Question II: Whether a census can lawfully be sold

I assert that it is licit to sell and buy it, unless injustice arises from some other quarter. Thus it is laid down in both Extravagants of Martin V. and Calixtus III. tit. de empt. et vendit. and repeatedly in both Laws, and it is the common opinion of the Doctors at Tanner disput. 4. quaest. 7. num. 116.

It is proved, because a right which one has to receive utility from some thing is estimable by a price, just as also the right which one has to the whole thing, of which he is lord: Therefore that right can be transferred by sale.

Wherefore Medina quaest. 12. de Usuris, Soto lib. 5. quaest. 5. art. 1. Covarru. lib. 3. variar. cap. 7. and the rest refute Henry quodlib. 1. quaest. 39. and quodlib. 8. quaest. 24. and Innocent super cap. in civitate, extra. de usuris, and John Andreas there, and Salicetus in Authent. Ad haec, Cod. de usuris, who deny that a census newly to be instituted can be bought and sold, though they concede that one already instituted can be sold and bought.

It is proved secondly by Casas, because one can bequeath the usufruct of one's own thing, as the text proves in leg. Omnium praediorum, ff. de usufructu, and leg. si quis in 20. of the same title: Therefore he can licitly sell such a usufruct: Therefore also another can licitly buy it.