.
Agriculture was considered the highest, next manufacture, and lastly
commerce. Roscher says that, whereas all the scholastics were agreed
on the excellence of agriculture as an occupation, the best they could
say of manufacture was _Deo non displicet_, whereas of commerce they
said _Deo placere non potest_; and draws attention to the interesting
consequence of this, namely, that the various classes of goods that
took part in the different occupations were also ranked in a certain
order of sacredness. Immovables were thought more worthy of protection
against execution and distress than movables, and movables than
money.[3] Aquinas advises the rulers of States to encourage the _artes
possessivae_, especially agriculture.[4] The fullest analysis of the
order in which the different _artes possessivae_ should be ranked is
to be found in Buridan's _Commentaries on Aristotle's Politics_. He
places first agriculture, which comprises cattle-breeding, tillage,
and hunting; secondly, manufacture, which helps to supply man's
corporal needs, such as building and architecture; thirdly,
administrative occupations; and lastly, commerce. The Christian
Exhortation, quoted by Janssen,[5] says, 'The farmer must in all
things be protected and encouraged, for all depend on his labour,
from the monarch to the humblest of mankind, and his handiwork is in
particular honourable and well pleasing to God.'

[Footnote 1: Aquinas, _Summa_, II. ii. 77, 4; Nider, _op. cit._, II.
x.]

[Footnote 2: Brants, _op. cit._, p. 82.]

[Footnote 3: _Geschichte_, p. 7.]

[Footnote 4: _De Regimine Principum_, vol. ii. chaps, v. and vi.]

[Footnote 5: _Op. cit._, vol. i. p. 297.]

The division of occupations according to their dignity adopted by
Nicholas Oresme is somewhat unusual. He divides professions into (1)
honourable, or those which increase the actual quantity of goods in
the community or help its development, such as ecclesiastical offices,
the law, the soldiery, the peasantry, artisans, and merchants, and
(2) degrading--such as _campsores, mercatores monetae sen
billonatores.'_[1]

No occupation, therefore, which involved labour, whether manual
or mental, gave any ground for difficulty with regard to its
remuneration. The business of the trader or merchant, on the other
hand, was one which called for some explanation. It is important
to understand what commerce was taken to mean. The definition which
Aquinas gives was accepted by all later wri