Page 111 - Latent Defect or Excessive Price?Exploring Early Modern Legal Approach to Remedying Defects in Goods Exchanged for Money - Bruijn

EARLY MODERN CASTILAN LAW
commentator to the Siete Partidas, with reference to Pierre de Belleperche, interprets the
Siete Partidas as follows:
'furthermore, in the opinion of Petrus, it is the same to say 'for how much less the thing is worth' and 'for how much less it would have been bought',... the particular estimation should not be given attention, if it is not in accordance with the common opinion... This text of the Partidas seems to tilt quite heavily toward Peter's opinion...'.151
López concludes that 'what Bartolus contends, sc. that there are two remedies for price reduction, one civil, the other praetorian, does not hold'.152
Though López' remarks that the Siete Partidas inclines toward De Belleperche's, the French scholar (1230-1308) was not active as law professor at the time Alfonse the Wise's legal code came into being (between 1256 and 1265).153 However, the coincidence of the Siete Partidas and De Belleperche views might be explained by a shared source of inspiration. Both ultramontani and the drafters of the Siete Partidas were aware of Aristotelian theory.154
Be that as it may, it is more important to note that López interpretation fits nicely with the dominant view in his time about a how a price estimation should be realised in scholastic writings about just price. As we have seen, early modern theologians explained that an item's just price is its common market price and not the price which the parties to a contract agree on and that as such it had to be determined objectively.155
García, writing for the forum internum156, informs us by whom the assessment of a price reduction based on the thing's just price should be carried out, sc. by 'good and prudent men'.157
use by medieval scholars of the different terms to indicate a specific method of price assessment see 2.2.1.2. Note the difference between 'quanto minoris esset empturus' and 'quanto minus res valet', the first indicating a subjective, the latter an objective approach.
151 Gloss 4 to SP 5.5.64, in: Los códigos españoles, vol. 3, p. 631: 'Praeterea, secundum Petrum, idem est dicere quando minoris res est, vel quanto minoris esset empturus... aestimatio singularis non attenditur, nisi secundum id, quod communiter attenderetur... Haec tamen lex Partitarum multum videtur inclinare in opinionem Petri... '.
152 López' gloss Fallassen en verdad to SP 5.5.65: 'Non ergo procedet quod dicit Bald. in l. 2, col. 4, C. de rescind. vend., esse duplicem quanto minoris civilem, vel praetoriam', in: Los códigos españoles, vol. 3, p. 632.
153 Bezemer, Pierre de Belleperche, p. 1.
154 Gordley writes that the ultramontani were the first to have used Aristotelian works. Gordley, Origins, p.
34.
155 This leaves open the possibility that parties agree on a higher than the just price (pretium
conventionalis). Yet, the agreement among parties on a higher price does not make that higher price just.
Decock, Theologians, p. 528-229. See 3.2.2.3.
156 García, Tratado, proleg.: 'Quiero advertir a los lectores, que no pretendo tratar de todos los peccados y
defectos que en los contratos se pueden cometer, sin de solos aquellos que son contra iusticia y traen obligacion de restituyr... aprovechando a mis proximos y encaminandolos en sus tratos y negocios, por que los hagan con la rectitud y justicia que se requiere, y sin offensa de Dios'.
157 García, Tratado, vol. 1, ch. 14, p. 414: 'Parece me pues a mi que la diminución del dicho precio ha de ser hecha conforme al parecer y arbitrio de hombres buenos y prudentes, por quienquiere se hage, y no solo conforme al parecer del vendedor, el qual facilmente se podria engañar, como en causa propria, en daño y perjuyzio de comprador'.
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