Prologue

ONE is the bond of perfection by which the faithful, bound to one another, are united to God; but many are the ties and knots by which, as regards temporal advantage, men are bound not so much to one another as entangled in quarrels with one another, and these are contracts: Of the former, namely the contract of Charity, the Seraphic Bonaventure treated most fully; nor indeed does nearly all his work breathe anything else: Of the latter indeed he wove together but little (I confess). For while he was still a young man, on account of his aged wisdom of soul, he had been placed at the head of a Religious order, to which he had attentively presided for eighteen years, soon enrolled among the most eminent Cardinals, assumed to the Alban bishopric, and chosen as coadjutor of the supreme Pontiff, and distracted by various courts until his fiftieth year — in which, the Council of Lyons, over which he presided, having been concluded, he died, after he had contracted that famous union of Latins and Greeks — there was no time left over to spend on fully elucidating the contracts of the world; wonderful indeed, how amid so many straits of things and times he completed such outstanding volumes, in which divine and human things alike are wondrously described. Hence I will dispatch this matter more briefly, omitting nothing, however, that either pertains to the essence of contracts or regards the obligation of conscience in so difficult a matter. Moreover, for a fuller treatment, the immense works of Bonacina, Azor, and others are at everyone's hand, who strive to set forth lucidly whatever can intervene in contracts. Above all I shall treat of contract in general; afterwards I shall examine individual contracts in particular, where I shall touch chiefly upon those cases that serve daily practice everywhere; but if any cases occur that are now fallen out of use through desuetude, or rest on useless theory, I shall refer them to be examined by others.