middle of the fifteenth centuries. The two dates
adopted in old text-books were 476 and 1453, from the setting aside
of the last emperor of the west until the fall of Constantinople. In
reality it is impossible to fix any exact dates for the opening and
close of such a period.'

[Footnote 1: _History of Political Economy_, p. 35.]

We are therefore justified in considering the fifteenth century as
comprised hi the Middle Ages. This is especially so in the domain
of economic theory. In actual practice the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries may have presented the appearance rather of the first stage
of a new than of the last stage of an old era. This is Ingram's view.
However true this may be of practice, it is not at all true of theory,
which, as we shall see, continued to be entirely based on the
writings of an author of the thirteenth century. Ingram admits this
incidentally: 'During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the
Catholic-feudal system was breaking down by the mutual conflicts of
its own official members, while the constituent elements of a new
order were rising beneath it. The movements of this phase can scarcely
be said to find an echo in any contemporary economic literature.'[1]
We need not therefore apologise further for including a consideration
of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in our investigations as to
the economic teaching of the Middle Ages. We are supported in doing
so by such excellent authorities as Jourdain,[2] Roscher,[3] and
Cossa.[4] Haney, in his _History of Economic Thought_,[5] says: 'It
seems more nearly true to regard the years about 1500 as marking the
end of mediaeval times.... On large lines, and from the viewpoint of
systems of thought rather than systems of industry, the Middle Ages
may with profit be divided into two periods. From 400 down to 1200,
or shortly thereafter, constitutes the first. During these years
Christian theology opposed Roman institutions, and Germanic customs
were superposed, until through action and reaction all were blended.
This was the reconstruction; it was the "stormy struggle" to found a
new ecclesiastical and civil system. From 1200 on to 1500 the world
of thought settled to its level. Feudalism and scholasticism, the
corner-stones of mediaevalism, emerged and were dominant.'

[Footnote 1: _Op. cit._, p. 35.]

[Footnote 2: _Memoires sur les commencements de l'economie politique
dans les ecoles du moyen age_, Academie des Inscriptions et