Page 172 - Latent Defect or Excessive Price?Exploring Early Modern Legal Approach to Remedying Defects in Goods Exchanged for Money - Bruijn

LEGAL HUMANISM
most equitable (aequissimum).56 However, neither Cujas nor Doneau give sufficient guidance as to how this assessment should take place.
Despite Cujas' and Doneau's well-documented antipathy towards each other, both scholars reach a remarkably similar conclusion with regard to the assessment of price where someone bought an item that suffered from a latent defect.57 Mudaeus' position also met with the favour of Theodore Tulden (1545-1645).58
Regarding how the thing's objective price has to be established, humanist scholars explicitly opt for the common market price for which an object can be sold. In keeping with the Accursian Gloss to D. 35.2.63, humanist scholars adopted a price determination based on the value it was commonly assigned. 'The just price is not the price which whomever at a given time thinks it is, but that which is commonly considered so', opines Cujas' teacher Loriot.59 Doneau has the same.60
In sum, some legal humanists continued to work with the Accursian distinction between a subjective and objective price assessment for the civil and aedilician remedies for price reduction respectively. Other humanist scholars dismissed the existence of various remedies for price reduction in ius commune. They were inspired to do so by views already expressed in medieval legal scholarship. The Accursian distinction, which was supported by the majority of medieval law professors, had always met with opponents. However, until the 16th century, alternative views remained in the margin of legal debate and it was not before the humanist era that positions were reversed, in particularl by Mudaeus. His argument not only met with approval in legal doctrine but in legal practice as well, which can be seen in a 1535 case taken to the Reichskammergericht, to which we will now turn.
4.2.1.2.1 Excurs: a case before the Reichskammergericht
56 Donellus, In titulum, p. 304: 'Quod autem haec genera ita distinguunt, ut praetoriam esse dicant in id, quanto minoris res est: civilem, quanto minoris empturus fuisset, ineptissime faciunt, cum inter haec nihil intersit'; idem, In titulum, p. 305: 'non enim in edicto aedilitio dicitur, quanto minoris iumenta sunt, sed quanto minoris, cum venierint, fuerint. Id autem est, quanto minoris empturus quis fuerit. Tunc enim empturus erat, cum veniebant, et non pluris empturus erat quam valebant, et quanti valebant, tanti illum empta\[m\] habere aequissimum est. Unde hoc iudicium aestimatorium appellatur, quia res aestimatur, quanti vere valuerit, eo vitio affecta, quo tenetur, ut quanto minors valuit, quam empta est, tantum reddatur'. These phrases made their way into Calvin's, Magnum lexicon juridicum, vol. 2, p. 365, lemma ‘quanto minoris’; Klempt, Grundlagen, p. 20; Vecchi, ‘La garanzia’, p. 94.
57 Stintzing, Donellus, passim.
58 In Latin: Diodorus Tuldenus. For biographical data see the preface to his Commentarius, n.p. He is not to
be confused with his namesake who worked as a painter with Peter Paul Rubens. For Tuldens approval of Mudaeus' view see Tuldenus, Commentarius, to C. 4.58, no. 8, p. 253: 'Sed hoc discrimen nimis scrupulosum merito recentiores explodunt';
59 Loriot, Commentaria, to D. 18.1, no. 28, p. 312: 'iustum autem est pretium, quod tunc non quilibet arbitretur, sed quod communiter aestimaretur, l. pretia, in prin., ad l. Falc. \[D. 35.2.63pr.\]'.
60 Wesenbecius, Tractatus et responsa, vol. 5, cons. 250, no. 3, p. 1557: '... quod unusquisque pro re daret, non unus aut alter'; Donellus, Ad codicis partes, to C. 4.44.2, no. 3, p. 203: 'Verum pretium est, quanti res vere valet dictum ad differentiam eius pretii, quod venditor arbitrio suo ex affectione et utilitate sua aestimat... Est enim iuris certi sententia, pretia rerum non ex affectione aut utilitate singulorum aestimari, sed communiter fungi. Id est tanti res aestimari, quanti communiter valent, l. pretia, D. ad leg. Fal. \[D. 35.2.63\], l. si servum, D. ad leg. Aquil. \[D. 9.2.33pr.\]'; idem, Commentarii, vol. 5, p. 45, no. 14.
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