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Sacred Trust - The Medieval Church as an Economic Firm (Hardcover, New)
Loot Price: R2,016
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Sacred Trust - The Medieval Church as an Economic Firm (Hardcover, New)
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Without meaning to be irreverent, it is fair to say that in the
Middle Ages, at the height of its political and economic power, the
Roman Catholic Church functioned in part as a powerful and
sophisticated corporation. The Church dealt in a "product" many
consumers felt they had to have: the salvation of their immortal
souls. The Pope served as its CEO, the College of Cardinals as its
board of directors, bishoprics and monasteries as its franchises.
And while the Church certainly had moral and social goals, this
early antecedent to AT&T and General Motors had economic
motives and methods as well, seeking to maximize profits by
eliminating competitors and extending its markets.
In Sacred Trust: The Medieval Church as an Economic Firm, five
highly respected economists advance the controversial argument that
the story of the Roman Catholic Church in the Middle Ages is in
large part a story of supply and demand. Without denying the
centrality--or sincerity--of religious motives, the authors employ
the tools of modern economics to analyze how the Church's
objectives went well beyond the realm of the spiritual. They
explore the myriad sources of the Church's wealth, including tithes
and land rents, donations and bequests, judicial services and
monastic agricultural production. And they present an in-depth look
at the ways in which Church principles on marriage, usury, and
crusade were revised as necessary to meet--and in many ways to
create--the needs of a vast body of consumers. Along the way, the
book raises and answers many intriguing questions. The authors
explore the reasons behind the great crusades against the Moslems,
probing beyond motives of pure idealism to highlight the Church's
concern with revenues from tourism and the sale of relics
threatened by Moslem encroachment in the holy lands. They examine
the Church's involvement in the marriage market, revealing how the
clergy filled their coffers by extracting fees for blessing or
dissolving marital unions, for hearing marital disputes, and even
for granting permission for blood relatives to wed. And they shed
light on the concept of purgatory, showing how this "product
innovation" developed by the Church in the twelfth century--a form
of "deferred payment"--opened the floodgates for a fresh market in
post-mortem atonement through payments on behalf of the deceased.
Finally, the authors show how the cumulative costs that the
faithful were asked to bear eventually priced the Roman Catholic
church out of the market, paving the way for Protestant reformers
like Martin Luther.
A ground-breaking look at the growth and decline of the medieval
Church, Sacred Trust demonstrates how economic reasoning can be
used to cast light on the behavior of any complex historical
institution. It offers rare insight into one of the great
historical powers of Western civilization, in a analysis that will
intrigue anyone interested in life in the Middle Ages, in church
history, or in the influence of economic motives on historical
events.
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