The Merchant in the Confessional: Trade and Price in the Pre-Reformation Penitential Handbooks

This volume deals with norms relating to trade and price expressed in handbooks designed for the education of confessors or as aids in the confessional. Parts I and II trace the development of such norms from the earliest times to the Reformation. Some ninety penitential handbooks are analyzed, with biographical sketches of the authors. Part III provides a general overview of penitential trade and price doctrine with an emphasis on the late major Italian summas and compares this doctrine wi...