merchant or craftsman so as to form a kind of society does not transfer the ownership of the money to them, for it remains his, so that at his risk the merchant speculates with it, or the craftsman uses it for his craft, and consequently he may lawfully demand, as something belonging to him, part of the profits derived from his money.’[2] This dictum of Aquinas was the foundation of all the later teaching on partnership, and the importance of the element of risk was insisted on in strong terms by the later writers.  According to Baldus, ’when there is no sharing of risk there is no partnership’;[3] and Paul de Castro says, ’A partnership when the gain is shared, but not the loss, is not to be permitted.’[4] ‘The legitimacy,’ says Brants, ’of the contract of commenda always rested upon the same principle; capital could not be productive except for him who worked it himself, or who caused it to be worked on his own responsibility.  This latter condition was realised in commenda.’[5]

[Footnote 1:  Greg.  Decr., iv. 19, 7.]

[Footnote 2:  II. ii. 78, 2, ad. 5.]

[Footnote 3:  Brants, op. cit., p. 167.]

[Footnote 4:  Consilia, ii. 55; also Ambrosius de Vignate, De Usuris, i. 62; Biel, Op. cit., IV. xv. 11.]

[Footnote 5:  Op. cit., p. 172.]

Although the contract of partnership was fully recognised by the scholastics, it was not very scientifically treated, nor were the different species of the contract systematically classified.  The only classification adopted was to divide contracts of partnership into two kinds—­those where both parties contributed labour to a joint enterprise, and those where one party contributed labour and the other party money.  The former gave no difficulty, because the justice of the remuneration of labour was admitted; but, while the latter was no less fully recognised, cases of it were subjected to careful scrutiny, because it was feared that usurious contracts might be concealed under the appearance of a partnership.[1] The question which occupied the greatest space in the treatises on the subject was the share in which the profits should be divided between the parties.  The only rule which could be laid down, in the absence of an express contract, was that the parties should be remunerated in proportion to the services which they contributed—­a rule the application of which must have been attended with enormous difficulties.  Laurentius de Rodulphis insists that equality must be observed;[2] and Angelus de Periglis de Perusio, the first monographist on the subject, does not throw much more light on the question.  The rule as stated by this last writer is that in the first place the person contributing money must be repaid a sum equal to what he put in, and the person contributing labour must be paid a sum equal to the value of his labour, and that whatever surplus remains must be divided between the two parties