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MONOPOLY AND MARKET IRREGULARITIES IN MEDIEVAL
ECONOMIC THOUGHT: TRADITIONS AND TEXTS TO A.D. 1500
Odd Langholm a
a
Norwegian School of Economics (NHH), Bergen, Norway
To cite this Article Langholm, Odd(2006) 'MONOPOLY AND MARKET IRREGULARITIES IN MEDIEVAL ECONOMIC
THOUGHT: TRADITIONS AND TEXTS TO A.D. 1500', Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 28: 4, 395 — 411
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Journal of the History of Economic Thought,
Volume 28, Number 4, December 2006
MONOPOLY AND MARKET
IRREGULARITIES IN MEDIEVAL ECONOMIC
THOUGHT: TRADITIONS AND TEXTS TO
A.D. 1500
BY
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ODD LANGHOLM
I. INTRODUCTION
In a study of pre-classical monopoly theory published in 1951, Raymond de Roover
started by briefly examining the doctrines held by the medieval scholastics.1 His
analysis met with favorable response and was confirmed and further developed by
later historians. The most satisfactory statement may still be that of Barry Gordon
in his monograph on early economics.2 The consensus of these scholars can be summarized as follows. Medieval authors looked askance at the attempts by the guilds to
establish minimum prices. They recognized the expediency of government grants of
monopoly and regulation of prices of certain commodities. They strongly condemned
private monopolies established for personal gain, as well as collusion among sellers
for that purpose, price discrimination, engrossing, forestalling, regrating, and other
forms of speculation. The just price was the current, competitive market price, free
of all irregularities of these kinds and free of fraud and duress. Gordon adds that
the schoolmen also sometimes referred to labor and cost factors, rather than the
market, as estimates of the just price. These estimates were not necessarily contradictive but mutually supportive. They applied when the market was not working
smoothly and when there was no market in operation at the time and place of the
sale. When an exchange is concluded in a competitive market under normal circumstances, the going price can hardly be said to be unjust. It may sometimes seem
uncharitable. There will always be some who cannot afford to pay the competitive
price. Poor relief in medieval society, however, was mainly a matter of almsgiving.
Unlike commutative justice, charity is not a workable ethical norm in the marketplace.
Norwegian School of Economics (NHH), Helleveien 30, N-5045 Bergen, Norway.
1
De Roover, “Monopoly Theory Prior to Adam Smith: A Revision” (1951).
2
Economic Analysis before Adam Smith: Hesiod to Lessius (1975).
ISSN 1042-7716 print; ISSN 1469-9656 online/06/040395-17 # 2006 The History of Economics Society
DOI: 10.1080/10427710601013855
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The present article is not concerned with elaborating or improving on this analytical
model, nor indeed with refuting it. It is concerned with its textual verification.
De Roover offers less than a handful of examples of medieval authors who explicitly
denounce the sort of practices listed in the preceding paragraph. He notes that Nicole
Oresme, in his treatise of money, condemns monopolies of the necessities of life,
which is correct insofar as Oresme mentions it by way of introduction to his main
theme, the monopoly of coinage. Bernardino of Siena and Antonino of Florence are
quoted on monopoly and collusion among sellers and Bernardino on price discrimination as well. Several other names are put forward in the text and (mainly) in
notes: Thomas Aquinas, Henry of Ghent, Richard of Middleton, Giles of Lessines,
John Buridan, and John Nider. In the case of Aquinas, the author points out that he
“deals with monopoly only by implication, since a monopolist is not an honest
trader, but one who pursues an excessive gain to the detriment of the public.” As in
the case of Aquinas, thus in the case of the other scholastic authors listed. They all
held the competitive market price to be a just price. Since the purpose of interferences
with the competitive run of the market was to increase prices, it can be inferred that the
scholastics must have considered them unethical. Later scholars have, on the whole,
adopted de Roover’s point of view. It all seems to rest mainly on negative proof.
But were the medieval authors who addressed themselves to questions of economic
ethics really as reserved and indirect on an important issue as these studies imply?
There is ample evidence to show that they were not. In the case of two of the schoolmen listed in the notes to de Roover’s study, I failed to locate a single reference to
monopolistic practices or to other means of interference with the market process.3
These authors were masters of theology at the university of Paris. They lectured
and conducted disputations on the basis of scriptural and related texts. To a large
extent, analyses of social and economic subjects in the Middle Ages took their
point of departure in some core locus in old texts of great authority. The Bible and
standard Biblical works, like the Sentences of Peter Lombard (the main textbook of
theology in the medieval schools) invited reflections and arguments about certain
select economic subjects, but these subjects did not include those with which this
study is concerned. The lack of direct evidence regarding monopoly, collusion, discrimination, and speculation is therefore not primarily a matter of not having dug
deep enough but of having failed to dig in the most promising places.
In the case of monopoly and market irregularities, the richest fields of explicit
analysis in medieval literature are sub-academic works of moral instruction intended
for the internal court of conscience, penitential summas and manuals constituting a
main genre, along with treatises on economic contracts, either general or limited to
some specific subjects, like buying and selling or usury. Most authors of these
works were theologians with a leaning towards canon law or canonists with a
leaning towards theology. There was a certain mutual interaction between these
works and academic works of theology. There was also an important link with canonistic works composed with a view to the Church’s own external courts. Through the
latter, terms and principles of Roman law made their appearance, suitably adapted.
3
Henry of Ghent and Richard of Middleton: On the economic ideas of the medieval theologians, cf. my book
Economics in the Medieval Schools (1992).
TRADITIONS AND TEXTS TO A.D. 1500
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With the translation of the Politics, certain elements of Aristotelian doctrine found
expression as well. From these origins and through these channels, several bits of
ancient texts, classical and patristic, as well as some earlier medieval ones, provided
the cores about which discussions of a number of economic subjects clustered
and from which traditions developed in scholastic literature. With the exception of
the Aristotelian one, which largely remained enclosed within the commentary
genre, these several traditions spread widely in scholastic circles. They frequently
appear together in individual works. I found that it nevertheless makes for a clearer
overall view to present them separately within the somewhat extended medieval
period studied in this article. To get down to cases, then, four traditions on monopoly
and market irregularities will be traced in turn, one from Aristotle’s Politics, one from
Roman law, and two from Carolingian price regulation transmitted via canon law.
II. THE ARISTOTELIAN TRADITION
In the first book of the Politics, Aristotle treats monopoly, along with usury and related
practices, as examples of the evil art of chrematistics, as opposed to the honorable one
of economy in the sense of household management. Whereas the context signals
blameworthiness, the exposition is couched in the dispassionate terms characteristic
of Aristotle’s practical philosophy. He first recounts the story of Thales of Miletus
who, taunted on account of his poverty, sought to demonstrate that philosophy
could be applied to the purpose of material enrichment if philosophers had cared
about wealth. Having observed by means of astronomy that olive crops would be
large in the coming season, Thales paid deposits for the olive presses in the region
and hired them at a low rent because others lacked his insight, and subsequently
they profited greatly by charging a higher price when letting them out. Though
Thales merely engaged in business to make a point, Aristotle proceeds, monopolies
are sources of making money both for governments and for subjects. This is demonstrated by the fate of a Sicilian who established a monopoly in iron but was exiled by
the tyrant of Syracuse because his means of profit was detrimental to the latter.4 The
medieval Latin translation of the Politics rendered Aristotle’s key term verbatim and
thus became one of the points of entrance of the word monopolium in medieval
literature.
Commenting on that tradition, Albert the Great points out that the intention of
Thales was merely to demonstrate the power of philosophy. Thomas Aquinas joins
in: Thales’s activities should not be attributed to greed but to wisdom.5 Though
Albert and Thomas both point out that monopolies are sources of profit, the handling
of the subject by these prominent Aristotelians seems to have deflected some of the
criticism that this bit of text might be expected to incite in later scholastic literature.
Giles of Rome (d. 1316) in his De regimine principum (which draws extensively on
the Politics), and Walter Burley (d.c. 1346) and Guido of Vergnano (d. after 1344)
in their textual expositions of the Politics, all state that a monopolist profits because
4
Politics,I,4: 1259a.
Albert, Politica,I,8: 68-9; Thomas, Sent.Pol.,I,9: 111.
5
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he can set his price at will without explaining precisely what this means with regard to
the buyers’ agreement to pay that price. Guido adds that the Sicilian monopolist
was expelled because the tyrant would not allow anyone thus to exalt himself
within his realm, or because single sale greatly harmed his other subjects.6 This
is about all there is to find about monopoly in the Aristotelian tradition. Commentators on the Politics who used the form of questions invited by the text failed to
pick up the case of Thales. John Buridan, the foremost Aristotelian of the fourteenth century, who excelled in the use of that form, chose to draw on a canonistic
tradition in the single instance that monopoly was mentioned in his Quaestiones on
the Politics.7
Nicole Oresme, who was cited in the Introduction through de Roover on monopoly
in his treatise on money,8 translated the Politics into French (from Latin). In a note he
offers a philological explanation of the word monopolium: monos in Greek means
“one,” polis can signify three things, “city” and “multitude” and “sale” (cité et multitude et vendicion). It is taken by Aristotle in the third sense.9 This seems to be an
attempt on the part of Oresme to clear up a confusion that had arisen in the Romanist
tradition on monopoly. It is also to the Roman law that Albert the Great refers when he
points out, in the place quoted above, that monopolies are harmful to the community,
and therefore prohibited by law.
III. THE ROMAN LAW TRADITION
In the late Roman Empire, monopolies and grants in restraint of trade had grown to
such proportions that the Emperor Zeno, in 483, issued a decree against them,
which was subsequently included as a separate title De monopoliis in the Code of
Justinian. It states that no one is permitted to exercise a monopoly in food or clothing
or any other useful commodity, nor are several persons permitted to “combine and
agree” about a minimum price. This prohibition should apply to merchants, artisans,
and officials with opportunity to abuse their positions by such means.10 The early
Romanist Placentinus (d. 1191) mentions both the monopoly aspect, properly speaking, and the collusion aspect and notes that the law applies both to merchants and to
artisans. He derives monopolium from monos (one) and polis in the sense of city; thus
“one (seller) in the city.”11 Azo (d.c. 1220) corrects Placentinus’s error, deriving
monopolium from “one seller.” The law does not apply only to such cases,
however, but also prohibits “that pact which sellers, or merchants, make with each
other, not to sell except at a certain price.” It also applies to those who lease things,
or hire out their labor, especially scribes (using an example familiar to his readers)
who agree that work begun by one of them is not to be finished by another. “There
6
Giles of Rome, De regimine principum, II,iii,12: 224; Walter Burley, Expositio super libros Politicorum, Paris
BMaz 3496, f.206rb; Guido of Vergnano, Super Politicam, Venice BMarc. lat.VI.94, f.66vb.
7
Buridan, Q.Pol.II,2.
8
Oresme mentions monopoly in De moneta, Chapter X: ed. Johnson, 1956, p. 16.
9
Le livre de Politiques d’Aristote: 70.
10
C.4,59.
11
Placentinus, Summa Codicis, to C.4.59, p. 186.
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399
ought, therefore, to be for anyone, free opportunity in buying and selling, or hiring and
letting, regarding price and regarding wage.”12
Odofredus (d. 1265), perhaps the most voluble and colorful of the Bologna
Romanists, discourses at some length on De monopoliis. Men of today may be evil,
but they were not all saints in the past either, as this title in the law shows by prohibiting monopolies and conspiracies: “And there is conspiracy if merchants say to anyone
carrying a certain kind of cloth to the city that it will not be bought except for such and
such an amount, and to anyone who wishes to buy, that it will not be given except for
so and so much.” Note that in these terms, extended to include collusion, what came
later to be called monopsony is prohibited along with monopoly. It is true that Azo
takes monopoly in the sense of “one seller,” Odofredus notes, but it can also be understood in the sense of “one in the city.” His etymology is wrong but his reason for
accepting it is quite interesting: it is not possible to maintain monopoly power over
an extended area. One particular custom is especially hit by the prohibition in the
Code, namely, the agreement among masons not to finish one another’s work. “If
one of them starts working for me but does not do what he promised and I dismiss
him, no one else will lift a finger.” This is not limited to masons and is not something
of the past but still flourishes in “almost all trades and crafts in this city of Bologna.”13
Bartolus (d. 1357), the leading fourteenth-century Romanist, confirmed that it was still
current practice.14
The condemnation of monopoly in the Code was brought into the commentary tradition on the Decretals of Gregory IX by the great canonist Hostiensis (Henry of Susa,
archbishop of Ostia, d. 1271) in his Summa aurea. Hostiensis copies the two interpretations of polis and considers both monopolies in the strict sense and agreements
among sellers to establish minimum prices.15 Drawing on this authority, a number
of Dominican authors of works for the internal forum, from the early fourteenth to
the fifteenth century, condemned monopolies established for personal profit. Among
the more important names, mention may be made of John of Freiburg (d.1314),
William of Cayeux (fl. early fourteenth century), Raniero of Pisa (d.c. 1348), and
Antonino of Florence (d. 1459). A parallel tradition can be traced in penitential handbooks by Franciscan authors: John of Erfurt (d.c. 1320), Astesanus of Asti (d. 1330),
Durand of Champagne (fl. early fourteenth century) and, much later, Angelo Carletti
(d. 1495).16 The systematically ordered Summa confessorum by John of Freiburg was
one of the most successful early works drawing equally on law and theology, its title
becoming nearly synonymous with the penitential genre. The crowning achievement
of that genre was the alphabetically arranged Summa de casibus conscientiae by
Angelo Carletti of Chivasso (the Summa Angelica). This work saw more than
12
Azo, Summa Iuris Civilis, to C.4,59: 461: “Debet igitur esse cuilibet libera facultas in emendo et vendendo, vel
locando et conducendo, et circa pretium et circa mercedem.”
13
Odofredus, Comm.Code: 1550, f.255vb.
14
Bartolus, Comm.Code: 1588, 506
15
Hostiensis, Summa aurea, X.I,39, n.4: f.65va.
16
John of Freiburg, Summa, II,8,16: f.93ra; William of Cayeux, Summa, II,8,10: f.102rb-va; Raniero of Pisa,
Pantheologia, art. De venditione et emptione, §5: 1157; Antonino of Florence, Summa theologica, II,1,16,2:
252-3; Confessionale “Defecerunt,” art. De mercatoribus: f.92r; John of Erfurt, Summa, I,6,7: 481; Astesanus,
Summa, II,8,12: f.128va; Durand of Champagne, Summa: f.79va-b; Angelo Carletti, Summa, art. Ars: f.17rb;
art. Emptio et venditio: ff.103vb-104ra.
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seventy editions and has the dubious distinction of having been burned by Luther at
Wittenberg. Numerous other works might be added by authors belonging to these
large mendicant orders or to other religious orders, or by secular authors.17
Going behind names and titles to a comprehensive, yet typical, discussion of monopoly in the legal tradition, the Summa Rosella of Battista Trovamala (d.c. 1495) may
serve as a specimen text. Battista was an Italian Franciscan friar like Angelo Carletti.
His Summa was another alphabetical lexicon. It was printed a number of times but did
not enjoy the enormous popularity of the Angelica. In two paragraphs of the article on
buying and selling, the author examines acts and agreements in restraint of trade.18 He
starts by considering pacts made between merchants to sell at the same price or to
leave sales to one of them. According to Hostiensis, Battista explains, such pacts
are illicit, and likewise if a person obtains the position of being the only seller in
the city. If anyone conducts business in this way, his property is to be confiscated
and he should be exiled. Officials who allow such practices and don’t take action
against them are to be punished as well. This follows from the title on monopoly in
the Code, Battista observes, and goes on to explain this title, extensively quoting
Azo. Restricting trade to one person is forbidden, but the law extends its prohibition
to pacts whereby no one is to be instructed in a certain craft except sons and nephews,
or whereby other measures are agreed upon to prevent certain persons from exercising
some craft or profession. The law forbids agreements to fix sales prices, but the same
rule applies in the case of those who hire out things or hire out their own work. Azo’s
plea for free trade is quoted verbatim.
According to (the later Pope) Innocent IV (d. 1254), however, Battista notes, the
aforesaid, as well as the title on monopoly in the law itself, should be understood to
apply when such practices are fraudulent and damaging to the community.19 Monopoly is licit if a single person, for the public good, is authorized to sell bread or
wine or salt or the like, as is observed daily in towns and other places. This should
be noted, for it is quite common. Furthermore, as stated elsewhere in the Code, if
someone has brought grain or some other commodity to the market, he may be compelled not to withdraw it until a sufficient quantity is sold. To make sure that the community is amply supplied and to prevent dearth, it may be decreed that a merchant go
or dispatch someone to other parts to buy grain there to be sold to all. And it may be
decreed that no one buy beyond his need, lest things become dearer and difficult to
obtain.20
In the following paragraph, Battista further illustrates unlawful interference with
the competitive market process by citing a number of cases mentioned in the Digest
of Justinian.21 The price of victuals can be raised by impeding or detaining ships or
sailors bringing home these goods. Those who perpetrate such obstructions should
make restitution based on an assessment of what the goods would have been sold
17
For a comprehensive study of economics in the medieval penitential tradition, cf. my book The Merchant in the
Confessional (2003). On medieval monopoly theory, cf. also my book The Legacy of Scholasticism in Economic
Thought (1998).
18
Battista Trovamala, Summa, art. Emptio et venditio, §§23-24: ff.119vb-120rb.
19
Innocent IV, In Decr. commentaria, to X.II,28,69: f.129va-b.
20
C.1,4,1; C.1,9,9; C.10,27.
21
D.47,11,6; D.48,12,2; D.50,11,2.
TRADITIONS AND TEXTS TO A.D. 1500
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for if the ships had arrived. Similarly in the case of those who reduce the supply of
grain by buying all they can find and holding on to it until less plentiful times. It is
not illicit, however, to buy in bulk from country people carrying grain to the city,
so that they need not stay all day selling in small quantities, and when paying the
rustics to subtract an amount corresponding to the work thus spared them. What
was said about the accumulation of grain to raise prices applies to all kinds of necessary and useful commodities. Thus, a merchant who pays a deposit for the purchase of
all the spice of the city in order to sell it later at a profit, having foreknowledge that
ships bringing spice to the market have sunk, can be said to establish a monopoly
and is liable to the appropriate punishment.
Speculation in supply failure was also mentioned in connection with monopoly and
collusion by two other late Franciscan works for the internal forum. They are the
remarkable twin penitential handbooks by Bartolomeo Caimi (d. 1496), composed
in Latin (and most likely the original) and Pacifico of Cerano (d. 1482), in Italian.
Rendered into English, the sequence in question runs as follows:
If a merchant agrees or makes a pact with other merchants to the effect that all sell at a
certain price or that he alone sells a certain thing or merchandise and no one else, such
an agreement or such a pact is unlawful according to Hostiensis and prohibited by the
law of monopoly in the Code, which states that those who exercise a monopoly should
be deprived of their property and condemned to perpetual exile and are obliged to
make satisfaction to those who suffered a loss thereby. If, having secret foreknowledge that ships with cargoes of spices or other commodities have sunk or have
come to harm or have been captured, someone buys all such goods in the city or
region for which the ships are bound and where they are expected, such activity is
unlawful, for it is monopoly and incurs the penalty of the said law (Caimi, Interrogatorium: f.115v; Pacifico, Somma, f.130r).
Some works in the tradition recorded here suggest that monopolists can force customers to pay excessive prices. Where the Roman law tradition is juxtaposed in a
given text to one of the traditions transmitted via canon law from Carolingian legislation, it may be difficult to separate one influence from the other. I, therefore, postpone the question of economic duress to the following section, where it is
frequently and explicitly encountered.
IV. THE TRADITION FROM THE CANON QUICUMQUE
In 806, Charlemagne convened a council at Nijmegen and issued a number or ordinances. In a series of early ones, he defines lawful and unlawful profit on loans,
cupidity, avarice (“the root of all evil”), and turpe lucrum, that is, shameful gain
acquired by various kinds of circumvention engaged in for that purpose—a broader
concept than usury. Then there follows a longer text which was to descend through
the centuries as Quicumque, named after its incipit (initial word). In this original
version it reads as follows:
Whoever, at the time of harvest or at the time of vintage, not out of necessity but
because of cupidity, buys grain or wine, for instance, buys one measure for two
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pennies and waits until it can be sold again for four or six pennies or more, such a
one, we say, acquires shameful gain, but if he buys it because of necessity and
keeps it for himself and passes it on to someone else, then we call it commerce
(negotium) (Capitulare missorum Niumagae datum 806, c.17: M.G.M., Capitularia,
I,132).
This is one of the earliest texts that distinguishes between lawful and unlawful
commercial activity on the basis of motive as well as, implicitly, on the basis of the
rate of profit. It appears in a long series of later collections,22 and was included, in
a truncated form, in the Decretum of Gratian.23 When compiling this work, Gratian
chose to place Quicumque near the end of a series of canons that deal primarily
with commercial activity on the part of the clergy. This is relevant here only
because the two leading canonists of the late twelfth century, Rufinus and Huguccio,
approached the subject of Quicumque from that angle. The former taught that if
someone makes a purchase for consumption and later finds it necessary or expedient
to sell (part of) what was bought, a profit thus obtained is not the sort of turpe lucrum
described in Quicumque. If the purchase is made for the purpose of resale, a distinction
must be made whether or not the thing bought is improved through labor and expenses
laid out on it. If so, a profit on resale is permitted in the case of lay craftsmen, but not
on the part of the clergy except in cases of great need of food and clothing. Buying for
the purpose of profitable resale without improvement is what is properly called
commerce (negotiatio). This is entirely lawful for the laity but totally prohibited for
the clergy. Albeit lawful for laymen, commerce may be either turpis or honorable.
It is shameful if a merchant, spending neither labor nor cost, merely buys grain
when it is plentiful and sells it for twice the amount when it is scarce.24
Rufinus’s analysis, which can be dated to the late 1150s, was narrowly paraphrased
by John of Faenza and reproduced in his characteristic diagrammatic form by Sicard of
Cremona.25 The anonymous author of the Summa Monacensis understood Quicumque
to mean that those who buy for consumption can sell an unexpected surplus at a higher
price without sin, whereas buying for the purpose of selling at a profit is sinful, the latter
sentiment being shared by another anonymous author in the Summa Bambergensis.26
The Glossa ordinaria to the Decretum likewise condemned speculative buying and
selling motivated by greed.27 Huguccio, whose Summa decretorum, composed
shortly before 1190, is the masterpiece of the genre, introduced some key phrases.
A layman may buy with the intention of selling at a profit because “commerce is
granted him” (ei concessa est negotiatio), provided that he does not do so from
avarice but “in order to provide for himself and his own” (ut provideat sibi et
suis).28 Another phrase destined for a long life is found in the Glossa Palatina,
whose author is now agreed by scholars to be Laurence of Spain (d. 1248). Speculative
22
On the early transmission of the canon Quicumque, cf. Langholm (2003, pp. 36-37, n. 14).
Decretum, II,14,4,9. The canon is there erroneously attributed to Pope Julius I (337-52).
24
Rufinus, Summa decretorum, to Decretum, II,14,3: 341.
25
John, Summa super Decretum, to II,14,3,pr.: Bamberg SB Can.37, f.58va; Sicard, Summa super Decretum, to
ibid.: Bamberg SB Can.38, f.92v.
26
Summa Monacensis: Munich SB, Clm.16084, f.23ra; Summa Bambergensis: Bamberg SB Can.42, f.90rb.
27
Glossa ordinaria, to II,14,4,9: Basel 1512, f.220rb.
28
Huguccio, Summa decretorum, to II,14,4,3: f.218rb; cf. to II,14,4,9: f.218va.
23
TRADITIONS AND TEXTS TO A.D. 1500
403
buying and selling motivated by avarice is detrimental to the community because
“dearth is induced” (caristia inducatur).29
These ideas were transmitted from glosses and summas on the Decretum to other
types of literature through several channels. Alexander of Hales (or whoever composed this particular sequence in the Summa Alexandri) adopted Huguccio’s “sibi et
suis.” The author sought to explain the meaning of Christ’s cleansing of the Temple in
contemporary society (the Temple signifying the Christian community):
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Business may indeed be done lawfully if it is conducted by a suitable person, such as a
layman, and for a necessary and pious cause, such as to provide for oneself and one’s
family in need or to exercise works of mercy, and in a correct manner, namely,
without falsehood and perjury, and at a suitable time, such as not on a holiday, and
in a location where such activity is permitted and appropriate, and by a just estimation
of the goods, and by trade, according to how it is usually sold in that city or region in
which business is conducted.
Moral disapproval of business should be understood to apply to
those greedy rich people who frequently take over the whole marketplace for commodities, in order later at will to sell them to others at a higher price than they
would have been sold for in the market if these people had not bought them, and
this they do with grain and other things necessary for human life; such people are
abominable to God and should be expelled from the Church according to the
example of the Lord (Alexander of Hales, Summa theologica, III,490: 723-24).
Later Franciscan authors, including Astesanus and Angelo Carletti, paraphrase Alexander of Hales and condemn those who disturb the normal run of the market by such
means.30 John Duns Scotus has a name for them, inserting an Old French word in his
Latin lecture: They are regratiers.31
Laurence of Spain’s observation that commercial profit could be reaped unlawfully
by creating scarcity or, literally, by “inducing dearth,” spread widely in all kinds of
medieval literature dealing with buying and selling. It is sufficient to mention that
Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas quoted it in their commentaries on the Sentences of Peter Lombard.32 The Spanish canonist Raymond of Peñafort (d. 1275)
was instrumental in establishing it in penitential literature. Shortly after finishing
the compilation of the Decretals named after Pope Gregory IX and promulgated in
1234, Raymond, a Dominican friar, issued his penitential summa in its revised and
final form. A gloss apparatus was constructed by another Dominican, William of
Rennes, and, about 1260, the Franciscan Monaldus (d.c. 1285), exercising amazing
compositional dexterity, worked the glosses into the text and produced the first
version of a compact exposition of lawful and unlawful business conduct, built
29
Laurence of Spain, Glossa Palatina, to II,14,4,9: Vat. Pal. lat.658: f.54rb. The phrase recalls St Ambrose of
Milan: “Cur affectas inopiam? Cur optari facis a pauperibus sterilitatem?” (De officiis ministrorum, III,6: PL
16, 157.)
30
Astesanus, Summa, III,8,10: ff.126vb-127ra; Angelo, Summa, art. Negotium: f.270rb.
31
John Duns Scotus, Comm.Sent.IV,15,2,23:318.
32
Albert, Comm.Sent.,IV,16,46: 638; Thomas. Comm.Sent.,IV,16,2,3: 767.
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JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT
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about the canon Quicumque. The following is the relevant section of Raymond’s text
according to Monaldus, with glosses by William in italics:
Those who, at the time of harvest or vintage, motivated by avarice, buy victuals or wine
cheap, in order later to sell them dearer, whether lay or clergy, sin mortally, and it is
filthy gain. It is otherwise if someone buys because of need and intends to live on
these victuals and later does not need them as he believed; such a one may lawfully
sell them as they are usually sold in the market, albeit dearer than they were bought.
The same holds for someone who buys victuals or wine for the purpose of trade, provided that this is not done out of avarice, but in order to spend a moderate gain as provision for himself, especially if he knows no other trade and has nothing else on which to
live. If a layman, not from avarice, but to provide for himself and his dependants, buys
something to sell dearer at a later time, whether victuals or something else, some say
that this is not a mortal sin. Similarly, someone fearing that there will be dearth in the
land and observes victuals being exported, may buy not to sell dearer but in order that
people should not starve, such as Joseph did, who gathered a large quantity of grain, not
to sell it dearer but to save the people from a famine, selling it later at the usual rate of
the market; those who act like this deserve our praise. Those, however, should be considered abominable and detestable, who buy gold or other moneys or goods and
especially victuals, in order to induce dearth of such things.33
A different, but probably derived, version is due to the German theologian Ulrich of
Strasbourg, a student and companion of Albert the Great. One of Ulrich’s students was
John of Freiburg. In his Summa confessorum, John follows Raymond of Peñafort and
his glossator on Quicumque, but in the middle of his paraphrase there is verbatim quotation from Ulrich of Strasbourg on the subject in question. It is turpe lucrum, the latter
states in De summo bono, to buy commodities, particularly victuals, and to sell them
dearer; however, regarding this matter it is necessary to make many distinctions. John
of Freiberg quotes:
Such a purchase may either be made for common convenience, the way Joseph bought
grain in order to have wherewith to provide for the people at the time of famine, and this
is praiseworthy; or it is made for private convenience, and then in three different ways.
It may be made as provision, as when someone would buy such goods, fearing that he
would be obliged to buy them dearer later if he should need them, and later sells them
dearer because he does not need them as he believed, and this is also licit, and all the
more so if he does not buy more than he needs. Or he buys out of piety in order, from the
profit made by selling them, to have something wherewith to take care of the poor, provided that this is done so moderately that the community does not suffer from dearth. Or
it may be done according to commutative justice as merchants do, and these may lawfully accept a profit from their work, whereby to support themselves, provided that they
don’t intend to induce dearth. Or it may be done from avarice, in such a way that one
person collects so much of this kind of good that people are compelled (compelluntur)
to buy from him at his pleasure and he therefore sells as dear as he wishes. And it is
33
Raymond, Summa, II,7,9: Rome 1976, 547; William, Glossa (to Raymond’s Summa): Florence BNaz Conv.Soppr. G.VII,927, f.87rb; Monaldus, Summa, art. De usura: Florence BLaur S.Croce Plut VIII, sin 3,
f.181ra-b. (No modern critical edition of William or Monaldus. Early printed editions corrupt and best avoided.)
TRADITIONS AND TEXTS TO A.D. 1500
405
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evident that these sin enormously, not only against their neighbour but also against the
community of neighbours (non solum contra proximum sed etiam contra communitatem
proximorum) (Ulrich, De summo bono, VI,3,4: Erlangen UB Lat 530/2: ff.105v-106r;
John, Summa,II,7,40: f.87va).
In addition to countless brief references to the canon, a number of full-scale expositions of Quicumque in line with those quoted above appeared in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. They draw mainly on Raymond and William, directly or through
Monaldus, or on Ulrich of Strasbourg, directly or through John of Freiburg. Some of
the authors are well known and their works influential. They include the Dominicans
Bartolomeo of San Concordio (d. 1347), Raniero of Pisa, and Antonino of Florence
(d. 1459), the Franciscans Durand of Champagne (d.c. 1350), Angelo Carletti and
Battista Trovamala in their summas, and Alexander Ariosto (d.c. 1485) in his treatise
on usury, furthermore Henry of Hesse (d. 1397), Matthew of Cracow (d. 1410), and
the Dominican John Nider (d. 1438) in their treatises on contracts.34 All quote Laurence
of Spain’s key phrase once or several times. Some embellish their accounts with
examples. Angelo Carletti vividly describes the merchants standing at the city gates
buying all the new grain, preventing its reaching the marketplace to be sold there. All
these ten authors state that buyers faced with operators of this sort are forced to pay
an excessive price. Most of them state it in a passive form (coguntur, compelluntur).
Matthew of Cracow and John Nider (copying him) use an active form. The sellers forcibly exact (exactionant) a price that is too high. There is, of course, no question of
physical force being applied. On the other hand, there is no doubt that the force is
viewed as personal, not as something inherent in the economic circumstances, exempting the seller from responsibility and blame. The seller deliberately exercises the power
resting in the possession of goods that deliberately were acquired in order to create scarcity. Each of the ten (and the list could have been multiplied) suggests a benchmark of
justice from which these coerced prices can be measured. It is stated in a variety of
forms: “sicut communiter in foro vendebatur” (Bartolomeo, Battista), “sibut in foro
communio venditur” (Raniero), “non carius, quam vendatur in foro” (Antonino), “eo
pretio quo tunc vendetur” (Durand), “pretio occurrenti” (Angelo), “pretio currenti”
(Ariosto), “eo pretio quod tunc valebunt” (Hesse), “iuxta communem et rationabilem
aestimationem” (Matthew), “iuxta communem et rationabilem usum” (Nider). It
makes no great difference whether the market is mentioned explicitly or not. The just
price is what is commonly and usually paid in the absence of interference with supply.
V. THE TRADITION FROM THE DECRETAL PLACUIT
Two other Carolingian texts, somewhat related and sometimes combined, served for
medieval authors as authority for their condemnation of price discrimination of
34
Bartolomeo of San Concordio, Summa, art. Usura, ff.482vb-483ra; Raniero of Pisa, Pantheologia, art,
De venditione et emptione: 1156-7; Antonino of Florence, Summa theologica, II,1,23,16: 327-8. Durand of
Champagne, Summa: Paris BN lat.3264, f.226ra-b; Angelo Carletti, Summa, art. Usura: f.390ra-b; Battista
Trovamala, Summa, art. Usura: f.399rb-va; Alexander Ariosto, De usuris: Bologna 1486, f.94va-b; Henry of
Hesse, De contractibus: Cologne 1484, f.203rb-va; Matthew of Cracow, De contractibus, II,ii,5: Vienna NB
CVP 4691, f.223r; John Nider, De contractibus: f.15v.
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406
JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT
strangers. In 884, the West Frankish King Carloman convened a council at Valence
and issued a series of fourteen capitula, the thirteenth of which, known by its
incipit as Placuit, also passed through a number of later collections.35 Unlike
Quicumque, it bypassed the Decretum of Gratian. In the 1190s, the canonist
Bernard of Pavia completed the first of a series of compilations of decretals and set
the standard for four others to appear in the following decades. These five compilations were utilized by Raymond of Peñafort when putting together the definite
collection of Decretals, also known as the Liber extra (X ), which were promulgated
by Pope Gregory IX in 1234. Placuit passed through the Compilatio prima to the Liber
extra.36 It calls upon priests to admonish their parishioners to be hospitable and not
sell dearer to transients than they can sell for in the market. If they persist, transients
can appeal to the priest so that, by his order, they sell “with humaneness.”37 Unfortunately, the main message of Placuit, from an economic point of view, became
obscured in the commentary tradition by a tendency to examine it from a different
point of view. In a gloss to the Compilatio prima, completed about 1210, Alanus
Anglicus states that sellers can be compelled by excommunication to sell as the
priests admonish them to do.38 Much of the ensuing discussion by the canonists
turned on the question as to when and under what conditions a person can be compelled to sell his own goods. Political enforcement by the authorities thus came to
overshadow economic coercion by those in possession of scarce goods. On the
other hand, the reference to the market as a norm of just pricing received a new
dimension through the association of Placuit with another Carolingian text.
In the summa attributed to Alexander of Hales, there is a list of five different
circumstances under which commerce is illicit. The first four of them relate to
person, cause, method and time. Then the author adds commerce that is illicit “ex
circumstantia consortii”:
From the circumstance of [sellers’] association, commerce is illicit, as when goods are
sold dearer to transients than to residents. Therefore the Council of Auvergne [for
Valence]39 states that priests should admonish common people ( plebes) to be hospitable and not sell dearer to transients than they can sell for in the market (Alexander of
Hales, loc. cit., 723).
The second part of this quotation is from Placuit. The first part most likely derives
from a council assembled at Pavia by the Emperor Louis II in 865.40 Among early
authors of confessional handbooks, Monaldus cites the version of Placuit,41
whereas Raniero of Pisa follows the alternative version,42 and Astesanus, quoting
the Summa Alexandri, adopts both versions.43 John of Freiburg, in his influential
Summa confessorum, cites Placuit and follows it, with a difference. Instead of
35
Cf. Langholm (2003, p. 57, n. 38).
Comp.I,III,15,2; X,III,17,1.
37
Karolomanni capitulare Vernense, c.13: M.G.H., Capitularia,II,375.
38
Apparatus in Comp.I: f.35ra.
39
Carolingian councils were frequently mislocated in later collections.
40
Capitula Papiae optimatibus ab imperatore pronuntiata, c.5: M.G.H., Capitularia, II,92-3.
41
Monaldus, Summa, art. De venditione: f.170ra.
42
Raniero, art. cit.: 1152.
43
Astesanus, Summa, III,8,10: f.126ra.
36
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TRADITIONS AND TEXTS TO A.D. 1500
407
stating that transients are not to be charged more than a good “can be sold for” in the
market, John teaches that they should not pay more than a good “is commonly sold for
in the market.”44 There is no major difference between these versions. Residents know
the normal ups and downs of the local market: such are the prices at which they buy
and sell. The point is that they have the power to gang up against foreigners and this, in
conscience, they should not do.
A number of other variants add to the complete picture of attitudes to price discrimination in medieval thought. The canonist Hostiensis, author of the Summa
aurea on the Decretals, also composed a gloss apparatus to that work. At Placuit,
there is a gloss to the word “can” ( possunt), in which Hostiensis refers to the
famous line in the Digest of Justinian which states that the values of things are not
based on the affection and utility of single individuals, but commonly (communiter).45
This, Hostiensis remarks, is a duty frequently abused, and so it is difficult for sin not to
intervene in commerce.46 In the title on buying and selling, where Placuit belongs, this
particular decretal is not explained in the Summa aurea, but Hostiensis refers to it and
explains it in the title on penance and absolution, giving it a twist not encountered in
the works so far examined: It is sinful to sell dearer to peregrinis and transients than to
neighbours.47 In classical Latin, a peregrinus is any foreigner; in medieval Latin it can,
of course, mean a pilgrim. Exploiting foreigners is bad enough, but it must have been
looked upon as a less serious sin than robbing pilgrims.
Whereas Ulrich of Strasbourg’s and John of Freiburg’s “neighbour” ( proximus) in
their expositions of Quicumque can be read in the Biblical sense of “next,”
Hostiensis’s “neighbour” is the vicinus of Louis II’s Pavia council, suggesting the
more mundane sense of someone who lives nearby. It may have reached Hostiensis
by way of the Portugese canonist John of God (d. 1267), whose widely diffused penitential handbook predates the Summa aurea. Copying the old text, John teaches that
strangers (hospes)—as well as wayfarers in general—should not be made to pay
more than neighbours (vicinis).48 William Doune, the fourteenth-century English
author of a less famous manual, refers to pilgrims and transients.49 Another early
English penitential text, by the Franciscan Peter Quesnel, points to the market price
as a just standard for sales to wayfarers.50 The Frenchman William of Cayeux adds
pilgrims to this formula,51 both drawing on Placuit. Before the middle of the fifteenth
century, the great Franciscan preacher Bernardino of Siena addresses the subject of
price discrimination in his vernacular sermons in the cities of Tuscany. Bernardino
repeatedly impresses on his crowds of listeners the simple message that all should
pay the same price, in one recorded instance aping the unseemly haggling that takes
place between buyer and seller.52 In his more scholarly Latin sermons Bernardino
44
John of Freiburg, Summa, II,8,10: f.92va.
D.35,2,63,pr.
46
Hostiensis, Apparatus super Decretales, to X.III,17,1: f.62va.
47
Hostiensis, Summa aurea, to X.V,38, n.41: f.276ra; cf. n.61: f.286vb.
48
John of God, Liber poenitentiarius: f.40rb.
49
William Doune, Memoriale presbiterorum: f.24ra.
50
Quesnel, Directorium: f.148va.
51
William of Cayeux, Summa: f.102ra.
52
Bernardino of Siena, Prediche volgari (Siena 1427), Serm.38: II,1130-1; cf. also Prediche volgari (Florence
1424), Serm.7: I,102-3.
45
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JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT
merely copies Placuit in its original form.53 In the second half of the century, the twin
handbooks of Bartolomeo Caimi and Pacifico of Cerano refer to Placuit but fail to
mention either the market price or the price paid by residents as a standard of comparison. Attacking fraud along with coercion, they simply state that the naive, the ignorant,
and those who pass through, should all pay what “others” pay.54
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VI. CONCLUSION
The primary sources examined in this article provide positive proof of a condemnatory
attitude to market manipulations previously mainly inferred from the identification of
the current competitive market price with the just price. The authors quoted represented, more or less directly, the official economic teaching of the Church. A
closing date at the end of the fifteenth century is arguably too late for a study of medieval thought and too early if arguments along the lines recorded here are to be traced to
their vanishing point. They can be documented for at least half a century longer. At the
time of their late flourishing in the penitential handbooks of the Italian Franciscans
Angelo of Carletti and Battista Trovamala, however, they were already challenged
by different schools of thought and classes of literature, more realistic and practically
oriented, less keen on condemning avarice as a capital sin but hesitantly accepting it as
the motive power of economic activity and prosperity. These works typically include
legally oriented treatises on economic subjects, humanist treatises extolling virtù
rather than virtue, and not least books of personal experience for the instruction of
merchants written by men of their own profession (mercanti scrittori). In A.D.
1500, the Italian Renaissance was at its peak or even past its peak. Whether Angelo
and Battista should be said to represent one of the generally acknowledged medieval
elements in Renaissance thought or a rear guard defense of medieval values in a
Renaissance environment depends on how one prefers to define those terms. It has
no bearing on the fact that the spirit of the late quattrocento penitential handbooks
was wholly at one with those written two centuries earlier and thus substantially
medieval.
More immediate considerations support the choice of the turn of the century as a
closing date. Very shortly afterwards, three works in the same genre appeared in
Italy, all written by Dominican friars: Silvester Mazzolini (Prierias), Giovanni
Cagnazzo, and Thomas de Vio (Cajetan). Mazzolini and Cajetan were personally
involved in the futile attempt to bridle Luther. In the history of economic thought
they play a different and more decisive part. Along with Cajetan in his commentary
on the Summa theologiae of Thomas Aquinas, they rejected some main tenets of
medieval economic ethics and, in the course of the following centuries, influenced
the Dominican and Jesuit theologians and jurists who are known collectively as the
School of Salamanca. The Salamanca scholars published penitential works (some of
unmanageable size), commentaries on Aquinas (culminating with that of Francisco
Suárez), and voluminous works of a genre of their own invention, the Tractatus
53
Quadragesimale, Serm.33,2,5: IV,148.
Caimi: f.125v; Pacifico: f.139r.
54
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TRADITIONS AND TEXTS TO A.D. 1500
409
de iustitia et iure. At the pens of these authors, who represented the official doctrine of
the Counter-Reformation Church just as those reviewed in this study represented that
of the Medieval Church, ideas about justice in the marketplace changed more than
they had done for many centuries or were to do again for just as long.
In the works of late representatives of the School of Salamanca, the medieval consensus regarding market manipulations was questioned in each of the textual traditions
originating in Aristotle, in Roman law, and in Carolingian decrees. Private monopolies
and conspiracies among merchants to raise prices were uncharitable and might be contrary to civil law. Whether they were contrary to commutative justice depended on
how much the price was increased. The obligation not to discriminate against pilgrims
and other travelers might be relaxed in case of such a large influx of transients that the
market price would be affected. As regards those who engage in forestalling or
engrossing as described in the canon Quicumque, it might even be argued that they
are morally blameless as far as justice is concerned (though not as regards charity
or civil law). Having bought at the going price, they are legitimate owners of
the goods in question and may do whatever they wish with them. The fact that
they “induce dearth” is irrelevant, for a multitude of buyers do so as well. Albeit
arguing in ethical terms, these late scholastics anticipate the market analysis of
early professional economics more closely than any other pre-classical school can
be said to do.55
In modern economies, official regulation of private activities in restraint of trade
involves a balancing of short run damages against long run benefits through the
ability of markets to regulate themselves by entry and increased supply. Medieval
authors had no very clear idea of the self-regulating market of equilibrium and the
long run. They were faced with ubiquitous disequilibrium and the need to arrest
exploitation then and there. In this study I set out to confirm de Roover’s thesis by
direct evidence rather than relying on inference from the definition of the just price
as the market price. In doing so we have demonstrated a concern with the needs of
the “community of neighbors,” as Ulrich of Strasbourg expressed it. The medieval
authors were equally concerned with the needs of the individual neighbor. That
concern was not restricted to the material need of the neighbor exploited but extended
to the spiritual need of the exploiting neighbor to repent and mend his ways.
REFERENCES
Manuscript primary sources
Alanus Anglicus. Apparatus in Compilationem primam. Bamberg SB Can.19.
Durand of Champagne, Summa collectionum pro confessionibus audiendis. Paris BN lat.3264.
Guido of Vergnano, Super Politicam. Venice BMarc. lat. VI.94.
Huguccio, Summa decretorum. Paris BN lat.3892.
55
This briefest of summaries of a voluminous tradition is based on the treatises of Justice and Law by Luis de
Molina, Leonard Lessius, and Juan de Lugo. A study of the prolongation and eventual defeat of the textual
traditions examined in this article may be one way of approaching the larger question of the reorientation of
value theory in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
410
JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT
John of Faenza, Summa super Decretum. Bamberg SB Can.37.
John of God, Liber poenitentiarius. Cambridge UL Kk.4.20.
Laurence of Spain, Glossa Palatina. BVat Pal. lat.658.
Matthew of Cracow, De contractibus. Vienna NB CVP 4691.
Monaldus of Capodistria, Summa casuum conscientiae. Florence BLaur S.Croce Plut VIII, sin 3.
Peter Quesnel, Directorium iuris in foro conscientiae et iudiciali. Florence BLaur S.Croce Plut III, sin 2.
Sicard of Cremona, Summa super Decretum. Bamberg SB Can.38.
Summa Bambergensis super Decretum. Bamberg SB Can.42.
Summa Monacensis super Decretum. Munich SB Clm 16084.
Ulrich of Strasbourg, De summo bono. Erlangen UB Lat.530/1-2.
Walter Burley, Expositio super libros Politicorum. Paris BMaz 3496.
William of Cayeux, Summa. Bruxelles BR 2486.
William Doune, Memoriale presbiterorum. Cambridge Corpus Cristi 148.
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Albert the Great, Politica, in Opera Omnia (Borgnet edition), Vol. 8.
Albert the Great, Super IV Sententiarum. Vols. 29 –30.
Alexander of Hales, Summa theologica. 4 vols in 5. Quaracchi 1924 –48.
Ambrose of Milan, De officiis ministrorum. PL 16.
Antonino of Florence, Summa theologica, 4 vols. Verona 1740.
Antonino of Florence, Confessionale “Defecerunt.” Milan 1472.
Ariosto, Alexander, De usuris. Bologna 1486.
Astesanus of Asti, Summa de casibus conscientiae. Lyon 1519.
Azo, Summa Iuris Civilis. Basel 1563.
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Bernardino of Siena, Prediche volgari (Florence 1424), ed. C. Cannarozzi, 2 vols. Florence 1934.
Bernardino of Siena, Prediche volgari (Siena 1427), ed. C. Delcorno, 2 vols. Milan 1989.
Buridan, John, Quaestiones super octo libros Politicorum Aristotelis. Paris 1489.
Caimi, Bartolomeo, Interrogatorium sive confessionale. Milan 1474.
Capitularia Regum Francorum, ed. A. Boretius, 2 vols., in Monumenta Germaniae Historica. Legum II.
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Carletti, Angelo, Summa de casibus conscientiae. Venice 1487.
Decretum Gratiani cum Glossa ordinaria. Basel 1512.
Duns Scotus, John, Quaestiones in quartum librum Sententiarum. Paris 1894.
Giles of Rome, De regimine principum. Rome 1556.
Henry of Hesse, De contractibus. Cologne 1484.
Hostiensis (Henry of Susa), Summa aurea. Lyon 1537.
Hostiensis (Henry of Susa), Apparatus super Decretales. Strasbourg 1512.
Innocent IV, In quinque libros Decretalium commentaria. Lyon 1562.
John of Erfurt, Summa confessorum. Frankfurt/M 1980.
John of Freiburg, Summa confessorum. Lyon 1518.
Nider, John, De contractibus mercatorum. s.l.a. (Hain 11824).
Odofredus, In primam Codicis partem praelectiones. Lyon 1550.
Oresme, Nicole, Tractatus de origine, natura, iure et mutationibus monetarum. London 1956.
Oresme, Nicole, Le livre de Politiques d’Aristote. Philadelphia 1970.
Pacifico of Cerano, Somma Pacifica. Milan 1479.
Placentinus, Summa Codicis. Mainz 1536.
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Raniero of Pisa, Pantheologia. Venice 1585.
Raymond of Peñafort, Summa de paenitentia. Rome 1976.
Rufinus, Summa decretorum. Paderborn 1902.
Thomas Aquinas, Sententia libri Politicorum, in Opera Omnia (Leonine edition), Vol. 48.
Thomas Aquinas, Scriptum super libros Sententiarum, in Opera Omnia (Parma edition), Vols. 6 –7.
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