The moral menace of Roman law and the making of commerce: Some Dutch evidence

Yale Law Journal

Volumn 105, Issue 7, 1996, Pages 1841-1887

  Whitman, James Q ^a  

^a YALE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 25844432179     PISSN: 00440094     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/797235     Document Type: Article

References (239)

1. See, e.g., PETRARCH, Epistle to Posterity (1351), in LETTERS FROM PETRARCH 5, 8 (Morris Bishop trans., 1966);
2. see also James Q. Whitman, The Lawyers Discover the Fall of Rome, 9 LAW & HIST. REV. 191, 191-92, 207-10 (1991).
3. The history of hostility to Roman law is most familiar as a history of German hostility to Roman law. On anti-Roman sentiment in Germany, see the careful assessment in PETER BENDER, DIE REZEPTION DES RÖMISCHEN RECHTS IM URTEIL DER DEUTSCHEN RECHTSWISSENSCHAFT 28-53 (1979), which traces the development of anti-Roman sentiment through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
4. Less reliable, in my view, is GERALD STRAUSS, LAW, RESISTANCE, AND THE STATE: THE OPPOSITION TO ROMAN LAW IN REFORMATION GERMANY (1986), which exaggerates the extent to which sixteenth-century Germans opposed Roman law rather than learned law.
5. See Alfred Stern, Das römische Recht und der deutsche Bauernkrieg, 14 ZEITSCHRIFT FÜR SCHWEIZERISCHE GESCHICHTE 20 (1934);
6. JAMES Q. WHITMAN, THE LEGACY OF ROMAN LAW IN THE GERMAN ROMANTIC ERA 20 n.67 (1990). Despite the greater familiarity with the German history of anti-Roman-law sentiment, however, the more important and thoughtful tradition of hostility arguably developed, in the early-modern period, among the less-studied French lawyers.
7. For useful discussion, see DONALD R. KELLEY, FOUNDATIONS OF MODERN HISTORICAL SCHOLARSHIP 271-300 (1970);
8. PAUL OURLIAC & JEAN-LOUIS GAZZANIGA, HISTOIRE DU DROIT PRIVÉ FRANÇAIS DE L'AN MIL AU CODE CIVIL 157-68 (1985).
9. A typical example of the greater awareness of the German than of the French history is MANLIO BELLOMO, THE COMMON LEGAL PAST OF EUROPE, 1000-1800, at 206-08, 217-20 (Lydia G. Cochrane trans., 1995).
10. HEINRICH BRUNNER, GRUNDZÜGE DER DEUTSCHEN RECHTSGESCHICHTE 265 (7th ed. 1921);
11. Heinrich Brunner, Quellen und Geschichte des deutschen Rechts, in 1 ENZYKLOPÄDIE DER RECHTSWISSENSCHAFT 65 (Josef Kohler ed., 1904);
12. see also James Q. Whitman, The Disease Idea of Roman Law: A Century Later, Lecture Delivered to the 1993 Meeting of the American Society of Comparative Law,
13. inaccurately transcribed in The Disease of Roman Law: A Century Later, 20 SYRACUSE J. INT'L L. & COM. 227 (1994).
14. See Whitman, supra note 3, at 231.
15. See infra note 17
16. See infra note 23 and accompanying text.
17. See, e.g., RUDOLF STAMMLER, WIRTSCHAFT UND RECHT NACH DER MATERIALISTISCHEN GESCHICHTSAUFFASSUNG 305 (4th ed. 1921).
18. See, e.g., W.A. TUMANOW, BÜRGERLICHE RECHTSIDEOLOGIE 33 (1975); infra text accompanying notes 17-18.
19. See Peter Landau, Römisches Recht und deutsches Gemeinrecht. Zur rechtspolitischen Zielsetzung im nationalsozialistischen Parteiprogramm, in RECHTSGESCHICHTE IM NATIONALSOZIALISMUS 11, 20-21 (Michael Stolleis & Dieter Simon eds., 1989).
20. See infra text accompanying notes 27-36.
21. See, as far back as 1930, the novel of LION FEUCHTWANGER, ERFOLG 120, 556 (1995) (1930), for passages satirizing Nazi denunciations of Roman law.
22. For the classic postwar statement, see PAUL KOSCHAKER, EUROPA UND DAS RÖMISCHE RECHT 311-15 (4th ed. 1966) (1947).
23. The association of this topic with the Nazis, and the discomfort of German scholars in dealing with Nazi topics, are sensitively sketched in MICHAEL STOLLEIS, RECHT IM UNRECHT: STUDIEN ZUR RECHTSGESCHICHTE DES NATIONALSOZIALISMUS 57-93 (1994).
24. See John W. Baldwin, The Medieval Theories of the Just Price: Romanists, Canonists, and Theologians in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries, TRANSACTIONS AM. PHIL. SOC'Y, July 1959, at 1 (discussing important question of just-price theory). The literature on this topic has grown steadily.
25. See the sources cited and discussed in HERBERT KALB, LAESIO ENORMIS IM GELEHRTEN RECHT: KANONISTISCHE STUDIEN ZUR LÄSIONSANFECHTUNG 105-219 (Kirche und Recht No. 19, 1992)
26. JACOB VINER, RELIGIOUS THOUGHT AND ECONOMIC SOCIETY: FOUR CHAPTERS OF AN UNFINISHED WORK (Jacques Melitz & Donald Winch eds., 1978).
27. This medieval tradition has not failed to attract the attention of American legal scholars, and is explored with great learning and insight in David J. Gerber, Prometheus Born: The High Middle Ages and the Relationship between Law and Economic Conduct, 38 ST. LOUIS U. L.J. 673 (1994),
28. JAMES GORDLEY, THE PHILOSOPHICAL ORIGINS OF MODERN CONTRACT DOCTRINE (1991). This Article offers, in many ways, a continuation of the work to be found in these writings.
29. For American readers, the history of medieval just-price theory will be most familiar from the brief discussion in A.W.B. Simpson, The Horwitz Thesis and the History of Contracts, 46 U. CHI. L. REV. 533, 536-38 (1979). The strictures of Professor Gordley, and my own, with regard to Simpson's well-known argument, are presented below. See infra text accompanying notes 68-70.
30. Holland was, as is well known, only one of several "United Provinces," though the dominant one by far. Readers should be aware not only that there were a number of provinces, but that the legal traditions of those provinces varied to some degree. There are nevertheless good reasons for speaking, as historians commonly do, of a general Dutch commercial law. See infra note 37.
31. See Stephan Kuttner, The Revival of Jurisprudence, in RENAISSANCE AND RENEWAL IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY 229, 229-323 (Robert Benson & Giles Constable eds., 1982).
32. See the various volumes of the series lus ROMANUM MEDII AEVI (1961-).
33. These were, it should be said, only the principal forms. Also particularly important, though widely rejected, was the contention that the spread of Roman law contributed to the rise of princely power in Europe. On this argument, see HERMANN KRAUSE, KAISERRECHT UND REZEPTION (1952).
34. Marx's development can be traced from Karl Marx, Debates on the Law of Thefts of Wood, reprinted in 1 KARL MARX & FREDERICK ENGELS, COLLECTED WORKS 233, 233 (Jack Cohen et al. eds., 1975) [hereinafter MARX & ENGELS, COLLECTED WORKS],
35. through KARL MARX & FREDERICK ENGELS, THE GERMAN IDEOLOGY (1846),
36. reprinted in 5 MARX & ENGELS, COLLECTED WORKS, supra, at 89, 89-92, to later works in which Marx abandoned his references to Roman law while maintaining the analysis he had developed in discussing Roman law,
37. see, e.g., KARL MARX, A CONTRIBUTION TO THE CRITIQUE OF POLITICAL ECONOMY (1859),
38. reprinted in 29 MARX & ENGELS, COLLECTED WORKS, supra, at 461, 461-64. For Engels on this question and his influence on later communist literature, see TUMANOW, supra note 8, at 33.
39. See PIERRE-JOSEPH PROUDHON, WHAT IS PROPERTY? 24-25, 35, passim (Donald R. Kelley & Bonnie G. Smith eds. & trans., 1994) (1890).
40. Most recently, Gerd van den Heuvel, Féodalité, Féodal, in 10 HANDBUCH POLITISCH-SOZIALER GRUNDBEGRIFFE IN FRANKREICH 1680-1820, at 4, 4-10 (Rolf Reichardt & Eberhard Schnmitt eds., 1988).
41. Cf. WILHELM E. ALBRECHT, DIE GEWERE ALS GRUNDLAGE DES ÄLTERN DEUTSCHEN SACHENRECHTS (Königsberg, Gebruder Borntrager 1828) (discussing supposed peculiar values of Germanic law).
42. CARL ADOLF SCHMIDT, DER PRINCIPIELLE UNTERSCHIED ZWISCHEN DEM RÖMISCHEN UND GERMANISCHEN RECHT 1-2, 13, 15 (Rostock, Stiller 1853).
43. OTTO GIERKE, COMMUNITY IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE 114-15, 242-43 (Antony Black ed. & Mary Fischer trans., Cambridge Univ. Press 1990) (1868);
44. OTTO GIERKE, DER ENTWURF DES BÜRGERLICHEN GESETZBUCHES UND DAS DEUTSCHE RECHT 3-4 (Leipzig, Duncker & Humblot 1889).
45. FERDINAND TÖNNIES, GEMEINSCHAFT UND GESELLSCHAFT. GRUNDBEGRIFFE DER REINEN SOZIOLOGIE 57-58 (photo. reprint 1963) (Leipzig, Fues's Verlag 1887).
46. For a full translation of the passage, see FERDINAND TÖNNIES, COMMUNITY AND SOCIETY 80-81 (C. Loomis ed. & trans., 1957). For Tönnies on will, see generally id. at 103-70.
47. See Landau, supra note 9, at 11-24; see also STOLLEIS, supra note 11, at 94, 114; Landau, supra note 9, at 20-23 (for vulgarization and irrationalization of Gierke).
48. See the discussion in Whitman, supra note 3, at 231.
49. BERND RÜTHERS, DIE UNBEGRENZTE AUSLEGUNG (3d ed. 1988);
50. see also OLIVER LEPSIUS, DIE GEGENSATZAUFHEBENDE BEGRIFFSBILDUNG. METHODENENTWICKLUNGEN IN DER WEIMARER REPUBLIK UND IHR VERHÄLTNIS ZUR IDEOLOGISIERUNG DER RECHTSWISSENSCHAFT UNTER DEM NATIONALSOZIALISMUS (1994).
51. See HEINRICH HONSELL ET AL., RÖMISCHES RECHT 142-43 (4th ed. 1987);
52. Karl Kroeschell, Zur Lehre vom "germanischen Eigentumsbegriff," in RECHTSHISTORISCHE STUDIEN: FESTSCHRIFT FUR HANS THIEME ZUM 70. GEBURTSTAG ZUGEIGNET VON SEINEN SCHULERN 34, 34-37 (1977).
53. Here I condense a complex argument. See, e.g., FRANZ WIEACKER, RÖMISCHE RECHTSGESCHICHTE: QUELLENKUNDE, RECHTSBILDUNG, JURISPRUDENZ UND RECHTSLITERATUR 475-77 (1988).
54. Here again I summarize a complex argument that revolves particularly around the law of commercial paper. For a classic discussion, see LEVIN GOLDSCHMIDT, UNIVERSALGESCHICHTE DES HANDELSRECHTS, 1 HANDBUCH DES HANDELSRECHTS 133-37 (Stuttgart, F. Enke 3d ed. 1891).
55. See HEINRICH MITTEIS & HEINZ LIEBERICH, DEUTSCHE RECHTSGESCHICHTE 330-31 (18th ed. 1988).
56. FRANZ WIEACKER, PRIVATRECHTSGESCHICHTE DER NEUZEIT (2d ed. 1967).
57. See infra text accompanying notes 40-43.
58. Though the special importance of Holland is seen by Reinhard Zimmermann, Der Kaufvertrag, in DAS RÖMISCH-HOLLÄNDISCHE RECHT 145, 146 (R. Feenstra & R. Zimmermann eds., 1992).
59. For this widespread assumption, see, for example, MICHAEL E. TIGAR & MADELEINE R. LEVY, LAW AND THE RISE OF CAPITALISM 257-58 (1977); and, more searchingly, ANTHONY T. KRONMAN, MAX WEBER 120-24 (1983);
60. David M. Trubek, Max Weber on Law and the Rise of Capitalism, 1972 WIS. L. REV. 720, 746-48.
61. Most recently, Karl Kroeschell, Die Rezeption der gelehrten Rechte und ihre Bedeutung für die Bildung des Territorialstaates, in 1 DEUTSCHE VERWALTUNGSGESCHICHTE 279, 281 (Kurt G.A. Jeserich et al. eds., 1983), with citations to further literature.
62. Eg., GERHARD KÖBLER, RECHTSGESCHICHTE: EIN SYSTEMATISCHER GRUNDRIß 149-50 (3d ed. 1982).
63. In using the term "Holland," I ignore the existence of provincial differences in legal tradition which could not comfortably be ignored in a more detailed study. But I believe my approach here is justified for two reasons: first, the sheer dominance of the law of Holland within the provinces in commercial matters, see WILHELM F. LICHTENAUER, GESCHIEDENIS VAN DE WETENSCHAP VAN HET HANDELRECHT IN NEDERLAND TOT 1809, at 12 (1956) [hereinafter LICHTENAUER, GESCHIEDENIS], and the tendency throughout the provinces to draw on the same sources, see id. at 81-154 (survey of sources); and second, and more importantly, my methodological approach here, which is to look at the sources that merchants, overwhelmingly active in Holland, would have considered in deciding on their courses of action.
64. For the variety of the provinces, and the justification for the general practice of focusing on Holland, see Reinhard Zimmermann, Roman-Dutch Jurisprudence and its Contribution to European Private Law, 66 TUL. L. REV. 1685, 1687-88 n.10 (1992).
65. There has been, of course, much literature on the details of Dutch law, of which I have made grateful use. Most recently, a great deal of learned literature, on a variety of questions, is surveyed in DAS RÖMISCH-HOLLÄNDISCHE RECHT, supra note 33.
66. Indispensable are the following contributions to HANDBUCH DER QUELLEN UND LITERATUR DER NEUEREN EUROPÄISCHEN RECHTSGESCHICHTE (Helmut Coing ed., 1973) [hereinafter COING, HANDBUCH]:
67. Christoph Bergfeld, Katholische Moraltheologie und Naturrechtslehre, in 2, pt. 1 COING, HANDBUCH, supra, at 999;
68. Siegbert Lammel, Die Gesetzgebung des Handelsrechts, in 2, pt. 12 COING, HANDBUCH, supra, at 744;
69. Karl O. Scherner, Die Wissenschaft des Handelsrechts, in 2, pt. 1 COING, HANDBUCH, supra, at 797.
70. Of the older literature, still important are JOSEF KOHLER, Niederländisches Handelsrecht in der Blütezeit des Freistaates, in ZEITSCHRIFT FÜR DAS GESAMTE HANDELSRECHT UND KONKURSRECHT 59 (1907), and LICHTENAUER, GESCHIEDENIS, supra note 37. It can fairly be said, however, that none of this literature approaches the large questions I discuss here, with the exception of Kohler's work, which, however, remains bound up in nationalist assumptions of the kind whose fallaciousness I try here to demonstrate. See infra note 162.
71. SIR WALTER RALEIGH, Observations touching Trade and Comerce with the Hollander, and Other Nations: Presented to King James, in 8 WORKS 351, 351-76 (London, R. Dodsley 1751).
72. SIMON SCHAMA, THE EMBARRASSMENT OF RICHES (1987);
73. cf. JONATHAN I. ISRAEL, THE DUTCH REPUBLIC: ITS RISE, GREATNESS, AND FALL, 1477-1806 (1995) (describing contemporary reactions to Dutch society). "The United Provinces . . . were widely perceived in Europe as a seedbed of theological, intellectual, and social promiscuity which subverted the usual, and proper, relations between men and women, Christians and non-Christians, masters and servants, nobles and non-nobles, soldiers and civilians . . . ." Id. at 2.
74. See generally SCHAMA, supra note 40, at 345-46 (discussing Wisselbank); id. at 300-04 (describing Fokken's shopping guide).
75. See ROBERT S. LOPEZ, THE COMMERCIAL REVOLUTION OF THE MIDDLE AGES, 950-1350 (1971).
76. For this point, see most recently JONATHAN I. ISRAEL, DUTCH PRIMACY IN WORLD TRADE, 1585-1740, at 4 (1989).
77. See especially now a work by the immensely learned Reinhard Zimmermann, supra note 37.
78. See Ernst Beins, Die Wirtschaftsethik der Calvinistischen Kirche der Niederlande 1565-1650, in 24 NEDERLANDSCH ARCHIEF VOOR KERKGESCHIEDENIS (n.s.) 81, 81-156 (1931) (exploring moralizing literature in order to test validity of Weber hypothesis).
79. GODFRIED UDEMANS, 'T GEESTELYCK ROER VAN 'T COOPMANS SCHIP, DAT IS: TROW BERICHT/ HOE DAT EEN COOPMAN, EN COOPVAERDER, HEMSELVEN DRAGEN MOET IN SYNE HANDELINGE/ IN PAYS, END IN OORLOGHE, VOOR GODT, ENDE DE MENSCHEN, TE WATER ENDE TE LANDE, INSONDERHEYT ONDER HEYDENEN IN OOST ENDE WEST-INDIEN: TER EEREN GODTS, STICHTINGE SYNER GHEMEYNTEN, ENDE SALICHEYT SYNER ZIELEN: MIDTSGADERS TOT HET TIJDTLIJCK WELVAREN VAN HET VADERLANDT, ENDE SYNE FAMILIE (Dordrecht, Fransoys Boels 1638).
80. Westerman too linked merchants and warriors. See ADAM WESTERMAN, GROOTE CHRISTELIJCKE ZEE-VAERT IN XXVI. PREDICATIEN (Amsterdam, By Gerrit van Goedesbergh 1653), which was addressed both to the merchant and to Oorloghs-Volck, persons involved in war.
81. For the older medieval tradition, see Peter Lombard, Sententiarum Libri Quatuor, in 192 PATROLOGIAE CURSUS COMPLETUS, SERIES SECUNDA 878, 879 (J. Aleaume ed., Paris, J.-P. Migne 1855).
82. Cf. 2, pt. 1 WERNER SOMBART, DER MODERNE KAPITALISMUS 27-28 (2d ed. 1917) (discussing "freebooting" ethic among early merchants).
83. UDEMANS, supra note 46, at [2]-[3]: Chrisostomus seyt Tom. 2. Homil. 38. fol. 999. edit. 1547 over die woorden Matt. 21. vers. 21. Iesus gaende in den Tempel &c. Hier mede (seydt hy) wordt te kennen ghegeven, dat een Coopman nauwelijck, of nemmermeer, den Heere kan behaghen: ende derhalven en behoorde gheen Christen, een Coopman te wesen, of indien hy dat wil wesen, soo moet hy uyt den Tempel geworpen werden &c. Item, Cassiodorus ad Psalm. 70 vers. 17, by ons 71 vers. 15.
84. Id. (citing AQUINAS 2.2. 77. art. 4). The cited text can be found at 2 ST. THOMAS AQUINAS, SUMMA THEOLOGIAE 1514 [pt. 2-2, question 77, art. 4] (Fathers of the English Dominican Province trans., 1947).
85. UDEMANS, supra note 46, at [3]: "Dese ende dierghelijcke harde, ende rauwe manieren van spreken, souden lichtelijck een vroom Coopman in syne conscientie verstellen ende ongherust maken, insonderheyt als hy daer by bedenckt de woorden van Syrach, cap. 26. vers. 27. Een Coopman kan hem swaerljck hoeden voor onrecht, ende eenen Kramer voor sonde." On the last-quoted passage from Ecclesiasticus ("Sirach" in the ordinary seventeenth-century Dutch citation form), see VINER, supra note 12, at 36. For the older medieval tradition, see Baldwin, supra note 12, at 37.
86. ADAM WESTERMAN, VRYE IAER-MERCKT VOOR DEN VOLCKE ZION (Amsterdam, Hendrick Laurentz 1628), whose subtitle promised to "discover and punish the sins and horrors" of the marketplace, in order to further the establishment of a "free and eternal market, full of grace, in Christ Jesus."
87. Id. at 10[r]-10[v]: Dese Judas wort een Coopman/ ende ghenen anderen Ware hebbende/ vercoopt verradelijck met eenen Cus sijnen eyghen getrouwen Heere ende Meester/ om eenen snooden Penninck ende schandelijcken ghewins wille. . . . O onsalighe Coopman! Lucrum in arca, damnum in conscientia, Mercedem in gehenna. Dat is/ Winst in de Kiste/ schade in de conscience/ Loon in der Helle.
88. KALB, supra note 12, at 150.
89. WESTERMAN, supra note 52, at 4[v]: Den Rechtveerdighen Coophandel en wil ick oock niet bestraffen/ noch beswaren/ wel wetende buyten dien de ghemeene Huys-stant ja Republijcke niet te connen bestaen/ ende de eene Mensche van den anderen/ ghelijck de eene Visch van den ander te moeten leven: want ghelijck een Poeet wel seyt: Non omnis fert omnia tellus: Elck Landt draeght niet alle Vruchten.
90. See, e.g., PETRUS WITTEWRONGEL, HET TWEEDE BOECK VAN DE OECONOMIA CHRISTIANA OFTE CHRISTELICKE HUYS-HOUDINGHE 602 (Amsterdam, Voor de Weduwe van Manen Jansz. Brant, en Abraham van den Burgh 1661).
91. Compare the arch comments in Basic, Inc. v. Levinson, 485 U.S. 224, 255 (1988) (White, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (citation omitted): To define the term "integrity of the market price," the majority quotes approvingly from cases which suggest that investors are entitled to '"rely on the price of a stock as a reflection of its value.'" But the meaning of this phrase eludes me, for it implicitly suggests that stocks have some "true value" that is measurable by a standard other than their market price. While the scholastics of medieval times professed a means to make such a valuation of a commodity's "worth," I doubt that the federal courts of our day are similarly equipped. The sense that there may be a just price has remained stronger in Europe than in America. See James Gordley, Equality in Exchange, 69 CAL. L. REV. 1587 (1981). Indeed, the Dutch material that I trace here belongs very much to this general European tradition. My argument is not that there is no just-price tradition to be found any longer, but that the sense, typical of older Christianity, that it is sinful to deviate from just price, has waned.
92. Statements of the classical rule can be found at D. 4, 4, 16, 4; D. 19, 2, 22, 3. See FRANCIS DE ZULUETA, THE ROMAN LAW OF SALE 19 (1945).
93. For the Roman rule of caveat emptor, see JOHN CROOK, LAW AND LIFE OF ROME, 90 B.C.-A.D. 212, at 181 (H.H. Scullard ed., 1967).
94. See C. 4, 44, 2; C. 4, 44, 8. For a very fine brief introduction, see REINHARD ZIMMERMANN, THE LAW OF OBLIGATIONS: ROMAN FOUNDATIONS OF THE CIVILIAN TRADITION 255-70 (1990), with citations to much further literature.
95. For the dating, see, for example, TRAUGOTT HOLTZ, DER ERSTE BRIEF AN DIE THESSALONICHER 19-20 (1986).
96. 1 Thess. 4:3-8 (slightly altered from New Century Bible).
97. The Greek term, translated here as "overreach" was hyperbainein, translated in the Vulgate as circumvenire. See NOVUM TESTAMENTUM GRAECE 520 (Eberhard Nestle ed., 1975);
98. BIBLIA SACRA, IUXTA VULGATAM CLEMENTINAM 1145 (Alberto Colunga & Laurentio Turrado eds., 1977), translating Paul's text into Latin as: "et ne quis supergrediatur, neque circumveniat in negotio fratrem suum." The exact sense of the original Greek is not easy to determine. For conflicting views, holding respectively that Paul was speaking of sex and of commerce, see, for example, I.
99. HOWARD MARSHALL, NEW CENTURY BIBLE COMMENTARY: 1 AND 2 THESSALONIANS 111 (1983); and HOLTZ, supra note 60, at 161-62. What Paul actually meant in his original text has, of course, no bearing on my general topic, which involves only how Paul was understood in later centuries.
100. See VINER, supra note 12, at 81-85. For a further discussion, see A. Wacke, Circumscribere, gerechter Preis und die Arten der List, 94 ZEITSCHRIFT DER SAVIGNY-STIFTUNG FÜR RECHTSGESCHICHTE (ROMANISTISCHE ABTEILUNG) 183, 186 (1977), and the literature cited there.
101. 2 AQUINAS, supra note 50, at 216.
102. See the classic discussion of Baldwin, supra note 12, at 31-74.
103. See now the important discussion of GORDLEY, supra note 12.
104. See Gordley's suitably measured and skeptical discussion, id. at 97-98.
105. Again, this argument will be most familiar to American readers through Simpson, supra note 12, at 537.
106. Nor did they doubt, as Gordley observes, that the "just price" could properly be set by the public authorities. See GORDLEY, supra note 12, at 97.
107. This is because just price, even if theoretically determined by forces of scarcity and demand, would typically have to be proven in court by the testimony of local witnesses. See, e.g., 2 A. LEIVA DIDACUS COVARRUVIAS, VARIARUM EX IURE PONTIFICIO, REGIO, & CAESAREO RESOLUTIONUM LIBRI IIII at 12[r] [lib. 2, cap. 3, no. 3] (Salamanca, In aedibus Dominici à Portonariis 1570); cf. Baldwin, supra note 12, at 53 (discussing requirement of witnesses). Of course, there would have been innumerable variations.
108. See, e.g., GERAUD DE MAYNARD, ABREGÉ DU RECUEIL DES ARRESTS NOTABLES DE LA COUR DE PARLEMENT DE TOLOSE 56 (I.I.D.P. ed., Toulouse, Amaud Colomiez 1657);
109. F. MONTE SAN SAVARINO, TRACTATUS DE EMPTIONE [questions 8 & 10] (Siena, Impressus per Magistrum Henricum de Colonia 1489) (noting assumption of just price, with burden of proof in determination on adversary). Nevertheless, it must often have been the case that local witnesses were called. The danger to merchants of any proceeding in which witnesses were called, at least in troubled times, is plain.
110. Baldwin, supra note 12, at 55-57 (on canon doctrine).
111. Winfried Trusen, Forum Internum und gelehrtes Recht im Spätmittelalter, 57 ZEITSCHRIFT DER SAVIGNY-STIFTUNG FÜR RECHTSGESCHICHTE (KANONISTISCHE ABTEILUNG) 83, 83-126 (1971).
112. KALB, supra note 12, at 140-49; WINFRIED TRUSEN, SPÄTMITTELALTERLICHE JURISPRUDENZ UND WIRTSCHAFTSETHIK 81 (1961).
113. See the summary of the treatment of medieval confessors' manuals, mostly but not entirely uniform, in KALB, supra note 12, at 149-56.
114. I say "at the margins" conceding willingly the point of Baldwin, supra note 12, at 10, that enforcement through the confessional "gives no assurance that the penitent merchant followed the ideals of his confessor."
115. See, for example, the citations to the French case cited infra note 98, and the Italian case cited infra note 101.
116. See the very learned discussion of Gerber, supra note 12.
117. As Lichtenauer remarks, the Roman rules remained "the toughest nut to crack." LICHTENAUER, GESCHIEDENIS, supra note 37, at 20-21.
118. As a seventeenth-century tourist guide to Amsterdam described the grain bourse, in both Dutch and, for foreign tourists, French, in a passage well worth quoting: 't Gebouw is vierkantig/ aan drie zijden geslooten/ en legen de Straat open. In 't midden heeft het/ even als de groote Beurs/ een open Plein/ en aan drie zijden Galderijen/ die op 52. ronde houte Pilaaren rusten. . . . Veele Kooplieden en makelaars hebben 'er onder de Galderijen hun kaasjes/om de Koren-monsters in te bergen. In't midden/aan d'opene zijde/ staat een konstige kopere Bos op een swaare kopere Pedestaal/ in de welke d'Aalmoesen voor d'Aalmoeseniers Armen vergaderd worden. * * * The building is square, closed on three sides, and open to the street. In the middle it has an open court, just like the great Bourse [i.e. the Stock Exchange], and on three sides it has galleries, which rest on 52 round wooden pillars. . . . Under the galleries, many merchants and brokers have their chests, in which they keep their grain-samples. In the middle, on the open side, stands an artfully wrought copper box [tronc in facing French text] on a heavy copper pedestal, in which alms are gathered for the Almoners' poor. JAN VEENHUYSEN, ALLE DE VOORNAAMSTE GEBOUWEN DER WIJTVERMAARDE KOOPSTAD AMSTERDAM illus. 43 (Amsterdam, H. Sweerts et al. n.d. [1675?]). Noteworthy here is not only the symbolically prominent gathering of alms, but also the manifest existence of a highly competitive market in grain.
119. Cf. SIGISMUND SCACCIA, TRACTATUS DE COMMERCIIS ET CAMBIO 230 (Geneva, Sumptibus Ioannis Hermanni Widerhold 1664) (not permissible in forum of conscience to deceive "your neighbor, whom you must love as yourself"). See generally the same passage for some of the careful distinctions drawn in this tradition.
120. BENVENUTO STRACCA DE ANCONA, DE MERCATURA SEU MERCATORE TRACTATUS (Venice, Apud Ioannem Baptistam & Melchiorem Sessam fratre ca. 1555).
121. Id. at 10[v]-11[r] [pt. 1, para. 34]. For Stracca's influence in France, see, for example, JEAN HILAIRE, INTRODUCTION HISTORIQUE AU DROIT COMMERCIAL 323 (1986).
122. Cf. LICHTENAUER, GESCHIEDENIS, supra note 37, at 55; WILHELM F. LICHTENAUER, DE GROEI VAN DE ORGANISATIE-GEDACHTE (1942). Stracca was, of course, also used in Holland as elsewhere, on many questions. See LICHTENAUER, GESCHIEDENIS, supra note 37, at 44.
123. WESTERMAN, supra note 52, at 70[v]-71[v]: Als nu dese in de Marckten ghecomen zijn/ vergeten wort by haer de spreucke Pauli dit is de wille Godts, namelijck uwe heylichmaeckinghe, dat niemant synen Broeder verdrucke, noch en bedrieghe. [1.Thess.4.6.] Ghelijck alser ghene handelinghen onder den Menschen ghepleecht en werden/ sonder dat de zonde sich mede daer onder vertoont/ soo ist dat dat ooc mede in den Coophandel de zonde geoefent wert/ 'tzy met lieghen/ malcanderen met de Waren te bedrieghen/ met schaersse Wicht ofte Mate te veronghelijcken/ ofte in den prijs malcanderen te becoopen/ soo dat de zonde aen dees of d'ander cante uyt berst. Want ommegoets [sic] wille doen vele onrecht, ghelijck als eenen Naghel inden Muer tusschen twee Steenen steeckt, alsoo steeckt ooc de zonde tusschen den coper ende vercoper. [Syr.27.v.1.] Ende int eynde vant vorighe Capitt. spreeckt Syrach. Een Coopman can hem swaerlijck hoeden voor onrecht, ende een Kramer voor zonde. [Cap. 26. 27.] Men sal inde Merckten bevinden/ dat menich om dat het Cruys opgheslaghen is/ meynt het is een vrye Merck/ ergo hy mach alle dinck wel vry doen/ daerom vercoopen Caff voor Coorn/ Muyse-dreck voor Peper/ eenen ouden blinden Guyl voor een gesonden Hengst/ een gortigen Vercken voor eenen reynen/ ende ghebruycken een valschen Ellen/ gewichte ende Mate/ goede ende quade Waren onder malcanderen mengen/ ende vanden morgen tot den avont sijn Craem ende Winckel met liegen ende bedriegen vervullen/ ende sulcx onder liefelijcke woorden stofferen ofte met hooghe woorden ende eden bevestighen. Wonder dat haer den Craem ende Winckel boven haren Hoofde niet af en brandt. The "free" character of the Dutch market deserves some explication here. Following a tradition established in Antwerp, the market in Amsterdam was "free" in the sense that, to quote a 1644 authority, Amstelredam is een Stadt, principalyck bestaenden by den Coop-handel; soo staet allen persoonen vry, zy zyn Poorters, Inwoonders, of Ingesetenen der selver Stede; ofte oock uytheemsche personnen, in vreemde Landen, Coninckrycken, ende Heerlyckheyden woonende; haere waeren, ende Coopmanschappen binnen der voorsz. Stede te brengen, koopen, verkoopen, ende vermangelen . . . . * * * Amsterdam is a city that exists principally by commerce, and so it stands free to all persons, be they citizens, inhabitants, or residents of the city; or also aliens, living in foreign lands, kingdoms, and principalities; to bring, buy, sell, and trade their goods and business within the aforesaid city . . . . GERARD ROOSEBOOM, RECUEIL VAN VERSCHEYDE KEUREN, EN COUSTUMEN; MITSGADERS MANIERE VAN PROCEDEREN, BINNE DER STEDE AMSTERDAM 214 (Amsterdam, Gerrit Jansz. 1644) (citing Custom of Antwerp). That is to say, the right to trade was free to all. Amsterdam was also "free" in the sense that slavery was not tolerated: According to Rooseboom, slaves were free upon their entrance into the city. Id. at 186. But see id. at 207, 214-15 for the legal limitations on the freedom of women and on the free practice of crafts.
124. SCHAMA, supra note 40, at 330 (discussing Udemans); see also Beins, supra note 45.
125. See infra note 101.
126. UDEMANS, supra note 46, at 10[v]: valsch gewichte, elle, mate, daer de Cramers ende smalle Coop-luyden meer perijckel van hebten/ om datse de waren meest leveren ende uytventen met haer eyghen ghewichte, elle, mate, die sy binnen s'huys hebben: daer de groote Coop-Luyden hare balen, ende groote packen/ quartelen &c. pleghen te leveren in stadts-bilance: maer sy wordt oock ghepleecht met vervalschinghe vande ware, met vervalschinghe, of steygheringe vande munte: oock met onbehoorlijcken woecker vande wissel: met arch-listighe contracten: met Monopolie, dat is/ wanneer de Coopluyden tsamen couten/ om de waren te houden op eenen onbillicken prijs/ tot last vande goede Gemeynte: maer vooral met banquerouterie . . . .
127. WITTEWRONGEL, supra note 56.
128. See id. at 602-07. Wittewrongel's work certainly spent more time on issues of price than did those cited in the text, see id. at 605 (counseling merchants to take only an "honest profit"), but, I think it can be said on a fair reading, showed the same larger and more emphatic interest in questions of quality and weights and measures that figure so prominently in the Dutch literature of the day. See generally id. at 602-05.
129. This is, of course, broadly true of Europe. See, e.g., JEAN IMBERT, LA PRACTIQUE JUDICIAIRE CIVILE ET CRIMINELLE, RECEUË & OBSERVEE PAR TOUT LE ROYAUME DE FRANCE (Paris, Louis Feugé 1627). It appears, however, to have attracted particular attention in Holland. Compare the later seventeenth-century requirement that all weighable goods be weighed at the official city scales.
130. See. e.g., LE MOINE DE L'ESPINE, LE NEGOCE D'AMSTERDAM 47 (Amsterdam, Pierre Brunel 1710). This seemed remarkable enough to contemporaries to deserve discussion in guidebooks, which led tourists to the great scales to be found in Dutch cities for the use of merchants. VEENHUYSEN, supra note 79, illus. 40, for example, went out of his way to note that merchants were required to consummate their transactions at one of the two great city scales of Amsterdam.
131. See, e.g., SARAVIA DE LA GALLE BERONENSE, INSTRUCCIÓN DE MERCADORES MUY PROVECHOSA 17[r]-22[r] (1547);
132. GERHARD OTTE, DAS PRIVATERECHT BEI FRANCISCO DE VITORIA 87-88 (1954).
133. See, e.g., 2 AQUINAS, supra note 50, at 212-20 (discussing price and quality).
134. In this regard, Dutch law came to approximate ancient Roman law. See Wacke, supra note 63, at 188-90. For the general Roman-law protection of expectations with regard to quality, by contrast to price, see also W.W. BUCKLAND & ARNOLD MCNAIR, ROMAN LAW AND COMMON LAW: A COMPARISON IN OUTLINE 211 (F.H. Lawson ed., 2d ed. 1952);
135. and, for Roman warranties, most recently, P. Apathy, Sachgerechtigkeit und Systemdenken am Beispiel der Entwicklung von Sachmängelhaftung und Irrtum beim Kauf im klassischen römischen Recht, 111 ZEITSCHRIFT DER SAVIGNY-STIFTUNG FÜR RECHTSGESCHICHTE (ROMANISTISCHE ABTEILUNG) 95, 95-154 (1994), with citations to the newer literature. Roman-law protections with regard to quality were largely mounted through the Edilician Edict, which existed, as it were, alongside the protections of civil law. The mature medieval tradition, however, tended to assimilate the protections of this Edict to those of the civil law, creating a general law of implied warranty.
136. See HERMANN DILCHER, DIE THEORIE DER LEISTUNGSSTÖRUNGEN BEI GLOSSATOREN, KOMMENTATOREN, UND KANONISTEN 222-24 (1960). The development that I trace here in some measure represents the completion of the development traced by Dilcher; where Roman law had a scattered collection of protections with regard to quality, treated separately from the issue of price, Dutch law tended to analyze both price and quality questions as falling under the general rubric of overreaching.
137. Cf. Zimmermann, supra note 33, at 185-87 (discussing later Dutch developments). Wacke correctly characterizes the underlying issue as one of the acceptability of hard-bargaining behavior. See Wacke, supra note 63, at 198-99, with further citations on dickering behavior in antiquity. For a dramatic representation, showing perhaps how deep Dutch assumptions about bargaining behavior ran, see the lovely seventeenth-century Dutch tile, illustrating the Roman law of contract with a scene of marketplace dickering, reproduced in J.E. SPRUIT, RECHTSGELEERDE MUURBLOEMPJES UIT DE 17E EEUW. CURIEUS VERGLASSDE WANDTEGELS MET TAFELEREN UIT DE PANDECTEN 34 (1989). See also id. at 35 (commentary).
138. BERNHARD VAN ZUTPHEN, NEDERLANDTSCHE PRACTYCQUE VAN VERSCHEYDEN DACHELIJCKSCHE SOO CIVILE ALS CRIMINELE QUESTIEN (Leewarden, Gysbert Sijbes 1655).
139. See E. Holtöfer, Die Literatur zum gemeinen und partikularen Recht in Italien, Frankreich, Spanien und Portugal, in 1 COING, HANDBUCH, supra note 38, at 318, 318-21.
140. Alfred Söllner, Die Literatur zum gemeinen und partikularen Recht in Deutschland, Österreich, den Niederlanden und der Schweiz, in 2, pt. 1 COING, HANDBUCH, supra note 38, at 501, 609, lists seven editions.
141. Cf. S.J. FOCKEMA ANDREAE, HET OUD-NEDERLANDSCH BURGERLIJK RECHT, TWEEDE DEEL 32 (1906);
142. Christoph Becker, Das Problem der Austauschgerechtigkeit, in DAS RÖMISCH-HOLLÄNDISCHE RECHT, supra note 33, at 201.
143. Though not necessarily from the learned Roman-law scholars of the Middle Ages (and Renaissance). Compare the contrast between the discussions of the Accursian Gloss and of François Douaren with that of Francisco de Vitoria noted in Wacke, supra note 63, at 190-91 n.25.
144. Borrowed from - but falling below the high level of sophistication and liberality of the Spanish tradition as traced by GORDLEY, supra note 12, at 96-102. For the dominance of the Spanish neo-Scholastics, see Miriam Turrini, "Culpa Theologica" e "culpa iuridica": il foro interno all'inizio dell'età moderna, in 12 ANNALI DELL'ISTITUTO STORICA ITALO-GERMANICO IN TRENTO 147, 153-54 (1986). The tale in France, it should however be noted, was a considerably more complex one. On the one hand, merchants operating in France clearly faced some dangers. One 1627 Practique warned violators of just-price principles in France that, if their offense involved false weights and measures, they might in principle face the death penalty (though the author seems to have known of no cases where it was actually imposed.) See IMBERT, supra note 89, at 709. But other French authors could be astonishingly liberal.
145. Most important is ANTOINE LOISEL, INSTITUTES COUSTUMIERES 164 (Paris, M. Robin & N. Le Gras 1665). which cheerfully announced that, "A thing is worth what it can be sold for." Loisel went further than most French vernacular authors. But many, like the Dutch, simply recited principles of Roman law.
146. See, for example, PRUDENT DE SAINCT MARIE, LA PRATIQUE ET STIL IUDICIAIRE 59 (Dole, A. Binart 1627), an author who, however, as a Burgundian, might be expected to resemble the Dutch in his views; or, from the southern city of Toulouse (with again some important regional variations), DE MAYNARD, supra note 70, at 56-57.
147. More clearly nationally French in orientation, and advocating a much more purely classical Roman law than anything I have seen in the Dutch vernacular literature, is JEROSME MERCIER, REMARQUE DU DROIT FRANÇOIS SUR LES INSTITUTS DE L'EMPEREUR JUSTINIEN 376-83 (Paris, Nicolas le Gras 1688), a very learned discussion.
148. Similarly complex is the discussion of GUY COQUILLE, Institution au Droit des François, in LES OEUVRES DE M. GUY COQUILLE 146 (Paris, Anthoine de Cay 1646). The French tradition simply needs more discussion than I can give it here, beyond observing that at least some French authors were quite close to Dutch ones, and that in this respect, as in the treatment of cessio bonorum, see infra note 136, the Dutch belonged in some important ways to the French cultural circle; legal dialectology, as it were, links Dutch-Roman law and French-Roman law together. For the importance of French influence in the Netherlands,
149. see the remarks of R. FEENSTRA, Zur Rezeption in den Niederlanden, in FATA IURIS ROMANI 25, 25-26 (1974).
150. GERARD MALYNES, CONSUETUDO, VEL LEX MERCATORIA, OR THE ANCIENT LAW-MERCHANT 91 (London, Adam Islip 1622).
151. JUAN DE HEVIA BOLAN̄OS, CURIA PHILIPICA 306 (Madrid, Eugenio Bieco 1753) (1605).
152. GIOVANNI DOMENICO PERI, IL NEGOTIANTE 99 (Genoa, P.O. Calenzano 1638).
153. For an earlier, and somewhat less ominous, Italian discussion in the neo-Scholastic tradition, see FRANCISCO GARZIA, TRATTATO DI TUTTI I CONTRATTI 118 (Brescia, Appresso Pietro Maria Marchetti 1589).
154. A more liberal discussion can be found in a later authority. See GIOVANNI BATTISTA DE LUCA, IL DOTTOR VOLGARE 47 (Rome, Stamperia di G. Corvo 1673).
155. For some monumental evidence of the threat that faced merchants, tourists may view the lion's mouth, inviting secret denunciations of "usurious contracts," in the Piazza dei Signori in Verona. See the description in NINO CENNI & MARIA FIORENZA COPPARI, I SEGNI DELLA VERONA VENEZIANA (IL SEICENTO) 55-60 (1992).
156. For departures from just price as a form of "usurious contract," see MARC'ANTONIO SAVELLI, PRATICA UNIVERSALE 320 (Venice, Presso Paolo Baglioni 1715), a passage that also warns merchants that departures from just price are a form of sin.
157. It is possible that the Italian authorities of the early seventeenth century had become more restrictive than their predecessors - a development that would presumably reflect the impact of the Council of Trent. I must, however, leave the question of the sixteenth-century shift, if any, aside; but readers should see Turrini, supra note 98, at 150-51, noting a shift in the sixteenth century from a "medical" to a "juridical" concept of confession; and, contra, Christoph Bergfeld, Zur Jurisprudenz des forum internum, 16 IUS COMMUNE 133, 137, 143 (1989).
158. This followed medieval tradition, which altered the mysterious terms circumvenire and circumscribere to decipere, "deceive." For Betrug as the ordinary German rendering of deception, see KALB, supra note 12, at 117 n.32.
159. ZUTPHEN, supra note 93, at 60: V. Als een vande contrahenten in het handelen bedroghen is/ soo en heeft hy ter oorsaecke van sodanich bedroch gheen actie teghens den ghene met dewelcke hy heeft gecontraheert/ indien het bedroch niet en zy boven de helfte van de rechte weerde: Dan so yemandt bedrogen is inde quantiteyt van het goedt/ alsdan mach hy ageren tot supplement/ alhoewel het bedroch is beneden de helfte van de rechte prijse. Francise. Marc. decis. 484. num. 29. 30. & decis. 567. num. 7. Costal. ad 1. 16. ff. de minorib. VI. Den vercooper wordt geseydt in bedroch to wesen/ indien hy verswijght eenige qualiteyt van het goet/ dewelcke soo hy gheexpresseert hadde/ de cooper niet en soude gecontraheert gheghadt hebben; ende wort daeromme sodanigen cooper gesuccurreert. Vincent. Caroc. decis. 1. nu. 8. Mascard. de probat. conci. 532. Menoch. de praesumpt. lib. 5. praes. 3. num. 73.
160. See KALB, supra note 12, at 11, with literature at 188-198. For the general faithfulness of the Dutch law to the long European tradition of Roman law, see Decker, supra note 96.
161. See Zimmermann, supra note 33, at 187-88.
162. See, for example, MARTINUS CAESAR, JUS HODIERNUM, OFTE HEDENDAEGHS-RECHT 216 (Amsterdam, Dirck Meyer 1656), which presented standard medieval Roman-law doctrine for a Dutch-speaking audience. For the doctrine presented there, and its roots in classical Roman law, see Wacke, supra note 63, at 236-46, with citations to further literature.
163. HUGO GROTIUS, INLEIDING TOT DE HOLLANDSCHE RECHTS-GELEERTHEYD 381 (R.W. Lee ed., 1953) (1631). Although Grotius took time to wax philosophical over the Roman rule in a way that his more practically minded contemporaries did not. See id. at 511-13.
164. For the prevailing view, see, e.g., STRACCA, supra note 81, the second part of which was Stracca's Tractatus de Conturbatoribus sive Decoctoribus, see id. at 335, perhaps best translated as "A Treatise on Deadbeats," which offered an elaborate and vitriolic discussion, see, e.g., id. at 358 ("Forsooth, deadbeats are the worst variety of human being . . . .").
165. UDEMANS, supra note 46, at 10[v]-11[r]: maer vooral met bancquerouterie, dat is/ wanneer sy vele capitalen hebben ghelicht tot haren laste/ of dat vele eerlijcke luyden haer/ op haer woordt, of schrift, maer insonderheyt op wissel gecrediteert hebben/ datse daer na een onbeschaemt aensicht aentrecken/ sluyten haer selven binnen de mueren van haer huys/ ende laten de goede luyden na'kijcken/ segghende rondt uyt/ datter niet ten besten en is, al ist datse dickwils korts te voren groote parthyen hebben in-gekocht/ diemen niet en weet/ waer sy gevaren zijn. Dit is eene grouwelijcke specie van dieverie . . . . Udemans went on to cite the Edict of Charles V, see infra note 110.
166. Cessio bonorum, it should be noted, was not the only important issue in the moral world of insolvency. Also of significance was the (to date much more widely studied) problem of the fugitive merchant. This was a problem (among others) treated in the Edict of Charles V of the 4th October, 1540, which had force in Holland. See 1 GROOT PLACAET-BOEK 311-22 (Cornells Cau ed., s'Gravenhage, By de Weduwe, ende Erfgenamen van wylen Hillebrandt Iacobsz. van Wouw 1658).
167. On the problem of fugitive merchants, see, e.g., Vito Piergiovanni, The Itinerant Merchant and the Fugitive Merchant in the Middle Ages, in OF STRANGERS AND FOREIGNERS (LATE ANTIQUITY-MIDDLE AGES) 81 (Laurent Mayali & Maria Mart eds., 1993).
168. For the uncertainty as to whether this legislation is owed to Caesar or to Augustus, see MAX KASER, DAS RÖMISCHE ZIVILPROZESSRECHT 316 (1966), with citations to further literature.
169. For Caesar, see DANIEL WEGNER, DE BANCCIRUPTORIBUS DISSERTATIO 180 (Franeker, Idzardus Alberti 1650).
170. For Augustus, see SICHARNIUS IN VHEVESINU, VON DER BONORUM CESSION, UND BANCKEROTT/ DISCURSUS JURIDICO-POLITICUS. AUS DEN RECHTSBÜCHERN AUFFS
171. See generally the description in KASER, supra note 111, at 316-17.
172. MATTEO BRUNO TRACTATUS MATTHAEI BRUNI ARIMINENI DE CESSIONE BONORU 115[v] (Venice, 1561) [hereinafter BRUNO, TRACTATUS (VENICE)];
173. MATTEO BRUNO, TRACTATUS MATTHAEI BRUNI ARIMINENI DE CESSIONE BONORU 10[v]-11[r] (Venice, Apud Haeredes Aloysij Valuassoris, & Ioannem Dominicum Michaelem 2d ed. 1575) ("Unless he has ceded his goods amidst shame, according to the statutory form, banging his buttocks on a rock . . . .");
174. see also GUIDO PAPA, DECISIONES GUIDONIS PAPAE, IURISCONSULTI GRATIONOPOLITANI 319 (Lyon, Sumptibus Ioannis de Gabiano 1613);
175. FRANCISCO SALGADO DE SOMOZA, LABYRINTHUS CREDITORUM CONCURRENTIUM AD LITEM PER DEBITOREM COMMUNEM INTER ILLOS CAUSATAM 558 (Venice, Apud Turrinum 1653) (standard authority of period). There was a common requirement that debtors be insolvent through no fault of their own, which naturally raised some hairy doctrinal difficulties. See, e.g., SCACCIA, supra note 80, at 480 (proposing simply to put burden of proof in this regard on debtor); STRACCA, supra note 81, at 345-47; WEGNER, supra note 112, at 38-51 (discussing determination of "fault" of debtors).
176. BRUNO, TRACTATUS (VENICE), supra note 114, at 115[v].
177. See STATUTI DEL COMUNE DI PADOVA, DAL SECOLO XII ALL'ANNO 1285, at 7 n.(c) (Padova, Giugno 1873) [hereinafter STATUTI DEL COMUNE DI PADOVA] (describing rock of shame); id. at 179 (giving relevant statute).
178. See also the discussion of this statute in BRUNO, TRACTATUS (VENICE), supra note 114, at 116[r]. Clearly enough, these practices call for deeper anthropological interpretation that would be out of place in this Article.
179. See G. Bozzolato, Il Palazzo della Ragione a Padova, in IL PALAZZO DELLA RAGIONE A PADOVA DALLE PITTURE DI GIOTTO AGLI AFFRESCHI DEL '400, at 42, 42-46 (1992).
180. See STATUTI DEL COMUNE DI PADOVA, supra note 116, at 179.
181. For a general account of these statutes in Italy, see 6, pt. 2 ANTONIO PERTILE, STORIA DEL DIRITTO ITALIANO 384-88 (1902);
182. on banishment, see further HANS PLANITZ, DAS SCHULDBANN IN ITALIEN 134 (Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte, Germanistische Abteilung No. 52, 1932).
183. See also Piergiovanni, supra note 110, at 81-96 (discussing similar treatment of fugitive insolvents). Cessio bonorum is intentionally omitted from the treatment of UMBERTO SANTARELLI, PER LA STORIA DEL FALLIMENTO NELLE LEGISLAZIONI ITALIANE DELL'ETÀ INTERMEDIA (1964). See id. at 3-4. Nevertheless, Santarelli inevitably touches on the topic. See. e.g., id. at 29-30.
184. See JACQUES SAVARY, LE PARFAIT NÉGOCIANT 311-12 (Paris, J. Guignard fils 1675), which describes this practice, under which the creditors bought a green cap for their insolvent debtor, and policed his wearing of it. See also the following discussion in Savary, which details the elimination of this medieval custom by an ordonnance of 1629, which substituted the public posting of the names of those who had performed a cessio bonorum, id.
185. On the wearing of the green cap, see also, e.g., GABRIEL BOUNIN, TRAITÉ SUR LES CESSIONS ET BANQUEROUTTES 75-76 (Paris, Chez Pierre Chevillot 1586), defending this French practice as more humane than the common Italian practice;
186. and more generally the sketch in CLAUDE DUPOUY, LE DROIT DES FAILLITES EN FRANCE AVANT LE CODE DE COMMERCE 14-15 (1960), which also refers to some other French customs; and the survey in HILAIRE, supra note 82, at 306-24. I have not seen Guillon, Essai Historique sur la législation française des faillites et banqueroutes avant 1673 (1904) (unpublished dissertation, University of Rennes). The reason for the elimination of the customary sanctions in 1629 is not entirely clear to me; but it should presumably be seen as an aspect of the assertion of centralized power over local traditions in France, rather than as a reevaluation of insolvency.
187. 2 WILLIAM BLACKSTONE, COMMENTARIES *472.
188. Louis E. Levinthal, The Early History of English Bankruptcy, 67 U. PA. L. REV. 1, 17 (1919). These shame sanctions were introduced by the Act of 21 Jam. 1, ch.19 (1623) (Eng.), and should be viewed in the context of a general European effort - outside Holland - to limit bankruptcy in the early seventeenth century.
189. See supra text accompanying note 114.
190. See, e.g., DANIEL SAUTER, PRAXIS BANCCAE-RUPTORUM HUIUS SECULI; QUAE 1. SECUNDUM FALLACES ACTIONES DEPINGITUR: 2. SECUNDUM MALA ADIUNCTA EXPENDITUR: 3. SECUNDUM POENAS IN EAM SANCITAS, AESTIMATUR: 4. SECUNDUM CHARITATEM EMENDATUR 11 (Leiden, Godefridus Basson 1615) (describing bankruptcy abuses as a form of circumvenire, "overreaching").
191. For the classic reasoning applied to bankruptcy, see, e.g., SCACCIA, supra note 80, at 342.
192. Walter Pakter, The Origins of Bankruptcy in Medieval Canon and Roman Law, in PROCEEDINGS OF THE SEVENTH INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF MEDIEVAL CANON LAW 485, 505 (Peter Linehan ed., 1988).
193. For the common history of English and continental bankruptcy legislation, see Stefan A. Riesenfeld, Bankruptcy and Insolvency, in 15 THE NEW ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA: MACROPEDIA 370 (15th ed. 1992).
194. D. 42, 3, 9.
195. See SALGADO, supra note 114, at 6; SAVARY, supra note 119, at 308-09 (quoting and discussing Ordonnance de Lyon de Louis XII, June 1510, art. 70). For the French versus the Italian practice, see the annotations in PAPA, supra note 114, at 319. French procedures also required other measures, including the posting of the names of bankrupts in a public place and the public display of their (clothed) persons on a market day, with the reading of the charges against them by an officer, measures whose "infaming" character is discussed by SAVARY, supra note 119, at 309-10. For the French practice, see further PHILIPPE GODDING, LE DROIT PRIVÉ DANS LES PAYS-BAS MÉRIDIONAUX DU 12E AU 18E SIÈCLE 519 (1987),
196. and thé more detailed discussion in 2 PIERRE-CLÉMENT TIMBAL, LES OBLIGATIONS CONTRACTUELLES DANS LE DROIT FRANÇAIS DES XIIIE ET XIVE SIÈCLES D'APRÈS LA JURISPRUDENCE DU PARLEMENT 228-39 (1977). While cessio bonorum required royal letters in France, those letters were routinely granted by the end of the Middle Ages. See id. at 228 n.565.
197. See BOUNIN, supra note 119, at 4-5.
198. SICHARNIUS, supra note 112, at 3-4.
199. Id. at 8. For more on the importance of Augustus in the legal thought of the seventeenth century, see WHITMAN, supra note 2, at 56-60, and the literature cited therein.
200. SICARNIUS, supra note 112, at 31.
201. See the pitiful description in CHRISTOPH BESOLD, THESAURUS PRACTICUS 728 (Tübingen, Apud Philibertum Brunnium 1629)
202. (quoting EBERHARD SPECKHAN, QUAESTIONUM & DECISIONUM IURIS CAESAREI, PONTIFICII, STATUTARII & CONSUETUDINARII CENTURIA PRIMA MISCELLANEA 105 (Wittenberg, Clement Berger 1620)).
203. In Germany as in England, inmates in debtors' prisons received no food; and according to these descriptions, passersby in commercial cities in Germany were used to hearing inmates cry wretchedly and beg for food. Sicharnius tried to plead against these practices. See SICHARNIUS, supra note 112, at 35-36. But the truth was that cessio bonorum had in effect generally not been received in Germany (as in England). See, e.g., HEINRICH HAHN, OBSERVATA THEORETICO PRACTICA, AD MATTHAEI WESENBECII IN L. LIBROS DIOESTORUM COMMENTARIOS, & IN HOC EDITAS REINHARDI BACHOVII NOTAS & ANIMADVERSIONES 355-56 (Helmstedt, Typis et Sumptibus Henningi Mulleri 1668), which, to be sure, cited much Roman legal doctrine, but which noted simply that the Roman rules were not in use under Saxon law.
204. SICHARNIUS, supra note 112, at 33.
205. For the common legal heritage of the Lowlands generally - and of Burgundy - see the remarks of FEENSTRA, supra note 98, at 3-4.
206. In particular, in the Lowlands as in France, see supra note 128 and accompanying text, the right to perform a cessio had to be sought, technically, as a benefit from the court. See, e.g., GROTIUS, supra note 107, at 509, observing that this distinguished Dutch law from classical Roman law.
207. PHILIPS WIELANT, PRACTIJKE CIVILE 83 (E.I. Strubbe ed., 1968) (1573).
208. IOOST DE DAMHOUDER VAN BRUGGE, PRACTYCKE IN CIVILE SAECKEN, SEER NUT/ PROFITELIJCK ENDE NODIGH ALLEN SCHOUTEN, BORGHEMEESTEREN, MAGHISTRATEN ENDE ANDERE RECHTEREN 154 (s'Graven-Hage, By de Weduwe, ende Erfgenamen van wijlen Hillebrant lacobssz. van Wouw 1626).
209. Though still possibly carrying the disability, in the mid-sixteenth century, to serve in public office or as member of a guild, and with some fluctuations in customary law. See GODDING, supra note 128, at 519. Nevertheless, as Godding makes clear, the liberalization I trace had already largely taken place in Flemish law by the mid-sixteenth century.
210. For Damhouder's recognition that there had been a liberalization in his day, and that some debtors even gloried in having performed a cessio bonorum, see id.
211. For the applicability of the Custom of Antwerp, see J. Denucé, Archives commerciales privées: le fonde des faillites à Anvers, in 4 ANNALES D'HISTOIRE ÉCONOMIQUE ET SOCIALE 372 (1932); LICHTENAUER, GESCHIEDENIS, supra note 37, at 9-10 (for general applicability of Custom of Antwerp); id. at 11, 194 (for applicability in law of bankruptcy).
212. See RENÉ DEKKERS, BIBLIOTHECA BELGICA JURIDICA: EEN BIO-BIBLIOGRAPHISCH OVERZICHT DER RECHTGELEERDHEID IN DE NEDERLANDEN VAN DE VROEGSTE TIJDEN AF TOT 1800, at 98 (1951) (biographical data on van Leeuwen).
213. SIMON VAN LEEUWEN, MANIER VAN PROCEDEREN IN CIVILE EN CRIMINELLE SAAKEN 104 (Leiden/Rotterdam, 1666): Dog heeft het selve benefitie van cessie, dat is, boedel-affstand, volgens Handvest van sommige Steden geen plaats, of moeten die gene die het selve versoeken, eenige dagen des middags, een uyr lang voor het Stadthuys, op sekre verheven plaats, dat men een Kaak nomt, in sijn onderste klederen ten toon staan. als tot Leyden volgens Octroy van den 30. Julij 1501. ende tot Rotterdam volgens Octroy van den Jare 1519. [Omitted passage quoted in next footnote] . . . Dog is t'selve binnen de Stad van Leyden, mijns wetens, noyt geschied . . . .
214. Id.: van den Jare 1519. in welken geval sommige willen, dat, met dat daarom opentlijk schandaal werd geleden, die gene die sulx doet, van de gehele schult soude bevrijd zijn. arg. l. 13. §. 7. ff. de his qui not. infamia. l. 4. C. ex quib. caus. infam. irrogat. Dog is 't selve binnen de Stad van Leyden, mijns wetens, noyt geschied, maar moeten aldaar die gene die om schuld gevangen geset werden, so lang blijven sitten, tot dat het de Schduldneyssers selfs moede werden, het welk men noemt, door de traue eeten. * * * in which cases, there are some who would argue that, seeing that there is thereby a public scandal, anybody who performs such rituals is discharged from all of his debts . . . . But to my knowledge this never occurs within the city of Leiden. Instead, those who are captured by their creditors must remain imprisoned until the creditors get tired of holding them, which is called "eating through the bars." Van Leeuwen's eagerness to show that there was no longer any shameful "public scandal" in Leiden reflected, of course, his hostility to insolvents: He wanted to deny them the traditional canon-law discharge granted upon the performance of cessio vituperose. See supra note 114 and accompanying text. Nevertheless, it remains fascinating evidence of the state of public perceptions in a major Dutch city. There is something of a mystery in van Leeuwen's assertion that debtors were imprisoned in Leiden. This was a sanction against which cessio bonorum should have immunized them. Moreover, according to other sources, citizens of Leiden were immune from imprisonment. Until the late sixteenth century, they had been subject to imprisonment after a ceremony stripping them of citizenship. That ceremony had, however, died away sometime in the 1570s. See J.J. ORLERS, BESCHRIJVINGE DER STAD LEYDEN 21-23 (Leyden, Haestens et al. 1614).
215. Wegner, writing in 1650 in a vein very hostile to debtors, and with a greedy interest in listing all the sanctions he could discover, knew of no imprisonment of debtors in Leiden at that time. See WEGNER, supra note 112, at 146-47 (erroneously dating end of imprisonment in Leiden to 1614 on the basis of his misreading of the 1641 edition of Orlers. See J.J. ORLERS, BESCHRIJVINGE DER STAD LEYDEN 34-36 (Leyden, Abraham Commelijn 1641)). I assume that van Leeuwen's hostility to debtors led him to describe here, in a typical instance of tendentious antiquarianism, an irrelevant or obsolete imprisonment practice. (The phrase "eating through the bars" reflects, presumably, a memory of the presence of starving inmates in the debtors' prisons of the past. Cf. supra note 133.) Such distortion on account of hostility to debtors characterizes, in fact, other aspects of van Leeuwen's problematic corpus, and marks him out as typical of the learned jurists' hostility to commercial values. See infra note 166. The passage quoted tracks material that van Leeuwen had presented in his substantive introduction to Roman-Dutch law. See SIMON VAN LEEUWEN, PARATITLA JURIS NOVISSIMI, DAT IS, EEN KORT BEGRIP VAN HET ROOMS-HOLLANDS-RECHT 412 (Leyden, P. Leffen 2d ed. 1656) (including reference to statute of Rotterdam);
216. SIMON VAN LEEUWEN, PARATITLA JURIS NOVISSIMI, DAT IS, EEN KORT BEGRIP VAN HET ROOMS-HOLLANDS-RECHT 346 (Leyden, P. Leffen 1652) (including only reference to statute of Leiden). In his introduction to substantive law, however, van Leeuwen did not bother to mention that the statute of Leiden had fallen into desuetude! Only in his guide to practice did he mention that fact. Modern readers can easily be misled by an antiquarian tendency of this sort in their sources.
217. See GERARD VAN WASSENAER, PRACTYK JUDICIEEL OFTE INSTRUCTIE OP DE FORME VAN PROCEDEREN 330 (Utrecht, Dirck van Ackersdÿck 1660) (describing French practice of requiring debtors to appear bare-headed and with their clothing hanging open in court but noting "t'welk nochtans niet altijd en over al so word geobserveert" ["which is however not observed always and everywhere"]). Wassenaer is, however, perhaps not a good witness to Dutch practice, since he conceived his book as covering both Dutch and French law. See, e.g., id. at 2.
218. ZUTPHEN, supra note 93, at 119: I. De vrage is/ of den ghene die cessie van sijne goederen ghedaen heeft/ daer door is infaem? Ick antwoorde Keen. Papon. lib. 10. tit. 10. de cess. bon. arrest. 5. Christin. ad 11. Mechlin, tit. 21. art. 2. nu. 2. & 3. Math. in not. ad Guid. Pap. q. 343. Brun. de Cess. bonor. q. 6. princip. num. 3. 4. * * * III. Wordt gevraeght/ of den ghene die eens cessie van sijne goederen ghedaen heeft/ indien hy naderhandt wederom doen wil cessie van sijne goederen/ moet gheadrniteert worden? Ick antwoorde Ja. Pyrrh. Maur. in tract, de Fidejuss. 1. part. princip. 3. sect. praelud. cap. 2. alias 11. nu. 6. Hering. de Fideiuss. cap. 5. num. 127. & 128. Under Roman law, cessio bonorum did not bring with it legal infamia, a kind of formal stigmatization which carried various disabilities. For more on infamia generally, see, e.g., CROOK, supra note 58, at 83-85. Whether or not cessio bonorum was de facto infaming in classical law is disputed. See LUCIEN GUENOUN, LA CESSIO BONORUM 67-69 (1920); KASER, supra note 111, at 317; Pakter, supra note 125, at 487.
219. See GROTIUS, supra note 107, at 509-11.
220. LICHTENAUER, GESCHIEDENIS, supra note 37, at 118, 196.
221. See SAUTER, supra note 123, at 49-51. This book was rapidly translated into German and later into English, languages in which it presumably could find a more favorably inclined audience. Sauterius also produced an entire monograph devoted to this topic in comparative law. See DANIEL SAUTER, MASTIX FALLITORUM (Leiden, Ex Officina Iacobi Marci 1619). On this literature, see generally LICHTENAUER, GESCHIEDENIS, supra note 37, at 117-20.
222. Beins, supra note 45, at 133-34. The churches imposed their mildest form of excommunication; but Beins's research showed high rates of bankruptcy by congregation members. For the medieval imposition of excommunication for nonpayment of debt, see VINER, supra note 12, at 47, and the literature cited there.
223. UDEMANS, supra note 46, at 14[r]: So zijnder oock vele Coopluyden, als sy komen te verbysteren/ die haerselven met sulcke treken soecken te behelpen: eer sy quamsuys cessie doen, soo versteken sy al datse konnen/ eer sy uittinghe doen, soo doen sy inninge, want sy dencken/ ick en kan daer niet naeckt uytgaen, ick en kan vanden windt niet leven, ick en kan handen noch vingheren eten: waer sal ick blyven met myne arme vrouwe ende kinderen? dat ick verberghe, dat kan my helpen, ende het en kan de crediteuren niet vele schaden, &c. Maer alle dese gedachten komen vanden Sathan, van die oude slanghe, van dien grooten rooden draeck, die een leughenaer is/ ende een vader der leughenen, ende die de geheele wereldt verleydt. Apoc. 12.9.
224. Id. at 11[v], warning merchants to consider: voor wat een oneerlijcken ende enormen crijm dat de vuyle bancquerouterie oyt ende oyt by onse Voor-ouders, de oprechte Nederlanders, ghegouden is/ te weten/ dat niet alleene de bancqueroutiers selve, maer oock die daer toe raedt en daet geven/ daer door in het lyden kornen/ ende ghebrandt-markt worden/ op dat een yder hemselven daer voor soude leeren wachten. Want al ist dat de Keyserlijcke Wetten nu soo strengelijck niet en worden gheexecuteert/ so blijft niet-te-min die Goddelijcke Wet in hare volle kracht. 1 Thess. 4. vers. 6. Dat niemant synen Breeder en verdrucke, noch bedrieghe, want Godt is een wreker over allen desen, gelijk wy u.1. te voren gheseyt en betuycht hebben.
225. SCHAMA, supra note 40, at 330, and Beins, supra note 45, at 128, observe correctly that Udemans counseled merchants to avoid excessively risky ventures. That indeed was Udemans's principal prescription for avoiding insolvency, and it certainly reflects a less than fully developed commercial morality. But the fact remains that Udemans's general treatment of risk and insolvency set him sharply apart from non-Dutch Christian authors.
226. LICHTENAUER, GESCHIEDENIS, supra note 37, at 118 (quoting the poet Bredero): En oft schoon so gheviel, dat hij quam te fallieren; En loopt hij om een Ces, 't is weer een man met eeren.
227. For an important Dutch text treating the problem as one primarily of opposing Christian and Roman traditions, see JOHANNES CLOPPENBURGH, CHRISTELIJCKE ONDERWIJSINGE VAN WOECKER/ INTERESSEN/ COOP VAN RENTEN/ ENDE ALLERLEYE WINSTE VAN GELT MET GELT (Amsterdam, Themis Jacobsz. 1637).
228. The tale here is not solely a Dutch one, however, since large-scale rethinking of the usury problem preceded the Dutch seventeenth century. See, e.g., JOHN T. NOONAN, JR., THE SCHOLASTIC ANALYSIS OF USURY 365-73 (1957).
229. This Article is not the place to develop any grand theories of the ultimate causes of the rise of Dutch commerce. I would simply like to emphasize that my analysis, far from arguing that Roman law "caused" the rise of commerce, inevitably assumes that some other, larger explanation for the commercial revolution is necessary. I should also note in particular that my analysis leaves open some large and important questions about market structure and credit practices. The shift from regulation of price to regulation of quality, see supra text accompanying notes 83-92, undoubtedly reflects in part the development of thicker markets, with participation by merchants who were specialists in their goods. Compare the description of the grain bourse supra note 79 and accompanying text. The development of the bankruptcy practices I trace, see supra text accompanying notes 135-48, may also assume important larger shifts in Dutch credit markets. I do not discuss these issues, not because they are not of importance, but because it is proper to leave them to one side in an Article whose narrow topic is the moral impact of Roman law.
230. I model the phrase in quotation marks from the famous discussion of WIEACKER, supra note 31, at 131.
231. I should emphasize that I do not mean to claim that commercial values of the kind whose rise I trace here were necessarily to be found in the world of antiquity; I mean only that they were to be found in the texts of Roman law as known in later European centuries. The practice of commerce in antiquity may well have varied from anything to be found in the Roman legal texts. To what extent practice and learned opinion were at odds in antiquity is a problem I must of course leave to the side in this Article.
232. The greatest odd partial exception is of course Gierke, who was well aware of the Christian roots of much of what he discussed. See, for example, the texts translated in OTTO GIERKE, ASSOCIATIONS AND THE LAW: THE CLASSICAL AND EARLY CHRISTIAN STAGES (G. Heiman ed. & trans., 1977).
233. SCHMIDT, supra note 21, at 49, 60.
234. For the Nazi-era literature, see Wacke, supra note 63, at 186-88; for the fallaciousness of traditional German claims about the character of Germanic law, see id. at 202.
235. Compare the remarkable conclusions of Josef Kohler with regard to Dutch law, see KOHLER, supra note 38, at 247 (describing Dutch commerce as embodying "pure Germanic" values). Great scholar though he was, Kohler remained nationalistically blind to the Roman law in the Dutch sources - even though he was perfectly able, with regard to individual institutions, to see their roots in the medieval Roman tradition. See, e.g., id. at 250-51, 255. See especially Kohler's bizarre nationalistic conclusions, id. at 250-51, recommending a deeper study of medieval Roman law, on the grounds that it was the accomplishment of the later medieval Roman lawyers to "preserve Germanic law." For this nationalistic tendency more broadly, see FEENSTRA, supra note 98, at 7-8.
236. Compare the wise remarks of Peter Landau in Peter Landau, Der Einfluß des kanonischen Rechts auf die europäische Rechtskultur, in EUROPÄISCHE RECHTS- UND VERFASSUNGSGESCHICHTE: ERGEBNISSE UND PERSPEKTIVEN DER FORSCHUNG 39 (R. Schulze ed., 1991), lamenting the dominance of a nineteenth-century conception of history that reduced legal developments to a conflict between German and Roman law. I should emphasize that in characterizing the conflict as predominantly one between Roman and Christian traditions, I do not mean to deny the existence of forms of an early nationalism in authors like Grotius, whose Inleiding was of course intended to speak to a Dutch audience, or even Udemans, who cared in his own way, too, about the "Fatherland." See supra notes 107, 46. I mean only to make the obvious point that neither author saw any conflict between love of the Fatherland and acceptance of Roman law; and that the conflicts over commercial morality that left their mark on both authors are best understood as conflicts between, in the first place, Christianity and aspects of the classical tradition. I should also emphasize that I do not mean, by invoking the importance of Christianity, to deny that there were, in some sense, "popular" or secular traditions at work; as we have seen, the Christian and the secular were deeply interwoven. I mean only to say that if you pressed an early-modern European to explain what it was that justified "popular" traditions, you could expect, ultimately, to be told that those traditions were the traditions of a Christian people. Cf. Bergfeld, supra note 101, at 147 (medieval and early-modern persons "lived simultaneously in a sacred and a secular realm," with further discussion of the difficulty in fully distinguishing secular from religious law).
237. One other interpretive possibility deserves some attention. It is tempting to attribute the developments I trace here, in an indirect way, to the impact of the Reformation. In particular, it is tempting to attribute them to the typically Protestant decline of confession in Holland, linked with the greater circulation of moral and legal teachings in the vernacular. In Catholic Europe, we might argue, the hallowed doctrines of Roman law and Christian theology were communicated in sophisticated form to the priesthood, and passed on from the priesthood to the laity in confession. In Holland, by contrast, those doctrines were circulated directly to the lay community, in the form of the sort of vernacular texts I have used here. Dutch Christians, we might thus say, were offered the teachings of Roman law and Christian morality directly, with the typically Protestant injunction that they judge for themselves; and this, we might argue, explained the wider acceptance of Roman law that my evidence seems to show. For an observation supporting something like this line of argument, see VINER, supra note 12, at 49 (observing that sophisticated economic teachings, which were presented to the Catholic world only in Latin, "maintained a secluded existence in the seminaries and the confessional"). The same was, of course, not the case in Holland. The prime difficulty, however, with this line of argument, is that it should hold true not only of Holland, but of much of the rest of Protestant Europe. For that reason, I have resisted developing it in the text. Nevertheless, I do want to note its attractiveness as an interpretive hypothesis.
238. As in the full title of his work, Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft. Grundbegriffe der reinen Soziologie ("Community and Society: Basic Concepts of Pure Sociology"), see TÖNNIES, supra note 23. In Tönnies's search for "basic concepts" we should arguably see, again, the influence of an aspect of German legal thought: here, the influence of Begriffsjurisprudenz, of the "Jurisprudence of Concepts." For a fine English-language introduction to the Jurisprudence of Concepts, see Matthias Reimann, Nineteenth Century German Legal Science, 31 B.C. L. REV. 837 (1990).
239. For the engagement of the learned jurists with practical problems, see Zimmermann, supra note 37, at 1712-13. For the tendency of some of their thinking to dovetail with developments in practice, see supra text accompanying note 105. The jurists could, however, quite comfortably be interested in practice while maintaining a hostility to commercial values. On that hostility, see the remarks of LICHTENAUER, GESCHIEDENIS, supra note 37, at 26-29, 56-59, 71; and discussion supra note 144. The existence of such at least intermittent hostility means that we must be cautious in our use of the learned literature, as I hope Professor Zimmermann would agree.