The Grete Sentence of Curs Expouned, chap. XXVIII (Select English Works of Wyclif, ed. T. Arnold, vol. III, p. 333). The passage contains comprehensive denunciations of all sorts of combination, in particular, gilds, “men of sutel craft, as fre masons and othere,” and “marchauntis, groceris, and vitileris” who “conspiren wickidly togidre that noon of hem schal bie over a certeyn pris, though the thing that thei bien be moche more worthi” (ibid., pp. 333, 334).
Wyclif’s argument is of great interest and importance. It is (1), that such associations for mutual aid are unnecessary. No special institutions are needed to promote fraternity, since, quite apart from them, all members of the community are bound to help each other: “Alle the goodnes that is in thes gildes eche man owith for to do bi comyn fraternyte of Cristendom, by Goddis comaundement.” (2) That combinations are a conspiracy against the public. Both doctrines were points in the case for the sovereignty of the unitary State, and both were to play a large part in subsequent history. They were used by the absolutist statesmen of the sixteenth century as an argument for State control over industry, in place of the obstructive torpor of gilds and boroughs, and by the individualists of the eighteenth century as an argument for free competition. The line of thought as to the relation of minor associations to the State runs from Wyclif to Turgot, Rousseau, Adam Smith, the Act of the Legislative Assembly in 1792 forbidding trade unions (“Les citoyens de même état ou profession, les ouvriers et compagnons d’un art quelconque ne pourront … former des règlements sur leurs prétendus intérêts communs”), and the English Combination Acts. ↩
Kayser Sigmunds Reformation aller Ständen des Heiligen Römischen Reichs, printed by Goldast, Collectio Constitutionum Imperialium, 1713, vol. IV, pp. 170–200. Its probable date appears to be about 1437. It is discussed shortly by J. S. Schapiro, Social Reform and the Reformation, 1909, pp. 93–9. ↩
Martin Saint-Léon, Histoire des Corporations de Métiers, 3rd ed., 1922, p. 187. The author’s remark is made apropos of a ruling of 1270, fixing minimum rates for textile workers in Paris. It appears, however, to be unduly optimistic. The fact that minimum rates were fixed for textile workers must not be taken as evidence that that policy was common, for in England, and probably in France, the textile trades received special treatment, and minimum rates were fixed for them, while maximum rates were fixed for other, and much more numerous, bodies of workers. What is true is that the medieval assumption with regard to wages, as with regard to the much more important question of prices, was that it was possible to bring them into an agreement with an objective standard of equity, which did not reflect the mere play of economic forces. ↩
“The Cardinals’ Gospel,” translated from the Carmina Burana by G. G. Coulton, in A Mediæval Garner, 1910, p. 347. ↩
Printed from the Carmina Burana by S. Gaselee, An Anthology of Medieval Latin, 1925, pp. 58–9. ↩
Innocent IV gave them in 1248 the title of “Romanæ ecclesiæ filii speciales” (Ehrenberg, Das Zeitalter der Fugger, 1896, vol. II, p. 66). ↩
For Grosstête see Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora, vol. V, pp. 404–5 (where he is reported as denouncing the Cahorsines, “whom in our time the holy fathers and teachers … had driven out of France, but who have been encouraged and protected by the Pope in England, which did not formerly suffer from this pestilence”), and F. S. Stevenson, Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, 1899, pp. 101–4. For the bishop of London and the Cahorsines see Matthew Paris, Chron. Maj., vol. III, pp. 331–2. A useful collection of references on the whole subject is given by Ehrenberg, Das Zeitalter der Fugger, 1896, vol. II, pp. 64–8. ↩
Registrum Epistolarum J. Peckham, vol. I, p. 18, July 1279 (translated by Coulton, Social Life in Britain from the Conquest to the Reformation, p. 345). ↩
For cases of clerical usury see Selden Society, vol. V, 1891, Leet Jurisdiction in the City of Norwich, ed. W. Hudson, p. 35; Hist. MSS. Com., MSS. of the Marquis of Lothian, 1905, p. 26; and Th. Bonnin, Regestrum Visitationum Odonis Rigaldi, 1852, p. 35. See also note 88 (below). ↩
The Chapter of Notre-Dame appears to have lent money at interest to the citizens of Paris (A. Luchaire, Social France at the Time of Philip Augustus, translated by E. B. Krehbiel, 1912, p. 130). For the bishop’s advice to the usurer see ibid., p. 166. ↩
From a letter of St. Bernard, c. 1125, printed by Coulton, A Mediæval Garner, pp. 68–73. ↩
Aquinas,
