commenda_ was originally a contract by which merchants who wished
to engage in foreign trade, but who did not wish to travel themselves,
entrusted their wares to agents or representatives. The merchant was
known as the _commendator_ or _socius stans_, and the agent as the
_commendatarius_ or _tractator_. The most usual arrangement for the
division of the profits of the adventure was that the _commendatarius_
should receive one-fourth and the _commendator_ three-fourths. At
a slightly later date contracts came to be common in which the
_commendatarius_ contributed a share of capital, in which case he
would receive one-fourth of the whole profit as _commendatarius_, and
a proportionate share of the remainder as capitalist. This contract
came to be generally known as _collegantia_ or _societas_. Contracts
of this kind, though originally chiefly employed in overseas
enterprise, afterwards came to be utilised in internal trade and
manufacturing industry.[1]

[Footnote 1: Ashley, _op. cit._, vol. i. pt. ii. pp. 412-14.]

The legitimacy of the profits of the _commendator_ never seems to have
caused the slightest difficulty to the canonists. In 1206 Innocent
III. advised the Archbishop of Genoa that a widow's dowry should be
entrusted to some merchant so that an income might be obtained by
means of honest gain.[1] Aquinas expressly distinguishes between
profit made from entrusting one's money to a merchant to be employed
by him in trade, and profit arising from a loan, on the ground that
in the former case the ownership of the money does not pass, and that
therefore the person who derives the profit also risks the loan. 'He
who lends money transfers the ownership of the money to the borrower.
Hence the borrower holds the money at his own risk, and is bound to
pay it all back: wherefore the lender must not exact more. On the
other hand, he that entrusts his money to a merchant or craftsman so
as to form a kind of society does not transfer the ownership of the
money to them, for it remains his, so that at his risk the merchant
speculates with it, or the craftsman uses it for his craft, and
consequently he may lawfully demand, as something belonging to him,
part of the profits derived from his money.'[2] This dictum of Aquinas
was the foundation of all the later teaching on partnership, and the
importance of the element of risk was insisted on in strong terms by
the later writers. According to Baldus, 'when there is no sharing
o