ontent to quote the
ill-founded and erroneous opinions of Isidore of Seville as final
on the subject. It will be remembered that we also remarked that
the question of money was the first economic question to receive
systematic scientific treatment from the writers of the later Middle
Ages. This remarkable development of opinion on this subject is
practically the work of one man, Nicholas Oresme, Bishop of Lisieux,
whose treatise, _De Origine, Natura, Jure et Mutationibus Monetarum_,
is the earliest example of a pure economic monograph in the modern
sense. 'The scholastics,' says Roscher, 'extended their inquiries from
the economic point of view further than one is generally disposed to
believe; although it is true that they often did so under a singular
form.... We can, however, single out Oresme as the greatest scholastic
economist for two reasons: on account of the exactitude and clarity
of his ideas, and because he succeeded in freeing himself from the
pseudo-theological systematisation of things in general, and from the
pseudo-philosophical deduction in details.'[1]

[Footnote 1: Quoted in the Introduction to Wolowski's edition of
Oresme's _Tractatus_ (Paris, 1864).]

Even in the thirteenth century natural economy had not been
replaced to any large extent by money economy. The great majority
of transactions between man and man were carried on without the
intervention of money payments; and the amount of coin in circulation
was consequently small.[1] The question of currency was not therefore
one to engage the serious attention of the writers of the time.
Aquinas does not deal with money in the _Summa_, except
incidentally, and his references to the subject in the _De Regimine
Principum_--which occur in the chapters of that work of which
the authorship is disputed--simply go to the length of approving
Aristotle's opinions on money, and advising the prince to exercise
moderation in the exercise of his power of coining _sive in mutando
sive in diminuendo pondus_.[2]

[Footnote 1: Brants, _op. cit._, p. 179; Rambaud, _op. cit._, p. 73.]

[Footnote 2: _De Reg. Prin._, ii. 13.]

As is often the case, the discussion of the rights and duties of the
sovereign in connection with the currency only arose when it became
necessary for the public to protest against abuses. Philip the Fair of
France made it part of his policy to increase the revenue by tampering
with the coinage, a policy which was continued by his successors