Deeply entwined with broader debates about the history of moral obligation, economics, and conflicts of law, Lawrin Armstrong’s translation and introductory essay to three questions disputed by the fourteenth-century theologian Gerard of Siena offers an opportunity to explore aspects of precapitalist economic orders that are often ignored, and even unknown, because they do not fit in, or confirm to, assumptions and ideas embedded in classical and neoliberal understandings of contract, property, and profit (ix). Through the words of Gerard, Armstrong invites us to consider the value of Scholastic economics, that is, an economics that is fundamentally concerned with a “‘moral economy’—in which human needs take precedence over profit” (26), and, in doing so, to explore how topics such as usury, restitution of usurious profits, and prescription were bound up with ideas of justice, charity, and the common good in medieval jurisprudence.

Alone, the translation of Gerard’s work, side-by-side with the original Latin, stands as a contribution to our understanding of medieval discussions and uses of natural law as applied to questions with contradictory treatment by canon, customary, and civil law jurists. As such, working through the three disputations by Gerard offers modern readers the opportunity to understand why legal questions concerned with matters of use, ownership, and jurisdiction were so centrally bound up with moral considerations of the common good within Scholastic jurisprudence. Overall, this translation of Gerard’s work offers modern readers the opportunity to encounter fundamental questions of right and use through the Scholastic method of argument, a method that still underpins questions of economics and contract law—even if the moral considerations are absent—to this day. Although Gerard’s discussion of fundamental categories of law, including dominium, negligence, bad faith, and usurpation, as well as why conflicts of law could be settled by invoking the natural law, are engaging, they are not, of course, devoid of problems and contradictions. The problems within his argument, however, are of secondary importance given that his disputations, and their influence, remind us that debates about questions of usury, profit, and property, no matter how esoteric or methodologically confusing they might seem to us, had greater stakes than mere academic exercises. They reflect broader concerns with shifts and changes in legal, political, and economic structures in the fourteenth century.

In addition to the various twists and turns of Gerard’s Scholastic arguments, Armstrong’s thoughtful and engaging introduction essay warrants careful consideration. Here, Armstrong not only provides a useful summary and overview of Gerard’s life, work, and influence, he also makes an argument as to why we need to take Scholastic economic analysis more seriously. In so doing, Armstrong offers a brief discussion as to how Scholastic ideas of a moral economy were adapted to regulate markets, especially in relation to essential commodities such as grain, from the medieval period to the fall of the ancien régime. This discussion, however, is brief and generalized. Armstrong soon turns away from the medieval ideas of moral economy toward offering a vision of what modern capitalism might look like if it were infused with the traditions and moral economy found in, and underpinning, fourteenth-century Scholastic discussions like Gerard’s.

While the shift in focus from past to present might strike some as problematic, and even polemic, it enables Armstrong to make a compelling argument as to why modern readers not only need a translation of Gerard’s work, but also why renewed attention should be given to precapitalist economic orders in the first place. Tending more carefully, according to Armstrong, to Scholastic debates about usury “can help us call into question the notion of an economy based fundamentally on debt and speculation, and the whole idea of an economic order that subordinates humanity and nature to the profit of a tiny majority” (30–31). As such, it is Armstrong’s intention that this edition and translation will not only enable scholars and students to engage with Gerard’s work in translation, ultimately broadening our understanding of debates about usury in the fourteenth century, but also that renewed attention to Scholastic works like Gerard’s might well stand as an important contribution to contemporary debates among historians, anthropologists, economists, and sociologists about the efficacy of neoliberal capitalism in the twenty-first century.