthschaftlichen Anschauungen der Scholastik seit Thomas v. Aquin, 1913, pp. 211-17. The most important works of St. Antonino (1389-1459, Archbishop of Florence, 1446) are the Summa Theologica, Summa Confessionalis, and De Usuris. Some account of his teaching is given by Carl Ilgner, Die volkswirthschaftlichen Anschauungen Antonins von Florenz, 1904; Schreiber, op. cit., pp. 217-23; and Bede Jarrett, St. Antonino and Mediæval Economics, 1914. The full title of Baxter’s work is A Christian Directory: a Summ of Practical Theologie and Cases of Conscience.
[9] Benvenuto da Imola, Comentum super Dantis Comœdiam (ed. Lacaita), vol. i, p. 579: “Qui facit usuram vadit ad infernum; qui non facit vadit ad inopiam” (quoted by G. G. Coulton, Social Life in Britain from the Conquest to the Reformation, 1919, p. 342).
[10] Lanfranc, Elucidarium, lib. ii, p. 18 (in Opera, ed. J. A. Giles). See also Vita Sancti Guidonis (Bollandists’ Acta Sanctorum, September, vol. iv, p. 43): “Mercatura raro aut nunquam ab aliquo diu sine crimine exerceri potuit.”
[11] B. L. Manning, The People’s Faith in the Time of Wyclif, 1919, p. 186.
[12] Aquinas, Summa Theologica, 2a 2æ, div. 1, Q. iii, art. viii.
[13] Ibid., 1a 2æ, div. i, Q. xciv, art. ii.
[14] The Bull Unam Sanctam of Boniface VIII.
[15] John of Salisbury, Polycraticus (ed. C. C. I. Webb), lib. v, cap. ii (“Est autem res publica, sicut Plutarco placet, corpus quoddam quod divini muneris beneficio animatur”), and lib. vi, cap. x, where the analogy is worked out in detail. For Henry VIII’s chaplain see Starkey, A Dialogue between Cardinal Pole and Thomas Lupset (Early English Text Society, Extra Ser., no. xxxii, 1878).
[16] Chaucer, The Persone’s Tale, § 66.
[17] On the Seven Deadly Sins, chap. xix (Select English Works of John Wyclif, ed. T. Arnold, vol. iii, 1871, p. 145).
[18] John of Salisbury, op. cit., lib. vi, cap. x: “Tunc autem totius rei publicæ salus incolumis præclaraque erit, si superiora membra se impendant inferioribus et inferiora superioribus pari jure respondeant, ut singula sint quasi aliorum ad invicem membra.”
[19] Wyclif, op. cit., chaps. ix, x, xi, xvii, passim (Works of Wyclif, ed. T. Arnold, vol. iii, pp. 130, 131, 132, 134, 143).
[20] See, e.g., A. Doren, Studien aus der Florentiner Wirthschaftsgeschichte, 1901, vol. i, chaps. v, vii. His final verdict (p. 458) is: “Man kann es getrost aussprechen: es gibt wohl keine Periode in der Weltgeschichte, in der die natürliche Uebermacht des Kapitals über die besitz- und kapitallose Handarbeit rücksichtsloser, freier von sittlichen und rechtlichen Bedenken, naiver in ihrer selbstverständlichen Konsequenz gewaltet hätte, und bis in die entferntesten Folgen zur Geltung gebracht worden wäre, als in der Blütezeit der Florentiner Tuchindustrie.” The picture drawn by Pirenne of the textile industry in Flanders (Belgian Democracy: Its Early History, trans. by J. V. Saunders, 1915, pp. 128-34) is somewhat similar.
[21] In Jan. 1298/9 there was held a “parliament of carpenters at Milehende, where they bound themselves by a corporal oath not to observe a certain ordinance or provision made by the Mayor and Aldermen touching their craft,” and in the following March a “parliament of smiths” was formed, with a common chest (Calendar of Early Mayor’s Court Rolls of the City of London, 1298-1307, ed. A. H. Thomas, 1924, pp. 25, 33-4).
[22] The figures for Paris are the estimate of Martin Saint-Léon (Histoire des Corporations de Métiers, 3rd ed., 1922, pp. 219-20, 224, 226); those for Frankfurt are given by Bücher (Die Bevölkerung von Frankfurt am Main im XIV und XV Jahrhundert, 1886, pp. 103, 146, 605). They do not include apprentices, and must not be pressed too far. The conclusion of Martin Saint-Léon is: “Il est certain qu’au moyen âge (abstraction faite des villes de Flandre) il n’existait pas encore un prolétariat, le nombre des ouvriers ne dépassant guère ou n’atteignant même pas celui des maîtres” (op. cit., p. 227 n.). The towns of Italy should be added, as an exception, to those of Flanders, and in any case the statement is not generally true of the later Middle Ages, when there was certainly a wage-earning proletariat in Germany also (see Lamprecht, Zum Verständnis der wirthschaftlichen und sozialen Wandlungen in Deutschland vom 14. zum 16. Jahrhundert, in the Zeitschrift für Sozial- und Wirthschaftsgeschichte, vol. i, 1893, pp. 191-263), and even, though on a smaller scale, in England.
[23] The Grete Sentence of Curs Expouned, chap. xxviii (Select English Works of Wyclif, ed. T. Arnold, vol. iii, p. 333). The passage contains comprehensive denunciations of all sorts of combination, in particular, gilds, “men of sutel craft, as fre masons and othere,” and “marchauntis, groceris, and vitileris” who “conspiren wickidly togidre that noon of hem schal bie over a certeyn pris, though the thing that thei bien be moche more worthi” (ibid., pp. 333, 334).
Wyclif’s argument is of great interest and importance. It is (1), that such associations for mutual aid are unnecessary. No special institutions are needed to promote fraternity, since, quite apart from them, all members of the community are bound to help each other: “Alle the goodnes that is in thes gildes eche man owith for to do bi comyn fraternyte of Cristendom, by Goddis comaundement.” (2) That combinations are a conspiracy against the public. Both doctrines were points in the case for the sovereignty of the unitary State, and both were to play a large part in subsequent history. They were used by the absolutist statesmen of the sixteenth century as an argument for State control over industry, in place of the obstructive torpor of gilds and boroughs, and by the individualists of the eighteenth century as an argument for free competition. The line of thought as to the relation of minor associations to the State runs from Wyclif to Turgot, Rousseau, Adam Smith, the Act of the Legislative Assembly in 1792 forbidding trade unions (“Les citoyens de même état ou profession, les ouvriers et compagnons d’un art quelconque ne pourront ... former des règlements sur leurs prétendus intérêts communs”), and the English Combination Acts.
[24] Kayser Sigmunds Reformation aller Ständen des Heiligen Römischen Reichs, printed by Goldast, Collectio Constitutionum Imperialium, 1713, vol. iv, pp. 170-200. Its probable date appears to be about 1437. It is discussed shortly by J. S. Schapiro, Social Reform and the Reformation, 1909, pp. 93-9.
[25] Martin Saint-Léon, op. cit., p. 187. The author’s remark is made à propos of a ruling of 1270, fixing minimum rates for textile workers in Paris. It appears, however, to be unduly optimistic. The fact that minimum rates were fixed for textile workers must not be taken as evidence that that policy was common, for in England, and probably in France, the textile trades received special treatment, and minimum rates were fixed for them, while maximum rates were fixed for other, and much more numerous, bodies of workers. What is true is that the medieval assumption with regard to wages, as with regard to the much more important question of prices, was that it was possible to bring them into an agreement with an objective standard of equity, which did not reflect the mere play of economic forces.
[26] “The Cardinals’ Gospel,” translated from the Carmina Burana by G. G. Coulton, in A Mediæval Garner, 1910, p. 347.
[27] Printed from the Carmina Burana by S. Gaselee, An Anthology of Medieval Latin, 1925, pp. 58-9.
[28] Innocent IV gave them in 1248 the title of “Romanæ ecclesiæ filii speciales” (Ehrenberg, Das Zeitalter der Fugger, 1896, vol. ii, p. 66).
[29] For Grosstête see Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora, vol. v, pp. 404-5 (where he is reported as denouncing the Cahorsines, “whom in our time the holy fathers and teachers ... had driven out of France, but who have been encouraged and protected by the Pope in England, which did not formerly suffer from this pestilence”), and F. S. Stevenson, Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, 1899, pp. 101-4. For the bishop of London and the Cahorsines see Matthew Paris, Chron. Maj., vol. iii, pp. 331-2. A useful collection of references on the whole subject is given by Ehrenberg, op. cit., vol. ii, pp. 64-8.
[30] Registrum Epistolarum J. Peckham, vol. i, p. 18, July 1279 (translated by Coulton, Social Life in Britain from the Conquest to the Reformation, p. 345).
[31] For cases of clerical usury see Selden Society, vol. v, 1891, Leet Jurisdiction in the City of Norwich, ed. W. Hudson, p. 35; Hist. MSS. Comm., MSS. of the Marquis of Lothian, 1905, p. 26; and Th. Bonnin, Regestrum Visitationum Odonis Rigaldi, 1852, p. 35. See also note 88 (below).
[32] The Chapter of Notre-Dame appears to have lent money at interest to the citizens of Paris (A. Luchaire, Social France at the time of Philip Augustus, translated by E. B. Krehbiel, 1912, p. 130). For the bishop’s advice to the usurer see ibid., p. 166.
[33] From a letter of St. Bernard, c.1125, printed by Coulton, A Mediæval Garner, pp. 68-73.
[34] Aquinas, De Regimine Principum, lib. ii, cap. i-vii, where the economic foundations of a State are discussed.
[35] Aquinas, Summa Theol., 2a 2æ, Q. lxxxiii, art. vi. For St. Antonino’s remarks to the same purpose, see Jarrett, St. Antonino and Mediæval Economics, p. 59.
[36] Gratian, Decretum, pt. ii, causa xii, Q. i, c. ii, § 1.
[37] A good account of St. Antonino’s theory of property is given by Ilgner, Die Volkswirthschaftlichen Anschauungen Antonins von Florenz, chap. x.
[38] “Sed si esset bonus legislator in patria indigente, deberet locare pro pretio magno huiusmodi mercatores ... et non tantum eis et familiæ sustentationem necessariam invenire, sed etiam industriam, peritiam, et pericula omnia locare; ergo etiam hoc possunt ipsi in vendendo” (quoted Schreiber, Die volkswirthschaftlichen Anschauungen der Scholastik seit Thomas v. Aquin, p. 154).
[39] Henry of Ghent, Aurea Quodlibeta, p. 42b (quoted Schreiber, op. cit., p. 135).
[40] Gratian, Decretum, pt. 1, dist. lxxxviii, cap. xi.
[41] Aquinas, Summa Theol., 2a 2æ, Q. lxxvii, art.iv.
[42] Ibid. Trade is unobjectionable, “cum aliquis negotiationi intendit propter publicam utilitatem, ne scilicet res necessariæ ad vitam patriæ desint, et lucrum expetit, non quasi finem, sed quasi stipendium laboris.”
[43] Henry of Langenstein, Tractatus bipartitus de contractibus emptionis et venditionis, i, 12 (quoted Schreiber, op. cit., p. 197).
[44] See Chap. II, § ii.
[45] Examples of these stories are printed by Coulton, A Mediæval Garner, 1910, pp. 212-15, 298, and Social Life in England from the Conquest to the Reformation, 1919, p. 346.
[46] The facts are given by Arturo Segre, Storia del Commercio, vol. i, p. 223. For a fuller account of credit and money-lending in Florence, see Doren, Studien aus der Florentiner Wirthschaftsgeschichte, vol. i, pp. 173-209.
[47] Bruno Kuske, Quellen zur Geschichte des Kölner Handels und Verkehrs im Mittelalter, vol. iii, 1923, pp. 197-8.
[48] Early English Text Society, The Coventry Leet Book, ed. M. D. Harris, 1907-13, p. 544.
[49] Wyclif, On the Seven Deadly Sins, chap. xxiv (Works of Wyclif, ed. T. Arnold, vol. iii, pp. 154-5). The word rendered “loan” is “leeve” [? leene] in the text.
[50] For examples of such cases see Early Chancery Proceedings, Bdle. lxiv, nos. 291 and 1089; Bdle. xxxvii, no. 38; Bdle. xlvi, no. 307. They are discussed in some detail in my introduction to Thomas Wilson’s Discourse upon Usury, 1925, pp. 28-9.
[51] Hist. MSS. Com., MSS. of Marquis of Lothian, p. 27; Selden Soc., Leet Jurisdiction in the City of Norwich, p. 35.
[52] Aquinas, Summa Theol., 1a 2æ, Q. xcv, art. ii.
[53] On the Seven Deadly Sins, chap. xxiv (Works of Wyclif, ed. T. Arnold, vol. iii, p. 153): “Bot men of lawe and marchauntis and chapmen and vitelers synnen more in avarice then done pore laboreres. And this token hereof; for now ben thei pore, and now ben thei ful riche, for wronges that thei done.”
[54] E.g., Ægidius Lessinus, De Usuris, cap. ix, pt. i: “Tantum res estimatur juste, quantum ad utilitatem possidentis refertur, et tantum juste valet, quantum sine fraude vendi potest.... Omnis translatio facta libera voluntate dominorum juste fit;” Johannes Buridanus, Quæstiones super decem libros Ethicorum Aristotelis, v, 23: “Si igitur rem suam sic alienat, ipse secundum suam estimationem non damnificatur, sed lucratur; igitur non injustum patitur.” Both writers are discussed by Schreiber (op. cit., pp. 161-71 and 177-91). The theory of Buridanus appears extraordinarily modern; but he is careful to emphasize that prices should be fixed “secundum utilitatem et necessitatem totius communitatis,” not “penes necessitatem ementis vel vendentis.”
[55] St. Antonino, Summa Theologica, pars ii, tit. i, cap. viii, § 1, and cap. xvi, § iii. An account of St. Antonino’s theory of prices is given by Ilgner, Die volkswirthschaftlichen Anschauungen Antonins von Florenz, chap. iv; Jarrett, St. Antonino and Mediæval Economics; and Schreiber, op. cit., pp. 217-23. Its interest consists in the attempts to maintain the principle of the just price, while making allowance for practical necessities.
[56] Henry of Langenstein, Tractatus bipartitus de contractibus emptionis et venditionis, i, 11, 12 (quoted Schreiber, op. cit., pp. 198-200).
[57] For these examples see Cal. of Early Mayor’s Court Rolls of the City of London, ed. A. H. Thomas, pp. 259-60; Records of the City of Norwich, ed. W. Hudson and J. C. Tingey, vol. i, 1906, p. 227; Cal. of Early Mayor’s Court Rolls, p. 132; J. M. Wilson, The Worcester Liber Albus, 1920, pp. 199-200, 212-13. The question of the legitimacy of rent-charges and of the profits of partnership has been fully discussed by Max Neumann, Geschichte des Wuchers in Deutschland (1865), and by Ashley, Economic History. See also G. O’Brien, An Essay on Mediæval Economic Teaching (1920), and G. G. Coulton, An Episode in Canon Law (in History, July 1921), where the difficult question raised by the Decretal Naviganti is discussed.
[58] Bernardi Papiensis Summa Decretalium (ed. E. A. D. Laspeyres, 1860); lib. v, tit. xv.
[59] E.g., Ægidius Lessinus, De Usuris, cap. ix, pt. ii: “Etiam res futuræ per tempora non sunt tantæ estimationis, sicut eædem collectæ in instanti, nec tantam utilitatem inferunt possidentibus, propter quod oportet, quod sint minoris estimationis secundum justitiam.”
[60] O’Brien (op. cit.) appears, unless I misunderstand him, to take this view.
[61] Politics, I, iii, ad. fin. 1258b. See Who said “Barren Metal”? by E. Cannan, W. D. Ross, etc., in Economica, June 1922, pp. 105-7.
[62] Innocent IV, Apparatus, lib. v, De Usuris.
[63] For Italy, see Arturo Segre, Storia del Commercio, vol. i, pp. 179-91, and for France, P. Boissonade, Le Travail dans l’Europe chrétienne au Moyen Age, 1921, pp. 206-9, 212-13. Both emphasize the financial relations of the Papacy.
[64] E.g., Council of Arles, 314; Nicæa, 325; Laodicea, 372; and many others.
[65] Corpus Juris Canonici, Decretal. Greg. IX, lib. v, tit. xix, cap. i.
[66] Ibid., cap. iii.
[67] Ibid., Sexti Decretal, lib. v, tit. v, cap. i, ii.
[68] Ibid., Clementinarum, lib. v, tit. v, cap. i.
[69] The passages referred to in this paragraph are as follows: Corp. Jur. Can., Decretal. Greg. IX, lib. v, tit. xix, cap. ix, iv, x, xiii, xv, ii, v, vi.
[70] A Formulary of the Papal Penitentiary in the Thirteenth Century, ed. H. C. Lea, 1892, Nos. xcii, clxxviii (2), clxxix.
[71] Raimundi de Penna-forti Summa Pastoralis (Ravaisson, Catalogue Général des MSS. des Bibliothèques publiques des Departements, 1849, vol. i, pp. 592 seqq.). The archdeacon is to inquire: “Whether [the priest] feeds his flock, assisting those who are in need and above all those who are sick. Works of mercy also are to be suggested by the archdeacon, to be done by him for their assistance. If he cannot fully accomplish them out of his own resources, he ought, according to his power, to use his personal influence to get from others the means of carrying them out.... Inquiries concerning the parishioners are to be made, both from the priest and from others among them worthy of credence, who, if necessary, are to be summoned for the purpose to the presence of the archdeacon, as well as from the neighbours, with regard to matters which appear to need correction. First, inquiry is to be made whether there are notorious usurers, or persons reputed to be usurers, and what sort of usury they practise, whether any one, that is to say, lends money or anything else ... on condition that he receive anything above the principal, or holds any pledge and takes profits from it in excess of the principal, or receives pledges and uses them in the meantime for his own gain; ... whether he holds horses in pledge and reckons in the cost of their fodder more than they can eat ... or whether he buys anything at a much lower price than it is worth, on condition that the seller can take it back at a fixed term on paying the price, though the buyer knows that he (the seller) will not be able to do so; or whether he buys anything for a less price than it is worth, because he pays before receiving the article, for example, standing corn; or whether any one, as a matter of custom and without express contract, is wont to take payment above the principal, as the Cahorsines do.... Further, it is to be inquired whether he practises usury cloaked under the guise of a partnership (nomine societatis palliatam), as when a man lends money to a merchant, on condition that he be a partner in the gains, but not in the losses.... Further, whether he practises usury cloaked under the guise of a penalty, that is to say, when his intention in imposing a penalty [for non-payment at a given date] is not that he may be paid more quickly, but that he may be paid more. Further, whether he practises usury in kind, as when a rich man, who has lent money, will not receive from a poor man any money above the principal, but agrees that he shall work two days in his vineyard, or something of the kind. Further, whether he practises usury cloaked by reference to a third party, as when a man will not lend himself, but has a friend whom he induces to lend. When it has been ascertained how many persons in that parish are notorious for usury of this kind, their names are to be reduced to writing, and the archdeacon is to proceed against them in virtue of his office, causing them to be cited to his court on a day fixed, either before himself or his responsible official, even if there is no accuser, on the ground that they are accused by common report. If they are convicted, either because their offence is evident, or by their own confession, or by witnesses, he is to punish them as he thinks best.... If they cannot be directly convicted, by reason of their manifold shifts and stratagems, nevertheless their ill fame as usurers can easily be established.... If the archdeacon proceed with caution and diligence against their wicked doings, they will hardly be able to hold their own or to escape—if, that is ... he vex them with trouble and expense, and humiliate them, by frequently serving citations on them and assigning several different days for their trial, so that by trouble, expense, loss of time, and all manner of confusion they may be induced to repent and submit themselves to the discipline of the Church.”