The Merchant in the Confessional: Trade and Price in the Pre-Reformation Penitential Handbooks

by Odd Langholm, O. Langholm

Overview

This volume deals with norms relating to trade and price expressed in handbooks designed for the education of confessors or as aids in the confessional. Parts I and II trace the development of such norms from the earliest times to the Reformation. Some ninety penitential handbooks are analyzed, with biographical sketches of the authors. Part III provides a general overview of penitential trade and price doctrine with an emphasis on the late major Italian summas and compares this doctrine with secular economic thought in the Renaissance and later. The main contribution of this book to the history of thought is its examination of economic activity from the point of view of sin and penance as taught by the medieval Church.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9789004129047
Publisher:	Brill Academic Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	12/18/2002
Series:	Studies in Medieval and Reformation Traditions Series , #93
Pages:	296
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.60(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Odd Langholm, dr. Oecon. (Bergen, 1964), is Emeritus Professor of Economics at the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration. He has published extensively in medieval and early modern thought, including Economics in the Medieval Schools (Brill, 1992).

Table of Contents

Preface

Introduction

PART I. TRANSALPINE AND IBERIAN AUTHORS
1. The libri poentitentiales and their early successors
2. The Dominican tradition from Raymond of Peñafort
3. The Dominican tradition from John of Freiburg
4. The Franciscan tradition
5. Miscellaneous works

PART II. ITALIAN AUTHORS
6. The Franciscan tradition to Bernardino of Siena
7. The Dominican tradition to Savonarola
8. The Franciscan tradition: Nicolò of Osimo, Bartolomeo Caimi, Pacifico of Cerano
9. The Franciscan tradition: Angelo Carletti
10. The Franciscan tradition: Battista Trovamala
11. The Franciscan tradition: minor and later works
12. Miscellaneous works
13. The Dominican tradition in the sixteenth century

PART III. DOCTRINAL AND HISTORICAL OVERVIEW
14. The pitfalls of trade
15. The benchmarks of price
16. The fortunes of avarice

Bibiliography
Index of Names