Inama-Sternegg on Endemann’s Studien (1875)

Karl Theodor von Inama-Sternegg’s 1875 review of the first volume of Wilhelm Endemann’s Studien in der romanisch-canonistischen Wirthschafts- und Rechtslehre bis gegen Ende des 17. Jahrhunderts combines recognition of a pioneering history of commercial law with a methodological demand: legal doctrines must be explained through the economic conditions in which they arose. Endemann’s book appeared in Berlin in 1874; the review examines its historical significance and its treatment of usury, bills of exchange, partnerships, and banking. Its opening establishes the affirmative judgment underlying the criticism:

In der vorliegenden Schrift des bekannten Jenenser Rechtsgelehrten haben wir nach zwei Richtungen hin eine sehr erfreuliche und werthvolle Erscheinung zu begrüssen.

English translation: In the present writing of the well-known Jena jurist we have to welcome a most gratifying and valuable publication in two respects.

Inama welcomes a contribution to the neglected intellectual history of the Middle Ages, extending the work of Savigny and Stintzing into commercial law. He particularly values the connection between jurisprudence and political economy. Legal development cannot be understood as an autonomous succession of doctrines: rules governing exchange embody assumptions about economic objects and activities. This methodological premise also supplies the standard against which Endemann’s account is tested:

Der Satz, dass Rechts- und Wirthschaftslehre solchergestalt in untrennbarem Zusammenhang stehen, bewahrheitet sich namentlich, wo es gilt, die Entwicklung des mittelalterlichen Verkehrsrechtes zu erforschen.

English translation: The proposition that legal doctrine and economic doctrine stand in such an inseparable connection proves true above all where it is a matter of investigating the development of medieval commercial law.

The medieval transformation of Roman law matters because it helps explain modern institutions and the reception of Roman law in Germany. In the introduction reproduced by the reviewer, Endemann states the continuity succinctly:

Das mittelalterliche, romanisch-canonische Recht bildet die nächste Vorstufe des gegenwärtigen.

English translation: Medieval Romano-canonical law constitutes the immediate preliminary stage of the present-day law.

Historical inquiry also carries contemporary political significance. Inama highlights Endemann’s warning that the Catholic Church’s continuing condemnation of loan interest could sustain renewed claims to influence civil legislation through moral jurisdiction.

Endemann organizes the volume around connected subjects, and Inama postpones judgment on its overall coverage until the promised treatment of money and prices appears. His principal attention falls on usury, which provides the explanatory foundation for subsequent discussions. In Endemann’s account, the canonical doctrine of money’s sterility generated prohibitions reaching far beyond loans. Theology and jurisprudence, working through a common scholastic method, helped make the usury doctrine formative for commercial institutions.

Inama’s central objection concerns the doctrine’s origins. Biblical teaching, ecclesiastical ambition, and a general appeal to medieval spirituality do not sufficiently explain why interest itself became objectionable. Nor can economic circumstances from late antiquity to the twelfth century be treated as uniform. The developed monetary and credit economy of the later Roman Empire might encourage resistance to excessive interest without explaining its complete prohibition. Inama instead connects the apparent sterility of money to disrupted eastern trade, the accumulation of precious metals in western Europe, and reduced opportunities for productive investment. His criticism presses Endemann to fulfil the economic implications of his own method.

Papal finance provides a revealing test. Inama asks how revenues flowing to Rome, available ecclesiastical capital, and papal borrowing related to the official prohibition. Letters of Alexander III addressing burdensome interest and relief for an indebted church suggest that institutional credit requirements deserve consideration alongside theological principles. The connection remains a question for investigation rather than a demonstrated explanation.

The reviewer also identifies gaps in the intellectual history, pointing to Henricus de Hassia, Gabriel Biel, Joachim Camerarius, and Besold as figures whose economic reasoning complicates the canonical account. These additions challenge the predominance of juristic sources and the conventional prominence assigned to Salmasius, but Inama does not regard them as overturning Endemann’s general results.

The concluding assessments preserve this qualified admiration. Inama praises the treatment of bills of exchange, attributes thinner evidence on partnerships partly to the novelty of the research and archival difficulties, and supplements the discussion of charitable credit institutions with earlier foundation dates and Florentine evidence concerning permitted interest and the expulsion of Jews. Such corrections refine an achievement he considers substantial. The review’s governing methodological claim is that a history of commercial law must connect doctrine with trade, investment, institutional finance, and the tensions between declared rules and economic practice.