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⁸ R. H. Tawney, Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (Pelican ed.), 46; Walker, P.C. Gordon, “Capitalism and the Reformation,” Economic History Review, VIII, 1937, 1–19:“… a predominantly feudal society needed Catholic protection” (p. 9).Google Scholar

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¹⁰ Great Britain, Public Record Office, Rerum Britannicarum medii aevi scriptores, no. 57, Matthaei Parisiensis, Chronica Majora (1216–1239), III, 328: “… usura sub specie negotiationis palliantes….Google Scholar”

¹¹ Postan, “Credit in Medieval Trade,” 246.

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¹⁴ Roover, Raymond de, Gresham on Foreign Exchange (Harvard University Press, 1949), 101: “The uncertainty of the banker's profit justified the exchange contract in the eyes of the canonists and most of the churchmen.” The evidence is given pp. 313–17.Google Scholar

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¹⁶ Tawney, R. H., ed., Thomas Wilson, A Discourse upon Usury (1572), 216. Tawney remarks in his introduction that “the essence of usury was that it was certain,” but he does not develop the implications. The linking of usury and certain gain is to be found already in St. Thomas, who, around 1270, said that “the lender must not sell that which he has not yet [namely the benefits accruing from the use of money] and may be prevented in many ways from having.” The full passage is: “Recompensationem vero damni quod consideratur in hoc quod de pecunia non lucratur, non potest in pactum deducere: quia non debet vendere id quod nondum habet et potest impediri multipliciter ab habendo.” A pre-arranged reward (“in pactum”) is condemned, because there is a vivid realization of uncertainty. Sancti Thomae Aquinatis … Opera Omnia (Rome, 1847), Summa Theologica, T. IX, Qu. LXXVIII, Art II, 159. In the Ordinance of London of 1390 we find: “si ascum apreste ou mette en mayns dascuny or ou argent, pur gaigner eut recevire ou promys en certeigne sans aventure, eit la punissement pur usurers….” Georg Schanz, Englische Handelspolitik (Leipzig, 1881), I, 556. The same theme occurs again in the English usury prohibition of 1487: any bargain is void in which “eny certeyn somme shall be lost by eny covenaund or promys betwyx eny persone or persones.” Tudor Economic Documents, II, 135–6. The ecclesiastical authorities assembled at the 5th Lateran Council (1517) also linked usury and certain gain. See article “Wucher” in Lexicon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. M. Buchberger, X, 977.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Rörig, Fritz, Mittelalterliche Weltwirtschaft: Blüte und Ende einer Wirtschaftsperiode (Kieler Vortrage, no. 40, 1933).Google Scholar

¹⁸ Cannan, Edwin, A History of the Theories of Production and Distribution in English Folitical Economy from 1776 to 1848 (London, 1894), 35. Mercantilist authors, like writers of merchant handbooks, were of course interested in products; but they avoided the subject of how abundance could be achieved, and that is what a theory of production should not do. For instance, Josiah Tucker speaks about the products of England as “given,” and compares them characteristically with the products of a foreign country with other “natural advantages.” He writes about England: “The natural Produce and Commodities of the Country; Corn, Wool, Lead, … All which are not to be found in France, in that Plenty and Abundance they are in England.” An Essay on Trade (2nd ed., London, 1750), 32. This is the way in which a handbook for merchants, like Lewes Roberts's The Merchants Mappe of Commerce (1638) enumerates commodities of various countries.Google Scholar

¹⁹ According to E. A. J. Johnson's careful analysis in his article: “The Mercantilist Concept of ‘Art’ and ‘Ingenious Labour,’ ” mercantilist authors had an interest in production, and used the concept of “art,” now no longer used in the same meaning, to indicate what we would describe as “productive skills in general.” The mercantilists wanted for instance to encourage new manufactures by introducing skilled artisans from abroad. See Economic History (A Supplement to the Economic Journal), II (1930–1933), 234–53.Google Scholar

Johnson's qualification does not contradict my main point. The fact that “art” remained an undifferentiated concept and that its distinct aspects were not analysed and discussed shows the rudimentary character of the mercantilists' preoccupation with a theory of production. At the very beginning of his main work, Adam Smith made a break with them by breaking the conception of “art” into separate parts, and discussing particularly the division of labour. The mercantilists had passively taken skills as existent, as there to be utilized, in the same way in which they had taken products of various regions for granted.

²⁰ The Merchants Avizo, by I. B. (Browne, John), Merchant of Bristol (London: Richard Whittaker, 1640), 63–4.Google Scholar

²¹ The Wealth of Nations (Modern Library, 1937), 402–3.Google Scholar

²² Bede Jarrett, O.P., Social Theories of the Middle Ages, 1200–1500 (Boston, 1926), 150–1. quoting Humbert de Romans, and indicating similar passages in other authors.Google Scholar

²³ Decker, Sir Matthew, An Essay on the Causes of the Decline of the Foreign Trade (London, 1744), 67. The same idea is expressed in Josiah Tucker, An Essay on Trade, ii.Google Scholar

²⁴ The absence of large capitals among medieval merchants, and the pluralistic and egalitarian character of medieval commercial organization have their exceptions, but we should remember that the difficulties of historical documentation would tend to lead to an over-estimation of the large capitalists in comparison with lesser merchants. Very often the existence of large capitals tied up in commercial enterprises is ephemeral. (Elaborate evidence for fifteenth-century German cities is given by Franz Bastian, Das Runtingerbuch, I. Darstellung (Regensburg), 457–74. Conclusion on p. 456.) In England after 1350, as Eileen Power remarks, no wool merchant ever rose to a position of such overwhelming financial superiority as that enjoyed by De la Pole, Pulteney, Picard, Tideswell and their like.” The Wool Trade in English Medieval History (London, 1939), 121. The particular form of English commercial organization tended to preserve the pluralistic character of trade; it excluded certain people from its ranks, but on the other hand prevented the total dominance of the extremely wealthy. Thus Friis, Astrid has concluded that the Merchant Adventurers and similar companies “in some degree acted as a check in the development of capitalism.” Alderman Cockayne's Project and the Cloth Trade (Copenhagen, 1927), 99.Google Scholar

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²⁶ Roover, Raymond de, “The Commercial Revolution of the Thirteenth Century.” Bulletin of the Business Historical Society, XXVI, no. 2, 1942, 34–9.Google Scholar

²⁷ Mercantile profit earned by effort—the scholastic industria—was justified by secular and religious authorities alike. See on this subject Rüstow, Alexander, “Das Versagen des Wirtschaftsliberalismus als religionsgeschichtliches Problem,” Istanbuler Schriften, XII, 1945, 114, where the ethical evaluation of mercantile activity is discussed.Google Scholar

²⁸ Ehrenberg, Richard, Das Zeitalter der Fugger (Jena, 1912), II, 328.Google Scholar

²⁹ Riemersma, J. C., “Government Influence on Company Organization in Holland and England (1550–1650)” Journal of Economic History, Supplement X, 1950, 31–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³⁰ Tawney, Religion and the Rise of Capitalism, chap, iv, note 67, points to the Dutch usury controversy, raging mostly in academic and official circles, during the years 1635–43. The customary views on this controversy are based on the account in Ernst Laspeyres, Geschichte der volkswirtschaftlichen Anschauungen der Niederländer und ihrer Literatur zur Zeit der Republik (1863), 256–70. The best treatment of this and related issues in Holland is: Beins, Ernst, “Die Wirtschaftsethik der Calvinistischen Kirche der Niederlande, 1565–1650,” Nederlandsch Archief voor Kerkgeschiedenis, XXIV, 1931, particularly pp. 152–3. Beins concludes that the debate of 1635–43 was touched off by opportunistic considerations, by an attempt to change the relative areas of influence of state and church—a perpetual issue in the Republic. The ethics of economic conduct was hardly a matter of popular or even academic interest; compared with their English colleagues, Dutch ministers hardly ever touched the problem of usury.Google Scholar

³¹ Tawney, , Religion and the Rise of Capitalism, 178.Google Scholar

³² Ibid., 199.

³³ The condemnation of monopoly by the scholastics belongs in the same sphere. See Roover, Raymond de, “Monopoly Theory prior to Adam Smith: A Revision,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, LXV, 1951, 492–524.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³⁴ Weber, , The Protestant Ethic, 175.Google Scholar

³⁵ Tudor Economic Documents, II, 156.Google Scholar

³⁶ Helleiner, Karl F., “Moral Conditions of Economic Growth,” Journal of Economic History, XI, no. 2, 1951, 97–116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar