In this next to last post about the High Catholic Age (aka. “The Middle Ages”), I want to focus on something that may come as a surprise to most people—indeed I was surprised when I found out about it. What is the “it,” you may ask? Well, it’s something that still is often in the news today: capitalism, free markets, and the ideal conditions that encourage innovations and inventions.
And yes, it seems that we have the Medieval…I mean, the monks of the High Catholic Age to thank for it.
In addition to inventing universities and revolutionizing philosophy, the monks of the High Catholic Age sowed the seeds of something else: free-markets and capitalism; and with that came a host of innovations and inventions that literally changed everything in the world. It started with the fact that, in the attempt to separate themselves from the world, monastic orders attempted to become completely self-sufficient monastic estates. What this meant was that monastic orders essentially went into business—be it wool, wine, beer, etc.—in order to gain self-sufficiency.
Now, the actual term “capitalism” wasn’t even a term until 19th socialists/anarchists/communists used it as a pejorative to describe the kind of free market economy that came out of the Industrial Revolution. Indeed, even today, “capitalism” carries with it very negative connotations by many on the political Left, as an oppressive economic system that benefits only the rich, at the expense of the poor working class.
Well, before we just accept the definition that was championed by the USSR and Communist China, step back and try to get a broader perspective. Sociologist Rodney Stark defines capitalism as “an economic system wherein privately owned, relatively well-organized, and stable firms pursue complex commercial activities within a relatively free (unregulated) market, taking a systematic, long-term approach to investing and reinvesting wealth (directly or indirectly) in productive activities involving a hired workforce, and guided by anticipated and actual returns” (Victory of Reason 56).
The Pagan World’s Demise and Christian Europe’s Rise…Open for Business!
In fact, a broader view of history allows us to see that it was because of the disintegration of the “old world” of paganism that Western Europe was in prime position to develop an entirely new economic system that eventually became what we know today as “capitalism.” And what was it that put them in a prime position? It was the absence of any kind of over-bearing state (think the Roman Empire) imposing harsh regulations on the market. In other words, there was tremendous opportunity and economic freedom in the High Catholic Age for anyone to take advantage of—and it was the monastic orders who led the way.
Vincent Carroll states in his book Christianity on Trial, “A market economy thrives in a culture of invention and creativity. This too was a distinctive gift of the Christian West, which flowered in its first full glory during the medieval era. The Judeo-Christian belief in the dignity of manual labor also played a role” (22). When the various estates across Europe saw how successful the monastic estates were becoming, they began following the “monastic business model,” if you will, and slowly the economic wheels of progress began to rebuild Europe.
As Stark points out, these estates became so successful that they eventually evolved into cities, and with that there was a further evolution in long-term city management. The growing economy developed more specialization in the workforce, that barter economy gave way to a cash economy, and with it came the whole concept of mortgage lending. Take, for example, cloth making. During the High Catholic Age people developed a way to mechanize cloth making. This inevitably lead to centers throughout Europe that specialized in cloth making; and this lead to the cloth making industry, which in turn became a major engine of commerce, and this further developed financial institutions throughout Europe.
Are You a Realtor or a Businessman? Thank a Monk…
It was the monasteries that paved the way for all of this. And the heart of all this was the concept of private property. Stark tells us, “John of Paris argued that private property is necessary for the maintenance of civil order: ‘For if things were held unreservedly in common, it would not be easy to keep peace among men. It was for this reason that private possession of property was instituted.” (Victory of Reason 78). Even the great Catholic philosopher Thomas Aquinas noted “that although private property is not ordained by divine law, it is in accord with the natural law—that is, inherent in human nature as derived through reason” (Victory of Reason 79).
Because the monasteries owned their own property, they were free to constantly stream-line administrative tasks and search out technological advances that were able to make their monasteries more efficient. In short, because they themselves were responsible for their own economic achievements, they were more motivated to do their jobs better.
And this led to yet another contribution Christianity made to the real world. It was the monastic orders that emphasized and taught about the dignity and virtue of manual labor. Let’s be clear: such a notion was foreign in Roman times, for manual laborers were slaves. Yet it was the monks who taught that Adam was ordained by God to rule the world by serving and caring for creation; Jesus was a carpenter and a servant-king. Work was good, and part of what it meant to be made in God’s image was to engage in the task of caring for his creation. Far from secluding themselves from the world to just “pray all day,” the monks of Western Europe immersed themselves in God’s creation by serving and working, and thus reflecting God’s image in their very labor. As Saint Benedict said, “Idleness is the enemy of the soul. Therefore the brothers should have specified periods for manual labor as well as prayerful reading…. When they live by the labor of their hands, as our fathers and the apostles did, then they are really monks.”
Such a Christ-like mentality on the part of the monks of the High Catholic Age led to an explosion in innovation and invention that the world had never seen before. Stark points out that all the following things came out of what I have termed “The High Catholic Age”: water mills, windmills, horse-collars, harnesses, reins, iron shoes for horses, the heavy, wheeled plow, fish farming, three-field crop rotation, chimneys, clocks, heavy cavalry, cannons, the stern-post rudder, the round ship, the magnetic compass, the blast furnace, steam power, layered stand below paving stones, the mechanized manufacture of paper, improvements to printing, improvements in mining, eye-glasses, crankshafts, and the beginnings of modern chemistry.
Wow…in addition, as Stark points out, “Not only did most Europeans eat far better during the Dark Ages than in Roman times, but they were healthier, more energetic, and probably more intelligent” (Victory of Reason 42). Not only that, but as Jean Gimpel states in The Medieval Machine, “The Middle Ages introduced machinery into Europe on a scale no civilization had previously known” (1).
Eilmer of Malmebury Almost Outdid the Wright Brothers by 800 Years
Yes, that’s right, they even got really close to inventing flying machines! An 11th century monk at Malmesbury Abbey named Eilmer designed a hand-glider, and actually flew for several hundred feet, before he crashed and broke both his legs. While he was recovering, he realized that the reason he had crashed was because his glider needed a tail. Unfortunately for him (and for Western civilization), his abbot ordered him not to continue his experimentation with his flying machine. Think about that for a second. If Eilmer had been allowed to give it another go, western civilization wouldn’t have had to wait another 800 years for Orville and Wilber Wright!
We were just “that close” to having airplanes in the 11th century. Well, that might be over-stated a bit, but the fact is that even Roger Bacon, a Franciscan scientist and philosopher, speculated about the eventual invention of “flying machines.” As Vincent Carroll states, “For Bacon, the empirical route—real-world verification through controlled experiments and observation—was the only reasonable way to proceed” (Christianity on Trial 69).
Conclusion
In any case, as writers like Stark and Carroll point out in their books, the very concepts of what would eventually become modern capitalism—that of profits, property rights, credit, and lending—can all be traced back to Christianity’s influence on Europe during the High Catholic Age. As Stark states, all the developments mentioned in this post “can be traced to the unique Christian conviction that progress was a God-given obligation entailed in the gift of reason. That new technologies and techniques would always be forthcoming was a fundamental article of Christian faith. Hence, no bishops or theologians denounced clocks or sailing ships—although both were condemned on religious grounds in various non-Western societies” (Victory of Reason 48).
Simply put, Christianity was good for business, and thus good for society, because Christianity emphasized the dignity of work and the responsibility to care for God’s creation.
“Surely our fathers have inherited lies.” On one hand, the Enlightenment, on the other, young-earth creationism. Regrettably, as you have pointed out in relation to Ken Ham, they tend to occur together.
I got a pamphlet from an extremely conservative Presbyterian website called “Christ and Civilization” that compared Catholic practice to Greco-Roman religion, repeated the Dark Ages lie lock, stock, and barrel, and laid credit for everything that makes Western civilization great at the feet of the Protestant Reformation. I only read the first few pages and then gave it to my dad, but maybe there was something to that spidey sense of something amiss that I got when I started reading it.