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Metal, Money, and the Prince: John Buridan and Nicholas Oresme after Thomas Aquinas

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  • André Lapidus

Abstract

The monetary theories that stem from the works of Thomas Aquinas on the one hand, John Buridan and Nicholas Oresme on the other hand, share common roots: they appear as the result of careful commentaries upon Aristotle's moral and political works. Nonetheless, they differ on both the understanding of money as a measure of values, and on the conditions that allow the emergence of money from a stock of metals which could be, like natural wealth, allocated to different uses. Therefore, they illustrate respectively a "conventional" and a "metalist" theory of money. The question raised by Buridan's and Oresme's political representations is to make them consistent with monetary theories elaborated separately. In this respect, they supplied a composite picture in which the Prince is an essential character. Acting as the efficient cause of money, he is expected to achieve the adjustments required by the real changes affecting money. But the question of the debasements of money gave rise to different lines of answers. While Buridan concluded with an identification of the Prince and the common good, Oresme drew a Prince whose power is partly controlled through adequate institutions and incentives, partly limited by the consequences of his policy choices.
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Suggested Citation

  • André Lapidus, 1997. "Metal, Money, and the Prince: John Buridan and Nicholas Oresme after Thomas Aquinas," History of Political Economy, Duke University Press, vol. 29(1), pages 21-53, Spring.
    • Handle: RePEc:hop:hopeec:v:29:y:1997:i:1:p:21-53
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    Cited by:

    1. Pierre Januard, 2021. "Analysis risk and commercial risk: the first treatment of usury in Thomas Aquinas’s Commentary on the Sentences," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(4), pages 599-634, July.
    2. S. Drakopoulos & G.N. Gotsis, 2004. "A Meta-theoretical Assessment of the Decline of Scholastic Economics," History of Economics Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(1), pages 19-45, January.
    3. André Lapidus, 2023. "Hugo Grotius on Usury," Post-Print hal-03989450, HAL.
    4. Pierre Januard, 2022. "At the Boundaries of the Trading Sphere: The Appearance of the 'Just Price' in Thomas Aquinas's Commentary on the Sentences," Working Papers halshs-03658417, HAL.
    5. André Lapidus & Pierre Januard, 2024. "Usury and simony Trading for no price: Thomas Aquinas on money loans, sacraments and exchange - Chapter 7," Post-Print hal-04396111, HAL.
    6. Ludovic Desmedt & Jérôme Blanc, 2010. "Counteracting Counterfeiting? Bodin, Mariana, and Locke on False Money as a Multidimensional Issue," History of Political Economy, Duke University Press, vol. 42(2), pages 323-360, Summer.

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