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The Usurer and the Merchant Prince: Italian Businessmen and the Ecclesiastical Law of Restitution, 1100–1550

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

Benjamin N. Nelson
Benjamin N. Nelson
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
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Extract

Since the time of Ashley at least, it has not been possible to charge the Catholic church of the Middle Ages with having intended to throttle business enterprise by its doctrine of usury. Very few medieval writers, certainly after the early thirteenth century, wished to outlaw profit when it was a legitimate return on investment. To authoritative theologians and jurists there was a world of difference between usury, that is profit openly demanded or secretly hoped for in a contract of loan (mutuutn), and justifiable returns derived from partnerships, where there was a sharing of the risk and venture of the capital. The doctors operated with distinctions of Roman law by which the mutuum, explicitly referred to in the Vulgate at Luke 6:35, was clearly marked off from other transactions, such as the consensual contracts of partnership (societas), letting and hiring (locatio conductio), and purchase and sale (emptio venditio).

Type
Religion
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 7 , Supplement S1 , 1947 , pp. 104 - 122
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1947

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References

1 Detailed documentary evidence for the assertions made in this paper will be offered in my forthcoming volume, “Restitution of Usury in Later Medieval Ecclesiastical Law.” Therein will be found also a fairly systematic treatment of many aspects of both theory and practice which, inevitably, receive but bare mention in the present essay. Also in the interest of brevity, no attempt is made here to provide full bibliographical data on the different editions of consilia and responsa of jurisconsults alluded to below. I simply cite the cases by number (e.g., Federico of Siena, consilium 33, etc.). I cannot forego this opportunity, however, to acknowledge my special indebtedness to the writings of Father T. P. McLaughlin, C.S.B., and Armando Sapori. I refer particularly to the following papers: McLaughlin, T. P., “The Teaching of the Canonists on Usury (XII, XIII and XIV Centuries),” Mediaeval Studies I (1939), 81–147, II (1940), 1–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sapori, A., “L'Interesse del danaro a Firenze nel trecento (Dal testamento di un usuraio),” Archivio storico italiano, Series 7, Vol. X, Anno LXXXVI (1928), 161–86.Google Scholar

2 In sacrosanctum Lugdunense concilium sub Greg. X. Commentarius (Fano, 1569), rub. xiii, de usuris.

3 Bartolus, On D. 47. 2. 3., Opera (10 vols.; Venice, 1596), VI, iiiv. Cf. Jason de Mayno (1435–1519), consilium 78, no. 21–22, III, 129V.; Card. Johannes de Lugo (1583–1660), De iustitia et iure, disp. 25, sect. II, §3, no. 248, I, 80. Sec, however, the interpretation of the views of Bartolus and Angelus de Ubaldis (1328–1407) in Panormitanus (d. 1453), consilium 2, no. 3., pt. 2, f. 57V.

4 For a condensed discussion of the texts, see Nelson, B. N. and Starr, Joshua, “The Legend of the Divine Surety and the Jewish Moneylender,” Annuaire de l'Institut de Philologic et d'Histoire Orientates et Slaves, VII (1939–1944), at 329 n. 48.Google Scholar

5 A valuable survey of the canonistic discussions of occult crimes will be found in Kuttner, S., “Ecclesia de occultis non iudicat …, “ Acta congressus iuridici internationalis, III (Rome, 1936), 227–46.Google Scholar

6 See Liber sextus decretalium (VIo), V. 5. 2; cf. K. J. von Hefele, Histoire des conciles, tr. H. Leclercq, VI. 1, p. 205, c. 27.

7 Summa theologica, II. 2. 7, col. 398; also, ibid., II. 2. 2, col. 371–72; cf. St. Bernardino of Siena (1380–1444), Opera, I, f. 243. Durandus of St. Pourçain (ca. 1275–1334) observes that the usurer restoring what he has unjustly received “non confert beneficium sed reddit debitum.” —In sententias theologicas Petri Lombardi, lib. iii. dist. 36, qu. 2., 1. 318v., col. 1.

8 See Henquinet, P. François–Marie, “Clair de Florence, O.F.M., canoniste et pénitencier vers le milieu du xiii* siècle,” Archivum Franciscanum Historicum, XXXII (1939), 3–48Google Scholar, esp. at 16; cf. St. Antoninus, Summa theologica, II. 2. 4, col. 380–81; Sylvester Prierias (d. 1523), Summa silvestrina, s.v. Restitutio, viii, no. 7, II, 246V.

9 Federico of Siena, Consilia, no. 33, in edition of Lyons, 1545, at f. 22 (misnumbered 23). For similar verdicts, see Baldus (i327?–1400), Super primo, II, et III codicis (Lyons, 1539), f. 41r., col. 1, no. 26; Petrus de Ubaldis (d. after 1400), Tractatus de canonica episcopali. cap. vii, no. 22–24 in Tr. univ. juris, XV, pt. 2, f. 216r.