Page 102 - Latent Defect or Excessive Price?Exploring Early Modern Legal Approach to Remedying Defects in Goods Exchanged for Money - Bruijn

CHAPTER THREE
lesion beyond moiety.114 According to Padilla y Meneses († 1589), Piñel, Molina and Oñate115, price bargaining and outwitting the other party is something natural to the sales contract.116
Covarrubias and Molina defend this not all too strict adherence to moral demands alleging the need to safeguard smooth trading practices. To demand an exact mathematical proportionality between price paid and thing exchanged would seriously impede commerce.117 Molina and Ioannis Matienzo (fl. 1559-1613)118 point at the need of preventing the greater evil of the overflooding of courts as a result of parties sueing one another for even the slightest deviation of the just price.119 Some leeway should be allowed in civil law to 'keep the societal fabric intact', as Matienzo has it in keeping with Aquinas and heralding Grotius' appetitus societatis as the fundamental norm civil law provisions should answer to.120 Alfonso de Azevedo († 1598)121 in his commentaries to the Nueva Recopilación argues in the same vein that men are naturally inclined to sin. Lawmakers should therefore allow sinful behaviour to a modest degree, because otherwise commercial transactions would come to nought. Moreover, he finds it not the task of
114 Medina, De poenitentia,q. 33, p. 201: \[C\] Quod autem in casu is qui defraudat sive excessivum pretium recipiendo sive diminutum tradendo teneatur restituere defraudato no dubitatur si defraudatio sit ultra dimidium iusti pretii, in quo tamen Iuristae, quam Theologi conveniunt'; Soto, De iustitia, to Aquinas 2a2ae, q. 77, a. 2, fo. 197v: 'in hoc particulari casu docet leges permittentes deceptionem citra dimidium iusti pretii, intelligi iure fori, sed non iure poli'; Mercado, Suma, lib. II, cap. XI, fo. 61-62v: 'Como no castiga al que engaña vendiendo a mas del justo precio, sino excede la mitad, o al que compro mas barato. Permite esto la ley civil, mas la divina no dexa cosa viciosa sin castigo. Segun la qual es muy illicito no guardar en la bendiciones la ygualdad de justicia y està obligado a restituyr lo de mas que llevo... Las leyes civiles como dessean cercenar pleytos, tuvieron por menos mal perdiesse el hombre lo que mas del justo precio valor le llevasen, como no pasasse el excesso de la mitad, que no se pleytasse siendo el engaño menor. Fuere un nunca acabar y un no poderse averiguar, estando en tan poco la differencia, mas la ley de Dios, que esta plantada en el alma que sin ningun executor exterior obliga, no permite semejante licencia, ni que se lleve por la mercaderia mas de lo que vale'; Molina, De iustitia, vol. 2, disp. 352, no. 16, p. 242: 'Si vero inaequalitas oriatur quia vel acceptum fuit ultra pretium iustum rigorosum, vel datum est infra pium ac infimum, tunc reduci in foro conscientiae debet ad aequalitatem, solum usque ad limites iusti, atque etiam in exteriori, si transgressio fuit infra, aut ultra dimidium iusti pretii'; Oñate, De contractibus, vol. 3, disp. 63.5, no. 129, p. 58.
115 For biographical data see Antonio, Bibliotheca Hispana, vol. 1, pp. 148-149.
116 Padilla y Meneses, Rescripta, to C. 4.44.2, no. 11, fo. 73v: 'Et ita in hunc sensum vera est hodie etiam
haec propositio licet contrahentibus naturaliter se decipere intra dimidiam iusti pretii, non quod natura hoc permittat, sed naturales regulae huius contractus'; Oñate, De contractibus, vol. 3, disp. 63.5, no. 129, p. 59. Oñate refers to Piñel and Molina; Decock, Theologians, p. 591.
117 Covarrubias, Opera omnia, vol. 2, 2.3, no. 2, fo. 52v: 'licere naturaliter contrahentibus invicem se decipere siquidem verum est modo ea deceptio intra latitudinem iusti pretii et eius mediocritatem contingat. Alioqui licere nequit naturaliter siquidem excessum aut diminutionem iusti pretii excesserit, cum vere iniqua tunc sit, nec possit ulla lege probari, ut plane Iurisconsulti responsum ad mutuam tacitamque pertinet contrahentium indulgentiam, quae condonare videtur ob naturam contractus modicam laesionem, cum alioqui commercia ipsa impedirentur, si semper exacta illa et mathematica pretii aequalitas foret anxie et nimia scupulositate consideranda'.
118 For biographical details see Nicolás Antonio, Bibliotheca Hispana Nova, vol. 2, p. 739.
119 Molina, De iustitia, vol. 2, disp. 350, no. 3, p. 235: '... neque canonicem neque civile ius id permittere tanquam licitum, sed solum ad vitandas lites et majora mala, id non impedire, nec concedere ad id
resarciendum actionem'.
120 Matienzo, Commentaria, gloss 1 to Nueva Recopilación 5.11.1, no. 3, fo. 324v: '... incolumen esse
civilium coniunctionem'.
121 Decock, Theologians, p. 251; Nicolas Antonio, Bibliotheca Hispana Nova, vol. 1, p. 12
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