Robertus Bellarminus over het wisselcontract: zijn Leuvense lessen (1570–1576) en het scholastieke normatieve kader van de markt

This doctoral dissertation investigates the moral-theological teachings given by the Jesuit Robert Bellarmine (1542-1621) at the Jesuit College in Louvain. In these 'Louvain lectures', Bellarmine established a scholastic normative framework of the marketplace to address doctrinal issues arising from the complexities of his era, such as the rise of the discipline of moral theology, the reinforcement of the Church's usury prohibition, and socioeconomic developments. The focus lies on his teachings on money exchange (cambium), a controversial topic in the scholastic tradition, given the lack of teachings on the matter by theological and legal authoritative sources. The intense scholastic debate of the morality of money exchange has been well mapped out in the literature based on late medieval and early modern published treatises. Despite the important historiographical tradition, unpublished source materials containing lectures on the morality of money exchange produced within Jesuit education have been systematically overlooked. Based on Bellarmine's handwritten lecture text and notes written by his students, this study analyzes the Louvain lectures on cambium. It aims to understand the extent to which Bellarmine drew inspiration from knowledge of local market realities, existing normative frameworks, scholastic ideas of his time, and the concept of 'contract' to establish a moral cambium doctrine. In particular, it demonstrates that Bellarmine produced knowledge along legal lines, borrowing from Roman, canon, and natural law, and in doing so, built on the ideas of Spanish juridical thinkers belonging to the School of Salamanca. Also, more in general, it suggests that bills of exchange and the Church's usury doctrine do not constitute accurate frameworks for a systematic understanding of the early modern scholastic analysis of money exchange. A more insightful perspective on this debate might be achieved by considering the concurrent developments in the Christian contract doctrine.