ABSTRACT
In the last quarter of the twelfth century the budding University of Paris attracted a number of scholars who later made their names as authors in the border area of theology and canon law. The person at the centre of this circle was Peter of Paris, Chanter of Notre Dame Cathedral. His students include some, like Robert of Courson and Thomas of Chobham, who took a particular interest in what we now call economic subjects and thereby established the foundation of scholastic economic analysis in theological and philosophical traditions from the early thirteenth century on. The purpose of this study is to examine the economic ideas of Alan of Lille, a contemporary of Peter the Chanter. Alan was not so much a member of the Chanter’s circle as a polyhistorian belonging to a number of related and sometimes intersecting circles. Difficult to classify, he looms in the hazy dawn of academic life in Europe. Not unfittingly, Alan was honoured with the title he shared with Albert the Great, that of doctor universalis, for, like no other man of his age, he embraced the sum of learning. During his lifetime, the knowledge of Roman law spread in the West, and several important compilations of canon law were issued. The Latin classics were revived, as well as Latin poetic form. At the same time, great advances were made in theology and in Biblical exegesis. Much of this found expression in Alan’s work. It may as well be admitted that the search for constructive contributions to economic reasoning brought but meagre results. What permeates his work is a certain simple philosophy of wealth and economic activity. In that sense the ‘Renaissance of the Twelfth Century’, of whose intellectual life he is the perfect embodiment, was an age of innocence, at least in terms of intellectual responses to the challenges of changing economic circumstances.
