Theologians and Contract Law The Moral Transformation of the Ius Commune (ca. 1500-1650) By Decock S NIJHOFF PUBLISHERS LEIDEN BOSTON 2013
Acknowledgments Prologue Notes on the Text and Its Modes of Reference xv xvii xix 1 Method and Direction 1 1.1 Research hypothesis 1 Research design 8 1.3 Selection of sources 14 2 Theologians and Contract Contextual Elements 21 2.1 Theologians and the ius commune 22 2x1 Law and theology? 22 2x2 The ius commune in Spain and its theological status 28 2x3 A syncretic legal culture 40 2.2 From manuals for confessors to systematic legal treatises 44 2.2.1 Symbiosis versus separation and morality... 44 2.2.2 The Dominicans at Salamanca and the renewal of the Catholic tradition 49 22.3 The Jesuits and the reinforcement of the symbiosis 55 2.3 Moral jurisprudence and the court of conscience 69 A court for the soul and the truth 69 A concept of morality 73 A plurality of legal sources 24 Enforcement mechanisms Norms and force 24.2 Evangelical denunciation and the power of the keys...... 88 Secret compensation 3 Toward a General Law of Contract 3.1 Introduction 32 The roads to consensualism Haunted by the Romans The civilian tradition Classical convulsions 115
3.2.2 The refreshing spirit of canon law 121 3.2.2.1 Pacta quantumcumque nuda servanda 122 3.2.2.2 Causa 130 3.2.3 A new world: the victory of consensualism 142 3.2.3.1 Natural law 143 3.2.3.2 In utroqueforo hodie ex pacto nudo ius agendi 153 3.3 The making of contractual obligation 162 Liberty and the will 3.3.1.1 Contrahentibus restituta 163 3.3.1.2 Voluntas libertatem 166 De contractibus in genere 170 3.3.2 All accepted promises are binding 178 First requirement: animus obligandi 178 3.3.2.2 Second requirement: promissio externa 182 3.3.2.3 Third requirement: promissio acceptata 187 3.3.3 The interpretation of contractual obligation 192 Fictitious and doubtful promises 192 Legally vs morally binding promises 197 Implied conditions and changed circumstances 202 34 Grotius 208 Conclusion 4 Natural Limitations on 'Freedom of 215 Introduction Duress 42.1 Foundations law 216 42x2 The Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition 219 Soto: me virtues of constancy and courage 224 Covarruvias at the confluence of scholasticism and humanism 225 Molina: duress makes contracts void ab initio 42.2 Sanchez's doctrine of duress 234 Duress the of marriage 234 42.2.2 The constant of coercion 236
ix 4.2.2.2.1 Promoting virtue, protecting the weak 236 4.2.2.2.2 The constant man, his relatives, and his friends 240 4.2.2.2.3 The constant man, his property, and his profits 243 Pressure and flattery 247 42.24 Reverential fear 250 42.2.5 Void vs voidable contracts 254 The Jesuit moral theologians and the casuistry of duress 259 42.31 Duress and general contract doctrine 259 Contract as a means of escaping a threat... 261 42.3.3 The use and abuse of litigation rights 263 Minor fear 267 Void vs voidable contracts 268 4.24 A brief synthesis of the scholastic tradition on duress (Grotius) Mistake 274 Foundations law 274 Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition Nullity ipso facto and the / stricti iuris distinction 283 Is mistake the will? A humanist scholastic canon lawyer on good faith vs strict law mistake makes contracts void ab initio 297 Sanchez: delictual and criminal liability 303 A swansong to nullity ab initio 305 Voidability and the end of the iuris distinction 308 The format Lessius' revolution General application voidability 311 General application the tacit 315 Voidability without tacit condition The impossible synthesis of the scholastic tradition on mistake (Grotius) 321 44 Conclusion
X CONTENTS 5 Formal Limitations on 'Freedom of Contract' 329 5.1 Introduction 329 5.2 The post-glossators and testaments 331 5.2.1 Natural equity 331 5.2.2 Substantial formalities 333 5.3 The decretalists and the consensualist turn 337 5.3.1 Contracts, elections, and last wills 337 5.3.2 Formalities against fraud and deceit 339 A general principle of 342 5.34 Teleological interpretations of positive law 5.3.5 The triumph of equity and conscience 346 5.4 Theologians for formalism I: the absolutistic version 352 Property, contracts, and restitution 353 Individual property and the State 358 The moral enforcement of State regulation 362 544 Against teleological interpretation 365 The politics of conscience 366 5.5 Theologians for formalism II: the diplomatic version 369 Property, exchange, and the common good 369 Technical nuances and academic courtesy 374 The absoluteness of positive law 376 The equation of legal and spiritual security 380 Contracts and last wills vs marriage and election... 381 Early modern canon the imperatives the State... 384 Contracts for third-party beneficiaries 385 Moral vs legal natural debt 387 assisting or tolerating natural obligation 390 The triumph of Spanish statutory law 393 Defective testaments: naturally but not in conscience 398 5.7 Theologians and formalism HI: the critical approach 399 5.7.1 The disjunction of the debates on testaments and contracts 399 5.7.2 Moderate formalism in contracts and the resurgence of equity 400 Restoring the primacy the will in testaments 403 the political and leges irritatoriae 406 Lessius against Covarruvias 410 Conclusion 416
6 Substantive Limitations of Contract' 419 6.1 Introduction 6.2 Sex, theologians and contract law 420 6.2.1 Immoral object vs immoral motive 420 6.2.2 Roman canon law and the nullity of immoral contracts 422 6.3 Prostitution and the restitution 425 Illicit acquisition vs acquisition by virtue of an illicit cause 425 6.32 Leasing a right use body 429 The the sinner, and the Digest 430 6.34 Sex for sale The domina's (quasi-)contractual claim to a wage... 433 64 Moralists, realists, theologians and canonists The rigorist approach 437 64x1 Sex outside wedlock is mortal sin 437 I: Augustinianism 439 64x3 Medina II: waiting for the liberal fornicator 443 642 The pragmatic approach Soto on the moral limits to 'freedom of 447 The market price for sex 642.3 Theological psychoanalysis 452 Thomistic canon law 455 The prostitute's right to remuneration 455 64.3.2 Unjust enrichment and secret prostitutes... 457 644 A moralizing and experienced teacher Envy in the canon law faculty Moral worthlessness and lack of economic and juridical force 464 College freshmen and the plea against tolerating prostitution 6.5 The Jesuits and a general doctrine of immoral promises... 472 6.5a The market price for services Immoral and impossible conditions Immoral promises invalid as a matter of natural law
Xii CONTENTS 6.5.4 Immoral promises invalid as a matter of positive law 485 6.5.5 The politics good morals (boni mores) 486 6.5.6 Morality and the final motivating cause 490 6.5.7 Sex as a luxury good and the stylus 492 6.6 Grotius enjoying scholastic wisdom 494 6.7 Concluding observations on sex and the early modem theologians 496 6.7.1 Classification and analysis the opinions 496 the protection of... 499 6.7.3 Invalidity versus immorality and illegality 501 6.74 Contract law and unjust enrichment 7 Fairness in Exchange 507 7.1 Introduction 507 7.2 The point of gravity: just pricing Justitia 7.2x1 Enriching contracts Restitution Justum pretium 519 Demystifying just price 519 Utility and necessity Laesio enormis 529 C. 444,2 and the ius commune 529 Aristotehan-Thomistic tradition 532 7.3 Contractual fairness in early modem scholasticism I 536 A clash between legal and moral principles 537 7.3x1 Roman maxims vs Christian morals 537 Just pricing vs gift-making 541 A clash between secular and spiritual jurisdictions 544 Enforcing contractual equilibrium 545 Competing for normative power 74 for dummies: the systematic approach 553 The court 554 74x1 The renunciability of C. 4442 555 74x2 Gifts are not presumed 557 742 The internal court 560 Reason of sin vs reason of state 560 Unjust enrichment Gifts are not presumed 563
Xiii 7.5 Lesion for the advanced: the critical approach 566 7.5.1 Socio-political foundations 567 7.5.1.1 Individual property and rights 568 7.5.1.2 The principle 569 7.5.2 A humanist critique 572 7.5.2.1 Novum ius 572 7.5.2.2 The myth dolus re ipsa 573 7.5.2.3 Circumscribing invicem se 577 7.5.3 Philology meets equity 581 The of C. 582 7.5.32 A humanist jurist more Catholic than the theologians? 587 7.6 Contractual fairness in early modern scholasticism II 589 Theory: the moral menace of Roman law 590 7.62 Practice: playing the market game 592 7.7 Grotius and the legacy of fairness in exchange 7.8 Conclusion 601 8 Theologians and Contract Common Themes 605 8.1 Between freedom and justice 606 8.2 Between Church and State 8.3 Between medieval and modem Bibliography Index of Names Index of Terms