[Footnote 1:  Brants, op. cit., p. 9.]

[Footnote 2:  Ashley, op. cit., p. 381.]

Let us say in passing that the assumption that the mediaeval teaching grew out of contemporary practice, rather than that the latter grew out of the former, is one which does not find acceptance among the majority of the students of the subject.  The problem whether a correct understanding of mediaeval economic life can be best attained by first studying the teaching or the practice is possibly no more soluble than the old riddle of the hen and the egg; but it may at least be argued that there is a good deal to be said on both sides.  The supporters of the view that practice moulded theory are by no means unopposed.  There is no doubt that in many respects the exigencies of everyday commercial concerns came into conflict with the tenets of canon law and scholastic opinion; but the admission of this fact does not at all prove that the former was the element which modified the latter, rather than the latter the former.  In so far as the expansion of commerce and the increasing complexity of intercourse raised questions which seemed to indicate that mercantile convenience conflicted with received teaching, it is probable that the difficulty was not so much caused by a contradiction between the former and the latter, as by the fact that an interpretation of the doctrine as applied to the facts of the new situation was not available before the new situation had actually arisen.  This is a phenomenon frequently met with at the present day in legal practice; but no lawyer would dream of asserting that, because there had arisen an unprecedented state of facts, to which the application of the law was a matter of doubt or difficulty, therefore the law itself was obsolete or incomplete.  Examples of such a conflict are familiar to any one who has ever studied the case law on any particular subject, either in a country such as England, where the law is unwritten, or in continental countries, where the most exhaustive and complete codes have been framed.  Nevertheless, in spite of the occurrence of such difficulties, it would be foolish to contend that the laws in force for the time being have not a greater influence on the practice of mercantile transactions than the convenience of merchants has upon the law.  How much more potent must this influence have been when the law did not apply simply to outward observances, but to the inmost recesses of the consciences of believing Christians!

The opinion that mediaeval teaching exercised a profound effect on mediaeval practice is supported by authorities of the weight of Ashley, Ingram, and Cunningham,[1] the last of whom was in some respects unsympathetic to the teaching the influence of which he rates so highly.  ‘It has indeed,’ writes Sir William Ashley, ’not infrequently been hinted that all the elaborate argumentation of canonists and theologians was “a cobweb of the brain,” with no vital relation to real life.  Certain