the public treasury.[1]

[Footnote 1: Jourdain, _op. cit._, p. 4.]

Two causes contributed to produce this almost total lack of interest
in economic subjects. One was the miserable condition of society,
still only partially rescued from the ravages of the barbarians, and
half organised, almost without industry and commerce; the other
was the absence of all economic tradition. The existence of the
_Categories_ and _Hermenia_ of Aristotle ensured that the chain
of logical study was not broken; the works of Donatus and Priscian
sustained some glimmer of interest in grammatical theory; certain rude
notions of physics and astronomy were kept alive by the preservation
of such ancient elementary treatises as those of Marcian Capella; but
economics had no share in the heritage of the past. Not only had the
writings of the ancients, who dealt to some extent with the theory of
wealth, been destroyed, but the very traces of their teaching had been
long forgotten. A good example of the state of thought in economic
matters is furnished by the treatment which money receives in the
_Etymologies_ of Isidore of Seville, which was regarded in the early
Middle Ages as a reliable encyclopaedia. 'Money,' according to Isidore,
'is so called because it warns, _monet_, lest any fraud should enter
into its composition or its weight. The piece of money is the coin of
gold, silver, or bronze, which is called _nomisma_, because it bears
the imprint of the name and likeness of the prince.... The pieces of
money _nummi_ have been so called from the King of Rome, Numa, who was
the first among the Latins to mark them with the imprint of his image
and name.'[1] Is it any wonder that the early Middle Ages were barren
of economic doctrines, when this was the best instruction to which
they had access?

[Footnote 1: _Etymol_. xvi. 17.]

In the course of the thirteenth century a great change occurred. The
advance of civilisation, the increased organisation of feudalism, the
development of industry, and the extension of commerce, largely under
the influence of the Crusades, all created a condition of affairs in
which economic questions could no longer be overlooked or neglected.
At the same time the renewed study of the writings of Aristotle served
to throw a flood of new light on the nature of wealth.

The _Ethics_ and _Politics_ of Aristotle, although they are not
principally devoted to a treatment of the theory of wealth, do in
fact deal with that