Page 62 - Latent Defect or Excessive Price?Exploring Early Modern Legal Approach to Remedying Defects in Goods Exchanged for Money - Bruijn

CHAPTER TWO
2.3.1 The remedy for lesion beyond moiety as the preferred remedy for breach of contract
However, things had already been changing when judges in Toledo spoke out against the remedy for lesion beyond moiety. The remedy had experienced its reintroduction in an extended version in the Siete Partidas (SP), a statute issued by Alfonse XI the Wise (in the years 1254-1265), which drew heavily on contemporary ius commune-doctrine. According to the Partidas, both buyer and seller can demand the other party to rescind the sale or to make good the difference between the just price and the price that the parties had agreed on.112 The Siete Partidas and the later Ordenamiento de Alcalá (1348)113 proved to be the harbingers of new winds blowing in sales law in which the remedy for lesion beyond moiety would begin to play a major role next to the remedies for latent defects. In Castile the remedy was there to stay in the Nueva Recopilación (1506) and the Novísima Recopilación.114 Other parts of Europe likewise saw a reintroduction of the right to rescind a sale due to lesion beyond moiety in their statutes beginning around 1250 until deep in the 18th century and, in some cases, beyond.115
This new wind had already been blowing for some years in medieval legal doctrine. Whatever the reasons for the resistance to the remedy for lesion beyond moiety in the Castilian courts might have been, scholars all over Europe conversely busied themselves with its interpretation. Civil lawyers as well as theologians extended
112 SP 5.5.56 in: Los códigos españoles, vol. 2, pp. 626-627: Otrosi dezimos que se puede desfazer la vendida que fue fecha por menos de la meytad del derecho precio, que pudiera valer en la sazon que la fizieron. E si el vendedor esto pudiere provar, puede demandar al comprador quel cimpla, sobre aquello que avia dado por ella, tanto quanto la cosa estonce podria valer segund derecho... Otrosi dezimos que si el comprador pudiere provar que dio por la cosa mas de la mitad del derecho precio que pudiera valer en aquella sazon que la compro que puede demandar se desfaga la compra o que baxe el precio, tanto quanto es aquello que demas dio.
113 Ordenamiento 17.1, in: Los códigos españoles, vol. 1, pp. 450-451: Si el vendedor ó comprador de la cosa dixiere que fue engannado en mas de meytat del derecho prescio, asi como si el vendedor dixiere que lo que valia dies, vendio por menos de cinco o el comprador dixiere que lo que valia dies que dio por ello mas de quince; mandamos que el comprador sea tenudo a complir el derecho prescio que valia la cosa, ó de la dejar al vendedor, tornandole el vendedor el prescio, que rescibio, è el vendedor debe tornar al comprador lo que mas rescibio de la meytat del derecho prescio, ó de tomarla cosa que vendio, è tornar el prescio que rescibio. Et eso mesmo queremos, que se guarde en las rentas, è en los cambios, è en los otros contractos semejantes, è que aya logar esta ley en los contractos sobre dichos, aunque sean fechos por almoneda, è del dia que fueren fechos fasta quatro annos, è non despues.
114 Novísima Recopilación 10.1.2; Nueva Recopilación 5.11.1, 6.
115 Langer mentions the Wismarsche Stadtbuch (1272-1297) and the Reichskammergerichtsordnung of
1495. See Langer, Laesio enormis, p. 55.
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