| Paper 1621-a | Urban Community Building and Public Institutions in Medieval Italy, England, and the Low Countries, 1250-1550
(Language: English)
Arie van Steensel, Birkbeck, University of London
Index terms: Administration, Economics - Urban, Social History |
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| Paper 1621-b | 'Mutuum Date Nihil Inde Sperantes': Fighting Usurers, Lending Money in Franciscan Observants's Reflections Concerning 'Montes Pietatis'
(Language: English)
Fabrizio Conti, Department of Medieval Studies, Central European University, Budapest
Index terms: Economics - Urban, Religious Life, Sermons and Preaching, Social History |
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| Abstract | Paper -a:
Medieval cities attracted large numbers of migrants from rural areas and other cities who were looking for a better life, despite the risks involved in urban life from high mortality and socio-economic uncertainty. An important explanation for this attractiveness can be found in the urban institutional arrangements. These included, apart from the town council, various religious and civic organisations (guilds, brotherhoods, neighbourhood associations, etc.) that shaped urban life and are captured in the concept of civil society. The question is how new forms of trust emerged that gave social cohesion to the rapidly growing urban communities. This paper focuses on the public institutions – based on a general form of trust – that strengthened the processes of social integration and community building. It will discuss the social mechanisms that underlay these new solidarities as well as the factors that facilitated their formation. It does so by comparing the developments in cities with different political and socio-economic profiles from Italy and the Low Countries.
Paper -b:
Without a doubt, the struggle against the Jews' monopoly of money lending by replacing their activities with the introduction of the Montes Pietatis can be considered one of the most important themes of 15th-century Franciscan Observant preachers. It was during this period that a new economic and work ethic bearing out the value of time in relation to the needs of production arrived at a crucial phase. On the one hand, the creation of the Montes meant the definite recognition of such a new social and economical code; on the other hand, the 'Franciscan economic thought' that lay behind the institution of the Montes played a much wider role as polemical background against the Jews and as essential requirements of the modern economy.
This paper will consider the implications of both these points as well as the problem of the legitimacy of applying an interest rate to money lending. The debate was high pitched, since as the comparative approach shows, the positions within the different religious orders were not exactly the same.
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