Page 448 - Latent Defect or Excessive Price?Exploring Early Modern Legal Approach to Remedying Defects in Goods Exchanged for Money - Bruijn

SUMMARY AND CONCLUDING REMARKS
aedilician remedies presupposed an objective method based on the thing's common market value, as opposed to the civil remedies which came with a calculation method based on the buyer's personal judgement under oath about how much the thing would have been worth, if in good condition. Furthermore, medieval communis opinio accepted that the civil remedies remained available in perpetuity, whereas the aedilician remedy for rescission only lasted for six months and the aedilician remedy for price reduction for one year (1c). Finally, the medieval scholars mentioned, took the favourable features of the aedilician remedies for granted (1d). This marked distinction between remedies for defects based on the Aedilician Edict and those available under the action on the contracts is referred to, throughout this book, by the name of its main protagonist as the 'Accursian' distinction.
However, this Accursian distinction did not meet with every medieval scholar's approval. Notably two ultramontani from the School of Orléans, Jacques de Revigny and Pierre de Belleperche, rejected the existence of more than one method of calculation for price reduction and dismissed the view that the aedilician and civil remedies expired after different time periods. Yet, both the 'Accursian' and its competing view resulted from very similar techniques of interpretation of the Corpus iuris civilis. Texts were skilfully analysed, seemingly without heeding practical consequences of the chosen interpretations or their conformity with broader concepts of justice. That this method yielded spectacular results is illustrated by the work of Baldus.
Broader concepts of justice played a more explicit role in early modern Castile. Since the 13th century, a tradition of statutory law-making had tackled the ius commune intricacy of the Accursian distinction. With regard to the method of calculation for the price reduction a seller of a defective thing is due, the Siete Partidas, a 13th century statute, applied only one objective method and ignored the view that remedies for defects could be brought perpetually. Early modern Castilian civil law scholars adopted similar views. Neither did these scholars betray any awareness of the buyer-friendly features of the aedilician remedies. Remarkably though, the same scholars left the distinction between corporeal and non-corporeal defects intact. This position of Castilian early modern civil law scholars can not only be ascribed to an established legal tradition which probably had the same roots as the School of Orléans. It might also be due to the changing winds blowing in the field of legal theory.
Experiencing the heyday of scholasticism, early modern Spain became infused with scholastic natural law concepts. In particular, the view that contracts in which a thing was exchanged for money were instrumental to realising commutative justice became entrenched in the minds of Castile's theologians. These mostly Salamancan scholars formulated in legal terms how one should behave in commercial transactions in order to
According to Roman law, the aedilician remedies can be
brought against multiple sellers but only if they had joined in a partnership to sell slaves
(societas venaliciariorum). Baldus applies this buyer-friendly characteristic to all sales in
which multiple sellers jointly sell one item.
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