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Medieval communities felt strongly
about the prices merchants charged.
In 1321, William le Bole of London was
punished for selling underweight bread
by being dragged through the streets.
See also: Property rights 20–21 ■ Free market economics 54–61 ■ Supply and
demand 108–13 ■ Economics and tradition 166–67
prepared to pay, people stop
buying, so the merchants are forced
to bring down their prices. Market
economists consider the marketplace
to be the only way to establish
price, as nothing—not even gold—
has an intrinsic value.
A price freely accepted
The idea that the marketplace
should set prices seems to contrast
sharply with the view expressed by
Sicilian scholar Thomas Aquinas
in his Summa Theologica, one of
the first studies of the marketplace.
For Aquinas, a scholar monk, price
was a deeply moral issue. Aquinas
recognized avarice as a deadly sin,
but at the same time he saw that if
a merchant is deprived of the profit
incentive, he would cease to trade,
and the community would be
deprived of goods it needed.
Aquinas concluded that a
merchant may charge a “just price,”
which includes a decent profit, but
excludes excessive profiteering,
which is sinful. This just price is
simply the price the buyer freely
agrees to pay, given honest
information. The vendor is not
obliged to make the buyer aware
of facts that might lower the price
in the future, such as the shiploads
of cheap spice due to dock shortly.
The issues of price and morality
are very much alive today, since
both economists and the public
discuss “the just price” of a CEO’s
bonus or the minimum wage. Free
market economists, who reject
interference in the market, and
those who advocate government
intervention—whether for moral
or economic reasons—continue to
argue about the rights and wrongs
of imposing restrictions on pricing. ■Thomas Aquinas
St. Thomas Aquinas was one
of the greatest scholars of the
Middle Ages. He was born in
Aquino, Sicily, in 1225, to an
aristocratic family, and began
his education at the age of
five. At the age of 17 he
decided to leave worldly
wealth behind and join an
order of poor Dominican
monks. His family was so
shocked that they kidnapped
him on his way to join the
order and held him captive for
two years. His determination,
however, remained unbroken,
and eventually the family gave
in, letting him go to Paris,
where he came under the
tutelage of the scholar monk
Albert the Great (1206–80).
Aquinas studied and taught in
France and Italy, and in 1272,
founded a studium generale (a
type of university) in Naples,
Italy. His many philosophical
works were hugely influential
in paving the way to the
modern world.Key works1256–59 Disputed Questions
on Truth
1261–63 Summa contra
Gentiles
1265–73 Summa TheologicaLET TRADING BEGIN
No man should sell
a thing to another man
for more than its worth.
Thomas Aquinas