Part
1 of the essay
Marcia
Colish in her chapter on the Legacy of Scholasticism claims that according to the
most influential theorists between the fifth and the thirteenth centuries, “the
right to property was not absolute.” Explain how Colish arrives at this
conclusion. In your concluding paragraph, give your evaluation/perspective on
views held by these theorists of property. What do you find acceptable or
objectionable in the medieval view of property?
At
the analysis of a question on the property in the Middle Ages very important
was to consider that self-maintenance of the direct manufacturer, reproduction
him as member of a community, corporation was the purpose of manufacture both
in agriculture, and in craft first of all, and maintenance of its feudal
seigneur is equal also. Profit reception, стяжание, accumulation of riches were alien большей to a part of
members of this society; the exception was made by church, a merchant layer of
urban population and a nobility part, however mainly already during an epoch of
the «mature» and late Middle Ages, instead of at the beginning of it.
During the period of the early Middle Ages the riches were necessary for a
ruling class first of all as means of consumption, satisfaction of personal and
class requirements, instead of as an accumulation and enrichment source. 
Thus
it is necessary to mean mainly wood landscape of Average and Northern Europe.
Pretty often people lodged not in the big compact weights, and small groups of
several families or separate families at some distance from each other.
Separated sometimes in the big distances, separate owners cultivated the
isolated sites. They have been connected among themselves by using not divided
grounds, necessity of protection of the earths from encroachments of extraneous
persons, requirement for joint maintenance of an order, observance of customs,
cult departure. 
When
some owners used the sites located side by side, inevitably there were
schedules to which all should submit, but these schedules did not create any
special right of the collective property so alien to consciousness of
barbarians, as well as the right of a private property to the earth.
					







Thus,
the property here meant only the relation of the person to conditions of its
manufacture or reproduction as to the, and these conditions of production were
not result of work of the farmer, and its precondition. The property in the
specified sense was reduced to assignment of conditions of subjective activity
of the making individual and carried out only through manufacture. The concept
of the general property has completely developed only when the rights of
separate owners to grounds belonging to them as together with it there was a
requirement for differentiation of the general and private began to be individualised.
Part
2 of the essay
In
her discussion of Thomas Aquinas and the use of money, Colish says that Aquinas
“enlists Aristotelian teleology as a weapon against the profit motive.” Colish
then goes on to conclude that Aquinas’ original argument is a “triumph of
Aristotelian metaphysics over economic reality.” Using your own words, give a
careful summary of Colish’s interpretation of Aquinas and show how effectively
she makes her case for the decisive influence of Aristotle on Aquinas’ theory
of money and its use. 
Thomas
Aquinas recognises that trade and dealers are necessary in the state.
Certainly, it would be better, if each state made all that is necessary for it
but as it is seldom possible it is necessary to reckon with activity of
merchants, even the foreign. 
But
the trading activity directed to a fair exchange, should used with requirements
of Christian ethics. Without stopping on the scholastic form of a statement and
on purely theological reasons, we will note the thoughts interesting from the
point of view of development of economic ideas. 
Needless
to say that all versions of a deceit are exposed to strict condemnation. Lips
of sacred Thomas Aquinas the church demands, that the seller found out goods
lacks and that the buyer did not use an error or ignorance of the seller. 
More
difficultly and more interestingly a question and laws of transactions in which
the obvious deceit (goods latent defects) is not present. In what measure the
seller can search for profits and rise the price, and the buyer to try to buy
more cheaply the usual price? 
From
the point of view of Christian morals, profit search in itself is inadmissible.
But depending on circumstances possibility to admit additional compensation
against a simple equivalent on one of two reasons opens. The seller, conceding
a subject belonging to it to the buyer at the price of the higher, exact
equality of equivalents, maybe, rather than would demand that average
compensation which is necessary on the general conditions leaves a subject which
deprivation makes for it a personal damage and fall more considerable, than.
This subjective surplus — a damage rather with average value — should be
compensated on justice. It is easy to see that Thomas Aquinas ‘s these
reasonings make a starting point so-called damhum emergens. 
Other
motivation of additional profit — as compensations for the special benefits
resulting for the buyer from a subject of sale is possible also. But this
qualification Thomas Aquinas does not recognise, because nobody can sell that
does not belong to it, and in this case special benefit is a condition entered,
not dependent on the seller. 
Besides
this subjective moment ennobling value of a thing, Thomas Aquinas supposes also
other rather essential conditions, but, unfortunately, does not develop more in
detail the thoughts in this direction and is limited to that marks supervising
reasons. Thus, it becomes clear that for Thomas Aquinas the main business in
the purpose of any business. For the sake of the help poor, either household
maintenance, or advantage public it is possible to search for profits in
trading business. There is no need to extend, what gap is punched by this
assumption in the doctrine about strict balance of equivalents. The second
assumption is even more considerable — work grants the right to a merchant to
search, compensations — in this case profits. Thomas Aquinas does not explain,
however, conditions of such work. There is also in a shade a vital issue about
ways of definition of the fair price.
Other
question is a question on the credit. From the point of view of the doctrine
about the fair price Thomas Aquinas does not suppose an eminence of the price
depending on a delay of payment or its reduction owing to premature payment. As
to using the capital, whether it be money or other subjects, it cannot be aloof
separately from the subject and consequently any sale on credit is usury.
In
scholastic motivation the main reason of prohibition of sale on credit lay even
more deeply. It stood in connection with the general prohibition of a loan
under the percent, leaning against the doctrine about futility of money. Having
acquired Aristotle’s sight on which money is only a criterion of value and the
loan is considered mainly from the point of view of transfer and returning of
money, the scholasticism with Thomas Aquinas at the head has developed curious,
though also absolutely false doctrine about impossibility of a percentage loan.
The essence of this doctrine is reduced to thought that subject transfer by one
person to another informs the last the property of a thing and the new
proprietor thereby gets using. Raises special compensation for using the known
sum of money would be to equivalently double sale of the same subject. The one
who has sold a wine bottle, cannot besides, raise compensation for the right to
drink this wine.