[Footnote 4:  Op. cit., p. 193.]

[Footnote 5:  History of Economic Thought, p. 75.]

Sec. 7. The Mediaeval Attitude towards Commerce.

Before passing from the question of price, we must discuss the legitimacy of the various occupations which were concerned with buying and selling.  The principal matter which arises for consideration in this regard is the attitude of the mediaeval theologians towards commerce.  Aquinas discusses the legitimacy of commerce in the same question in which he discusses just price, and indeed the two subjects are closely allied, because the importance of the observance of justice in buying and selling grew urgent as commerce extended and advanced.

In order to understand the disapprobation with which commerce was on the whole regarded in the Middle Ages, it is necessary to appreciate the importance of the Christian teaching on the dignity of labour.  The principle that, far from being a degrading or humiliating occupation, as it had been regarded in Greece and Rome, manual labour was, on the contrary, one of the most noble ways of serving God, effected a revolution in the economic sphere analogous to that which the Christian sanctification of marriage effected in the domestic sphere.  The Christian teaching on labour was grounded on the Divine precepts contained in both the Old and New Testaments,[1] and upon the example of Christ, who was Himself a working man.  The Gospel was preached amongst the poor, and St. Paul continued his humble labours during his apostolate.[2] A life of idleness was considered something to be avoided, instead of something to be desired, as it had been in the ancient civilisations.  Gerson says it is against the nature of man to wish to live without labour as usurers do,[3] and Langenstein inveighs against usurers and all who live without work.[4] ’We read in Sebastian Brant that the idlers are the most foolish amongst fools, they are to every people like smoke to the eyes or vinegar to the teeth.  Only by labour is God truly praised and honoured; and Trithemius says “Man is born to labour as the bird to fly, and hence it is contrary to the nature of man when he thinks to live without work."’[5] The example of the monasteries, where the performance of all sorts of manual labour was not thought inconsistent with the administration of the sacred offices and the pursuit of the highest intellectual exercises, acted as a powerful assertion to the laity of the dignity of labour in the scheme of things.[6] The value of the monastic example in this respect cannot be too highly estimated.  ’When we consider the results of the founding of monasteries,’ says Dr. Cunningham, ’we find influences at work that were plainly economic.  These communities can be best understood when we think of them as Christian industrial colonies, and remember that they moulded society rather by example than by precept.  We are so familiar with the attacks and satires on monastic life that were current at the Reformation period, that it may seem almost a paradox to say that the chief claim of the monks to our gratitude lies in this, that they helped to diffuse a better appreciation of the duty and dignity of labour.’[7]