Ecclesiastical Economic Thought In Medieval Western Europe

Medieval ecclesiastical economic thought was originate from Original Sin and view of wealth in Bible. It was the combination of the commandment of’love the God’ in Bible and the Dualism of the Body and Soul in ancient Greek and Roman philosophy that contributed to the emergence of asceticism, which was the determining factor of medieval ecclesiastical economic thought. For the sake of suppressing desires, ecclesiastical economic thought, such as physiocracy, fair price theory, ban on usury and property ownership etc., generated.As the spiritual authority in middle ages, physiocracy what Christian church advocated had profound influence on the development of Western agriculture. For medieval Christian, Manual labor had a dual meaning. For one thing, it was the practice approach for Christian to restrain sensual and material desires, as well as save the soul; for another, it can not only satisfy the Christian church’s daily need, but also bring about abundant wealth which provided material conditions for the church to indulge.In contrast with emphasizing on agriculture, Fathers asserted that business was the occupation damaging the soul from the perspective of asceticism. Scholastics tried to inhibit man’s greed by fair price theory and ban on usury so as to avoid immoral acts in business activities such as cheating, buying low and selling high, replacing superior quality by inferior quality. In the meantime, medieval Christianity has abandoned the viewpoint that there was a conflict between belief and wealth in the New Testament. It encouraged private property to be taken for public use on the basis of acknowledging the legality of private property. Moreover, it has succeeded the moral commandment of’love your neighbor as yourself in the Bible, and advocated helping the poor and made it the obligation of the wealth owners and Christian churches. Poverty release, fair price theory and ban on usury were main means for the medieval Christian to restrain commerce. Obviously, the so-called business suppression is not to cancel business activities, but cut down businessmen’s greed and regulating business acts through morality and ethics like benevolence, justice and faith, etc.Investigation into theologians’writings alone is easy to draw the conclusion that medieval economic thought stressed agriculture and restrained commerce. But through the investigation on specific economic activities, we could discover the paradox that as Christian church advocated suppressing desire, it unbridled its own greed. Before religious movement in8th century got its scale, monks were indeed satisfied to lead a simple and virtuous life. Whether in the Bible or Benedict Rules, individuals instead of the whole monasteries were prohibited from property possession, which offered the opportunity for the latter to accumulate fortune. As the biggest feudal lord of Western Europe in the Middle Ages, Church trafficked surplus production from land to all parts of the Western Europe through various market priorities, for the purpose of gaining large amounts of economic interest. In order to ensure that its occupied land free from secular encroachment, Christian church built castles, established Celibacy and struggled with monarchical power over authority. Original Sin in Bible became the tool for wantonly grabbing wealth, which resulted in various forms of sin offering and atonement silver in middle ages. So there were not only voluntary religious behaviors such as land donation and legacy giving, but also soul transaction, such as peddling indulgences and saints’remains. In order to grab more land, gold and silver, the church even spared no expense to launch Crusades. Moreover, the church failed to take the private property for public use as it has advocated, rather, it squandered huge sum of wealth without restraint.The paradox between austerity and intemperance led to abbey reforms in middle ages. At first, all of them aimed at abolishing monasteries’ extravagance, and in the end they are reduced as the objects to be reformed because of their own luxury and dissipated life. The failure of reforms that surged by Cluny, Cistercian and Franciscans successively contributed the rise of Reform in the end of middle ages. As an influential French theologian during the Protestant Reformation, John Calvin advocated the personal enrichment should be base on glorifying the God and hardworking, which was actually the adjustment of medieval ecclesiastical economic thought in the new socioeconomic background.