Description:

Critical Edition and Commentary by Sylvain Piron

Translated from the Latin by Ryan Thornton and from the French by Michael Cusato, OFM

Peter of John Olivi’s A Treatise on Contracts constitutes the first time

within the Western tradition that a major intellectual figure addressed
economic issues in a comprehensive way. Produced in Narbonne around
1293-1295 as a result of classes taught in the local Franciscan friary, Olivi
draws on law, philosophy, and theology in order to present a global view
of economics that manages to combine the free will of individual agents
and the normative capacities of political communities. Providing the
first systematic analysis of the concept of value as well as sophisticated
reflections on commercial “capital,” the Treatise on Contracts deserves
to be considered as a founding document in the history of economic
thought.

Following its discovery in the 1970s, Olivi’s text stirred up considerable
controversy among historians. With this new critical edition and detailed
historical presentation by Sylvain Piron, it is possible to unravel the
apparent paradox of how an uncompromising advocate of Franciscan
poverty could also be the most penetrating analyst of medieval trade and
credit. For the first time ever, this major work is now made available to an
English-speaking audience.

Pb 2016: 252 pages    978-1-57659-405-6