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Peter Stillman suggested Aristotle as one important historical root of 
medieval just price doctrine. This is certainly right. Rather than in his 
work Politics, however, the pivot should be located in the Nicomachean 
Ethics, where Aristotle states that commutative justice requires 
equivalence between what is received and what is given. But a second 
important source of medieval just price doctrine is Roman law (Digest), 
where one finds rules against exploitation of a buyer's affection or desire 
for a particular article. I am not familiar with Great Fires, but in this 
context these line of thought and its concerns about taking advantage of 
special needs could be relevant. 
 
The authoritative source of scholastic just price doctrine is Thomas 
Aquinas, particularly his Summa Theologica. As with most scholastic 
authors, however, passages relating to price - not being a main focus of 
the work - are often scattered and sometimes even (seemingly) conflicting. 
Overall, it can be said that the Scholastic writers were more favorable to 
the market price than is often assumed. Several of them regarded the common 
estimate arrived at in the market - under normal conditions - to be 
inclined to cancel out disparate personal judgements and to establish value 
commensurate with the objective qualities of the commodity. Accordingly, 
they were especially hostile toward monopoly situations. 
 
A concise and very readable description of the medieval just price doctrine 
and its roots can be found in Barry Gordon's Economic Analysis before Adam 
Smith (London 1975, chs. 6-8). Roger Backhouse has already mentioned Odd 
Langholm's outstanding work. In this context, I would especially point to 
his Price and Value in the Aristotelian Tradition: A study in scholastic 
economic sources (Bergen etc.: Universitetsforlaget), although the book is 
probably hard to get hold of. Fortunately, most of the analysis found its 
way into Langholm's extensive Economics in the medieval schools: Wealth, 
exchange, value, money and usury according to the Paris theological 
tradition (Leiden and New York: Brill, 1992). Still helpful might also be 
Raymond de Roover's "The Concept of the Just Price: Theory and Economic 
Policy", which appeared 1958 in the Journal of Economic History, Vol. 
18(4). 
 
Thomas Moser 
 
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