Franciscan theologians in the 1200’s, in contemplating voluntary poverty, contributed mightily to the development of contractual arrangements to manage business risks, according to the research of historian of medieval economics, Giacomo Todeschini, of the University of Trieste.

“The latest discovery by medieval historians is that even games of chance, in the analysis of the Franciscan theologians, were for the good” notes Sandro Magister in Italian magazine L’esspresso. “This cleared the way for the modern economic concepts of risk” long before the Protestant merchants and traders who had previously been seen as the ‘founders’ of the capitalist system.