Visions of Equity

Historically, the way equity came to be applied within a normative “system” is not uniform. This chapter will focus on the medieval and the first early modern period, providing three examples of well-known but different uses of the same term: equity in common law, equity in civil law, and equity in mercantile transactions. In England, an increasingly formalistic approach led to a progressive rigidity, which called for some correction1; on the Continent, on the contrary, equity was quickly absorbed into law. Among merchants, equity was applied not as a way of correcting rules, but as their very essence.