The book Risk and Medieval ‘Negotium’ presents how the concepts of risk and responsibility in economic life were described in the medieval texts. The analysed sources belong to the early phase of the medieval reflection on business and entrepreneurship, in the framework of the theologia practica. The research concerns confessional summas by Peter the Chanter, Robert Courson, Thomas Chobhamand Raymond of Penyafort, Summa aurea by William of Auxerre, Summa Halensis, and the unedited Casus fratris Clari. The selected Clarus’ casus are enclosed in the Appendix. Moreover, the later medieval authors – such as Thomas Aquinas, Giles of Lessines, Peter Olivi and Matthew of Krakow – are referred to in the comparative perspective. The book deals with the crucial references to canons and to the Bible which constituted the background of the examined sources. The author analyses the meanings of the terms periculum and dubium in the papal decretals In civitate and Naviganti with regard to the comments of the 13th century theologians and canonists. After the analyses of the texts, the different contexts of terms periculm and dubium in the medieval ‘economic language’ are collated. The issue of interconnection between these terms and the concepts of just price and usury is also discussed.
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