histofthought1

From Middle Ages to Renaissance 83Franciscan Pierre de Jean Olivi. Bernardino's significant contribution to thetheory of the just-as-market price was to apply it to the 'just wage'. Wagesare the price of labour services, Bernardino pointed out, and therefore thejust, or market wage will be determined by the demand for labour and theavailable supply of labour on the market. Wage inequality is a function ofdifferences of skill, ability and training. An architect is paid more than aditch-digger, Bernardino explained, because the former's job requires moreintelligence, ability and training, so that fewer men will qualify for the task.Skilled workers are scarcer than unskilled, so that the former will command ahigher wage.In a sophisticated discussion of foreign exchange, Bernardino put his imprimaturon transactions that were the dominant way in which hidden interestwas charged for a credit transaction. Here, Bernardino followed the latitudinarianview of his master Alexander Lombard. Generally, exchange transactionswere conversions of currencies and not loans. Furthermore, usury wasonly a certain and riskless interest on a loan; foreign exchange rates fluctuatedand were therefore unpredictable. This was technically true, but generallylenders received interest on exchange transactions, since the moneymarket was structured to favour the lender in this way. Bernardino alsopointed out that conversion of currencies was necessary because of the greatdiversity of currencies, and because the coinage of one country was notacceptable elsewhere. The money-exchangers, therefore, performed a usefulfunction by enabling foreign trade, 'which is essential to the support ofhuman life', and by transferring funds from one country to another withoutrequiring the actual shipping of specie.San Bernardino of Siena was a fascinating and paradoxical combination ofbrilliant, knowledgeable, and appreciative analyst of the capitalist market ofhis day, and an emaciated ascetic saint fulminating against worldly evils andbusiness practices. Bernardino was born in 1380 to a high official of Siena;his father, Albertollo degli Albizzeschi, was governor of the town of Massafor the Republic of Siena. Bernardino's mother also belonged to a prominentlocal family. Joining the strictly ascetic order of the Observant Franciscans,Bernardino soon became noted as a persuasive and highly popular travellingorator, preaching throughout northern and central Italy. In the 1430s,Bernardino was appointed vicar general of the Observant Franciscans. Threetimes in his lifetime, San Bernardino was offered bishoprics (in Siena, Urbinoand Ferrara), and each time he refused this honour, since he would have hadto give up his preaching.Some of Bernardino's anti-worldly preaching dwelt on problems of personalmorality; thus, he deplored the practice of travelling merchants stayingaway from home for long periods, and then defiling themselves by living incarnal sin or even sodomy, which the saint habitually referred to as 'filth'.