Lenaert Leys, better known as Leonardus Lessius (1 October 1554 in Brecht - 15 January 1623, in Leuven) was a Brabant jurist, theologian, economist from the Jesuit order.
Nicknamed the "oracle of the Low Countries", figurehead of the School of Salamanca, he was a great source of inspiration for later jurists like Grotius, Juan de Lugo or Pedro de Oñate .
Born to a farmer father, Lessius grew up in a family of four children of which he was the only boy. [1] After primary studies in his village, his uncle encouraged him to continue his studies [2] in the Atrechtcollege of Leuven. [1] Receiving a scholarship, he studied after in the Pedagogie Het Varken , an arts department, where he was merited in 1572 the title of primus among all philosophy students. [2]
The same year, instead of pursuing his studies in Law of Theologye at the university of Leuven, het decided to take orders in the Company of Jesus. After his novitiate in the Jesuit college of Saint-Omer in 1574, he taught philosophy in the college d'Anchin of Douai, where Robert Southwell was one of his students. [3] Autodidact, he learned by himself ancient greek, biblical studies, patristic, theology, canon and civil laws. [2]
After a year of study in Liège, [3] he was sent in 1583 in the Roman College to pursue his theological learning under Robert Bellarmine and Francisco Suarez, who thought him the renewal of scholastic by the School of Salamanca. [4] He met also Maffeo Barberini, future pope Urban VIII. [5]
Back in Leuven in 1585, he became teacher of theology in the university, [6] where he was involved in the predestination theological debate that was raging in Leuven in 1587–88 against Baianism. Despite significant persecution and censorship that he received as a result, Lessius supported the view of free will and predestination developed by Luis de Molina, which was seen by many theologians at the time as too little conservative position. [7]
He pursued his academic career until 1600, when due to illness he was released from his teaching tasks. [8] Then he used his time to inspects colleges of the Jesuit order with Olivier Mannaerts and to write his doctrinal opus. [5]
Following the path of Domingo de Soto in the systematisation of law, [9] Lessius played a great role in the development of obligation and contract law, and was one of the main reference of Grotius. [10]
He systematised the concept vice of consent for error and made the contract voidable in aid of the intimidated party, putting an end to the roman distinction stricti iuris contracts and bonae fidei contracts. [11] He also possible, with Luis de Molina the distinction between contract law and testament law. [12]
Fervent supporter of contractual consensualism, he conceded however the possibility for the authorities to restrain it in order to protect vulnerable population, guarantee public interest or assure salvation. [13] He even formulated principles of contractual freedom, [14] later reused and assumed by Pedro de Oñate . [15] He also accepted the theory of improvision as a general principle of contract law. [16]
Lessius renewed the concept of just price based on Thomas Aquinas' works, and perceived it like the other members of the School of Salamanca as a result of human estimation : it then depends on multiple factors like offer and demand, monetary market, type of transaction,... [17]
Recognized as a "master of economic analysis" [18] for his reflexions, namely for his prefiguration of liquidity preference, Lessius was one of the most supportive thinkers about new merchant's practices, sometimes against traditional moral and theological thoughts. [19] For example, he clearly stated the dependence of the price of an insurance contract on the risk of the event insured against, [20] supported the establishment of mount of piety [21] and the utilisation of contractum trinius. [22]
Based on thomism, roman law and empirical observations on markets, [23] he provided a lot of arguments in the defense of nascent capitalism. [24]
In the same way, he was also interested in reflexions about ethical and deontological responsibilities of counsellors and lawyers. [25]
Lessius is buried in St. Michael Church, the historic Jesuit church in Leuven. His simple tomb is located in the baptistry, just to the north of the apse. Previously, he was interred at the nearby Jesuit college.
Natural law is a system of law based on a close observation of natural order and human nature, from which values, thought by natural law's proponents to be intrinsic to human nature, can be deduced and applied independently of positive law. According to the theory of law called jusnaturalism, all people have inherent rights, conferred not by act of legislation but by "God, nature, or reason". Natural law theory can also refer to "theories of ethics, theories of politics, theories of civil law, and theories of religious morality".
Cornelius Jansen was the Dutch Catholic bishop of Ypres in Flanders and the father of a theological movement known as Jansenism.
The just price is a theory of ethics in economics that attempts to set standards of fairness in transactions. With intellectual roots in ancient Greek philosophy, it was advanced by Thomas Aquinas based on an argument against usury, which in his time referred to the making of any rate of interest on loans. It gave rise to the contractual principle of laesio enormis.
Francisco Suárez was a Spanish Jesuit priest, philosopher and theologian, one of the leading figures of the School of Salamanca movement. His work is considered a turning point in the history of second scholasticism, marking the transition from its Renaissance to its Baroque phases. According to Christopher Shields and Daniel Schwartz, "figures as distinct from one another in place, time, and philosophical orientation as Leibniz, Grotius, Pufendorf, Schopenhauer and Heidegger, all found reason to cite him as a source of inspiration and influence."
The School of Salamanca is an intellectual movement of 16th-century and 17th-century Iberian Scholastic theologians rooted in the intellectual and pedagogical work of Francisco de Vitoria. From the beginning of the 16th century the traditional Catholic conception of man and of his relation to God and to the world had been assaulted by the rise of humanism, by the Protestant Reformation and by the new geographical discoveries and their consequences. These new problems were addressed by the School of Salamanca.
Luis de Molina was a Spanish Jesuit Catholic priest, jurist, economist and theologian renowned for his contributions to philosophy and economics within the framework of the second scholasticism.
Juan de Mariana also known as Father Mariana, was a Spanish Jesuit priest, Scholastic, historian, and member of the Monarchomachs.
Laesio enormis is a legal doctrine that gives a contracting party the ability to rescind an agreement if the price of exchange is less than a certain proportion of its actual value. The principle was developed as a way to ensure that people received a just price in exchange, and in opposition to the Imperial Roman view, found in the Corpus Juris Civilis, that the parties to an exchange were entitled to try to outwit one another.
The contractus trinus, contractus triplex, or simply triple contract, is a set of contracts used by European bankers and merchants in the Middle Ages, notably by the Fugger family, as a method of circumventing the canon law prohibition of usury.
Domingo de Soto was a Spanish Dominican priest and Scholastic theologian born in Segovia (Spain), and died in Salamanca (Spain), at the age of 66. He is best known as one of the founders of international law and of the Spanish Thomistic philosophical and theological movement known as the School of Salamanca.
Willem Hessels van Est, Latinized as Estius, was a Dutch Catholic commentator on the Pauline epistles.
Andreas Schott was an academic, linguist, translator, editor and a Jesuit priest from Antwerp in the Habsburg Netherlands. He was mainly known for his editions of Latin and Greek classical literature.
Tomás de Mercado (1525–1575) was a Spanish Dominican friar and both an economist and a theologian, best known for his book Summa de Tratos y Contratos of 1571. Together with Martín de Azpilcueta he founded the economic tradition of "Iberian monetarism"; both form part of the general intellectual tradition often known as "Late Scholasticism", or the School of Salamanca.
Martín de Azpilcueta, or Doctor Navarrus, was a Navarrese canonist, theologian and economist.
Wolfgang Musculus was a Reformed theologian of the Reformation.
Diego de Covarrubias y Leyva was a Spanish jurist and Roman Catholic prelate who served as Archbishop of Cuenca (1577-1577), Archbishop of Segovia (1564-1577), Archbishop of Ciudad Rodrigo (1560-1564), and Archbishop of Santo Domingo (1556-1560).
The Old University of Leuven was established in 1425 with Faculties of Arts, Medicine, Law; however, the university did not have a Faculty of Theology initially. In 1426 a Faculty of Canon Law was added, and at that time both Law Faculties functioned together in one Collegium utriusque iuris.
The history of contract law dates back to ancient civilizations and the development of contract law has been heavily influenced by Ancient Greek and Roman thought. There have been further significant developments in contract law during and since the Middle Ages and especially with the development of global trade.
Lodewijk Makeblijde (1565–1630) was a Flemish Jesuit and a Renaissance poet and hymn writer.
Spanish philosophy is the philosophical tradition of the people of territories that make up the modern day nation of Spain and of its citizens abroad. Although Spanish philosophical thought had a profound influence on philosophical traditions throughout Latin America, political turmoil within Spain throughout the 20th century diminished the influence of Spanish philosophy in international contexts. Within Spain during this period, fictional novels written with philosophical underpinnings were influential, leading to some of the first modernist European novels, such as the works of Miguel de Unamuno and Pío Baroja.
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