SECTION 3.—THE MACHINERY OF EXCHANGE
We have already drawn attention to the fact that there was no branch of economics about which such profound ignorance ruled in the earlier Middle Ages as that of money. As we stated above, even as late as the twelfth century, the theologians were quite content to quote the ill-founded and erroneous opinions of Isidore of Seville as final on the subject. It will be remembered that we also remarked that the question of money was the first economic question to receive systematic scientific treatment from the writers of the later Middle Ages. This remarkable development of opinion on this subject is practically the work of one man, Nicholas Oresme, Bishop of Lisieux, whose treatise, De Origine, Natura, Jure et Mutationibus Monetarum, is the earliest example of a pure economic monograph in the modern sense. 'The scholastics,' says Roscher, 'extended their inquiries from the economic point of view further than one is generally disposed to believe; although it is true that they often did so under a singular form…. We can, however, single out Oresme as the greatest scholastic economist for two reasons: on account of the exactitude and clarity of his ideas, and because he succeeded in freeing himself from the pseudo-theological systematisation of things in general, and from the pseudo-philosophical deduction in details.'[1]
[Footnote 1: Quoted in the Introduction to Wolowski's edition of
Oresme's Tractatus (Paris, 1864).]
Even in the thirteenth century natural economy had not been replaced to any large extent by money economy. The great majority of transactions between man and man were carried on without the intervention of money payments; and the amount of coin in circulation was consequently small.[1] The question of currency was not therefore one to engage the serious attention of the writers of the time. Aquinas does not deal with money in the Summa, except incidentally, and his references to the subject in the De Regimine Principum—which occur in the chapters of that work of which the authorship is disputed—simply go to the length of approving Aristotle's opinions on money, and advising the prince to exercise moderation in the exercise of his power of coining sive in mutando sive in diminuendo pondus.[2]
[Footnote 1: Brants, op. cit., p. 179; Rambaud, op. cit., p. 73.]
[Footnote 2: De Reg. Prin., ii. 13.]
As is often the case, the discussion of the rights and duties of the sovereign in connection with the currency only arose when it became necessary for the public to protest against abuses. Philip the Fair of France made it part of his policy to increase the revenue by tampering with the coinage, a policy which was continued by his successors, until it became an intolerable grievance to his subjects. In vain did the Pope thunder against Philip;[1] in vain did the greatest poet of the age denounce
'him that doth work
With his adulterate money on the Seine.'[2]
[Footnote 1: Le Blant, Traité historique des Monnaies de France, p. 184.]
[Footnote 2: Dante, Paradiso, xix.]
Matters continued to grow steadily worse until the middle of the fourteenth century. During the year 1348 there were no less than eleven variations in the value of money in France; in 1349 there were nine, in 1351 eighteen, in 1353 thirteen, and in 1355 eighteen again. In the course of a single year the value of the silver mark sprang from four to seventeen livres, and fell back again to four.[1] The practice of fixing the price of many necessary commodities must have aggravated the natural evil consequences of such fluctuations.[2]
[Footnote 1: Wolowski's Introduction to Oresme's Tractatus, p. xxvii.]
[Footnote 2: See Endemann, Studien, vol. ii. p. 34.]
This grievance had the good result of fixing the attention of scholars on the money question. 'Under the stress of facts and of necessity,' says Brants, 'thinkers applied their minds to the details of the theory of money, which was the department of economics which, thanks to events, received the earliest illumination. Lawyers, bankers, money-changers, doctors of theology, and publicists of every kind, attached a thoroughly justifiable importance to the question of money. We are no doubt far from knowing all the treatises which saw the light in the fourteenth century upon this weighty question; but we know enough to affirm that the monetary doctrine was very developed and very far-seeing.'[1] Buridan analysed the different functions and utilities of money, and explained the different ways in which its value might be changed.[2] He did not, however, proceed to discuss the much more important question as to when the sovereign was entitled to make these alterations. This was reserved for Nicholas Oresme, who published his famous treatise about the year 1373. The merits of this work have excited the unanimous admiration of all who have studied it. Roscher says that it contains 'a theory of money, elaborated in the fourteenth century, which remains perfectly correct to-day, under the test of the principles applied in the nineteenth century, and that with a brevity, a precision, a clarity, and a simplicity of language which is a striking proof of the superior genius of its author.'[3] According to Brants, 'the treatise of Oresme is one of the first to be devoted ex professo to an economic subject, and it expresses many ideas which are very just, more just than those which held the field for a long period after him, under the name of mercantilism, and more just than those which allowed of the reduction of money as if it were nothing more than a counter of exchange.'[4] 'Oresme's treatise on money,' says Macleod, 'may be justly said to stand at the head of modern economic literature. This treatise laid the foundations of monetary science, which are now accepted by all sound economists.'[5] 'Oresme's completely secular and naturalistic method of treating one of the most important problems of political economy,' says Espinas, 'is a signal of the approaching end of the Middle Ages and the dawn of the Renaissance.'[6] Dr. Cunningham adds his tribute of praise: 'The conceptions of national wealth and national power were ruling ideas in economic matters for several centuries, and Oresme appears to be the earliest of the economic writers by whom they were explicitly adopted as the very basis of his argument…. A large number of points of economic doctrine in regard to coinage are discussed with much judgment and clearness.'[7] Endemann alone is[8] inclined to quarrel with the pre-eminence of Oresme; but on this question, he is in a minority of one.[9]
[Footnote 1: Op. cit., p. 186.]
[Footnote 2: Quaest. super Lib. Eth., v. 17; Quaest. super Lib.
Pol., i. 11.]
[Footnote 3: Quoted in Wolowski, op. cit., and see Roscher, Geschichte, p. 25.]
[Footnote 4: Op. cit., p. 190.]
[Footnote 5: History of Economics, p. 37.]
[Footnote 6: Op. cit., p. 110.]
[Footnote 7: Growth of English Industry and Commerce, vol. i. p. 359.]
[Footnote 8: Grundsätze, p. 75.]
[Footnote 9: See an interesting note in Brants, op. cit., p. 187.]
The principal question which Oresme sets out to answer, according to the first chapter of this treatise, is whether the sovereign has the right to alter the value of the money in circulation at his pleasure, and for his own benefit. He begins the discussion by going over the same ground as Aristotle in demonstrating the origin and utility of money, and then proceeds to discuss the most suitable materials which can be made to serve as money. He decides in favour of gold and silver, and shows himself an unquestioning bimetallist. He further admits the necessity of some token money of small denominations, to be composed of the baser metals. Having drawn attention to the transition from the circulation of money, the value of which is recognised solely by weight, to the circulation of that which is accepted for its imprint or superscription, the author insists that the production of such an imprinted coinage is essentially a matter for the sovereign authority in the State. Oresme now comes to the central point of his thesis. Although, he says, the prince has undoubtedly the power to manufacture and control the coinage, he is by no means the owner of it after it has passed into circulation, because money is a thing which in its essence was invented and introduced in the interests of society as a whole.
Oresme then proceeds to apply this central principle to the solution of the question which he sets himself to answer, and concludes that, as money is essentially a thing which exists for the public benefit, it must not be tampered with, nor varied in value, except in cases of absolute necessity, and in the presence of an uncontroverted general utility. He bases his opposition to unnecessary monetary variation on the perfectly sound ground that such variation is productive of loss either to those who are bound to make or bound to receive fixed sums in payment of obligations. The author then goes on to analyse the various kinds of variation, which he says are five—figurae, proportionis, appellationis, ponderis, and materiae. Changes of form (figurae) are only justified when it is found that the existing form is liable to increase the damage which the coins suffer from the wear and tear of usage, or when the existing currency has been degraded by widespread illegal coining; changes proportionis are only allowable when the relative value of the different metals constituting the coinage have themselves changed; simple changes of name (appellationis), such as calling a mark a pound, are never allowed. Changes of the weight of the coins (ponderis) are pronounced by Oresme to be just as gross a fraud as the arbitrary alteration of the weights or measures by which corn or wine are sold; and changes of matter (materiae) are only to be tolerated when the supply of the old metal has become insufficient. The debasement of the coinage by the introduction of a cheaper alloy is condemned.
In conclusion, Oresme insists that no alteration of any of the above kinds can be justified at the mere injunction of the prince; it must be accomplished per ipsam communitatem. The prince exercises the functions of the community in the matter of coinage not as principalis actor, but as ordinationis publicae executor. It is pointed out that arbitrary changes in the value of money are really equivalent to a particularly noxious form of taxation; that they seriously disorganise commerce and impoverish many merchants; and that the bad coinage drives the good out of circulation. This last observation is of special interest in a fourteenth-century writer, as it shows that Gresham's Law, which is usually credited to a sixteenth-century English economist, was perfectly well understood in the Middle Ages.[1]
[Footnote 1: The best edition of Oresme's Tractatus is that by Wolowski, published at Paris in 1864, which includes both the Latin and French texts.]
This brief account of the ground which Oresme covered, and the conclusions at which he arrived, will enable us to appreciate his importance. Although his clear elucidation of the principles which govern the questions of money was not powerful enough to check the financial abuses of the sovereigns of the later Middle Ages, they exercised a profound influence on the thought of the period, and were accepted by all the theologians of the fifteenth century.[2]
[Footnote 2: Biel, op. cit., IV. xv. 11; De Monetarum Potestate et
Utilitate, referred to in Jourdain, op. cit., p. 34.]