UNPUBLISHED MANUSCRIPT ON LOAN AND USURY
THE AUTHOR'S COPY, WITH HIS AUTOGRAPH CORRECTIONS AND ANNOTATIONS

BOUND WITH ANOTHER MANUSCRIPT ON THE SALE OF INDULGENCES

[Manuscript on paper, Loan and Usury] Anonymous.1. Tractatus Moralis de Mutuo et Usuris ad q[uaestio] 78 2ae 2ae D[ivi] Thomae [explicit:] Ad maiorem Dei Gloria necnon et Beatae Virginis Mariae et S. Thomae Doctoris Angelici. Without date, but approximately written in the first half of 17th century (surely after 1567 when St. Thomas de Aquino was declared doctor by the Church).

[bound with:]

Anonymous. 2. [Without title, but: Tractatus de indulgentiis]. [incipit:] Aggredimur difficilem controversiam ut à multis luculenter explicatam[…]. Without date, but presumably the first half of 17th century.

4to, contemporary limp vellum, ff. [86], [1, blank], [82].

1. Unpublished manuscript on Loan and Usury: the unknown author his treatise collecting and analyzing ancient references from previous important authors, like St. Thomas and Francisco Suarez.

The manuscript is surely the original autograph handwritten by the author, because it bears many corrections and some parts are crossed out and the corrections are rewritten in the blank margins.

The first chapter recalls the Question 78 of the second volume of the second part of St. Thomas’ Summa Theologica, who considered lawful the payment of moderate interests in order to combat usury.
The medieval Scholastic and Keynes define usury «the price for the use of money» (Keynes, cit., p. 155, Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 2nd vol., Pars IIa IIae, edited by De Rubeis, Billuart and Faucher, 1948, p. 392), but this definition is also found in Adam Smith (An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations, 1776).
Keynes considers the social benefits of religious and moral sanctions of the medieval Church against usury, to curb the tendency to excessive increase in the rate of interest (see Garrani 1957, pp. 30-31; J.M. Keynes, The general theory of employment, interest and money, London 1936, trans. it. Turin 1953, p. 312).

Pawnshops and banks were founded after these reasonings on loan and usury.



2. Unpublished treatise on «Indulgences», and their regulatory, after the abuses made in the Middle Age and until the Council of Trent (1563).

In the early church, especially from the third century on, ecclesiastic authorities allowed a confessor or a Christian awaiting martyrdom to intercede for another Christian in order to shorten the other’s canonical penance. It became customary to commute penances to less demanding works, such as prayers, alms, fasts and even the payment of fixed sums of money depending on the various kinds of offences (tariff penances). By the tenth century some penances were not replaced but merely reduced in connection with pious donations, pilgrimages and similar meritorious works. Then, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the recognition of the value of these works began to become associated not so much with canonical penance but with remission of the temporal punishment due to sin.

However, the later Middle Ages saw the growth of considerable abuses. Greedy commissaries sought to extract the maximum amount of money for each indulgence. Professional “pardoners” (quaestores in Latin) exceeded official Church doctrine, whether in avarice or ignorant zeal, and promised rewards like salvation from eternal damnation in return for money.

The scandalous conduct of the “pardoners” was an immediate occasion of the Protestant Reformation. In 1517, Pope Leo X offered indulgences for those who gave alms to rebuild St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. The aggressive marketing practices of Johann Tetzel in promoting this cause provoked Martin Luther to write his Ninety-Five Theses, condemning what he saw as the purchase and sale of salvation.

A few years later, in 1567, Pope Pius V cancelled all grants of indulgences involving any fees or other financial transactions.

After the Council of Trent, Clement VIII established a commission of Cardinals to deal with indulgences according to the mind of the Council. It continued its work during the pontificate of Paul V and published various bulls and decrees on the matter. But only Clement IX established a true Congregation of Indulgences (and Relics) with a Brief of 6 July 1669. In a motu proprio on 28 January 1904, Pius X joined the Congregation of Indulgences with that of Rites, but with the restructuring of the Roman Curia in 1908 all matters regarding indulgences was assigned to the Holy Inquisition. In a motu proprio on 25 March 1915, Benedict XV transferred the Holy Inquisition’s Section for Indulgences to the Apostolic Penitentiary, but maintained the Holy Inquisition’s responsibility for matters regarding the doctrine of indulgences.

Provenance: The manuscripts are written by different 17th century handwritings, using two different inks. See photos 1-5 for the first one and photos 6-9 for the second one.

References: No evidences of printed editions for both manuscripts.

Very fine conditions.