A History of Balance, 1250-1375

Joel Kaye is a Professor in the Department of History at Barnard College, Columbia University. His previous publications include Economy and Nature in the Fourteenth Century: Money, Market Exchange, and the Emergence of Scientific Thought (Cambridge, 1998).

'Simply stated, my enthusiasm for A History of Balance, 1250–1375 is boundless. Words such as 'transformative' and 'pathbreaking' do not adequately convey [Kaye's] accomplishment … [His] synthetic vision renders coherent vast bodies of medieval literatures that one might suspect are integral to one another, but that no one before him has demonstrated so thoroughly and powerfully. I feel confident in saying that in decades hence, scholars will still be citing and drawing upon the insights offered by [this book]. I guarantee that [it] will profoundly inform my own future research on the intellectual history of the Middle Ages.' Cary J. Nederman, Renaissance Quarterly

• Introduction; 1. Equality and equalization in the economic sphere, part I: the scholastic discourse on usury to 1300; 2. Equality and equalization in the economic sphere, part II: the scholastic discourse on price and value to 1300; 3. Balance in medieval medical theory, part I: the legacy of Galen; 4. Balance in medieval medical theory, part II: the scholastic reception and refinement of Galenic balance to c.1315; 5. Evolving models of equalization in medieval political thought, c.1250–1325; 6. The new model of equilibrium in medieval political thought, part I: the Defensor Pacis of Marsilius of Padua; 7. The new model of equilibrium in medieval political thought, part II: the writings of Nicole Oresme; 8. The new model of equilibrium in scholastic natural philosophy, c.1325–75; Conclusion; Bibliography.