Abstract

This chapter investigates the development of ideas about property throughout the medieval period. It considers the influence of the Roman Law (especially as this was codified in the Corpus Iuris Civilis) and the rise of canon law orthodoxy on property, private and common;(above all in Gratian’s Decretum and the tradition of commentary to which it gave rise). It assesses the impact of the re-discovery of the ideas of Aristotle (especially in the work of Aquinas and Albert the Great). The medieval period generated an account of property which was profoundly ambiguous. Private property was generally regarded as legitimate, but a ‘second-best’ and always highly qualified. In the end, the one true dominus was the Christian god.

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