Christianity and Contract Law

Abstract

Abstract This chapter surveys the contract law doctrines shaped by medieval and early modern canonists and theologians, and their impact on the Western legal tradition. These doctrines were forged from rules included in the Bible, Aristotelian philosophy, Roman law, canon law, and medieval theology. They consisted of principles for the creation and execution of contracts and basic forms of regulation regarding the most important financial transactions. They included rules on offer and acceptance, duress, fraud, fairness in exchange, usury, and restitution. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, they were modified and expanded by early modern Catholic and Protestant scholars. While laying more emphasis on biblical morality, faith, and charity, Protestant theologians and jurists nevertheless remained well versed in most of the teachings developed by their Catholic counterparts. Especially through their influence on natural lawyers in the subsequent centuries, many of the religiously informed doctrines of contract found their way into modern codifications. Only in the nineteenth century were they abandoned to make way for other ideas from outside the Christian faith. With the rise of legal positivism, principles that referred too clearly to the moral and religious engagements with contract law from the past, such as the notion of just pricing, were expressly abandoned. Christian authors nevertheless continued to discuss issues of contract law from a religious perspective within their own circles, stressing the need to observe fairness in exchange.