y. The owner of property, as we shall see, was bound
to observe certain duties in respect of its acquisition and its
consumption, and certain other duties in respect of its exchange,
whether it consisted of goods or of money. The whole fabric of
mediaeval economics was based on the foundation of private property;
and the elaborate and logical system of regulations to ensure justice
in economic life would have had no purpose or no use if the subject
matter of that justice were abolished.

It must not be understood that the mediaeval writers treated economic
subjects in this order, or in any order at all. As we have already
said, economic matters are simply referred to in connection with
ethics, and were not detached and treated as making up a distinct
body of teaching. Ashley says: 'The reader will guard himself against
supposing that any mediaeval writer ever detached these ideas from
the body of his teaching, and put them together as a modern text-book
writer might do; or that they were ever presented in this particular
order, and with the connecting argument definitely stated.'[1]

[Footnote 1: _Op. cit._, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 387.]

CHAPTER II

PROPERTY

SECTION 1.--THE RIGHT TO PROCURE AND DISPENSE PROPERTY

The teaching of the mediaeval Church on the subject of property was
perfectly simple and clear. Aquinas devoted a section of the _Summa_
to it, and his opinion was accepted as final by all the later writers
of the period, who usually repeat his very words. However, before
coming to quote and explain Aquinas, it is necessary to deal with
a difficulty that has occurred to several students of Christian
economics, namely, that the teaching of the scholastics on the subject
of property was in some way opposed to the teaching of the early
Church and of Christ Himself. Thus Haney says: 'It is necessary to
keep the ideas of Christianity and the Church separate, for few
will deny that Christianity as a religion is quite distinct from the
various institutions or Churches which profess it....' And he goes
on to point out that, whereas Christianity recommended community of
property, the Church permitted private property and inequality.[1]
Strictly speaking, the reconciliation of the mediaeval teaching with
that of the primitive Church might be said to be outside the scope of
the present essay. In our opinion, however, it is important to insist
upon the fundamental harmony of the teaching of the Church in th