histofthought1

48 Economic thought before Adam Smithman Thomas Chabham, also writing about 1220, fanatically insisted thatdivine law demanded restitution from the seller even if the seller were onlymistaken, and the mistake was only a penny.If the theologians insisted that the just price must be strictly obeyed, thenwhat in the world was it? While few of the theologians addressed this criticalmatter directly, it is clear that what they had in mind was the same just priceas the canonists and Romanists, namely the current price at the particularplace, either the common market or the government-fixed price, if such aregulation existed. The late twelfth century Paris theologian Peter Cantor (d.1197), in treating the function of royal assessors, asserted that the just valueof goods is their current price. More succinctly, the great Franciscan theologianat Paris in the first half of the thirteenth century, the Englishman Alexanderof Hales (1168-1245) declared concisely that a 'just estimation of thegoods' is 'as it is sold commonly in that city or place in which the saleoccurs'. Even more clearly, the renowned thirteenth century German Dominicanprofessor at Paris, Saint Albert the Great (1193-1280) put it thus: 'Aprice is just which can equal the value of the goods sold according to theestimation of the market place at that time'.While the theologians, in wishing to enforce the current common price,were more restrictive than the canon or Roman jurists, they did constructivework in rehabilitating the image of the merchants from the low level to whichthey had sunk in the writings of the Church Fathers.As late as Peter Lombard (d. 1160), Italian professor of theology at Parisand later bishop of Paris, the theologians had held the older view that amerchant could not perform his duties without sinning. The beginning of thefull rehabilitation of the merchant came in the form of commentaries on theSentences of Peter Lombard (strictly, the Sententiarum quator libri, 1150­51). The commentators, particularly after the turn of the thirteenth century,engaged in a systematic justification of the merchant and of mercantile profitmaking.In the first place, the leading Sentence commentators, including theDominican professors at Paris, St Albert the Great (Commentary, 1244-49),Peter of Tarentaise (later Pope Innocent V, d. 1276) (Commentary, 1253-57),as well as the Italian theologian at Paris, St Bonaventure (1221-74) a studentof Alexander of Hales, general of the Franciscan Order and later cardinal(Commentary, 1250-51), all declared that merchants were essential to society.This conception was strengthened by the rediscovery of the works ofAristotle by the early thirteenth century, and the incorporation ofAristotelianphilosophy into theology - first by Albert the Great and most especially byhis great student Thomas Aquinas. To these new Aristotelians, and also to theEnglish Franciscan Alexander of Hales, the division of labour was necessaryto society as was the concomitant mutual exchange of goods and services.This was the path of the natural law in society.