Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/368

Rh 352 POLITICAL E C N M Y In the latter portion of the Middle Ages several circum stances came into action which greatly modified these con ditions. The crusades undoubtedly produced a powerful economic effect by transferring in many cases the posses sions of the feudal chiefs to the industrious classes, whilst by bringing different nations and races into contact, by enlarging the horizon and widening the conceptions of the populations, as well as by affording a special stimulus to navigation, they tended to give a new activity to interna tional trade. The independence of the towns and the rising importance of the burgher class supplied a counter poise to the power of the land aristocracy ; and the strength of these new social elements was increased by the corporate constitution given to the urban industries, the police of the towns being also founded on the trade guilds, as that of the country districts was on the feudal relations. The increasing demand of the towns for the products of agriculture gave to the prosecution of that art a more extended and speculative character ; and this again led to improved methods of transport and communication. But the range of commercial enterprise continued everywhere narrow, except in some favoured centres, such as the Italian republics, in which, however, the growth of the normal habits of industrial life was impeded or perverted by military ambition, which was not, in the case of those communities, checked as it was elsewhere by the pressure of an aristocratic class. Every great change of opinion on the destinies of man and the guiding principles of conduct must react on the sphere of material interests ; and the Catholic religion had a powerful influence on the economic life of the Middle Ages. Christianity inculcates, perhaps, no more effectively than the older religions the special economic virtues of industry, thrift, fidelity to engagements, obedience to law ful authority; but it brought out more forcibly and presented more persistently the higher aims of life, and so produced a more elevated way of viewing the different social relations. It purified domestic life, a reform which has the most important economic results. It taught the doctrine of fundamental human equality, heightened the dignity of labour, and preached with quite a new emphasis the obligations of love, compassion, and forgiveness, and the claims of the poor. The constant presentation to the general mind and conscience of these ideas, the dogmatic bases of which were scarcely as yet assailed by scepticism, must have had a powerful effect in moralizing life. But to the influence of Christianity as a moral doctrine was added that of the church as an organization, charged with the application of that doctrine to men s daily transactions. Besides the teachings of the sacred books, there was a mass of ecclesiastical legislation providing specific prescriptions for the conduct of the faithful. And this legislation dealt with the economic as with other provinces of social activity. In the Corpus Juris Cancmici, which condenses the result of centuries of study and effort, along with much else is set out what we may call the Catholic economic theory, if we understand by theory, not a reasoned explanation of phenomena, but a body of ideas leading to prescriptions for the guidance of conduct. Life is here looked at from the point of view of spiritual interests; the aim is to establish and maintain amongst men a true kingdom of God. The canonists are friendly to the notion of a community of goods from the side of sentiment (&quot; Dulcissima rerum possessio communis est&quot;), though they regard the distinc tion of meum and tuurn as an institution necessitated by the fallen state of man. In cases of need the public authority is justified in re-establishing pro hoc vice the primitive community. The care of the poor is not a matter of free choice ; the relief of their necessities is Jebitum legate. Avaritia is idolatry; ctipiditas, even when it does not grasp at what is another s, is the root of all evil, and ought to be not merely regulated but eradicated. Agriculture and handiwork are viewed as legitimate modes of earning food and clothing ; but trade is regarded with disfavour, because it was held almost certainly to lead to fraud : of agriculture it was said, &quot;Deo non displicet&quot;; but of the merchant, &quot; Deo placere non potest.&quot; The seller was bound to fix the price of his wares, not according to the market rate, as determined by supply and demand, but according to their intrinsic value (justum pretium}. He must not conceal the faults of his merchandise, nor take advantage of the need or ignorance of the buyer to obtain from him more than the fair price. Interest on money is forbidden ; the prohibition of usury is, indeed, as Roscher says, the centre of the whole canonistic system of economy, as well as the foundation of a great part of the ecclesias tical jurisdiction. The question whether a transaction was or was not usurious turning mainly on the intentions of the parties ; the innocence or blameworthiness of deal ings in which money was lent became rightfully a subject of determination for the church, either by her casuists or in her courts. The foregoing principles point towards a noble ideal, but by their ascetic exaggeration they worked in some directions as an impediment to industrial progress. Thus, whilst, with the increase of production, a greater division of labour and a larger employment of borrowed capital naturally followed, the laws on usury tended to hinder this expansion. Hence they were undermined by various exceptions, or evaded by fictitious transactions. These laws were in fact dictated by, and adapted to, early condi tions to a state of society in which money loans were commonly sought either with a view to wasteful pleasures or for the relief of such urgent distress as ought rather to have been the object of Christian beneficence. But they were quite unsuited to a period in which capital was borrowed for ends useful to the public, for the extension of enter prise and the employment of labour. The absolute theo logical spirit in this, as in other instances, could not admit the modification in rules of conduct demanded by a new social situation ; and vulgar good sense better understood what were the fundamental conditions of industrial life. When the intellectual activity previously repressed by the more urgent claims of social preoccupations tended to revive towards the close of the mediaeval period, the want of a rational appreciation of the whole of human affairs was felt, and was temporarily met by the adoption of the results of the best Greek speculation. Hence we find in the writings of St Thomas Aquinas the political and economic doctrines of Aristotle reproduced with a partial infusion of Christian elements. His adherence to his master s point of view is strikingly shown by the fact that he accepts (at least if he is the author of the De Regimine Prindpum) his theory of slavery, though by the action of the forces of his own time the last relics of that institution were being eliminated from European society. This great change the enfranchisement of the working classes was the most important practical outcome of the Middle Ages. The first step in this movement was the transformation of slavery, properly so called, into serfdom. The latter is, by its nature, a transitory condition. The serf was bound to the soil, had fixed domestic relations, and participated in the religious life of the society ; and the tendency of all his circumstances, as well as of the opinions and sentiments of the time, was in the direction of liberation. This issue was, indeed, not so speedily reached by the rural as by the urban workman. Already in the second phase serfdom is abolished in the cities and towns, whilst agricultural serfdom does not disappear