De pignoribus et hypothecis theses

Since there are two kinds of securities by which creditors are accustomed to be adequately provided for regarding debts: one of sureties, the other of pledges: I have thought it right here, having dismissed the former, to insert the latter as more consonant with this our Disputation. Because, although according to the opinion of Ioan. Faber Johannes Faber, 15th-century jurist a full security occurs with sureties, yet it becomes fuller with pledges; since it is better to rely on a pledge than to pursue a person.

II.

And since more general things, as being better known to us and to nature, hold the first place in every kind of reasoning, as Aristotle testifies in Book 1 of the Physics, chapter 1, I shall rightly begin in the vestibule with the general definition of a pledge, afterwards descending gradually to its special declaration; because the knowledge of the genus must always precede the knowledge of the species.

III.

A pledge, therefore, taken in general, is any thing obligated for a debt.

IIII.

But taken properly, excluding mortgage hypotheca, a pledge is said to be nothing other than a named, good-faith contract, by which the possession of a movable thing is transferred to the creditor for this purpose: that the credit may be safe for him, while the obligation remains for the debtor himself to have the same thing restored once the debt has been fully satisfied.

V.

They say "pledge" pignus is derived from "fist" pugnus, because pledges are handed over by the hand.

VI.