of an article, the price of which was fixed by law; and second, a consideration of what constituted the just price of an article, the price of which was not so fixed. [Footnote 1: Hunter, _Roman Law_, p. 492.] [Footnote 2: Ashley, _op. cit._, p. 133.] [Footnote 3: 'Scio ipse hominem quum venalis codex ei fuisset oblatus, pretiique ejus ignarum ideo quiddam exiguum poscentem cerneret venditorem, justum pretium, quod multo amplius erat nec opinanti dedisse' (_De Trin._, xiii. 3).] [Footnote 4: Palgrave, _Dictionary of Political Economy_, tit. 'Justum Pretium.'] § 2. _The Just Price when Price fixed by Law_. Regarding the power of the State to fix prices, the theologians and jurists were in complete agreement. According to Gerson: 'The law may justly fix the price of things which are sold, both movable and immovable, in the nature of rents and not in the nature of rents, and feudal and non-feudal, below which price the seller must not give, or above which the buyer must not demand, however they may desire to do so. As therefore the price is a kind of measure of the equality to be observed in contracts, and as it is sometimes difficult to find that measure with exactitude, on account of the varied and corrupt desires of man, it becomes expedient that the medium should be fixed according to the judgment of some wise man.... In the civil state, however, nobody is to be decreed wiser than the lawgiving authority. Therefore it behoves the latter, whenever it is possible to do so, to fix the just price, which may not be exceeded by private consent, and which must be enforced.'...[1] Biel practically paraphrases this passage of Gerson, and contends that it is the duty of the prince to fix prices, mainly on account of the difficulty which private contractors find in doing so.[2] [Footnote 1: _De Cont._, i. 19.] [Footnote 2: _Op. cit._, IV. xv. 11.]