Law, Religion, and Debt Relief: Balancing above the ‘Abyss of Despair’ in Early Modern Canon Law and Theology

Abstract

Debt forgiveness is at the heart of the gospel message. The Lord sent His Son to redeem the debts of the world created by Adam and Eve and that were transmitted to subsequent generations of humanity. The New Testament restored older biblical ideas of debt relief, such as the Jubilee. The Lord’s Prayer begs God to forgive the pious their debts, as they also forgive their debtors (Mt 6:12). Yet what, if anything, does that mean for legal practice? Is there a Christian mode of debt collection and enforcing contractual promises? Should Christian creditors refrain from exercising their rights? This paper explores the responses to these questions given by canon lawyers and moral theologians in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe, many of whom belonged to the so-called ‘School of Salamanca’. They took natural law as the ultimate measure to evaluate the lawfulness of man’s actions in the world. I conclude that these moral and legal experts were sensitive to the needs of indigent debtors, but certainly not to the point of promoting debt cancellation. They insisted upon the bindingness of contractual promises (pacta sunt servanda) and considered postponing repayment to be the most appropriate manner to deal with insolvent debtors. Debt relief in the strict sense was viewed suspiciously, since the marketplace is subject to the dictates of justice, not charity.