In conclusion, Oresme insists that no alteration of any of the above
kinds can be justified at the mere injunction of the prince; it must
be accomplished _per ipsam communitatem_. The prince exercises
the functions of the community in the matter of coinage not as
_principalis actor_, but as _ordinationis publicae executor_. It is
pointed out that arbitrary changes in the value of money are really
equivalent to a particularly noxious form of taxation; that they
seriously disorganise commerce and impoverish many merchants; and
that the bad coinage drives the good out of circulation. This last
observation is of special interest in a fourteenth-century writer,
as it shows that Gresham's Law, which is usually credited to a
sixteenth-century English economist, was perfectly well understood in
the Middle Ages.[1]

[Footnote 1: The best edition of Oresme's _Tractatus_ is that by
Wolowski, published at Paris in 1864, which includes both the Latin
and French texts.]

This brief account of the ground which Oresme covered, and the
conclusions at which he arrived, will enable us to appreciate his
importance. Although his clear elucidation of the principles which
govern the questions of money was not powerful enough to check the
financial abuses of the sovereigns of the later Middle Ages, they
exercised a profound influence on the thought of the period, and were
accepted by all the theologians of the fifteenth century.[2]

[Footnote 2: Biel, _op. cit._, IV. xv. 11; _De Monetarum Potestate et
Utilitate_, referred to in Jourdain, _op. cit._, p. 34.]

CHAPTER IV

CONCLUSION

We have now passed in review the principal economic doctrines of the
mediaeval schoolmen. We do not propose to attempt here any detailed
criticism of the merits or demerits of the system which we have but
briefly sketched. All that we have attempted to do is to present the
doctrines in such a way that the reader may be in a position to pass
judgment on them. There is one aspect of the subject, however, to
which we may be allowed to direct attention before concluding this
essay. It is the fashion of many modern writers, especially those
hostile to the Catholic Church, to represent the Middle Ages as a
period when all scientific advance and economic progress were impeded,
if not entirely prevented, by the action of the Church. It would be
out of place to inquire into the advances which civilisation achieved
in the Middle Ages, as this would lead us