Religion and the rise of capitalism

by R. H. Tawney

[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.

[8] See Chap. IV, p. [206.]

[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, 2^a 2^æ, div. 1, Q. iii, art. viii.

[13] Ibid., 1^a 2^æ, 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.