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right to do what he liked with his own, even to enjoy in luxury the wealth he possessed. "What injustice is there in my diligently preserving my own, so long as I do not invade the property of another?" "Shameless saying!" says S. Ambrose. "My own, sayest thou? what is it? from what secret places hast thou brought it into this world? When thou enterest into the light, when thou camest from thy mother's womb, what wealth didst thou bring with thee? That which is taken by thee, beyond what would suffice to thee, is taken by violence. Is it that God is unjust, in not distributing to us the means of life equally, so that thou shouldst have abundance while others are in want? It is the bread of the hungry thou keepest, it is the clothing of the naked thou lockest up; the money thou buriest is the redemption of the wretched." To seek to enrich one's self was not, simply, to incur spiritual risk to one's own soul; it was in itself unjust, since it aimed at appropriating an unfair share of what God had intended for the common use of men. If a man possessed more than he needed, he was bound to give his superfluity to the poor; for by natural law he had no personal right to it; he was only a steward for God.

If, however, to seek to enrich one's self was sinful, was trade itself justifiable? This was a question which troubled many consciences during the Middle Ages. On the one hand the benefits. which trade conferred on society could not be altogether overlooked, nor the fact that with many traders the object was only to obtain what sufficed for their own maintenance. On the other hand they saw that trade was usually carried on by men who had enough already, and whose chief object was their own gain: "If covetousness is removed," urges Tertullian, "there is no reason for gain, and, if there is no reason for gain, there is no need of trade." Moreover, as the trader did not seem himself to add to the value of his wares, if he gained more for them than he had paid, his gain, said S. Jerome, must be another's loss; and. in any case, trade was dangerous to the soul, since it was scarcely possible for a merchant not sometimes to act deceitfully. To all these reasons was added yet another. The thought of the supreme importance of saving the individual soul, and of communion with God, drove thousands into the hermit life of the wilderness, or into monasteries; and it led even such a man as Augustine to say that "business" was in itself an evil, for "it turns men from seeking true rest, which is God."

In the eleventh century began a great moving of the stagnant waters. The growth of towns, the formation of merchant bodies. the establishment of markets,-even if they did no more than furnish the peasant and the lord of the manor with a market for their

surplus produce,-brought men face to face with one another as buyer and seller in a way they had not been before. Hence economic questions, especially such as concerned the relations of seller and buyer, of creditor and debtor, became of the first importance To deal with these new questions a new jurisprudence presented itself, --the jurisprudence based on the revived study of Roman law. The Roman law, in the finished form in which the codification of Justinian presented it, rested on a theory of absolute individual property which was entirely alien to the usages of early Teutonic peoples, among whom community of ownership, or at any rate community in use, was still a prevalent custom; and it recognized an unlimited freedom of contract, which may have been suitable to the active commerce of the Mediterranean, but was sure to be the instrument of injustice when appealed to in the midst of more primitive social conditions.

With these new dangers before them, churchmen began once more to turn their attention to economic matters, and to meet what they regarded as the evil tendencies of the Roman law, "the principle of the world," by a fresh application of Christian principles. On two doctrines especially did they insist,-that wares should be sold at a just price, and that the taking of interest was sinful. They enforced them from the pulpit, in the confessional, in the ecclesiastical courts; and by the time that the period begins of legislative activity on the part of the secular power, these two rules had been so impressed on the consciences of men that Parliament, municipality, and gild endeavoured of their own motion to secure obedience to them.

10. The Contribution of the Church to Commercial Development9

BY J. DORSEY FORREST

A necessary prerequisite of commercial development was the establishment of an efficient agricultural system. In perfecting the agricultural organization the ecclesiastical domains served as models to the smaller lay proprietors. The monasteries depended more on rational organization than on personal power, and kept alive the more efficient methods employed by the Romans in earlier days. The monasteries usually established themselves on waste lands, for the prime object of the monks was retirement. After the invasions. they had no difficulty in finding waste lands even in regions which

'Adapted from The Development of Western Civilization, 176-179, 190-191. Copyright by the University of Chicago (1906).

had been most highly cultivated. Great saints could live holy lives as hermits; but when masses of men were gathered together, it became necessary for the leaders to lay down rules for practical activity. The poverty from which many of the monks came, the reverence of the Church for the Son of the Carpenter, and the necessity of labor for a means of subsistence, all combined to give manual labor a high moral value in the monasteries. Accordingly monastic rules enjoined the duty of manual labor as a moral discipline.

A second prerequisite of commerce was the division of labor and the development of the crafts. In time neighboring lords would give vast domains, with their villeins, to the monasteries in return for prayers. As the monasteries thus grew wealthy, a revolution came in the management of their internal affairs. All had to find a way to divide labor and to make some members of the community mere laborers. In feudal times this division was well advanced. For centuries the monks had kept alive many crafts, and the causes just referred to advanced these both in number and in technique.

In spite of the disorder which had troubled Europe from the time of the first invasion, there was never a time when commercial intercourse was entirely wanting. During the period of most complete disorganization the Jews carried on a casual trade in oriental luxuries and handled about all the money that circulated. United by faith and common traditions, in constant touch with co-religionists in other countries, they formed an organic body in the midst. of universal dissolution. The very action of the church upon the lay society contributed to their prosperity. The canons of the councils in denying to Christians the right to exact usury assured to the Jews a monopoly of the money business. Through their intimate relations with the Mohammedans, they were able to communicate with the East at a time when no Christian could sail upon the Mediterranean. The Church condoned their offenses against Christian morality because their services as money-lenders and dealers in valuables were indispensable. They were found also dispersed throughout the country, and on the domains plied their trade as pawnbrokers among the villages and brokers for the lords. Though the business of the Jews had some importance as a stimulus to greater demands for luxuries, it can hardly be considered a part of the commerce of Europe. Such commodities as spices, perfumes, silks, tapestries, precious stones, and jewelry were of little importance in the social development of Europe.

Preparation for the revival of commerce was made by the Church. The importance of magic made it desirable to transport

sacred relics from place to place; and the need of pictorial services required the transportation of church furnishings from Byzantium and Italy to the less advanced communities. For the manufacture of glass and the erection of the earlier buildings artisans themselves had to be imported from the East and the South. There was also a constant intercommunication in certain sections through pilgrimages to noted shrines. When special festivals were held at these shrines, large numbers of pilgrims would be present at the same time. The provisioning of such a company would occasion considerable trade, and peddlars and traders would naturally join the pilgrims. Sometimes the monks were themselves traders. Sometimes men would bring their simple manufactures from domains in the neighborhood. In some instances the important fairs sprang up at these favorite shrines. But, aside from trade, the pilgrimages themselves kept up communication between different points. Again the superstitious awe in which the Church was held made it possible for priests and monks and messengers and pilgrims to travel from place to place as neither merchants nor soldiers could do. Thus the commerce of the Church and the travel inspired by the Church served to keep open routes which were closed to ordinary travelers, and to bring remote regions into communication with each other.

The episcopal cities were also centres of incipient commercial transactions. Since the bishop did not move from one domain to another to consume the products of each in turn, as the lay nobles did, the products of surrounding manors had to be transported to the residence of the bishop. Thus there was maintained a kind of industrial concentration that might form the basis for new city life. In these various ways the churches and monasteries contributed largely to the commercial development. But they simply prepared society for a revival of commercial activity by keeping up communication and furnishing inns for travelers.

II. Italian Commerce and Industry in the Fourteenth Century10

BY THOMAS B. MACAULAY

Liberty, partially indeed and transciently, revisited Italy; and with liberty came commerce and empire, science and taste, all the comforts and all the ornaments of life. The Crusades, from which the inhabitants of other countries gained nothing but relics and wounds, brought to the rising commonwealths of the Adriatic and Tyrrhene seas a large increase of wealth, dominion, and knowledge. The

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moral and geographical position of these commonwealths enabled them to profit alike by the barbarism of the West and the civilization of the East. Italian ships covered every sea. Italian factories rose on every shore. The tables of Italian moneychangers were set in every city. Manufactures flourished. Banks were established. The operations of the commercial machine were facilitated by many useful and beautiful inventions. We doubt whether any country. of Europe, our own excepted, has at the present time reached so high a point of wealth and civilization as some parts of Italy had attained four hundred years ago. Historians rarely descend to those details from which alone the real state of a community can be collected. Hence posterity is too often deceived by the vague hyperboles of poets and rhetoricians, who mistake the splendour of a court for the happiness of a people. Fortunately John Villani has given us an ample and precise account of the state of Florence in the early part of the fourteenth century. The revenue of the Republic amounted to three hundred thousand florins; a sum which, allowing for the depreciation of the precious metals, was at least equivalent to six hundred thousand pounds sterling; a larger sum than England and Ireland, two centuries ago, yielded annually to Elizabeth. The manufacture of wool alone employed two hundred. factories and thirty thousand workmen. The cloth annually produced sold, at an average, for twelve hundred thousand florins; a sum fully equal in exchangeable value to two millions and a half of our money. Four hundred thousand florins were annually coined. Eighty banks conducted the commercial operations, not of Florence only but of all Europe. The transactions of these establishments were sometimes of a magnitude which may surprise even the contemporaries of the Barings and the Rothchilds. Two houses advanced to Edward the Third of England upwards of three hundred thousand marks, at a time when the mark contained more silver than fifty shillings of the present day, and when the value of silver was more than quadruple of what it now is. The city and its environs contained a hundred and seventy thousand inhabitants.

D. MEDIEVAL INDUSTRIAL POLICY

12. The Spirit of Solidarity in the Medieval Town

Town and gild ordinances furnish abundant evidence of a spirit of social solidarity animating industrial legislation which is quite foreign to the modern point of view. There was a determined attempt on the part of the authorities to prevent "regrating," or buying to sell again at a higher price; "forestalling," or outwitting fellow dealers

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