Rethinking the Work Ethic in Premodern Europe 3031380916, 9783031380914

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Rethinking the Work Ethic in Premodern Europe Edited by Gábor Almási · Giorgio Lizzul

Rethinking the Work Ethic in Premodern Europe

Gábor Almási · Giorgio Lizzul Editors

Rethinking the Work Ethic in Premodern Europe

Editors Gábor Almási Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Neo-Latin Studies Innsbruck, Tirol, Austria

Giorgio Lizzul Fondazione 1563 Turin, Italy

ISBN 978-3-031-38091-4 ISBN 978-3-031-38092-1 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38092-1 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: Arbeid en Vlijt (Labor/Diligentia), Hendrick Goltzius, 1582. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Netherland This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Acknowledgements

We would like to express our thanks first and foremost to the contributors to this volume, who participated in the workshops and wrote their chapters in the very challenging context of the Covid-19 pandemic. Access to libraries and face-to-face interaction, which we had tended to take for granted when working on these kinds of projects, were suddenly stripped from us. This created challenges for all of us, from health problems to difficulties with communication. We are grateful to all our authors for the efforts they made to grapple with these problems under these very trying circumstances. The project had its origins in a panel at the ERCfunded SKILLNET conference “Memory and Identity in the Learned World,” which was held in Utrecht in November 2019. The panel “Work Ethic: Rhetorics and Practices” was organised by Dirk van Miert and Gábor Almási. We would like to thank Utrecht University for the initial support in facilitating the meeting of some of the participants in this project. Following the expansion of the project’s ambitions, we were due to hold a workshop in Innsbruck in 2021, hosted by the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Neo-Latin Studies, although travel restrictions still severely limited our ability to meet in person. Still, we are extremely grateful to the LBI for hosting the workshop and making online participation and discussion possible, and later for financing the process of copy editing. In particular, we would like to thank Director Florian Schaffenrath for his support and enthusiasm. We also owe a debt of gratitude to our discussants Anthony La Vopa, professor emeritus of history at North v

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Carolina State University, and Sarah Gwyneth Ross, professor of history at Boston College, whose scholarship has been a source of inspiration for us. By reading our draft chapters, taking an active role in our twoday workshop, and following our project, they have given us an example of human and scholarly generosity that is becoming ever rarer. Their insightful comments, expertise, and feedback have left an unmistakable mark on the chapters and have spurred us to reconsider many of our ideas and approaches. We would also like to thank Thomas Cooper for his invaluable work and assistance in copyediting. Thanks are also due to the editorial team at Palgrave Macmillan for their patience and the help they offered in the last stages of putting this volume together.

Contents

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1

Introduction: Rethinking Work Ethics Gábor Almási and Giorgio Lizzul

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The Work Ethic in Renaissance Florence: A Study of Its Origins Gábor Almási

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Preaching About Manual/Artisanal Labour: A New Focus and Ambivalent Messages (1200–1500) Marjorie Burghart and Pietro Delcorno

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Industry, Utility, and the Distribution of Wealth in Quattrocento Humanist Thought Giorgio Lizzul

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Work, Morality, and Discipline in Sixteenth-Century Geneva Graeme Murdock

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Critical Responses to the Humanist Work Ethic: The Image of the Pedant Arnoud Visser

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Scholars Working Themselves to Death: Casaubon and Baronio Compared Dirk van Miert

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CONTENTS

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Work and Idleness in Adam Contzen’s Political Oeuvre Katharina Rilling

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The Counter-Reformation Concept of Good Labour and the Inculcation of a Catholic Work Ethic Toon Van Houdt

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Labour as a Form of Charity and Almsgiving in Early Modern Poor Relief Lorenzo Coccoli

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Enlightened Women at Work: The Case of Marie-Anne Paulze-Lavoisier (1770s–1790s) Francesca Antonelli

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Labor Ipse Voluptas: Virtues of Work in Nineteenth-Century Germany Herman Paul

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Index

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List of Contributors

Gábor Almási Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Neo-Latin Studies, Innsbruck, Austria Francesca Antonelli Institut Universitari d’Estudis de les Dones, Universitat de València, Valencia, Spain Marjorie Burghart CIHAM UMR 5648—CNRS, Lyon, France Lorenzo Coccoli Università degli Studi di Catania, Catania, Italy Pietro Delcorno Dipartimento di Storia Culture Civiltà, Università di Bologna, Bologna, Italy Giorgio Lizzul Fondazione 1563, Turin, Italy; University of Warwick, Coventry, UK; Università di Torino, Turin, Italy Graeme Murdock Department of History, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland Herman Paul Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands Katharina Rilling Ludwig Studien, Innsbruck, Austria

Boltzmann

Institut

für

Neulateinische

Toon Van Houdt KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

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LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

Dirk van Miert Department of History and Art History, Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands Arnoud Visser Department of Languages, Literature and Communication, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

CHAPTER 1

Introduction: Rethinking Work Ethics Gábor Almási

and Giorgio Lizzul

This book investigates how work ethics in Europe were conceptualised from the Middle Ages to the nineteenth century. Through an analysis of a range of discourses, it focuses on the role played by intellectuals in formulating, communicating, and contesting ideas about work and its ethical value. The chapters in the volume decentre attention away from the idea of a singular Weberian work ethic as fundamental to modern notions of work to emphasise instead how different languages of work were harnessed for a variety of social, intellectual, religious, economic, political, and ideological objectives. The essays in this volume engage with

G. Almási (B) Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Neo-Latin Studies, Innsbruck, Austria e-mail: [email protected] G. Lizzul Fondazione 1563, Turin, Italy University of Warwick, Coventry, UK Università di Torino, Turin, Italy G. Lizzul e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 G. Almási and G. Lizzul (eds.), Rethinking the Work Ethic in Premodern Europe, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38092-1_1

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a number of questions that are key to thinking about the development of modern ideas of work. They stress plurality by investigating varying and sometimes divergent work ethics in premodern Europe. Why and in what contexts did labour become an important and openly promoted value? What values and meanings were attached to hard work by those who championed it? Who were these authors, and what were their intentions behind promoting a work ethic? Was there ever an early modern rupture with ancient and medieval discourses of work? We also ask how scholars’ own working practices and self-depictions shaped their social conceptions of work. Our diverse approaches in investigating these questions are located at the confluence of intellectual, social, and cultural history.

Weber and the Work Ethic Famously, in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Max Weber (1864–1920) argued that new ideas and attitudes towards work were part of the preconditions of European capitalist development and a key aspect of the modern “spirit” (Geist ) of capitalism.1 Central to the formation of this spirit—perhaps more usefully translated as a social ethos, mentality, or psychology—was the Protestant Reformation. In his most famous work, which was written in 1904–1905 and revised in a second edition that included more extensive notes in 1920, Weber ascribed a fundamental role to the impact of reformed theology on the growth of systematic rationality in economic activity, which he saw as characteristic of capitalist modernity.2 For Weber, the affinities between Protestant ideas of work and the capitalist ethos were key to understanding Europe’s economic development. A grasp of these affinities could even further an understanding of contemporary sociological patterns of business and labour. It was, according to Weber, “the religious valuation of restless, continuous, systematic work in a worldly calling [that constitutes] the highest means to asceticism, and at the same time the surest and most evident proof of rebirth and genuine faith.” It was this work ethic which gave 1 M. Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, trans. T. Parsons (London: Routledge, 1992 [1930]). 2 For a recent appraisal and historical contextualisation of Weber’s argument, see P. Ghosh, Max Weber and the Protestant Ethic: Twin Histories (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014); idem, A Historian Reads Max Weber: Essays on the Protestant Ethic (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2008).

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“the most powerful conceivable lever for the expansion of […] the spirit of capitalism.”3 Weber’s argument was a contribution to a wider debate among members of the later generation of the German Historical School over the nature and origins of capitalism.4 Following Werner Sombart’s Modern Capitalism (1902), the “spirit of capitalism” was introduced as an important theme into political economy, which until then had primarily been a materialist field of study.5 Sombart emphasised the important roles of economic rationality and a calculating and speculative disposition for the genesis of the kapitalistischer Geist through developments in capital accounting, such as double-entry bookkeeping. Of further importance for Sombart was the supposed historical development that led to the separation of the desire to acquire from the drive to satisfy needs.6 When Weber returned to the question of the origins of capitalism and the role of an ethos in its history, his novelty was to emphasise how ideas rather than material conditions were the effective forces that made possible and aided capitalist development.7 Religious thought was more fundamental to an explanation of the widespread dissemination of a psychology and rationality suited for capitalist accumulation in all spheres of modern life than specific innovations in accounting. For Weber, capitalism was an endless pursuit of profit, where irrational impulses such as greed were rationally tempered through “means of continuous, rational, capitalistic enterprise” aimed at profitability.8 Although for Weber accumulative capitalist activity was not historically or geographically specific, occidental prevalence of capitalist economic 3 Weber, The Protestant Ethic, 116. 4 See J. Milios, “Seeking the “Spirit of Capitalism”: The German Historical School and

the Controversies About the Origins of Capitalism,” International Critical Thought 12 (2022), 81–97. 5 Ghosh, Twin Histories, 52. 6 W. Sombart, Der moderne Kapitalismus, 2 vols. (Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot,

1902), 378–97. The chapter “The Genesis of the Capitalist Spirit” argued that Protestant sects “promoted the development of capitalism” as “a fact too well known to require further justification,” yet it offers an insufficient explanation for the development of modern capitalism, where a cause could not be distinguished from effect (pp. 380–81). 7 Peter Ghosh in Twin Histories (p. 13) quotes Weber’s claim that the Protestant Ethic was not prompted or shaped by Sombart’s book; its ideas originated from lectures in 1897. 8 Weber, The Protestant Ethic, xxxii.

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organisations was to be found in the fact that enterprises that directed their activity to regular markets were based on the rational organisation of formally free labour.9 This is where the work ethic, which valorised devoted hard work without end as a religious value, in conjunction with rationality, played a central role in the full development of the modern capitalist ethos. The employment of free labourers in a capitalist enterprise required labourers to be “under regular discipline.” Key for both capitalists and workers was the need to overcome a “traditionalism” in working attitudes. For workers with a “traditional” ethos, application in work was governed by the compulsion to meet one’s subsistence needs. Supposing that human “needs” are a static constant, higher wages made “traditional” workers less industrious rather than more, since they could satisfy their needs through less work.10 According to Weber, due to reformed mentalities dominating certain segments of society in the seventeenth century, this “traditional” work ethos was fundamentally changed. The Lutheran idea of Beruf (occupation)—and especially its Calvinist adaptation—transformed work into a religious duty, which was fundamental in laying the ground for the capitalist labour market. Work was now understood as an occupation in a life-task and had to be “performed as if it were an absolute end in itself, a calling.”11 Under capitalism, work and accumulation no longer served human subsistence needs, and hence, they became an “irrational element.”12 The ultimate purpose of life, in Weber’s description of the capitalist ethic, was the accumulation of money accompanied by a strict ascetic restraint on the consumption and enjoyment of this wealth: the summum bonum of this ethic, the earning of more and more money, combined with the strict avoidance of all spontaneous enjoyment of life, is above all completely devoid of any eudaemonistic, not to say hedonistic, admixture. It is thought of so purely as an end in itself, that from the point

9 Ibid., xxxiv–xxxv and 22–23. 10 “A man does not ‘by nature’ wish to earn more and more money but simply to live

as he is accustomed to live and to earn as much as necessary for that purpose.” Ibid., 23–24. 11 Ibid., 25. 12 “[E]conomic acquisition is no longer subordinated to man as the means for the

satisfaction of his material needs.” Ibid., 18 and 38.

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of view of the happiness of, or utility to, the single individual, it appears entirely transcendental and absolutely irrational.13

Although there is no need to present the voluminous literature on The Protestant Ethic that affirmed or contested Weber’s chronology and his emphasis on the Reformation, for our purposes it is important to highlight how the general concept of a work ethic was drawn from Weber and how its importance was contested. After the publication of The Protestant Ethic, the liberal Protestant theologian Ernst Troeltsch (1865– 1923) interpreted its “disciplined laboriousness” as having ushered in capitalist modernity.14 Sombart’s revised Modern Capitalism insisted on earlier Italian contributions to the calculating and speculative disposition; later, he would flag the role of Judaism.15 For Sombart, the “bourgeois thought” of the fifteenth-century Italian humanist Leon Battista Alberti and his use of masserizia (thriftiness or economy) were already evidence of a capitalist ethic of disciplined management of time and resources.16

13 Ibid., 18. 14 Ghosh, Twin

Histories, 140; E. Troeltsch, Protestanism and Progress (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2013), 77–78. 15 W. Sombart, The Jews and Modern Capitalism (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1982). For a recent discussion of Sombart’s anti-Semitic analysis of capitalism, see F. Trivellato, The Promise and Peril of Credit (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 2019), 198–211. 16 Sombart, Der moderne Kapitalismus, 2nd ed., 6 vols. (Munich and Leipzig: Duncker and Humblot, 1916–1927), 1:866, 2:8 and 135. Cf. Georg Simmel’s concept of the character of calculability, Berechenbarkeit in “The Metropolis and Mental Life” (1903), in The Blackwell City Reader, eds. G. Bridge and S. Watson (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2002), 11–19. Other books that stressed precedents include L. Brentano, Der wirtschaftende Mensch in der Geschichte (Leipzig: F. Meiner, 1923), 259; R. H. Tawney, Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (London: Verso, 2015), x–xii and 312 (which argued that more weight should be given to the Renaissance); and A. Fanfani, Catholicism, Protestantism and Capitalism (London: Sheed and Ward, 1939), 151 and 160–63 (which, however, disputed the notion that Catholic theology sanctioned capitalism). Fanfani also argued that alternative attitudes to work, which contrasted with the Protestant work ethic, developed in late fifteenth-century Italy in Storia del lavoro in Italia dalla fine del secolo XV agli inizi del XVIII in Storia del lavoro in Italia, ed. R. del Giudice, 7 vols. (Milan: Giuffrè, 1943), 3:22–24. For the voluminous critical literature, see the old but useful overview Protestantism and Capitalism: The Weber Thesis and Its Critics, ed. R. W. Green (Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath and Company, 1959). For a more recent overview, see The Protestant Ethic Debate: Max Weber’s Replied to His Critics 1907–1910, eds. D. J. Chalcraft and A. Harrington (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2001).

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We do not intend the essays in this volume as a critique of the “Weber Thesis” more than 100 years after the publication of the Protestant Ethic, not least because the very notion that Weber espoused or advocated a singular thesis should be questioned. Quite the contrary, Weber always presented his argument as one stand in the development of modern capitalism. We do, however, take some of our research cues from considerations he raised in his influential research programme. These considerations offer some common threads that run through many of the chapters and that inevitably link us to Weber’s legacy. First, the Protestant Ethic was a powerful call to take intellectual history seriously in social and economic historical explanation. Second, Weber’s prioritisation of religious belief as penetrating all aspects of social analysis informs our interest in addressing and gauging the extent and nature of the reach of discourses on work in other fields. This has spurred us to analyse genres and means of communication. Third, Weber’s analysis of concepts such as vocation (Beruf ) indicate the relevance of Begriffsgeschichte and, in part, inform our investigations into the lexicons of work and their social significance. Finally, the importance for Weber of beliefs and attitudes held unconsciously as part of a social ethos has led us to confront questions of historical methodology and the appropriate approaches in investigating and interpreting the work ethics of the past. Although for many, Weber’s study of an ethic would suggest that this is a field of investigation for the histoire des mentalités, we tend towards analyses of discourses and the explicit intellectual articulation of codes of behaviour related to work. We emphasise throughout the plurality of work ethics in premodern Europe—ethics which fed in multiple and diverse ways into modern ideas of work—rather than one singular modern work ethic.

The Problem of Sources In reaction to critics who pointed to capitalist practices, mentalities, and figures before the Reformation, Weber asserted that they had completely missed the point, since he was not addressing a “private ethic” or “literary theory,” but the “revolutionary force” of a “religious belief” which had set “the sanctions of salvation and damnation on the fulfilment of a particular […] manner of life.”17 Greedy capitalists had always existed

17 Weber, The Protestant Ethic, 144–45 (chapter 2, note 12).

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in history, but the capitalist spirit of systemic rationality combined with worldly asceticism and the work ethic had hardly existed before the rise of Protestantism as a mass phenomenon.18 He pointed out that his sources (primarily written by Protestant theologians) “are neither dogmatic nor edifying works, but grew out of practical ministry, and thus give a good picture of the direction which its influence took.”19 In other words, these theological works were not “literary theory,” as he understood Alberti’s I libri della famiglia to be, but mirrored the practice of ministers, who addressed the masses and not “the humanistic aristocracy.”20 Although many contemporary scholars would hesitate to draw such a sharp distinction between theology and humanist moral philosophy— Alberti’s libri della famiglia did after all enjoy diffusion and had an instructive ambition—Weber emphasised the importance and privileged place of theology on the basis of its reach and influence.21 Yet if we are to understand the role of intellectuals in creating and communicating ethics of work, such sources must be brought together. Highly erudite Puritan authors, praised by Weber for their classical erudition (“the great men of the Puritan movement were thoroughly steeped in the culture of the Renaissance”22 ), were obviously influenced by authors writing for more restricted literary audiences. Such discourses should not be set apart and artificially compartmentalised. Likewise, we cannot assume that theologians and preachers exerted an effective influence on their audiences merely by virtue of their monopoly of the pulpit.23 This is a caution that needs to be kept in mind when considering any of our learned promoters

18 Ibid., 20–22. 19 Ibid., 197 (chapter 4, note 84). 20 See ibid., 142–44, note 12. 21 Ibid., “only in so far as these sanctions work, and, above all, in the direction in which they work, which is often very different from the doctrine of the theologians, does such an ethic gain an independent influence on the conduct of life and thus on the economic order.” 22 Ibid., 113. 23 For example, complaints about the lazy morals of the English working classes

and poor were a continuous fixation of moralists from the early seventeenth until the mid-nineteenth century. See E. S. Furniss, The Position of the Laborer in a System of Nationalism: A Study in the Labor Theories of the Later English Mercantilists (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1920), 96–157; C. Hill, Society and Puritanism in Pre-revolutionary England (London: Verso, 2019 [1964]), 103–17, 219–54; E. P. Thompson, “Time,

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of work ethics and especially when trying to bridge the gap that separates textual representations and normative prescriptions from practices. To enquire further into the actual practices of work and investigate the routine of habituation in everyday life, for example in education and at work, ideally one needs sources that can offer some perspective on the internalisation of work-related values. For this end, reading biographical sources and egodocuments (autobiographies, diaries, letters, account books, etc.), which may better reflect the self, are apposite. Nevertheless, the study of biographies and egodocuments does not eliminate the problem of literary tropes and rhetorical traditions. Even in these genres, authors often had moralising intentions, and their works often represented idealities and were reliant on literary practices which had not been made the subject of reflection or critique. This can briefly be illustrated by the example of Pliny. One of the most important ancient literary examples of the hardworking intellectual is provided in a letter by Pliny the Younger (Epistle 3.5) about the daily routine of his uncle, Pliny the Elder.24 Uncle Pliny’s exceptional literary productivity, which was combined with his responsibilities as someone who held public office, was founded on a uniquely strict management of time. His “day starts long before the crack of dawn, up in full darkness and lamplight from fall through winter, seasonally adjusted back to the dead of night.” Already before daybreak, Pliny visited the emperor as his councillor and performed other tasks. After lunch, he did book work, “featuring notes and lemmata.”25 While sunbathing, he read a book and took notes, and after a short, relaxing cold bath, while he was being rubbed down and towelled dry, he was again listening to or dictating a book. Even dinner was spent working, and he did more work until he retired before dark in summertime or one hour after sunset in the winter, “as though some law dictated it.” Pliny the Younger recalled having been “reprimanded by him—why walk? ‘You had the chance,’ he

Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism,” Past & Present 38 (December 1967), 56– 97; and J. Hatcher, “Labour, Leisure and Economic Thought Before the Nineteenth Century,” Past & Present 160 (August 1998), 64–115. 24 See J. Henderson, “Knowing Someone Through Their Books: Pliny on Uncle Pliny (Epistles 3.5),” Classical Philology 97 (2002), 256–84. Cf. K. A. E. Enenkel, Die Erfindung des Menschen. Die Autobiographik des frühneuzeitlichen Humanismus von Petrarca bis Lipsius (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2008), 348–49. 25 Henderson, “Knowing Someone,” 266–67.

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said, ‘to waste not these hours.’ You see, he reckoned all time ‘wasted’ that was not invested in study.”26 Pliny the Younger’s description relied on the Life of Augustus by Suetonius, which stressed that while barbers were working in a hurry on the emperor’s hair and beard, he “would either be reading or writing something.”27 The first Renaissance scholar to consider these nuances was Petrarch when he claimed in one of his letters (Familiares 21.12) to follow “in Augustus’s footsteps” and “read, write, or listen to someone reading, or dictate to scribes while combing his hair and shaving.” Furthermore, he had “developed the habit of doing likewise while riding or dining,” which was something he could not “recall having read about Augustus or others.”28 Pliny the Younger’s letter inspired several later humanists too, such as the Frisian biographer of the Dutch humanist Willem Canter, who claimed that Canter went so far in time-management that he measured the time spent on each of his scholarly activities with an hourglass, not even letting “nature itself put him under pressure in other ways than he himself prescribed.”29 The example of Pliny’s reception does not mean we can learn nothing of the working habits of individual men and women through biographical sources, egodocuments, and other literary characterisations. Yet we need to be aware that these sources are literary constructions to a higher degree than other sources concerning practices of habituation, found in the texts of statutes and regulations concerning guilds, hospitals, factories, workhouses, schools, educational policy and poor relief, etc., which provide insight into how regulation sought to inculcate a work ethic into individuals.30 Nevertheless, these regulatory sources reflect ideals and expectations too. It is difficult to gauge how successful habituation was

26 Ibid., 261 and 263. 27 Suet. Aug. 79. 28 If Pliny the Elder did not work on horseback, it was because he was usually carried in a litter. Petrarch knew Pliny’s Epistulae, but he did not refer to it. See C. Kempf, “Pliny the Younger, Epistulae,” in Der Neue Pauly Supplemente, vol. 7 (Stuttgart: Metzler, 2010), 733. 29 G. Almási, “The Work Ethic in Humanist Biographies: The Case of Willem Canter,” Hungarian Historical Review 8 (2019), 594–619. 30 Weber was sceptical about regulations inducing a work ethic because interiorisation had to be based on serious psychological incentives, which religion alone could provide. See, for example, Weber, The Protestant Ethic, 99.

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in individual cases. Success and lasting effect, it can plausibly be assumed, were correlated with habitation from an early age.31 William Temple believed as much when, in 1770, he advocated that poor children should be sent to workhouses and kept continuously employed: “There is considerable use in their being […] constantly employed at least twelve hours a day, whether they earn their living or not; for by these means, we hope that the rising generation will be so habituated to constant employment that it would at length prove agreeable and entertaining to them.”32 The above considerations caution against jumping to conclusions regarding the actual practice of work by historical agents. In this volume, we take a philological approach that considers literary and rhetorical traditions, authorial intentions, intended audiences, and their wider historical contexts. The vast majority of the texts we analyse were written by and for a small, learned, literate elite. Thus, these texts are necessarily partial and prejudiced with regard to shedding light on the working values and habits of ordinary people. Instead, more often than not, they offer evidence of intellectuals’ ideals regarding work cultures and the significance of diligence, promoting specific values and ideals of work and leisure. In as much as there is a shared approach in our essays to the question of premodern work ethics, it is found in an insistence on placing ideas in context by “focusing on the diverse and ever-changing values, norms, and traditions that accompany and surround the concept and practice of work in different contexts.”33 Since discourses on values and norms are central to our research interests and they can be discerned in a wide range of literary genres, we do not limit ourselves to or prioritise any specific intellectual field. We engage with a wide range of texts: alongside scholastic and humanist tracts on household management and theology (systematic moral theology, sermons, treatises, commentaries, confessors’ manual, books on pastoral care, etc.)—the traditional sources used in studies on work ethics—the authors of this volume have also considered regulations and practical discussions of relief for the poor, and they have studied a variety of 31 Sources on school discipline should certainly merit more attention. On sixteenthcentury Protestant sources, see G. Almási, “Educating the Christian Prince for Learning and Peace: The Cases of Archdukes Rudolf and Ernst in Spain (1564–1571),” Central European Cultures 1 (2021), 2–43, note 114. 32 Thompson, “Time, Work-Discipline,” 84. 33 Quoted from the conclusions to Chapter 10 by L. Coccoli.

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biographical sources and egodocuments, from family books to letters and correspondence and from the personal diaries of humanists to Enlightenment memoirs. Other pertinent sources analysed in this volume include humanist treatises and dialogues, political tracts and pamphlets, journal articles, travel accounts, as well as plays, laws, guild statutes, school regulations, and paintings.34

The Meaning of Work When approaching diverse historical discourses of work, it is essential to identify and decipher the complex array of terms used to denote action which today would simply be lumped together under a general concept of work.35 In the premodern European lexicons of work, no single shared term captures all the activities and meanings signified by the modern English word “work.”36 In 1857, Marx wrote that “work may seem to be a simple category […] however, when seen from an economic point of view, even this simple category is as historical a concept as the social relations which gave birth to it.”37 Although we use the term “work” in a very broad and generic sense in this volume as a modern umbrella concept

34 This list of potential sources is by no means exhaustive. Not included in this volume

are monastic rules, poetry and fiction (especially utopias), and the paratexts of scholarly editions. 35 M. Godelier, “Work and Its Representations: A Research Proposal,” History Workshop

10 (Autumn 1980), 164–74 suggested a collaborative research project on the global and historical representations of work; it resulted in Le travail et ses représentations, ed. M. Cartier (Paris: Éditions des Archives contemporaines, 1984); A. Applebaum, The Concept of Work: Ancient, Medieval and Modern (New York: State of New York Press, 1992); more recently see The Idea of Work in Europe from Antiquity to Modern Times, eds. J. Ehmer and C. Lis (London: Routledge, 2009), 1–23. 36 For an engaging recent discussion of the meaning of work, see A. Komlosy, Work: The Last 1,000 Years (London: Verso, 2018), 77–104; M. Füllsack, Arbeit in Grundbegriffe der europäischen Geistesgeschichte, ed. K. P. Liessmann (Vienna: Facultas-Verl., 2009). H. Arendt, The Human Condition, 2nd ed. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1998). See the doctoral thesis of S. Barsella, Work and Creation: A Humanistic Concept from Antiquity to Boccaccio (PhD thesis, Johns Hopkins University, 2001) for a profound discussion of work from antiquity to the late Middle Ages. See also B. van den Hoven, Work in Ancient and Medieval Thought. Ancient Philosophers, Medieval Monks and Theologians and their Concept of Work, Occupations and Technology (Amsterdam: Brill, 1996). 37 Quoted in M. Godelier, “Work and Its Representations,” 166.

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to capture a range of discourses and vocabularies pertaining to occupation, purposive economic action, and the activities needed to sustain life and create wealth, work in the writings of many of our authors was represented by a multiplicity of terms that were often morally charged and not treated as synonyms.38 Each word has its own unique genealogy and particular associations and relationships with the social organisation and hierarchies of work and society. This is especially important in analyses of discourses that sought to expound the moral value of work and non-work. The etymologies of so many of the words in the lexicon of work in European languages betray moral judgements and prejudices embedded within these words. This is seen in the Greek pónos (π´oνoς), which has the sense of work as physical exertion to be contrasted with the more positive connotations of érgon (∈ργoν), or work defined in relationship to the product of effort.39 This separation of toil from the creative and praiseworthy dimension of work is also found in the Latin labor and opus, where labor was in antiquity associated with exertion that takes a toll on the body or the soul and was often distinguished from opus. As Andrea Komlosy recently put it, “Pónos-labor is rooted in suffering, signifying the effort, the agony, and humanity’s compulsion to sustain and reproduce life […]. Critical to the notion of érgon-opus was that activity had a productive or creative character.”40 Many European languages in their etymologies for work reflect this distinction and emphasise the pain and lowly status of labour, for example “travail” in French, “Arbeit” in German, “lavoro” in Italian, “trabajo” in Spanish, and “rabota” in Old Church Slavonic.41 The argument has been made that words like “travail,” “trabajo,” “travaglio,” and “trabalho” derive from the Latin

38 A useful modern concept of work can be found in Weber’s Economy and Society, trans. K. Tribe (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2019), 210–11, where work (Leistung ) can be either “dispositional” (meaning essentially managerial or distributive) or “orientated to the dispositions of other” as Arbeit. However, as Weber goes on to say, “[t]he work of ‘disposition,’ or managing others, is of course also in every conceivable respect, labour [Arbeit], if by ‘labour’ we mean a claim on time and effort.” See Tribe’s useful gloss on Disponierende, in idem, 210–11, note 53. 39 For the classic discussion of this difference, see Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1989), 79–174. 40 Komlosy, Work, 77–78. 41 Ibid., 75–82.

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tripalium, a torture instrument made of three stakes.42 A philological sensitivity is therefore key in our approach to our texts. When Saint Augustine wrote about his own scholarly work involved in writing the City of God, he described it through the vocabulary of labour: he had “taken in hand the labour [labor] of writing so long a work [opus ].”43 Augustine consciously employed a term that conjured in its Latin associations toil and pain, both in the Stoic sense of “labor” as an obligation to work44 and in its Christian sense of the postlapsarian state, in which men had been “cast forth into the labours and miseries of our present condition.”45 Labour, as he explained, “though useful is itself a punishment” regardless of its ends and not withstanding that “idleness [desidia], dilatoriness [segnitia], indolence [pigritia], and negligence [negligentia] are vices.”46 For Augustine, labour was a punishment that would accompany man’s life in the Saeculum—only the kingdom of heaven would be the end of toil.47 In Jerome’s Vulgata, the Latin “laborare” was always distinguished from “operare,” a term used alongside “custodire” to describe Adam’s work in Paradise and which was likewise never used to describe God’s work (creare) in the Creation.48 This was a distinction that mirrored both the Greek and Hebrew Genesis.49 Although for Augustine God’s creation could also provide a model of work, God’s work was a delicate issue that needed to be understood allegorically, because “when God rested from all His works [ab omnibus operibus ] on the seventh day, and hallowed it, we are not to understand this in a childish sense, as though God laboured at His task [laboraverit 42 L. Febvre, “Travail: Evolution d’un mot et d’une idée,” Journal de psychologie normale et pathologique 41 (1948), 19–28. Cf. the painful connotations of “labour” also in modern English for childbirth. 43 Augustine, The City of God Against the Pagans, trans. R. W. Dyson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 15.14 (p. 662). For the Latin text see Augustine, The City of God Against the Pagans, 7 vols. (Cambridge, MA and London: Loeb Classical Library, 1965–1985). 44 On the duty to work in Stoic philosophy, see M. Colish, The Stoic Tradition from Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages (Leiden: Brill, 1985), 41. 45 Augustine, The City of God, 22.24. 46 Ibid., 22.22 (p. 1155). 47 See Genesis 3:17–19. 48 Barsella, “Work and Creation,” 165. 49 See ibid. for a philological discussion of work in the Bible.

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operando]. For He ‘spake and it was done;’”50 and “we should not, therefore, suppose God’s rest to be a state of laziness, indolence, or inertia; nor should we suppose His work to be a state of labour, endeavour, or industry. He knows how to act while He rests [quiescens agere], and to rest while He acts [agens quiescere].”51 “Labor” had an ambivalent status and resonance in Christian Europe. Although it was a punishment, it was also an obligation for men, as made clear in Paul’s Second Epistle to the Thessalonians: “if a man shall not work, he shall not eat.”52 These examples from Augustine also serve to demonstrate how, if we seek to understand the intended moral and theological significance of a text, we must identify the specific terminologies of work and their precise normative associations. Fundamental to any interpretation of the historical values attached to lexicons of work is some understanding of their relationship to freedom and unfreedom. Hannah Arendt famously problematised this in The Human Condition (1958). Arendt posited a central distinction between three aspects of the active life: labour, work, and action. Labour was associated with the biological and animal life of man and the necessity of providing that which is needed for life. It was not the same as work, understood as making, or action, which was the plural basis and reason for political life.53 Aristotle had argued that a life limited to providing the necessities of survival either through having to labour (as slaves do) or having to practice a craft precluded freedom. Productive work deprived ´ and rendered one’s mind incapable of exercising men of leisure (σχoλη) political virtue.54 Cicero in De officiis argued that those who earn a wage are not free, “for in their case the very wage they receive is a pledge of

50 Augustine, The City of God, 11.8 (p. 458). 51 Ibid., 12.18 (p. 525). 52 1 Thess. 3:10–11. On the status of work in the early church, see A. D. Karayiannis and S. Drakopoulou Dodd, “The Greek Christian Fathers,” in Ancient and Medieval Economic Ideas and Concepts of Social Justice, eds. S. Todd Lowry and B. Gordan (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 172–75. 53 Arendt, The Human Condition, 7. 54 Aristotle, Politics, 1337b2–15 (see also Plato, Laws, 8.846d). Note, however, that in

Aristotle’s epistemological thinking he gave new value to the productive arts and crafts. For a general discussion of Greek economic thought, see L. Baeck “Greek Economic Thought: Initiators of a Mediterranean Tradition,” in Ancient Economic Thought, ed. B. B. Price (London: Routledge, 1997), 146–71.

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their slavery.”55 To live a free human life meant participation in the polis. This required a lack of constraint from economic necessities (a prerequisite granted by the use of slave labour) and excluded being a craftsman or “wealth-getter.”56 This ancient conception of the active life changed dramatically. Arendt argued that, after Augustine, the vita activa could mean not only a life involved in public affairs but also one in economic activities.57 The political dimension of leisure, however, survived well into the nineteenth century. The European nobility made sure to preserve the association between work and servitude on the one hand and leisure and freedom on the other. The view of a generalised contempt for work in the ancient world should not be exaggerated and has been much challenged.58 Prestige was given to productive work that demonstrated technical expertise, creativity, and virtue. There was also a long tradition since Hesiod that highly valued agricultural labour. In the Middle Ages, Thomas Aquinas and other thirteenth-century theologians gave manual labour a new status by emphasising how it provided what was necessary for survival.59 For Aquinas, productive work is virtuous by way of analogy with divine work: “heaven and earth [are] brought into being by God, as the handiwork produced by a craftsman.”60 Humans, made in the image of God, can be understood as actors working on the external world. It follows that

55 Cicero, De officiis, ed. and trans. W. Miller (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1913), 1.150. On work freedom in Roman thought, see G. Vivenza, “Roman Thought on Economics and Justice,” in Ancient and Medieval Economic Ideas (as in note 52), 294–300. On the grading of the artes in Cicero’s thought according to utilitas and their exercise of prudence, see in idem, 295. 56 Arendt, The Human Condition, 12–14. 57 For a more recent study of the active and contemplative life in the Middle Ages

and the Renaissance, see Vie active et vie contemplative au Moyen Âge et au seuil de la Renaissance, ed. C. Trottmann (Rome: École française de Rome, 2009). 58 See C. Lis “Perception of Work in Classical Antiquity,” in The Idea of Work, 33–70. Barsella, “Work and Creation,” 55–56. 59 Aquinas, Summa theologiae, in Opera omnia iussu Leonis XIII , vols. 4–12 (Rome: Ex Typographia Polyglotta S. C. de Propaganda Fide, 1888–1906), 2a.2ae, 179. For a discussion of the artes mechanicae in medieval Aristotelian thought, see E. Whitney, “Paradise Restored: The Mechanical Arts from Antiquity Through the Thirteenth Century,” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 80 (1990), part 1, 129–46. 60 Aquinas Summa contra gentiles, eds. P. Marc, C. Pera and P. Caramello (Rome: Marietti, 1961), 2.1.3–6.

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the highest status was accorded to those at the pinnacle of an economic activity, the “architects” of action, who in the most basic economic unit were the heads of the household. The “work” of the “architectus” is the art of acquiring wealth from nature, where hierarchy is connected to autonomy, property, and the skill of overseeing work to virtuous ends.61 Supervisory work, in the context of the household, also gave status to women’s work, as described in the Xenophonian tradition of household management, which gave women a role in overseeing household slaves, weaving, provisions, property, and finances.62 For the Venetian humanist Francesco Barbaro (1390–1454), this required virtue and the exercise of industry.63 Industria was a much less ambiguous label than labor for effort in work. “How wonderful, how astonishing, are the achievements of human industry,” Augustine exclaimed.64 Popularised by the works of Cicero, industry emphasised the application of reason through effort in action.65 Industry was a central feature of the homo faber (or in a Ciceronian political context, that of the novus homo), the man who successfully resisted fortune, relying on his own virtues. Usually, this “self-made man” and, more often than not, social climber, like Cicero, entered the political and intellectual apex from a position of social disadvantage (in Cicero’s case, he was from a wealthy background, but he had not been born into the senatorial class). In an attempt to establish his credibility as a prosecutor working for the common good, Cicero argued in his oration Against

61 Aquinas, In libros politicorum Aristotelis expositio, ed. R. M. Spiazzi (Truin and

Rome: Marietti, 1951), 1.6.10. Skilful craftsmen are not mere tools but instead employ instruments that are either inanimate or human (servi). A master craftsman’s work gains status from the fact that inanimate instruments cannot operate themselves, nor “human instruments” who require supervision (Thomas’ commentary follows Albert Magnus here), 1.2.6. 62 See Xenophon, “Oeconomicus,” in Xenophon in Seven Volumes: IV Memorabilia and Oeconomicus, trans. E. C. Marchant and O. J. Todd (Cambirdge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979), 7.3–10.13. In the “management (διoικšω) of the interior of the household,” 7.3 (p. 440) status is given to wives’ work that is “befitting” (ƒκαν´oς) and not idle. 63 F. Barbaro, The Wealth of Wives: A Fifteenth-Century Marriage Manual, trans. M. L. King (Toronto: Iter Press etc., 2015), 71. 64 Augustine, The City of God, 22.24. 65 See Cicero, Against Verres, 2.3.7. See also Sallust, The War with Cataline, 52.21.

On the later significance of industria in the discourses of work see this chapters 2 and 4 of this volume.

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Verres (2.3.7) that people like Verres (or his defender Hortensius), who had senatorial forerunners or had simply abused their privileged social position and power, were the exact opposite of what he stood for: “You hate the industry of new men; you despise their economy [ frugalitas ]; you scorn their modesty; you wish their talents and virtues to be depressed and extinguished.”66 With regard to a work ethic, frugalitas did not mean merely frugal diet, thrifty use of resources, and simple manners. More importantly, it meant the frugal use of time, or in other words, disciplined time-management.67 By the turn of the fifteenth century, time-management was a central pillar of human industriousness and thus was understood as integral to the ethic of virtue. A good example comes from Pier Paolo Vergerio’s treatise The Character and Studies Befitting a Free-Born Youth from 1403: There is indeed good reason to gather together those times which others tend to neglect, as when we read at dinner or await sleep (or avoid it) by reading. Yet, the doctors tell us that these practices are bad for our sight and eyes; this is true if we read too much, that is to say, either too intently or after an excessive meal. But it will also be to our advantage if we set up, in our libraries and right before our eyes, the instruments which are used to measure the hours and times more generally, so that we may see time as it flows and slips away from us.68

66 Quoted by G. Almási, “Miért Cicero? A cicerói értelmiségi modell és értékek

reneszánsz adaptációjáról” [Why Cicero? On the Adaptation of Ciceronian Values and Models in the Renaissance], Korall 6 (2006), 106–31, at 110. 67 In humanist biographies time-management is often linked to the details of the individual’s diet. On the history of time-management (and discipline), see Thompson, “Time, Work-Discipline”; J. Le Goff, Time, Work, and Culture in the Middle Ages, trans. A. Goldhammer (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980); D. S. Landes, Revolution in Time: Clocks and the Making of the Modern World (Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 1983); G. Dohrn-van Rossum, Die Geschichte der Stunde: Uhren und moderne Zeitordnung (Munich: C. Hanser 1992); C. M. Cipolla, Le macchine del tempo (Bologna: Il mulino, 2000); P. Glennie and N. Thrift, Shaping the Day: A History of Timekeeping in England and Wales 1300–1800 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009); M. Engammare, On Time, Punctuality, and Discipline in Early Modern Calvinism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009). See also Chapter 12. 68 P. P. Vergerio, “De ingenuis moribus et liberalibus studiis,” in Humanist Educational Treatises, ed. and trans. K. W. Kallendorf (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2002), 66. Cf. with an earlier letter (1408) by Lapo Mazzei to Francesco Datini: “concerning what you said: that person rises above the other here, who knows better how

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Industria and frugalitas are only two of the central concepts in an extensive vocabulary that intellectuals used to conceptualise their own work since the Renaissance. These, and other similar terms referring to fatigue, hardship, assiduity, and diligence in work on the one hand and self-discipline and a frugal use of time on the other, were central to vocabularies harnessed to legitimise the social status of scholarly work and, with increasing professionalisation of learning, to justify the social mobility and new social positions obtained by scholars. Virtue was typically at their conceptual heart, underpinned by a meritocratic vision of society. The virtuous citizen was very much like the ideal humanist. He was a prudent, rational, calculating, learned, hard-working, and disciplined person who kept his passions in check. He served as an ideal type for the “real” nobleman.69 In fifteenth-century Italy, ideas of hard and disciplined labour, which previously had had strong monastic and scholastic underpinnings, came to be integrated into humanist virtue ethics, from whence they would become formative principles in elite education and political thought. This legacy would be as evident among Calvinists and Lutherans as it was among Jesuits, all of whom maintained a classical educational system.70 From the thirteenth century, industry and labour had become abstract concepts with which to justify profit in medieval writing on economic questions. The idea that labour required remuneration had emerged in part in the thinking of certain canonists who claimed that clerics could not be remunerated on the basis of selling grace, for this would be simony. Instead, clerics merited compensation through payment because their work involved fatigue.71 Moderate profit in commerce became acceptable for theologians, such as Thomas Aquinas, as a stipendium laboris, or as John Duns Scotus argued, like Thomas Chobham and Pierre de Jean

to spend his time.” Quoted by R. Romano and A. Tenenti, “Introduzione,” in Alberti, I libri della famiglia, xi. For further early examples, see Chapter 2. 69 Cf. the virtue catalogues of Leon Battista Alberti’s I libri della famiglia, quoted in Chapter 2 on p. 66. 70 See J. Hankins, Virtue Politics: Soulcraft and Statecraft in Renaissance Italy (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2019). Cf. Chapter 2 and the conclusions to Chapter 8. See also the Jesuit examples in Chapter 9. 71 A. Firey, “‘For I Was Hungry and You Fed Me.’ Social Justice and Economic Thought in the Latin Patristic and Medieval Christian Traditions,” in Ancient and Medieval Economic Ideas, 333–70, at 366. Also see Chapters 2 and 4.

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Olivi (see Chapter 2), that the industry of a merchant in transporting goods justifies an increment beyond his own subsistence.72 This shift of emphasis away from work as suffering to work as productive action based on expertise softened earlier inherited dichotomies between toil and creative work. These theological and canon law ideas were absorbed by Renaissance lay writers on merchant work. For example, the Ragusan merchant Benedetto Cotrugli (1416–1469) in analysing the controversial work of those who made profits by exchanging money, drew on earlier scholastic thinkers who had discussed how effort could justify earning a gain above costs. Cotrugli argued it was the uncertainty of the gain and the application of industria which legitimated their profit.73 Industria was also used to valorise women’s work. Breast feeding, for example, was described as an industrious activity as well as a method for instilling industry into children.74

Interpreting Discourses of Work In this volume, our ambition was to present a series of specific case studies of texts that deal with work and work ethics both prior to and after the Reformation. A study of this scope cannot hope to replace Weber’s overarching narrative. It offers, rather, greater historical sensitivity to diverse cultures of work by emphasising the plurality of narratives on this subject and setting these narratives against a backdrop of discrete contextualisation and greater rhetorical sensibility. Although we share, as the contributors to the volume, an interest in the meanings attached to concepts of work, rather than providing singular conceptual histories, we analyse broader discourses in which ideas were employed. In promoting industry, self-discipline, time-management, and asceticism, many of the authors we study aimed to reposition, redefine, or reconstruct social values and re-establish their order. Many wanted to

72 Aquinas, Summa Theol., 2a2ae, 77.4; Scotus, Opera omnia, 4.15.2.22, cited in Odd Langholm, “The Medieval Schoolmen (1200–1400),” in Ancient and Medieval Economic Ideas, 439–501, at 472. See Olivi, Tractatus de emptionibus et venditionibus, Q. 2 and Q. 6. 73 B. Cotrugli, Libro de l’arte de la mercatura, eds. Carlo Carraro and Giovanni Favero (Venice: Edizioni Ca’ Foscari, 2016), 116. 74 M. Palmieri, Vita civile, ed. P. Stoppelli (Bologna: Zanichelli, 2011), 1.14; Barbaro, Wealth of Wives, 120.

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imbue discursive traditions with values that were drawn from their own personal conduct and beliefs but whose social acceptance was contested. If our sources reflect the values of anyone, they reflect, first and foremost, the values of their authors, who were without exception learned writers promoting their own visions of work and non-work, sometimes as private individuals but more often than not as members of institutions. To communicate, promote, and establish an ethic on a wider social scale (beyond one’s family, acquaintances, and local community), one must have access to media as a basic precondition. Although media in a broad sense includes visual representations, such as the woodcuts used and sometimes made by printers, artists’ paintings, and the artefacts made by goldsmiths,75 as well as ritual representation, in the vast majority of the cases here we are dealing with written verbal representations produced by a relatively restricted elite. We have limited direct knowledge of peasant work ethics in part simply because peasants were usually illiterate, but also because they had limited access to media.76 Representations of the ethic of hard work were typically articulated in comparison with a foil. The antithesis of an ethic of industriousness was provided by the throngs of the “lazy” and by images of contemptible social groups: monks who lived off charity and were said to abuse the work of others; the unemployed poor, who allegedly disliked the idea of work; wage workers and artisans, who were said to work as little as possible and to spend their money on drinking; aristocrats and noblemen, who stressed nonchalance and were claimed to live a hedonistic lifestyle, caring only for themselves and being driven by passions; the gentlemen 75 I. M. Veldman, “Images of Labor and Diligence in Sixteenth-Century Netherlandish Prints: The Work Ethic Rooted in Civic Morality or Protestantism?” Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art 22 (1992), 227–64; on Nuremberg goldsmiths, see Des Johann Neudörfer Schreib- und Rechenmeisters zu Nürnberg Nachrichten von Künstlern und Werkleuten daselbst aus dem Jahre 1547 , ed. A. Gulden (Vienna: Lochner, 1875). 76 At the most, we have indirect sources. A rare example is the story of a peasant living somewhere between La Rochelle and Paris who was interviewed by a bishop (probably René Du Bellay). The story was summarised by Pierre Belon, an early author on agriculture. The bishop became curious when he heard talk of the peasant’s mandrake, which his neighbours alleged to be the source of his enrichment. The peasant explained to the bishop, who was travelling nearby, that the only mandrake he had was to “make sure that he rose earlier than any of the male or female workers he employed to cultivate the land. It was as a result of his own diligence, he maintained, that he and his farm had prospered.” H. Heller, Labour, Science and Technology in France, 1500–1620 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 77.

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and gentlewomen of the salons, who showed politeness and effortlessness and were accused of wasting their time on idle chatter. Without these foils, sometimes unverbalised, representations of hard work would be difficult to interpret. We need to unfold the multiple contexts in which work and non-work were represented to understand how and why writers at specific historical moments promoted ideas concerning the practice of work and leisure. To understand their social significance, we need to understand how the concepts related to work and non-work were used, how they were imbued with (moral) meaning, and how they were negotiated, changed, and transmitted. In other words, we need to understand how the promotion of work ethics fitted into a range of social, linguistic, political, and religious settings and how they complemented or opposed other broader discourses about culture, politics, and society. It is also important not to ignore contexts in which discourses of industry and hard work were absent or muted. Since work ethics can often be considered as a binary, as Anthony La Vopa has commented, we must take seriously cultures in which a work ethic was not valued.77 Although work ethics are typically about ideas and representations of work, industry, self-discipline, and time-management, they also constitute expressions of individuals’ attitudes towards leisure, laziness, effortlessness, and disorderliness. A central question of our analysis concerns the intentions and objectives of those who promoted work-related values. For the sake of clarity, we can distinguish between five broad aims that shape our authors’ reasons for writing on work conduct: religious-pastoral, ideological, social, political-economic, and disciplinary. In the following, we organise our presentation according to these broad categories and illustrate the diverse purposes of discourses about work with reference to the chapters of the volume and some further examples from medieval and early modern European history. It is important again to emphasise that the goals of our authors were complex and interrelated, and it would be almost impossible to arrive at a clear-cut categorisation of discourses on work.

77 We need again to thank Anthony La Vopa for many of his valuable comments during the progress of this work.

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Religion and Work Ethics Weber gave absolute priority to religious discourses in his study of the work ethic and asceticism and their relationship to the rise of the capitalist mentality. We need only return to Richard Baxter, one of Weber’s Puritan ideal types, to recall what Weber understood as the essence of a Puritan work ethic. For Baxter, Christian conduct required a denial of material wealth, since wealth led to corruption and idleness; time had to be managed parsimoniously, since a “loss of time through sociability, idle talk, luxury, even more sleep than is necessary for health […] is worthy of absolute moral condemnation”; and one had to engage (in Weber’s paraphrasing of Baxter) in “hard, continuous bodily or mental labour.”78 According to Weber, Baxter advanced self-discipline through hard work and life-long-effort in one’s calling because it was necessary for a good life and potential salvation. Nevertheless, when we read his texts in context, other entangled motives emerge. On the one hand, it may be useful to interpret Baxter’s insistence on making the faithful more diligent and selfdisciplined in the framework of his enduring efforts to introduce church discipline on the parish level. Baxter’s disciplinary objectives were as much an answer to the post-Revolution religious-institutional crisis in England as they were an attempt to redefine the social-moral role of the minister.79 On the other hand, Baxter’s promotion of a work ethic was simultaneously an expression of social criticism. The duty to labour, Baxter repeatedly emphasised, was an unconditional commandment, which also applied to the rich: “God has strictly commanded [labour] to all.” Wealth may excuse the rich “from some sordid sort of work” but they will not be “more excused from service of work […] than the poorest man.”80 Several contributors to this volume revisit the theology of work and the mechanisms for its social reach and impact. Chapter 3 by 78 Weber, The Protestant Ethic, 104–5. 79 This larger context has not yet been considered in studies on Baxter or in the

reactions to Weber. See J. W. Black, “From Martin Bucer to Richard Baxter: ‘Discipline’ and Reformation in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century England,” Church History 70 (2001), 644–73. 80 Quotations are taken from Weber (The Protestant Ethic, p. 236, note 28 to chapter 5). For a more historically sensitive analysis of the Puritans’ promotion of the work ethic, see C. Hill, Society and Puritanism, 103–17; idem, Puritanism and Revolution: Studies in Interpretation of the English Revolution of the 17th Century (London: Mercury Books, 1962), 195–215.

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Marjorie Burghart and Pietro Delcorno (“Preaching About Manual Labour”) investigates work ethics expressed through a widely influential genre, medieval sermons addressing groups of varying social statuses. An interesting set of sermons discussed by the authors addressing manual labourers and the poor was written by the fourteenth-century Nuremberg Dominican friar Johannes Herolt, whose Sermones de tempore became something of a best-seller. The work ethic promoted by Herolt is no premonition of Weber’s Puritan ethic, but it too had both moral and social functions. Although the obligation to work applied to the wealthy in Herolt’s thought too, the friar, probably aware of the social dangers of stressing the idea of a universal moral obligation to work, promoted a work ethic in his sermons that addressed lower social strata and had the aim not of upsetting the social order but rather of confirming it. Although Herolt stressed that labour may “buy heaven” for the worker, labour had a strongly penitential undertone (p. 88). Work served as much as a means of atoning for sin as it did as a way of saving oneself from the spiritual dangers of idleness. Herolt underlined not fatigue and industry but honesty in work. Work should suit the individual’s status and should be performed with fides. The key dichotomies that dominated his discourse were patience/impatience, use/abuse, neediness/comfort, and simplicity/superfluity (p. 90). Artisans who worked on innovations and produced luxurious (i.e. superfluous) objects were sharply reprimanded. Herolt’s socially conservative work ethic contrasts sharply with later humanist ideas on work and with those of later preachers and theologians. Graeme Murdock’s discussion in Chapter 5 (“Work, Morality and Discipline in Sixteenth-century Geneva”), which is dedicated to Calvin’s work ethic, is a case in point. The analysis relies here as much on Calvin’s theological works as on the image of Calvin in the secularised hagiography written by his follower Theodore Beza and the statutory laws of Geneva and other related documents. As in the case of Baxter, Calvin’s religious project, at a local level, was principally a moral disciplinary campaign, an essential component of which was the consistory, which not only used citizens to keep one another in check but was also authorised to use all means of punishment, from withholding the sacraments to imprisoning or excommunicating sinners. It was through his sermons and the political authority of the consistory that Calvin attempted to introduce the highest possible standards of moral conduct among the Genevan citizenry, paying utmost attention to the most minute details. “In the busy lay monastery

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that was Reformed Geneva,” Murdock comments, “citizens and residents of the Republic were supposed as members of the state church to commit to consistent thought and methodical action to counteract waves of sinful desire and emotion. The vocabulary that was frequently adopted to explain this world of discipline was one of labour” (p. 146). Murdock argues that in such a strict disciplinary environment the question of whether the work ethic found dogmatic support in Calvin’s theological ideas on predestination was hardly relevant. The promotion of a work ethic may have been linked to ideas about salvation, but more importantly, it fitted into an all-encompassing vision of a moral, upright, rational and disciplined society. If such a vision could not be inspired by the sermons delivered by Calvinist ministers, it had to be enforced via a strict system of punishment and social control. In Chapter 7 (“Scholars and Scientists Working Themselves to Death”), Dirk van Miert addresses the question of the scholarly work ethic by comparing the working habits of two leading European scholars, one Protestant, the other Catholic. Taking the deathbed descriptions of Isaac Casaubon and Cesare Baronio as case studies, Van Miert explores the question of whether there was a difference between their work ethics on the basis of confessional differences, and he examines the similarities and differences in the presentation of these scholars’ final days. Although there are several predictable differences, one thing the two scholars had in common was a shared faith in the epistemic virtue of hard work in the service of religious truth. Religious motivation gave their industry a zeal that threatened their very physical wellbeing. The service to a higher divine goal, typical of the Erasmian combination of biblical and classical scholarship, led Casaubon and Baronio to enslave their bodies. The “scholarly” work ethic in these cases cannot be seen in isolation from their polemical confessional inspiration. In Chapter 9 (“The Counter-Reformation Concept of Good Labour”), Toon Van Houdt investigates a diverse range of Catholic writings that sought to shape workers’ behaviour in the seventeenth-century Catholic Low Countries: a long treatise entitled The Praise of Labour of 1646, a selection of Jesuit teaching material, and two hagiographical accounts of the lives of diligent young Jesuits. Although the genres and the authors are varied, the aim of these works was to provide exemplary moral guidance. Again, in this case, theology had complex and intertwining ambitions, as can be seen in The Praise of Labour. Its author, Petrus Loycx, a local priest living near Antwerp, took up a number of

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contentions. First of all, living in a society in which the moral value of hard work appears to have been diffuse and taken for granted, one of his intentions was to legitimate his own “hard work” as a priest and to argue in defence of monks and nuns as long as they combined spiritual labour with manual labour. While Loycx hardly felt the need to justify the wealth of merchants with reference to their work, he went to great lengths to affirm the value of the mechanical arts, i.e. the work of the plebes, giving status to the manual labour performed by his principal audience (the treatise most probably being derived from Loycx’s previous sermons). Work, however, could not be an end in and of itself; it had to serve good and noble ends, and it had to be balanced with an adequate amount of rest in order not to exhaust the body. Nonetheless, this was not an excuse for idleness. From the duty to work (which most importantly meant some form of physical engagement), only spiritual labour could provide an exemption. Drawing the socio-critical conclusions of this argument was perhaps not Loycx’s primary goal, but they were still part of his message: the nobility should also work. In fact, he did not shy away from asserting the old Christian egalitarian vision, according to which “everyone is noble in so far as every human being has been created in the image of God,” and thus work was a shared duty for all (p. 242).

Ideology Although ideology understood as “structures of signification […] mobilised to legitimate the sectional interests of hegemonic groups” is a modern concept, aspects of it were grasped by premodern authors.81 Thomas More, for example, seems to have quite a precise notion of its function. In Utopia, he connected the pressure on the labouring poor to the “conspiracy of the rich,” who subvert the true meaning of republic: When I consider and turn over in my mind the various commonwealths flourishing today, so help me God, I can see in them nothing but a conspiracy of the rich, who are advancing their own interests under the 81 A. Giddens, Central Problems in Social Theory. Action, Structure and Contradiction in

Social Analysis (London: Macmillan, 1979). On early modern ideology, see J. Dollimore, Radical Tragedy: Religion, Ideology and Power in the Drama of Shakespeare and His Contemporaries, 3rd ed. (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2004), 9–22; D. R. Kelley, The Beginning of Ideology: Consciousness and Society in the French Reformation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981).

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name and title of the commonwealth. They invent ways and means to keep, with no fear of losing it, whatever they have piled up by sharp practice, and then they scheme to oppress the poor by buying their toil [opera] and labour as cheaply as possible. These devices become law as soon as the rich, speaking for the commonwealth—which, of course, includes the poor as well—say they must be observed.82

The promotion of work ethics often served purely ideological goals. The vehemence with which seventeenth-century and especially eighteenth-century English authors attacked the “lazy poor,” for instance, was coupled with arguments on keeping wages at a minimum to ensure that the national economy not lag behind its competitors.83 Although ideological interests were not necessarily always so explicit, we can often see them at work beneath the surface when we place our authors in their socio-political contexts. For example, when human industry and discipline were cast as essential to the preservation of the social order and laziness and the lack of discipline were perceived as risks which threatened to overturn it, what remained unsaid—and ideological—in these claims was the presumed coincidence of the interests of dominating groups and the interests of other social groups. Chapter 2 by Gábor Almási (“The Work Ethic in Renaissance Florence”) relates the promotion of a work ethic in early fifteenth-century Florence to the rise of a new “ideology” of civic humanism. References to hard work and industry by merchant humanists served not only social objectives, such as the legitimation of riches, but alongside intellectual justification (for instance, the ideal of a virtuous society), they had more strictly ideological purposes. Almási argues that eventually it was the attachment of some elite members of society to the humanist movement that led to the incorporation of new values into virtue ethics, those of active citizenship and hard work and discipline. This relatively sudden interest among elite groups in humanism and the ideology of active citizenship was not simply the result of new Latin learning but also the experiences of the popular regime of 1378–1382, which followed the revolt of the Ciompi. Social elites looked back at those years as an

82 T. More, Utopia, ed. G. M. Logan, 3rd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 111. Quoted in Dollimore, Radical Tragedy, 16. 83 See the literature in footnote 23 above.

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eruption of the irrational, the disorderly, and the undisciplined.84 The long-term political-intellectual result of the revolt was a compact between the elite families and the non-elite major guildsmen. The essence of the compact was making virtue and ethics the instruments of ideology. While corporate bodies were increasingly marginalised from political participation, the ideology of the time presented offices as open to all virtuous individuals. Yet in reality political participation did not equate to access to real power, which remained in the hands of a narrow group of elite families. While references to their industry and prudence served to camouflage their privileged access to power, for the vast majority of ambitious Florentine families, patrons, and alliances were more important than “manly labour,” “diligence,” or “strong, constant and persevering spirits” (p. 66).

Social Legitimation and Critique Strategies that confirmed social groups or institutions and legitimated the statuses of groups in social ascendency tended to promote work as a value. After the millennium, writing on work was a means of representing more complex social stratification and, in particular, the economic grading of groups in new hierarchies.85 Jurist and magistrate Albertano da Brescia provides an early example of the relationship between corporate identity and a work ethic that emanated from the legal professions which had profited from urban social mobility and had come to dominate communal political life and culture. In 1238, Albertano wrote a moral treatise On the love of God, men and objects.86 He was an active member of a confraternity attached to the Franciscan church of San Giorgio, where he gave sermons. He played a key role in the Lega Lombarda, which was organised against Emperor Frederick II. When as captain of the Brescian army he fell into the hands of the emperor, he decided to use his time in prison

84 This argument is based on the studies by J. M. Najemy. See footnotes 45 and 56 in Chapter 2. 85 See Firey, “Social Justice and Economic Thought,” 358–60. 86 Albertano da Brescia, De amore et dilectione Dei et proximi et aliarum rerum et

de forma vite, ed. S. L. Hiltz (Ann Arbor: UMI, 2001). On Albertano see M. Gazzini, “Albertano da Brescia e il benessere spirituale e civile nei comuni italiani: i sermoni ai confratelli causidici e notai (metà XIII secolo),” Archivio storico italiano 176 (2018), 615– 44 with ample further bibliographical material. See also O. Nuccio, Il pensiero economico italiano, 5 vols. (Sassari: Gallizzi, 1984–1992), 1.2:1283–95.

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to compose a moral treatise, basing it on a patchwork of Biblical, patristic, and classical authorities. What makes his book notable is the legitimation he provides—with reference to Seneca—of wealth and trade. Riches, for Albertano, are perfectly fine as long as they are not made at the expense of others and do not harm God or one’s fellow citizens.87 “You should then make profit,” he urged his readers, “with honesty and for the utility of fellow citizens.”88 As with many of his scholastic contemporaries, the jurist of Brescia also contends that the problem is not riches but the love of riches.89 At the same time, he goes on to affirm—as one of the first laymen to do so—the need for hard work: “You must work with great care and diligence, avoid laziness, drive away sleepiness, and repel leisure [otia] so that your works and deeds [labores et actus ] may bring their fruit.”90 Albertano did not directly link hard work to the legitimation of wealth. Rather, he suggested that there was a link: “works and deeds may bring their fruit.” As Albertano was a member of a relatively influential and prosperous family the prestige and wealth of which were based on professional work, his text and surviving speeches can be read as aiming not only to legitimate (moderate and honest) profit with reference to diligence but also to create a new sense of group identity among certain urban professional groups (in particular among jurists), citizens whose status was thus justified on the basis of their work and professional expertise.91 Examples such as those cited by Albertano of professionals and artisans formulating and communicating ideas about work to members of their fellow social group abound in later centuries. A case in point is the work ethic of erudite typographers and their use of printed images.92 An open espousal of the value of labour had been part of Europe’s printing culture since Aldo Manuzio. This included woodcuts offering positive depictions of people at work, as well as editorial notes and other paratextual elements 87 Albertano, De amore et dilectione, 160–64 (book 3.1). 88 “Acquiras ergo lucra cum honestate et socij utilitate. Nam ut eciam alius sapiens

dixit, ‘Bona est societas quam commitatur utilitas.’” Ibid., 163. 89 Ibid., 183–95 (book 3.8). 90 “Laborare itaque debes cum magna cura et diligenti opera pigritiam fugiendo, somp-

nollenciam fugando, et otia repellendo, ut labores et actus tui ad effectum perducantur.” Ibid., 174 (book 3.4). 91 See, for example, his oration of 1243 in Genoa in Albertano, Sermo Januensis, ed. and intr. O. Nuccio (Brescia: n.d., 1994). 92 See Veldman, “Images of Labor.”

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commending the industry of the humanist.93 These woodcuts or paratexts also celebrated typographical work—which was commonly perceived as having lowly mechanical connotations—as one of the loftiest human endeavours, comparable only to the stoic labours of Hercules. Humanist lucubratio (night labour), vigil, labor, industria, and constantia were framed as selflessly serving the Republic of Letters and humanity more broadly.94 It was with reference to their diligence and labour that these men legitimated their activity and place in society as intellectuals. Collaborating with printers, they expressed these ideas through iconographic depictions, as seen for example in the works of book collector and philologist Johannes Sambucus, who dedicated an emblem to his own coat of arms entitled In labore fructus, “Labour brings fruit.” This is a fitting motto for Sambucus’ social ascendancy, which saw him rise from being merely the son of a city magistrate to an imperial historian.95 Urban public ritual was another form of communication in which trades, crafts, and professions were represented as part of civic identities. Processions and festivities were occasions for performative and visual depictions of working identities, the gendered norms that underlay them, and the status of professions within the social order. They were occasions for socio-spatial competition for prominence, when social hierarchies could be confirmed or contested. In Florence, for the Feast of San Giovanni, it was customary for merchants to display their wealth and at carnival for day labourers and guild members to represent their occupational identities.96 In his Storia Fiorentina, Benedetto Varchi gave a report on how at carnival it had been an old tradition to interrupt

93 O. Margolis, “Hercules in Venice: Aldus Manutius and the Making of Erasmian Humanism Author,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 30 (2018), 97–126. Examples are not restricted geographically, as Veldman argues. See, as another example, H. Widmann, Der Drucker-Verleger Henri II Estienne (Kleiner Druck der GutenbergGesellschaft, no. 87) (Mainz: Gutenberg-Gesellschaft, 1970), 14. 94 North of the Alps, the concept of lucubratio became fashionable apparently in the late fifteenth century. See Manfred Lemmer, “Ich hab ettwan gewacht zu nacht. Zum ‘Narrenschiff’-Prolog, Vers 90,” in Kritische Bewahrung: Beiträge zur deutschen Philologie: Festschrift für Werner Schröder zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. E.-J. Schmidt (Berlin: E. Schmidt, 1974), 357–70. 95 See A. Visser, Joannes Sambucus and the Learned Image. The Use of the Emblem in Late-Renaissance Humanism (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 6–7. 96 R. C. Trexler, Public Life in Renaissance Florence (New York–London: Academic Press, 1980), 247–49 and 415.

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“continuous mercantile business” and the “assiduous labour of craftsmen” with a ball game, a classic example of the carnivalesque inversion of the prevailing social order. Varchi opined, however, that this ritual had become something of an absurdity when performed in 1532, a period of economic decline. This was because the tradition had originated at a time when men were less “oziosi” than at present and were more inclined to “lettere, arms, and mercantile affairs, or other manual trades.” Varchi hinted at how the carnivalesque inversion had lost its significance as a way of confirming the city’s working values and identity, and he also used his observation to critique the decline of a work ethic following the Siege of Florence (1529–1530), which brought an end to the city’s republican past.97 Varchi’s republican disdain for aristocratic idleness under the new Medici regime was criticism of an aristocratic and courtly culture of leisure, which emphasised effortlessness and disparaged representations of hard work. In this volume, several chapters explore these social aspects and motivations behind discourses on work, and consider the question of “intellectual labour.” Chapter 11 by Francesca Antonelli (“Enlightened Women at Work”) calls attention to the gendered dimension of negotiating discourses of work and its practice in the salon. This case study focuses on the figure of Marie-Anne Paulze-Lavoisier, the wife, collaborator, and secretary of the French chemist and important civil servant Antoine-Laurent. While the posthumous image of Lavoisier (which was partly a creation by his wife) is that of a hard-working man with a strict daily and weekly schedule, during his life, Lavoisier had been careful to negotiate the cultures of scholarly hard work with that of the sociable and leisurely gentleman of the salon. This kind of balancing act not only sought to avoid pedantic associations and communicate the image of an efficient but effortless public figure but was also central to creating a reputation of scholarly credibility. Eighteenth-century experimental science needed credible witnesses coming from a culture of honnêteté.98 The social expectations concerning the similarly dedicated and assiduous wife, who had a central role in the experimental sessions of the Lavoisier salon, were even more complex. If Paulze-Lavoisier did not want to be 97 B. Varchi, Storia Fiorentina, ed. G. Milanesi, 3 vols. (Florence: Felice Le Monnier, 1857), 3:20. 98 See S. Shapin and S. Schaffer, Leviathan and the Air-Pump: Hobbes, Boyle and the Experimental Life (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985).

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considered one of the “monstrous” femmes savantes, whose perceived manly working practices risked upsetting strictly codified gender roles and hence the social order, her contribution as secretary for and translator of her husband’s chemical project had to be veiled as a form of sociability, which was full of grace and allurement. This type of sociability was understood “as a pleasant play that women ‘naturally’ mastered and was often opposed, as such, to the intense effort of men’s intellectual labour” (p. 304). However, this performance did not merely disguise Paulze-Lavoisier’s valid scientific efforts, it was also the means to legitimate them. The boundary between discourses of work and non-work in Enlightenment scholarly circles, Antonelli warns, were blurred and delicate (p. 310). In Chapter 12 (“Virtues of Work in Nineteenth-Century Germany”), Herman Paul examines the life and reputation of Leopold von Ranke as a revealing example of how long-lasting the (monastic-)humanist ideal— and practice—of the hard-working, studious, disciplined, and ascetic scholar was. Ranke’s industry and work ethic became a legend during his lifetime, and they were at the core of his posthumous image as an ideal scholar. As a person who continued to dedicate all his energies to coping with the most admirable and “gigantic tasks” (such as writing a multi-volume world-history) despite his blindness and old age, Ranke was deemed a hero. In the nineteenth century, this hero was, of course, a national hero, especially in the German lands, where the virtues of work were central to middle-class identities that fostered the notion that industry could appear (especially to foreign observers) as a national trait.99 Ranke’s students affirmed that he died as a “hero […] in the field of labour, in the field of honour” (p. 325). However, while going back to humanist clichés of the ideal savant, Ranke’s “inexhaustible appetite and capacity for work,” as Paul points out, were now described as an aspect of

99 On early modern middle-class work ethic in German lands, in addition to footnotes 64 and 66 in Chapter 12, see P. Münch, Ordnung, Fleiß und Sparsamkeit. Texte und Dokumente zur Entstehung der “bürgerlichen Tugenden” (Munich: Dt. Taschenbuch, 1984); R. Schenda, “Die Verfleißigung der Deutschen,” in Volkskultur in der Moderne, eds. U. Jeggle et al. (Reinbek: Rowohlt, 1986), 88–108; idem, “Fleißige Deutsche, fleißige Schweizer. Bemerkungen zur Produktion eines Tugendsyndroms seit der Aufklärung,” in Ethische Perspektiven: “Wandel der Tugenden,” ed. H.-J. Braun (Zurich: Verl. der Fachvereine, 1989), 189–209.

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his geniality.100 The new framing for an old discourse was provided not only by the language of talent, but also by the secular notion of Beruf . By this time, Beruf was a concept broader than Luther’s religious “calling.” Beruf was a vocation, and it implied that “the meaning or purpose of a man’s life […] could be realized through work” (p. 327). Ranke’s work ethic both legitimated the social status of intellectuals and reflected a partially aristocratic ideal of the nineteenth-century German citizen as a figure fully dedicated to a freely chosen profession but unconstrained by socio-economic pressures. Usually, aristocratic courtly culture provided the principal foil to the literati’s work ethic. In Chapter 6, Arnoud Visser (“Critical Responses to the Humanist Work Ethic: The Image of the Pedant”) offers sixteenthcentury examples of counter-discourses. Despite their long-lasting influence, humanist work ethics did not remain unchallenged. Hard work as a core value of intellectual existence was criticised both inside and outside the scholarly community. Erasmus’ criticism of the imitation of Cicero in the Ciceronianus was a criticism of industry when misapplied and used for the pursuit of socially and morally irrelevant ends. For Erasmus, excessive scholarly zeal was too pagan and, in a way, also sectarian. Half a century later, Montaigne expressed similar reservations concerning the pointless accumulation of erudition. “Studious diligence, in his eyes, was not enough for self-realisation” (p. 161). Nevertheless, his criticism of pointless industriousness was of a slightly different nature than that of Erasmus; it expressed an aristocratic ethos of valour. It also questioned the accepted relationship between virtue and diligence. For Montaigne, industry in learning did not necessarily lead to real virtue and sound judgement; it was not quantity but quality (good application of knowledge) that mattered. The caricature of the pedant in Italian commedia erudita was another way to criticise excessiveness in learning. Pedantic learning, Visser argues, was “associated with different forms of unsociable conduct, ranging from mildly amusing eccentricity […] to more subversive forms of improper behaviour” (p. 184). Although written by learned authors, these comedies were geared to an aristocratic audience, which defined the codes of social conduct and the importance of work and diligence in very different terms than the literati. These authors were neither 100 Cf. A. J. La Vopa, Grace, Talent, and Merit: Poor Students, Clerical Careers, and Professional Ideology in Eighteenth-Century Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988).

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unlearned nor necessarily lazy, but the importance they gave to erudition and industry and the way they defined learning often contrasted sharply with the work values of non-elite and professional groups.

Political Economy Discussions of work and idleness were important strands of a wide variety of occasional and more systematic writings that would later come to be subsumed under the discipline of political economy in the eighteenth century. Proposals on how to raise state revenue, concerned with schemes to foster the economic activity of citizens and subjects, were closely tied to articulating visions of work. Questions concerning taxation intertwined with those on work ethics and prosperity. Fiscal policy, these authors were convinced, could incentivise and shape attitudes towards work. Many writers discussed how the moral character and economic activity of men were formed not only by the natural wealth of their environment101 but also by state policy.102 The ancient and long debated question over whether wealth should be kept with the people or in the treasury spurred a number of reflections that touched on the relationship between fiscal policy and work.103 Mirrors for princes, like most medieval writing on taxation, typically emphasised the extraordinary nature of exaction and advised limiting 101 For the climatic impact on men’s intelligence and craft, see Aristotle, Politics, 7.7.1327b23–33; Augustine, The City of God, 5.16; and Aquinas, De regimine principum, 2.2; Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, 14. For the impact on resources, see Vitruvius, On Architecture, 1.5; Aquinas, De regimine principum, 2.3; Machiavelli’s Discourses (1.1) where Ragusa’s natural poverty fostered the industrious character of Ragusans; Giovanni Botero, Della Ragion di Stato (Venice: i Giunti, 1640), 27–28: “Ne’ paesi sterili vi fiorisce l’industria, e la diligenza; nè fecondi la delicatezza, e l’otio”; see also F. Galiani, Dialogues sur le commerce des blés, ed. P. Custodi, in Scrittori classici italiani di economia politica: Parte moderna, 50 vols. (Milan: G. G. Destefanis, 1803–1816), 5:104. 102 For example, John Fortescue’s De Dominio Regali et Politico (in Life and works of Sir John Fortescue, ed. T. Fortescue Lord Clermont, 2 vols. (London: priv. ptd., 1869) on how the French king’s fiscal policy reduced the peasantry to poverty despite France’s natural wealth: “Wher thrugh they be artyd [coerced] by necessite, so to watch, labour and grub in the Ground, for their Sustenance, that their nature is much wastid, and the Kynd of them brought to nowght. Thay gone crokyd, and ar feble, not able to fyght, nor to defend the Realme; nor they have wepon, nor monye to buy the, wepon withal; but verely that lyvyn in the most extreme Povertie and Myserye, and yet thay dwellyn, in one, the most fertile Realme of the World”. 103 See Chapter 4. For some of the origins of this debate see Aristotle, Politics,

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the frequency of impositions.104 It became commonplace in writings concerning the virtues of a good prince to argue that it was the duty of a ruler to use wealth virtuously and foster subjects’ prosperity. Discussions of a prince’s duty to provide wealth and the necessities for his subjects progressed to ideas about furthering their economic activities, even by using public revenues to this end. Thomas Aquinas framed a prince’s duty to provide the necessaries for the wellbeing of his subjects as industria: “a sufficient abundance of necessities for living well must be present through the industry of that which governs.”105 Gilles of Rome’s De regimine principum emphasised that it was one of the prince’s duties to be liberal in using his wealth to provide temporal goods for his subjects’ wellbeing in a way that profited them.106 The pseudoAristotelian Secretum secretorum (translated from Arabic into Latin in c.1230–1240) advised a ruler to follow the example of the King of India by lessening the tax burden on merchants and to “diligently defend and look after their goods.” The anonymous work argued that this would enrich both the wealthy and the poor and help the population grow and increase tax revenue.107 The Neapolitan courtier Diomede Carafa (1406–1487) shows how this princely liberality came to be articulated as economic aid. In his work of advice written to Eleonora D’Aragona, Carafa declared that the true duty of a prince was to govern the revenues of state, not to engage in economic competition with his subjects. Helping subjects involved providing them with work and managing public revenues for their benefit:

5.11; Sallust, The War with Cataline, 52.21. See also G. Lizzul, “Liberality as a Fiscal Problem in Medieval and Renaissance Thought: A Genealogy from Aristotle’s Tyrant to Machiavelli’s Prince,” Journal of the History of Ideas 83 (2022), no. 3, 363–85. 104 On the development of medieval political economy, see C. J. Nederman, Lineages of European Political Thought (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2009), 201–21. 105 Aquinas, “De regimine principum,” in Potelmy of Lucca, On the Government

of Rulers, with Portions Attributed to Thomas Aquinas (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997), 1.16 (p. 102). 106 Gilles of Rome, De regimine principum, 1.2.18 and 3.2.8. 107 Secretum secretorum cum glossis et notulis tractatus brevis et utilis ad declarandum

quedam obscure dicta, Fratris Rogeri, ed. R. Steele (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1920), 50: “ipsos cum suis mercibus diligenter defendere et cusotodire.”

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It is not a laudable thing when signori get involved in industria. They should rather be lords of those who undertake those industrie mentioned, since the true industria of the good lord is in good administration of his just revenues and getting his subjects to undertake industries and help them with that.108

The quote illustrates how early industria evolved from diligence and skill into a specifically economic virtue that could stand for economic activity in general. For Carafa, public revenues could be used to foster domestic industries, such as wool production, which reduce reliance on imports, since “industrious people create abundance.”109 This was a virtuous circle that would increase a prince’s revenues and power. In parallel to this princely tradition of discussing industry, in Chapter 4 (“Industry, Utility, and the Distribution of Wealth in Quattrocento Humanist Thought”) Giorgio Lizzul explores how the Florentine humanist Matteo Palmieri (1406–1475) in a republican context conceptualised the relationship between citizen work, wealth, and taxation. Palmieri’s primary concern with regard to political economy was the way in which republics levied the fiscal burden that called on the private wealth of citizens. The idea that citizen wealth, accumulated through the virtuous exercise of industria, should be protected by the political institutions of the republic is at the heart of his conceptualisation of justice. By placing Palmieri’s contribution in the context of discourses on private wealth and virtue and the relationship between the common good and economic prosperity, Lizzul shows how, in a fiscal system based on citizen credit and proportional assessment of wealth, taxation was expected to maintain the delicate balance between equity and concord. Palmieri argued that unjustified, excessive, and redistributive exaction would violate the foundations of political association. Fiscal surpluses

108 D. Carafa, “I doveri del principe,” in Memoriali, ed. F. P. Nardelli (Rome: Bonacci Editore, 1988), 3.38 (p. 181–83): “Non è cosa laudabile li Signuri farno industria; deveno essere Signuri de quilli le fanno dicte industrie, ché la vera industria del bon Signore è bene administrare soe intrate iuste et le industrie far fare ad soi subditi et aiutarencili.” 109 “gente industriosa li fanno habundantia,” ibid., 3.44 (p. 195). For a discussion of Carafa’s policies in the context of the reign of Ferrante I, see D. Abulafia, “The Crown and the Economy Under Ferrante I of Naples (1458–94),” in City and Countryside in Late Medieval and Renaissance Italy, eds. T. Dean and C. Wickham (London: The Hambledon Press, 1990), 125–46.

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therefore had to be used to fund public works and contribute to the common good through virtuous art and ingenuity. We can see how many of these frequently overlooked medieval and Renaissance antecedents and contributions to thinking about fiscal problems and work fed into the language of discussions of “Reason of State” (often esteemed by scholars for their novel practical thinking about concrete problems of taxation). Writing in the late sixteenth century, Giovanni Botero (c. 1544–1617) posited that money and population were the two key forces that maintained states. Ordinary revenue, for Botero, either came from profitable estates or from human industria.110 This did not mean that a prince should overtax his subjects, as to do so would ruin the foundations of their occupations.111 If there was a negative balance of trade, a prince must not seek to accumulate revenue. Rather, “he would do better to employ every diligence in rendering his subjects industrious in agriculture, trades, and commerce.”112 The wealth of the state depends on the number, riches, ingenuity, and industry of the people. Princes should introduce every type of industry and craft to make cities populous by inviting workers from abroad and giving them lodging and privileges.113 In his Six Books of the Commonwealth, Jean Bodin (c. 1530–1596) argued that a census tax was also a form of power. It was based on knowledge of one’s subjects; it was “a means of disciplining and reprimanding the subject,” helping one judge “how many can be despatched abroad to found colonies and how many can be employed in forced labour upon public works.”114 The information supplied by a census tax “makes it possible to get rid of those parasites which prey

110 G. Botero, Della ragion di stato, 89 and 91. See idem, 101: “Non è cosa che importi più per accrescere uno stato, e per renderlo e numeroso d’habitanti, e dovitioso d’ogni bene, che l’industria de gli huomini, e la moltitudine dell’arti.” It is through industry that Italy and its cities abound in money, compare it to those countries that have gold and silver mines, it is much richer (p. 103). 111 Ibid., 96. 112 “Meglio farà à impiegare ogni diligenza in rendere i suoi sudditi industriosi, cosi

nell’agricoltura, come nell’ arte, e ne’ traffichi.” Ibid., 96. 113 Ibid., 97. 114 J. Bodin, Six Book of the Commonwealth, abridged and trans. by M. J. Tooley

(Oxford: Blackwell, 1967), 6.1, (p. 181).

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upon the commonwealth, to banish idlers and vagabonds.”115 Primarily an individual virtue, industry was in Reason of State literature a social and political value and a key prism for thinking about poverty and its relationship to idleness. In Chapter 8 (“Work and Idleness in Adam Contzen’s Political Oeuvre”), Katharina Rilling explores how the seventeenth-century Jesuit thinker Adam Contzen (1571–1635) dealt with problems of political economy. In his systematic treatise on the state, Politica, and other works, Contzen absorbed many of the Reason of State literature’s preoccupations concerning the relationships between state power, revenue, and work. Understanding a country’s wealth as the backbone of state power, his mercantilist vision on state revenues foreshadows German cameralist thought. Contzen suggested forcing the poor to work and be industrious as a broader strategy where the state plays an active role with policies to increase the country’s wealth. Fostering economic activity was also a means of curbing sedition: “in this way, neither poverty could lead to illicit actions nor idleness foster misdeeds” (p. 208). As a member of the court of the Bavarian duke Maximilian I1, to whom he was confessor, Contzen was inspired to lay out a courtly work ethic in his book Daniel , in which his stress on individual diligence and labour evolved into a criticism of noble idleness. In Contzen’s rhetoric, Reason of State thinking developed into a new and powerful weapon against aristocratic—and princely—leisure, where idleness was seen as essentially unproductive and hence harmful to the preservation of the commonwealth. Governing private prosperity through liberal taxation and spending policies was not only meant to shape a population’s economic activities and work ethic but was also justified politically, since it maintained political acquiescence. This argument had Aristotelian origins.116 The Chief Justice John Fortescue (c. 1385–1479) argued that it was better to keep the subjects of England from poverty by avoiding onerous taxation, as this minimised the risk of political revolt.117 Avoiding onerous taxation could keep subjects wealthy by preserving the belief that the fruits of their

115 Ibid., 182. The danger of the unemployed for Bodin was that they “corrupt good citizens by their deeds and example” (p. 183). 116 Aristotle, Politics 1314b. 117 Fortescue, De dominio regali et Politico, chapter 12. See also Fortescue’s De laudibus

legum Angliae in idem (as in note 102), chapters 35 and 36.

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labour would not be expropriated.118 Keeping wealth with the people was a better solution for funding emergency military expenditure, too. On the other hand, keeping subjects poor could also be a tool of control. In Aristotle’s advice on how to preserve tyranny through despotic methods, public works kept subjects busy and could be used to preserve a regime, as the Egyptian Pharaohs’ had done with the construction of the pyramids.119 In the seventeenth century, the physician and economist William Petty (1623–1687) in his Treatise of Taxes and Contributions (1662) ironically suggested that the poor should be used to build a pyramid on Salisbury Plain or take the stones from Stonehenge to Tower Hill. Keeping the poor in employment through such public works “would keep their mindes to discipline and obedience, and their bodies to a patience of more profitable labours when need shall require it.”120 As long as the wealth spent on such schemes did not involve imports, this was a prudent solution to prevent the dangers presented by idleness among the poor. Using fiscal surpluses to pay the “indignant” to work prevents them from begging and stealing and offers an economical solution to financing public projects. The poor and idle could also be used for more useful endeavours, such as building roads and bridges, digging canals, and planting timber forests, which would increase commerce and revenue.121 As “labour is the father and active principle of wealth,” Petty argued that capital and corporeal punishment could be reduced and replaced by slave labour or “pecuniary mulcts, which will encrease labour and publick wealth.”122

Discipline Notions concerning the disciplinary potential of promoting work ethics to foster national prosperity were entwined with wider political, religious, and ideological ambitions. Foucault’s pioneering studies in the

118 Idem., De laudibus legum Angliae, chapter 36. 119 Aristotle, Politics 5.1313b20–24. 120 W. Petty, “Treatise of Taxes and Contributions in the Economic Writings of Sir William Petty,” in The Collected Works of Sir William Petty, ed. C. H. Hull, 7 vols. (London: Routledge, 1997), 1:31. 121 Ibid., 1:29–31. 122 Ibid., 1:68.

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1970s on the conjunction and interplay of disciplinary institutions with modern political economy gave an impetus to interpret texts on work and poor relief through the lens of their disciplinary function.123 In Adam Contzen’s thinking, for example, Reason of State’s demand for a disciplined society was married to a project to curtail humanity’s sins and effect a less chaotic world. Discipline as an “intellectual” expectation towards the individual, which was central to Renaissance virtue ethics, was projected into a wider social programme for an entire society. When Leon Battista Alberti addressed the question of beggars and sought to limit their idle stay in the city to no more than three days, his argument was still based on assumptions about the common good. The beggars, the physically impaired, and even the blind could all be expected to undertake some form of productive work useful for the community.124 Periodic and systemic increases in the level of poverty and the number of beggars and vagabonds caused by agrarian transformation, marketisation, and macrodemographic dynamics were accompanied by a new disciplinary rhetoric of work. Drastic changes took place in the 1520s and 1530s, for example, with new policies towards the poor and the unemployed emerging all over Europe.125 The previous systems of private and institutional charities proved inadequate; state and public authorities increasingly intervened in the governance of the poor. Among public authorities there emerged a new consensus concerning able-bodied paupers: they had to be prevented from begging and made to work.

123 See Foucault’s Discipline and Punish and the lectures included in the Punitive Society: Lectures at the Collège de France 1972–1973, ed. B. E. Harcourt (New York: Picador, 2015). 124 This example is taken from J. Henderson, The Renaissance Hospital: Healing the Body and Healing the Soul (New Haven CT: Yale University Press, 2016), 89–90. For an overview of disability and work in the Middle Ages, see I. Metzler, A Social History of Disability in the Middle Ages: Cultural Considerations of Physical Impairment (London: Routledge, 2013), 36–91. 125 See D. Romano, “L’assistenza e la beneficenza,” in Storia di Venezia, vol. 5, eds. U. Tucci and A. Tenenti (Rome: Treccani, 1996), 355–406 (esp. 397–402); C. Orsi, “Poverty and Subsistence. The Mercantilist Point of View,” History of Economic Ideas 21 (2013), no. 3, 11–42. In 1502, there were an estimated 20,400 poor living in crisis in Venice, and this number rose to 33,725 in 1563 following sudden population growth (Romano, idem, 360). Similar turns in policy had occurred after the Black Death. See S. Cohn, “After the Black Death: Labour Legislation and Attitudes Towards Labour in Late-Medieval Western Europe,” Economic History Review 60 (2007), no. 3, 463.

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Characteristic of the increasingly extreme solutions to the problem of poverty as well as the trend in the discourses on the poor is John Locke’s memorandum on “the better relief and employment of the poor” (1697) for the Board of Trade, which proposed to take the disciplinary dimensions of political economy even further. Unemployment, for Locke, was the product of a sinful “relaxation of discipline and corruption of manners” at the cost of virtue and industry.126 Locke’s vision of work provided a gospel for the workhouse. Unemployed labourers should be forced to work at wages below the going rate, as their present status was a sign of their worth. Vagrant beggars who had forged passes to receive relief outside their own parishes were to have their ears cut off, and repeat offenders were to be sent to the colonies.127 In Chapter 10 (“Labour as a Form of Almsgiving in Early Modern Poor Relief Projects, 1600–1800”), Lorenzo Coccoli shows that there may be a valid narrative to be told of the early modern system of poor relief which provides something of a counterpoint to the Foucauldian story, which focuses on the disciplinary state. Coccoli’s point of departure is Juan Luis Vives’s epochal contribution De subventione pauperum (1526), which signalled a turning point in thinking about the poor. A crucial aspect of Vives’ humanist legacy is that compulsory labour was no longer a form of punishment, but rather started being framed “as a pedagogical tool to inculcate good work habits upon the crowd of presumably lazy poor”. This implied, Coccoli contends, “a malleable anthropology, allowing for some room for improvement” (p. 261). It followed that labour could be perceived as a form of almsgiving, indeed the best form of it, since it was useful not only to the individual but also to society. Although “the work-as-charity discourse circulated across religious and national 126 N. Wood, John Locke and Agrarian Capitalism (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1984), 107. 127 Wood gives the damning verdict, ibid., 106–7: “His aim was to mobilize the unemployed, force them by unrelenting draconian methods to labor, and shape them into a docile and deferential brigade instilled with the work ethic of industry, thrift, and sobriety. They would thus be better able to serve their reformed masters by more efficiently improving the landed estates of England, thereby increasing profits and rents. Little of Christian charity or compassion for the less fortunate can be found in this unusually harsh document.”

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borders” (p. 264), Coccoli focuses on case studies from Italy and, in particular, on Lodovico Antonio Muratori’s Della carità Cristiana (1723). Unlike most sixteenth-century or early seventeenth-century authors, who categorised the poor either as “unfortunate creatures deserving to be helped or lazy and vicious drones” (p. 258), Muratori acknowledged that there was also a third group of paupers: those who were willing to work but could not find employment. The novelty of his argument (and also Coccoli’s) is taking charity seriously: giving work to the poor mattered primarily not because of the economy of the state but also for the individuals, who took part in the very act of charity. On the other hand, from an Enlightenment perspective, giving work was practically the only form of agreeable charity. Although Coccoli acknowledges that “compulsory work in terms of benevolent assistance did not erase its disciplinary connotations” and the “line between help and punishment remained surprisingly thin,” he is reluctant to line up with a Foucauldian verdict. He stresses instead how the discourses of charity imposed objective obligations on social actors and the new charitable institutions that chose to embrace it in the early eighteenth century, and he calls attention to the logic of gifts: “giving is not an entirely gratuitous act, it is also a way to oblige the donee towards the donor” (p. 279).

CHAPTER 2

The Work Ethic in Renaissance Florence: A Study of Its Origins Gábor Almási

This chapter investigates the history of the emergence of an ethic of hard work, industry, and disciplined time management as articulated in the writings of certain humanist merchants of Florence, especially by Leon Battista Alberti.1 In the context of Max Weber’s and Werner Sombart’s debate over the origins of capitalism, Alberti’s name is well-known.2 Sombart generally argued that a capitalist spirit, which he primarily saw in the pursuit of economic gain and economic rationalism, was present much earlier than Weber had assumed. In fact, Alberti’s I libri della famiglia was “a book second to none in its bourgeois sentiments, a book which

1 I would like to thank Anthony La Vopa, Giorgio Lizzul and Arnoud Visser for

reading and commenting on my chapter, Lav Šubari´c for checking my Latin translations, and Thomas Cooper for correcting my English. 2 See recently J. Rehmann, Max Weber: Modernisation as Passive Revolution. A Gramscian Analysis (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 368–84.

G. Almási (B) Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Neo-Latin Studies, Innsbruck, Austria e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 G. Almási and G. Lizzul (eds.), Rethinking the Work Ethic in Premodern Europe, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38092-1_2

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already breathed the spirit of Benjamin Franklin.”3 Although Weber did not agree,4 he acknowledged that “the doctrine of industria” and “a sort of economic rationality” were highly developed as much in the writings of Alberti as in those of “Cato, Varro, and Columella” in ancient times. Nevertheless, he insisted that Sombart (and similar critics) had completely missed the point of his argument, since he was talking not about a private ethic or a “literary theory,” but rather a “revolutionary force” of a “religious belief,” setting “the sanctions of salvation and damnation on the fulfilment of a particular […] manner of life.”5 In other words, Weber was interested in the reasons behind the internalisation of a work ethic— whether this ethic had been present already in Alberti and some others before the Reformation or not—by a larger part of society. This happened, he claimed, only in the seventeenth century, and he found this explicable only through references to “the psychological sanctions which this religious belief [Calvinism] put behind the industria.”6 This chapter shares Weber’s and Sombart’s interest in “origins,” but it is not about the origins of “Capitalism” or “the work ethic” in general, but rather focuses on the work ethic as represented in the writings of certain “merchant humanists” of fifteenth-century Florence. The question is how a certain group of laymen came to promote openly an ethic of hard work, integrating it into the very essence of a nascent elite culture, Renaissance humanism. Why did this ethic emerge in this particular moment and place? The question I am raising, then, is partially a question about the origins of (a certain kind of) humanism or, more precisely, about the way “merchant values” came to be integrated into humanist discourses. These authors not only promoted industriousness and disciplined time management; they also embraced the positive value of wealth as a fruit of their industria. This had hardly happened before on a similar scale. Previous discourses about work and wealth had in the greater part been theological, authored mostly by churchmen, and they had not promoted hard

3 W. Sombart, “The Origins of the Capitalist Spirit,” in Economic Life in the Modern Age, eds. N. Stehr and R. Grundmann (Abingdon: Routledge, 2017), 52. 4 See Weber’s response to Sombart in the notes to the revised version of his book (1920–1921). M. Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, trans. T. Parsons, intr. A. Giddens (London: Routledge, 2001), 141–47, 149–53 (esp. at 142). 5 Ibid., 144–45. 6 Ibid., 152.

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work in a comparable manner. The exceptions, such as the jurist Albertano da Brescia († 1253), are isolated cases.7 They seem to support the claim that the promotion of a work ethic necessitated an adequate cultural idiom, easy access to media (meaning also literary culture), and an audience.8 In order to emphasise the novelty of Alberti and his peers and offer a larger interpretative context, this chapter follows a chronological order, first demonstrating how a more positive idea of labour and enrichment emerged in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, then presenting the scarce fourteenth-century evidence regarding Florence, and finally introducing the ideas of fifteenth-century Florentine “merchant humanists,” situating them in their social-political context.

From Ambivalence to Accommodation Medieval thinking on work was often riddled with ambiguities. On the one hand, work (principally understood as manual labour) was viewed as burdensome, a consequence of the Fall, and the sorrowful lot of humanity. It was associated with repenting and suffering.9 It was filthy and sweaty, a notion which also found expression in the ban on Sunday work.10 On the other hand, manual work was praised by Saint Paul and its blessings had been acknowledged since Patristic times.11 It had been sanctioned, in the end, by a long monastic tradition since the Rule of St. Benedict. As a result, manual labour became spiritualised and integrated into devotional life, and work in general could acquire metaphorical meanings. The idea that physical work kept idleness, the source of much 7 On Albertano see more in the introduction. 8 See O. Nuccio, Addio all’ “Etica protestante.” Umanesimo civile ed individualismo

economico nella letteratura italiana: da Albertano ad Alberti (Rome: La Sapienza, 2003). Note, however, that Nuccio is much biased and old-fashioned in his defence of a Catholic work ethic. 9 See, for example, Alan of Lille, equating labouring with repenting, noted in K. Robertson and M. Uebel (eds.), The Middle Ages at Work: Practicing Labor in Late Medieval England (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2004), 7. Also see G. Ovitt Jr., The Restoration of Perfection: Labor and Technology in Medieval Culture (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1987), 137–38. 10 See C. J. Holdsworth, “The Blessings of Work: The Cistercian View,” Studies in Church History 10 (1973), 59–76, at 68. 11 Ovitt, The Restoration, 88–106, P. Evangelisti, Il pensiero economico nel Medioevo: ricchezza, povertà, mercato e moneta (Rome: Carocci, 2016), 29–72.

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danger and evil, at bay remained alive until modern times. Labour could teach one humbleness, discipline, and devotion. The point was not the product of labour but the practice of it, which guided the soul to humility, patience, obedience, and renunciation. “I am working hard in this field,” Augustine wrote in his Confessions, “and the field of my labors is my own self.”12 By the twelfth century, the typical ambivalence concerning work seems to have given place in theological literature to a more apparent contempt.13 Heavy labour started to be viewed as the lot of the laboratores only and not mankind in general. The tripartite vision of society—or at least a bipartite vision of workers and non-workers—had been codified into a legal form in many places across Europe. The static and divinely ordered but nevertheless contemptible place of the laboratores at the lower end of the Christian republic was repeatedly confirmed by religious doctrine and canon law.14 Although manual labour was often sanctioned as a necessary part of the common endeavour towards eternal life, there was now an unbridgeable gap between the lowly work of the peasants and artisans and the uplifting activity of priests and soldiers. As Jacques Le Goff has commented, ideas about labour were conditioned by the “association with the baseness of the class that monopolized it.”15 An attempt to rehabilitate physical work and reintegrate it into the practice of contemplation was made by the Cistercians. However, in increasingly diversified and market-oriented societies, this attempt remained seriously contested, and in reality manual labour became more

12 Quoted by Ovitt, The Restoration, 106. Cf. the Expositio regulae (V.1) of the Franciscans. See also O. Langholm¸ The Legacy of Scholasticism in Economic Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 119. 13 Ovitt, The Restoration, 137–65. 14 G. Duby, The Three Orders. Feudal Society Imagined (Chicago: University of Chicago

Press, 1980), 63–75; G. Todeschini, “Linguaggi ecclesiastici della mobilità sociale,” in La mobilità sociale nel Medioevo italiano, vol. 3, eds. S. Carocci and A. De Vincentiis (Rome: Viella, 2017), 53–73; idem, “Wealth, Value of Work and Civic Identity in the Medieval Theological Discourse (XII–XIV c.),” in Reichtum im späten Mittelalter, eds. P. Schulte and P. Hesse = Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte, Beihefte 232 (2010), 55–68. 15 J. Le Goff, “Trades and Professions as Represented in Medieval Confessors’ Manuals,” in Time, Work and Culture in the Middle Ages (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), 107–21, at 110. For an extended analysis, see Ovitt, The Restoration, 150–63.

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and more detached from the practice of monastic life, even if some monasteries were becoming economic powerhouses.16 Yet, for labour to be blessed did not necessarily mean that it had to be physical. The mid-twelfth-century anonymous Libellus de diversis ordinibus argued that there was also work suitable for men of the church, such as praying or reading, which was hardly manual labour.17 Beginning in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, economic revival and accelerating urbanisation went together with the emergence of new professions and more complex financial systems. Endowments, money, goods, loans, and titles to land started circulating in ever-growing quantities, reshaping the Christian landscape and putting religious commitment to poverty to the test. Although the accumulation of individual wealth— like the application of usura—continued to be linked to avarice, and the clerical reaction to the rise of merchants most often remained one of aversion, by the thirteenth century, work, money, and profit started being studied, described, and legitimised with increasing sophistication. The result was a general reconceptualisation and revaluation of work. As a parallel process, starting with some Cistercian authors and continued by Franciscans and Dominicans, the concept of otium, primarily meaning an unimpeded, quiet, and spiritual life, increasingly took on the negative shades of idleness, indicating the source of “all kinds of temptations or bad and useless thoughts.”18 A more positive appreciation of work, however, did not mean that manual labour ceased to have an ambiguous status.19 The problem was not only the social prejudice against manual 16 Ovitt, The Restoration, 143–60. For a different view stressing the influence of the Cistercian model on the change of attitude concerning manual labour, see Holdsworth, “The Blessings of Work.” 17 The author says that he understands the apostolic precept “if any man will not work, neither let him eat” (2 Thess. 3:10) not to refer to manual labour only (“non solum de laboribus manuum dicatur”) but also to “all work [de omni opere] suitable for men of the church,” which one does seated. Libellus de diversis ordinibus et professionibus qui sunt in Aecclesia, eds. and trans. G. Constable and B. Smith (Oxford: Clarendon, 1972), 95–97. See Ovitt, The Restoration, 157–58. 18 Unless otherwise indicated, translations are my own. The quotation is by Guillaume de Saint-Thierry († 1148), in H. J. Sieben, “Quies–Otium,” in Dictionnaire de spiritualite, ascetique et mystique, doctrine et histoire, 21 vols., eds. M. Viller et al. (Paris: G. Beauchesne, 1937–1995), 12.2: 2746–56, at 2752. The Franciscan David of Augsburg († 1272) argued later that “one should be mindful of God not so much in otium as much in negotium and occupations.” Ibid., 2753. 19 See Odd Langholm, Economics in the Medieval Schools (Leiden: Brill, 1992).

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labour in a context in which religious contemplation and noble idleness were systematic values, i.e. values sanctioned by the social system. The problem was also that enrichment and upward social mobility through work hardly fitted the static conception of society that was characteristic of the thought of most theologians, jurists, and canonists. Nevertheless, the thirteenth-century process of theological accommodation resulted in labour receiving new meanings and emphases. There appeared a new, abstract concept of work, understood now as an unquestioned value. Work became fundamental to the late medieval concept of equity. It is worth taking a closer look at these important intellectual changes and analysing the idiom used by a few theologians canonised in the history of economic thought. In a manual written for confessors in 1216, the English theologian Thomas Chobham (c. 1160–c. 1236), who was likely a student of Peter the Chanter,20 recognised the importance of the work of artisans, stressing the economic value of their specialised knowledge. Likewise, Chobham acknowledged the usefulness of merchant work as justifying the—moderate and reasonable—profits they made.21 A group that could not fit into this logic, however, was moneylenders. Their profits were more consistently repudiated from the eleventh century than ever before.22 The argument Chobham used against usura (invented by Robert of Courçon23 ) was an attempt at rationalising why the

20 John W. Baldwin, Masters, Princes and Merchants. The Social Views of Peter the Chanter and His Circle, 2 vols. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970), 1:18. 21 The same argument was later embraced by Thomas Aquinas’s Summa (X.19). See Evangelisti, Il pensiero economico, 100, 105; and J. Le Goff, “Licit and Illicit Trades in the Medieval West,” in idem, Time, Work (as in n. 15), 58–70, at 65. Despite recognising the benefit of mercantile work, Chobham confirmed the old prejudice that merchant wealth could lead one to sin. He compared it to the same perilous vocation of teaching at school. T. de Chobham, Summa confessorum, ed. F. Broomfield (Louvain–Paris: Nauwelaerts, 1968), 290–91. 22 This is a claim by Oscar Nuccio, Il pensiero economico italiano, 5 vols. (Sassari: Gallizzi, 1984–1992), 2.1: 55–72. See also Evangelisti, Il pensiero economico, 34–40 and 95–104. Nuccio also points at the counter-interests of the Church as a feudal lord to the process of urbanisation (ibid., 99–102). 23 The argument was still used by Giles of Lessines and Alexander Lombard (Alessandro di Alessandria) at the end of the thirteenth century. See J. Kirshner and K. Lo Prete, “Peter John Olivi’s Treatises on Contracts of Sale, Usury and Restitution: Minorite Economics or Minor Works?” Quaderni fiorentini 13 (1984), 233–86, at 260.

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moneylender could make no justifiable profit: it was because he was not performing any work, but was simply selling time: If I lend money to you, or even grain or wine, the money immediately becomes yours, the grain is yours, and the wine is yours. If I then receive a reward, I make a profit on what is yours and not mine. Hence, the moneylender does not sell the debtor what is his, he sells him only time, which belongs to God. And since he sells something that belongs to another, he should not make any profit off it. Moreover, the moneylender wants to earn money without performing any labour. He wants to earn it even during his sleep, which is against the precept of God, who says that “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.”24

Ultimately, because of the essential relationship established between work and daily bread, the moneylender was sinful, as he took advantage of the work and fatigue of others. The moneylender, as Robert of Courçon (c. 1160/1170–1219), another student of Peter the Chanter, had put it in 1202, should not eat but should give back what he amassed because “he takes the work of others more than his due [supra sortem] and a part of the profit of that work.”25 This logic, when taken to its extreme, could even justify the work of prostitutes. Chobham, as Le Goff has pointed out, confirmed that there was no evil in a prostitute receiving the price of her labour, provided she did not “work” for pleasure-seeking motives. 24 “Si igitur mutavero tibi denarius vel etiam frumentum vel vinum, statim denarii sunt tui, et frumentum tuum est, et vinum tuum est. Unde si pretium inde reciperem, haberem lucrum de tuo, non de meo. Unde fenerator nihil vendit debitori quod suum est, sed tantum tempus quod dei est. Unde quia vendit rem alienam non debet inde aliquod lucrum habere. Preterea, fenerator vult consequi lucrum sine omni labore etiam dormiendo, quod est contra preceptum domini qui ait: in labore et sudore vultus tui vesceris pane tuo [Gen. 3:19].” Chobham, Summa confessorum, 505. See J. Le Goff, “The Thief of Time,” in Your Money or Your Life. Economy and Religion in the Middle Ages (New York: Zone Books, 1988), 33–46, at 40–42; Evangelisti, Il pensiero economico, 106–7; Nuccio, Il pensiero economico, 2.1: 471. 25 “Hic non laborat et tamen supra sortem accipit multa non intuitu laboris sed pro exspectatione temporis; ergo cum non laborat, nec manducet; ergo tenetur ad restitutionem, nam supra sortem suam recipit laborem aliorum et partem fructus laboris.” R. De Courçon, Le traité “De usura”, ed. G. Lefèvre (Lille: Au siège de l’université, 1902), 71– 73. Courçon radically repudiated moneylenders. With reference to Saint Paul, he argued (like Chobham did later), that everyone should work for his bread and the curiosi and otiosi—such as the moneylenders—should not be tolerated in society. The wife of the moneylender should leave her husband and live separately ex labore manuum. Ibid., 35, 43.

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Prostitution was a sin that could be repented for if the profits were given as alms.26 What this extreme example shows is that work was perceived as belonging to the labourer. Even if the labour performed were sordid, it justified one’s earnings. This was not the case with time. Time belonged to God. It was not the individual’s property and consequently could not be a commodity. Gradually, over the course of the thirteenth century, many of the old prejudices towards merchants and artisans gave way to the pressures of dynamically changing urban societies. From about the middle of the century, perceptions of mercantile activity and profit also started changing.27 Merchants, money changers, and even bankers, which were social categories that did not easily fit into the tripartite schema of bellatores, laboratores, and oratores, gradually became integrated as legitimate members of Christian society.28 The most important author whose work reflects these changes is the extravagant Franciscan theologian Pierre de Jean Olivi (1248–1298) from the Languedoc. Probably a student of Bonaventure and Thomas of Aquinas, Olivi promoted Franciscan true poverty in an uncompromising manner. This did not entail a dismissal of the positive role of commerce for society. In his treatise On contracts of 1293—the first comprehensive and highly innovative work on trade and credit—Olivi justified mercantile profit on a number of grounds, most importantly with regard to the benefits commerce brought to the community.29 Meanwhile, as Sylvain Piron has recently shown, the concept of industria took centre stage in Olivi’s thinking.30 He mentioned the honest labour of merchants, the dangers they encountered, the investments they made, their industriousness, and

26 Chobham, Summa confessorum, 296 (cf. 351–52). See Le Goff, “Licit and Illicit Trades,” 66. 27 Sylvain Piron speaks of a change since the 1240s. See S. Piron, L’Occupation du monde (Bruxelles: Zones Sensibles, 2018), 158. 28 See, for example, G. Todeschini, I mercanti e il tempio: la società cristiana e il circolo virtuoso della ricchezza fra Medioevo ed età moderna (Bologna: Il mulino, 2002). 29 Pierre de Jean Olivi, Traité des contracts, ed., intr. and trans. S. Piron (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2012). See G. Todeschini, “Carità e profitto nella dottrina economica francescana da Bonaventura all’Olivi,” Franciscan Studies 60 (2002), 325–39; Piron, L’Occupation, 160–78; idem, Généalogie de la morale économique (Bruxelles: Zones Sensibles, 2020), 200–11. 30 Piron, Généalogie, 208–15.

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“the many sleepless nights [pervigil ]” they underwent.31 He claimed merchants needed to be particularly industrious in “acutely estimating the value of things, prices and measures.”32 “The technical skill and industry of the artisan,” Olivi argued, “may legitimately bring him profit.” In a similar manner, the merchant’s “industry” should rightfully be profitable. “Industry” in this latter case referred to the merchant’s skilled labour, his “prudent study of the value and price of things, and [his] ability to arrive at the correct price of the smallest parcels.”33 It was not simply labour but rather industriousness and expertise—notions that had already gained currency in a long monastic tradition since the Early Middle Ages—that could best make profit of any kind legitimate.34 Olivi’s premise concerning industry subtly changed the language of work and profit, and this also found expression in his thinking about time. Usura, for example, is not repudiated with reference to time as a common or divine—hence not vendible—property, but time, Olivi argues, has an aspect of “temporal utility applicable for a temporal value” and can be legitimately sold.35 The time of the Creation (Christian time) and mundane time (in which human life unfolds) are two different things. The time spent on work belongs to the labourer and to the very process during which value is produced via industry and expertise. In this case, time is not “public property,” and Olivi does not mention God’s time at all.36

31 Olivi, Traité des contracts, 1.6.69, p. 138. On Olivi’s possible sources concerning industry, see Piron, Généalogie, 211. 32 Ibid., 1.6.71, p. 140. 33 Ibid., 1.6.76, p. 142. “Industriousness” also appeared again and again in his

justification of commercial profit. See ibid., 1.6.70, p. 138. 34 Evangelisti, Il pensiero economico, 55–71, V. Toneatto, Les Banquiers du Seigneur. Évêques et moines face à la richesse (iv e -début du ix e siècle) (Rennes: Presses Universitaires,

2012). 35 “Sequitur quod tempus proprium venditoris possit licite vendi, si temporalem utilitatem temporali precio appreciabilem in se includat.” Olivi, Traité des contracts, Dubia, 3.23, p. 204. 36 Ibid., Dubia, 3.24, p. 204 and 3.25, p. 206.

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The Work Ethic in Fourteenth-Century Florence: The Silence of the Sources By the beginning of the fourteenth century, the major conceptual tools for the promotion of a work ethic seem to have been available. Most importantly, these tools had been developed in theological texts with regard to the ambiguous status of merchants. In many of the elite sources, especially those written by Franciscans and Dominicans, work had come to be understood as (or posited as) an unquestioned value; it was a concept detached from manual and servile labour; it was perceived as belonging to the individual; and it was considered a product of his industriousness and striving. Similarly, time started being treated as a commodity and as the property of the individual. The previous hostility of many theologians towards mercantile wealth increasingly gave way to more positive attitudes, which saw mercantile activity as justifiable with reference to the labour of the individual. All in all, the legitimacy of riches well used became slowly unquestionable in the theological and political literature. One of the most significant semantic changes noted above was the new emphasis placed on industria in the discourses on labour. As we can see, industry did not simply mean diligence; it was specifically linked to skilled labour. While it still referred to an “inner quality that is driving action,”37 it came to be associated with practical knowledge.38 Francesco da Barberino (1264–1348), a Florentine poet and one of Dante’s contemporaries, made industria an explicitly intellectual capacity, relating it to a kind of research.39 Barberino acknowledged that industry might be an inherited quality, but putting it to use, he claimed, was a mark of virtue. In fact, industry was more important than talents (ingenia), which were

37 Piron, Généalogie, 208. 38 Much earlier, Hugh of Saint Victor (1096–1141) had proposed that industry was a

“science acquired through effort [labor].” Ibid., 209. 39 Barberino claimed that industry was a virtue that made possible the investigation and scrutiny of subtle questions (virtus habilitans ad inquirenda et investiganda subtilia) and through which the very subtlety of these questions became clear. I documenti d’amore di Francesco da Barberino secondo i manoscritti originali, 4 vols., ed. F. Egidi (Rome: Societa filologica, 1905–1927), 2:3–4. Cf. Piron, Généalogie, 214.

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only mental capacities (vires ), while industry was a virtue, as it expressed the ways in which individuals actually used their talents.40 It would be tempting to interpret the attempts made by Barberino and those who had similar ideas to appropriate industria and link it to specialised knowledge as a way of discriminating against the industriousness of non-specialised workers and day-labourers. Although this assumption is not easy to justify, it is reasonable to suppose that other groups of society also relied on industria in their social legitimation, using the concept simply as a synonym for hard work. Admittedly, we have no information concerning the competing claims which may have been made by dayworkers, artisans, or minor guildsmen about their own industriousness. Unfortunately, sources on the work ethos of these labouring groups are very limited. For example, the available Florentine statutes of the artes (the guilds) articulate no explicit ideas concerning a work ethic.41 Logically, the statutes of the guilds, which were intended to put limitations on and control the market, did not encourage but rather tried to curb extra work. Most importantly, they served to regulate competition, maintain the corporative spirit, and go against any form of exceptionalism or nonconformism. Does that mean that hard work and industriousness were not key values for guildsmen? Or were they rather uncontested and self-evident values that needed little promotion or legal protection? We also lack traces of a work ethic in early ego-documents coming from wealthy but non-elite merchant or rentier families.42 The diary of Goro/ Gregorio Dati (1362–1435) reflects a life spent in tireless and hazardous commercial work between Florence and Spain, but it makes no reference to industriousness or striving.43 One finds even less trace of any notion of a work ethic in the Ricordi (c. 1411) of Giovanni di Pagolo Morelli (1371–1444), which is the longest such document in the period.

40 Cf. the comment of Alfred Von Martin: “work is virtus, because it is the expression of individual achievement independent from birth and status.” A. Von Martin, Soziologie der Renaissance und weitere Schriften, eds. R. Faber and C. Holste (Wiesbaden: Springer, 2016), 43. 41 I have searched the volumes of the series Fonti e studi sulle corporazioni artigiane del Medio Evo, which embraces all kinds of artisan work. 42 See V. Branca (ed.), Mercanti scrittori. Ricordi nella Firenze tra medioevo e rinascimento (Milan: Rusconi, 1986); C. Bec, Les marchands écrivains. Affaires et humanisme à Florence 1375–1434 (Paris: La Haye, 1967). 43 G. Dati, Il libro segreto, ed. C. Gargiolli (Bologna: G. Romagnoli, 1869).

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Unlike Dati and despite the family’s mercantile past, Morelli was a rentier, mostly living off his revenues.44 His philosophy of life clearly did not reflect the ideas of an industrious merchant. His most important piece of advice was that one should preserve one’s honour and the honour of one’s family, finding the right patron in the ruling group, keeping a dense social network, and serving loyally in any given office.45 Keeping a low profile was one of the key messages of the book. If people (and authorities) were to get a clear image of your real economic situation, you would be lost. This is actually what happened to Giovanni’s brother-in-law, who had a great heart and openly spoke about everything, bringing ruin on himself, his friends, and his relatives: “He believed he was able to satisfy everyone, not because he thought he possessed the art to face the situation, but since he put trust in his industria and made it appear as great riches.”46 That was, for Giovanni, one of the worst of possible errors: not to see the limits of one’s social-economic situation and to think too much of one’s industry. Industriousness was not a virtue that would lead, inevitably, to wealth and status. What mattered was honour, and honour depended on occupying the right place in society and maintaining the necessary compromises with the ruling elite.47 If we look for discussions of the work ethic in the available “literary” sources from the fourteenth century, we are similarly disappointed. Despite the theoretical availability of an idiom of hard work and industry, we find only sporadic uses of this idiom. The works of Dante and Boccaccio contain as little discussion of work as those of Petrarca and 44 C. Tripodi, “Le condizioni economiche,” in G. di Pagolo Morelli, Ricordi. Nuova edizione e introduzione storica, ed. C. Tripodi (Florence: Firenze University Press, 2019), 71–111. On Giovanni’s learning and educational ideas, see idem, “L’educazione del pupillo in Giovanni Morelli,” Annali di Storia di Firenze 3 (2008), 29–63. 45 See John Najemy’s analysis and comparison with Dati, in J. M. Najemy, “Civic Humanism and Florentine Politics,” in Renaissance Civic Humanism: Reappraisals and Reflections, ed. J. Hankins (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 75–104 (at 88–90). 46 “…e tutto fecie gredendo bene sodisfare a tutti. E questo non perché si sentisse avere valente da potere soperire a cciò, ma e’ si fidava nella industria sua e facievane istima chome d’una grande richezza.” Pagolo Morelli, Ricordi, 202. 47 See Najemy, “Civic Humanism,” 86: “In the generation after the last guild government of 1378–82, these nonelite major guildsmen [like the Morelli] finally and definitively chose alliance with the elite as preferable to what they now saw as the unacceptable risks of further revivals of the guild republic in coalitions with minor guildsmen and with all those workers who still wanted guilds—and thus a voice—of their own.”

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Salutati. The gradual emergence of a lay culture—humanism—which legitimated itself with references to antiquity and brought about a semantic restructuring of intellectual discourses apparently failed initially to integrate into these discourses the concept of labour and industry. This begs some explanation. One could argue, for example, that semantic changes can only happen gradually, as was the case with the concept of the “common good” since the beginning of the fourteenth century. The “common good” took centre stage in political and humanist discourses because it was linked to an earlier key concept, caritas, or more precisely, to the politicisation of caritas, or love of the patria.48 Arguably, humanism first needed to absorb other values and concepts or to change the connotations of older ones. This idea, however, is not easy to substantiate at present. If humanism in this early, Petrarchian stage aspired to offer moral guidance, it needed first to grapple with an intellectual tradition—and a scholarly habitus—that had overwhelmingly clerical origins and connotations. We can illustrate this point with reference to one of Petrarch’s less known and more traditional works, De otio religioso (1347). Although since the twelfth and especially thirteenth century, otium was increasingly associated in monastic literature with idleness, Francesco Petrarca (1304–1376) ran against this tradition and aimed instead to rehabilitate its spiritual connotations. His De otio religioso was inspired by a short meeting with his beloved brother Gherardo, who had joined the community of a Carthusian monastery four years earlier. The book was intended for a monastic audience and later enjoyed great popularity among the monks. Like in the almost contemporaneous De vita solitaria, Petrarch’s apparent goal was to find answers to the anxieties that his experience of an intellectual-spiritual life—a life spent in otium but not 48 It was with reference to caritas that new Ciceronian and Sallustian ideas about the common good and the fatherland were introduced by Ptolemy of Lucca, Remigio dei Girolami, and others. Caritas, Giovanni Villani argued in the Nuova Cronica (12.135) in the 1440s, was not about almsgiving, as Florentine people generally believed, but about the love of God, one’s neighbour, and “our commune and republic,” in which the Florentines, he alleged, had manifestly failed. Everyone had simply pursued his own interests and “no faith or caritas remained in the citizens, especially in the leading ones, in maintaining the state [respublica].” See the excellent study by E. I. Mineo, “Caritas e bene commune,” Storica 20 (2014), 7–56 (esp. 36–38). On the common good, see also P. Boucheron, “Politisation et dépolitisation d’un lieu commun,” in De bono communi, eds. E. Lecuppre-Desjardin and A.-L. Van Bruaene (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010), 237–52. See also Evangelisti (quoting Francesc Eiximenis’s Regiment de la cosa pública) in Il pensiero, 183–84.

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in idleness—had given to him. Living on clerical benefices without clerical duties and dedicating himself to reading and writing, Petrarch saw several foils to his life: the court, the university, and the church (none of which he ever wanted to attach himself to); the monastery (which he never joined); and the city (which left no time for contemplation). Respiritualising otium, which he envisioned “as continuous with the otium first identified with the monastic life by Augustine,” served him as a way to legitimise the life he was leading.49 Otium in the extreme argument of De otio religioso was most importantly a state of leisure characterised by freedom from worries, worldly concerns, and the pursuit of ambition. It was the only possible state that directly led to God and salvation. Labour was the exact opposite. People, Petrarch argued, do not “work intensely so that they may enjoy a little rest; no truly, [they work] so they may have no rest at all; even more truly, so that they may work even more. […] Among other people labor creates more labor; among you [monks], however, rest creates rest.”50 It is difficult to imagine ideas which had drifted further from an ethic of work. By legitimising the otium of monks, Petrarch also legitimised his own literary leisure or freedom. Paradoxically, for Petrarch, that freedom meant selfimposed work. Although he could have easily fashioned otium as hard work (and it would later be fashioned this way as much by humanists as by seventeenth-century French polite society51 ), the logic of De otio religioso did not allow for that. Nevertheless, in one of his letters, inspired by the example of Pliny the Elder as described by Pliny the Younger and Emperor Augustus as described by Suetonius, Petrarch fashioned his intellectual work as fatigue and toil. Still, he felt uneasy and feared that he was perhaps going against the rules of a spiritual life: “I may perhaps seem boastful [of my hard work], but […] you will understand too that I am ashamed rather than proud of this account [of intense intellectual work]

49 See R. G. Witt, “Introduction,” in Petrarch, On Religious Leisure (De otio religioso), trans. S. S. Schearer (New York: Italica, 2002), xii. 50 Petrarch, On Religious Leisure, 7–8. 51 I thank Anthony La Vopa for calling my attention to the paradoxical nature of otium

in seventeenth-century French polite society. “Otium,” as he commented in his remarks on my chapter, “meant freedom from the demands of careerism, especially at the court. That freedom left you in control of your time, which you could devote to the self-discipline of thinking and writing, which is a kind of labor.”

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because obviously at this age I should not be concerned about anything but my soul. Yet this is how I am made.”52 There is hardly much change in the attitude towards otium in Petrarch’s major follower Coluccio Salutati (1331–1406) either, who more than thirty years later penned in a similar vein an even more traditional writing, which he dedicated to the contemptus mundi tradition and the glorification of spiritual withdrawal.53

The Work Ethic of Fifteenth-Century Merchant Humanists At the turn of the fifteenth century, humanist discourses began to change substantially. Hans Baron has famously observed this semantic change, pointing out the emergence of republicanism and “civic humanism” and relating it to Florence’s military conflict with the Visconti dukes.54 Although the foreign political grounds of this change have been frequently questioned, as has its relationship to the purported republicanism of humanists, the Baronian observations about an early fifteenth-century shift in humanist discourses towards a revaluation of active life (negotium) and political participation still appear valid. There have been principally two interrelated explanations offered in addition to Baron’s theory of a foreign political crisis. One is the arrival of new men, which meant the enlargement of the group of both passive and active consumers of humanism55 ; the other is the political reconfiguration of the

52 Petrarch, Fam. 21.12. Petrarch, Letters on Familiar Matters (Rerum Familiarium Libri), trans. A. S. Bernardo, vol. 3 (New York: Italica Press, 2005), 195. 53 C. Salutati, De seculo et religione (c.1381); now in English: On the World and Religious Life, trans. T. Marshall, intr. R. G. Witt (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014). 54 H. Baron, The Crisis of the Early Italian Renaissance. Civic Humanism and Republican Liberty in an Age of Classicism and Tyranny, 2 vols. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1955). 55 This has already been pointed out by Baron: “Before true Quattrocento Humanism could arise, other and very essential contributions had to be made by citizens who stood outside of the humanistic tradition […], and by a younger generation whose thinking had been shaped in the political crisis during Giangaleazzo’s last years.” Baron, The Crisis, 1: 88. Lauro Martines has argued very much the same: “The fortunes and success of humanism cannot be understood without taking into account the input and encouragement of the Florentine upper class; and this class, in fostering the humanist program,

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Florentine elite after the Ciompi revolt, which brought about the growth of the group of potential office holders and the parallel decrease of the group of actual decision-makers. “Civic humanism” was a kind of meritocratic ideology, which meant to conceal this paradox and give support to the rule of the few.56 As we shall see, the emergence of the work ethic in humanist sources can be linked to both of these larger transformations (although more evidently to the former). A specific Florentine work ethic emerges in the early fifteenth century in relation to three canonical authors—Giannozzo Manetti (1396–1459), Giovanni Rucellai (1403–1481), and Leon Battista Alberti (1404– 1472)—all of them members of the Florentine elite and at the same time newcomers to the humanist tradition.57 Born around the same time, these men came from powerful merchant and banking families, yet from different circumstances. One thing that they all had in common was an experience of shifting fortunes and opportunities for social mobility, as well as a risk of social descent.58 While vast enrichment could be acquired in a lifetime, as in the case of Giannozzo Manetti’s father Bernardo, who became the tenth richest person in Florence over the course of his life,59 the wealth and power of families could also evaporate in spectacular ways, especially through bankruptcies and exile, such as in the case of the Alberti

necessarily tailored the lessons of the ancient world to its own ambitions or self-imagery.” L. Martines, “The Protean Face of Renaissance Humanism,” Modern Language Quarterly 51 (1990), no. 2, 105–21 (at 107). R. G. Witt has argued in the same journal that the group of participants in humanist culture suddenly began to broaden in the 1390s. R. G. Witt, “Civic Humanism and the Rebirth of the Ciceronian Oration,” Ibid., 167–87 (at 180–81). 56 “In the republics, elites and popolo tacitly agreed to a social compact in which

the former ruled and the latter accepted a share of offices, but without real power or systematic representation of its interests.” J. M. Najemy, “Introduction,” in Italy in the Age of the Renaissance 1300–1550, ed. idem (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 1–17, at 12. See also note 47 above. 57 This triumvirate is familiar in the historiography of work ethic. Although early authors chiefly dealt with Alberti only, Sombart already knew Rucellai, and Albert Von Martin even read Manetti. On the debate between Sombart and Weber regarding Alberti, see again Rehmann, Max Weber, 368–84. 58 See J. F. Padgett, “Open Elite? Social Mobility, Marriage, and Family in Florence, 1282–1494,” Renaissance Quarterly 63 (2010), 357–411. 59 L. Martines, The Social World of Florentine Humanists, 1390–1460 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963), 132.

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family, which was banished between 1387 and 1428.60 These men had a clear idea of the games of “fickle Fortune,” who, as the chronicler Giovanni Cavalcanti (1381–1451) said, “day by day pushes down the one who is high and does it apparently with more pleasure than raising and making happy the one who is low.”61 Giannozzo Manetti started working at the family firm at the age of ten, but when he turned 25, he decided to devote himself to studies, which was not something his father appreciated.62 Nevertheless, as far as his diligence was concerned, he certainly matched his father’s. As his younger friend Vespasiano da Bisticci (1421–1498) later noted, Manetti devoted all his time to study and slept no more than five hours a day.63 Learning not only Latin and Greek but also Hebrew, he is now mostly remembered for the important Latin works he penned on human dignity and the lives of Socrates, Seneca, Dante, Boccaccio, and Petrarch. Yet his literary activity was supposedly only a pastime. His days were divided between business, offices, and studies. His friend and client Bisticci, who went from being the son of a wealthy wool worker to a book binder and then Florence’s most important book merchant (and, like Manetti, was an autodidact), felt true admiration for Manetti’s disciplined work ethic, time management, and ascetic diet.64 As he stressed, Manetti knew that time management—sanctified by God—was very much like the management of money:

60 Before their expulsion, the Alberti clan was one of the wealthiest and most popular

families. One of Leon Battista’s grandfathers alone was the thirty-second richest taxpayer in Florence. L. B. Alberti, I libri della famiglia, eds. R. Romano and A. Tenenti (Turin: Einaudi, 1994), 172. 61 “si vede tutto dì la voltevole fortuna giocare nella festinante ruota: quello di sopra rivolgere di sotto; e di questo pare che più si diletti, che de’ sottani farli soprani e felici.” G. Cavalcanti, Istorie fiorentine (Florence: Insegna di Dante, 1838), 49. 62 V. da Bisticci, Comentario della vita di messer Giannozo Manetti, intr. and ed. WiSeon Kim (Florence: Edifir, 2019), 131. I rely on the more detailed comentario and not on the more noted vita. Most recently on Manetti, see D. Marsh, Giannozzo Manetti: The Life of a Florentine Humanist (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2019). 63 Bisticci, Comentario, 132. 64 On Bisticci, see ibid., 19–27; for comments on Manetti’s diligence, time manage-

ment, and diet, see, for example, pp. 134, 136, 190, 192, 217–19. It is also easy to find instances of praise of individual efforts in Manetti’s Biographical Writings, eds. R. Bagemihl and S. Baldassarri (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003).

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He never engaged during his life in capricious games in order to avoid wasting time […]. Concerning the correct way of spending time, he used to say that Omnipotent God does as masters of trade [maestri de’ traffichi] do when they leave their money with the custodians of safes and order them to enter [the sum of the deposited money] in the account book. And if later, when they check the account again and again and see that some part of the money is missing, to the disgrace and damage [of the businessmen], it should be paid back to them. [Analogously], he says, Omnipotent God will keep an account of the time spent by men, calculating the period they spent for sleeping and eating, which are essential, and concluding how much extra time remained for them: how many years, months, days, hours, and minutes. He will then get the people who uselessly spent [the extra] time to pay for it according to the New Testament: “I tell thee, thou shalt not depart thence, till thou hast paid the very last mite” [cf. Luke 13:59], i.e. you have given an account of the smallest sin; and this was the reason why Manetti dispensed his time marvellously.65

This account of Manetti’s disposition towards time shows us something entirely new. Here, we have a merchant humanist, conscious of his value and intelligence and ready to represent diligence and self-discipline as central elements of his social identity. Manetti’s argument, reproduced by his close friend Bisticci, was presumably meant to justify his intellectual interests. It was expressed in the language of money, the language that his family and environment knew best. Yet it was deeply influenced by ascetic ideals reminiscent of a monastic tradition. Manetti combined the idea of spiritual time belonging to God with the analogous idea about secular time owned by hard-working men in a remarkably commercial idiom.66 65 “Nella vita sua non giuchò mai a giuocho igniuno per non perdere il tempo […]. Usava dire, rispetto al consumare bene il tempo, che l’onipotente Idio farebbe chome fanno i maestri de’ trafichi quando danno i loro danari al chassiere e fannogli mettere a entrata; dipoi gli riveghono il conto ispesso, e se vi manchasse nulla, resterebbe et con danno et con vergogna. Agli uomini, dice, farà l’onipotente Idio chonto del tempo sono vivuti: quanto ànno dormito, quanto ànno consumato in mangiare per nicistà; dipoi vedrà il resto del tempo resta loro, gli anni, e mesi, i dì, l’ore et momenti: a quegli che l’aranno consumato disutilmente renderà secondo il testo del Vangelo: ‘Non ti partirai di qui infino a tanto che tu renderai uno minimo quadrante, idest, renderai ragione d’ogni minimo peccato.’ Et per questo dispensava il suo tempo maravigliosamente.” Bisticci, Comentario, 192. See H. Baron, “A Sociological Interpretation of the Early Renaissance in Florence,” South Atlantic Quarterly 38 (1939), 438. 66 See also Le Goff, Time, Work (as in n. 15) ; E. P. Thompson, “Time, WorkDiscipline and Industrial Capitalism,” Past and Present 38 (1967), 56–97; David S.

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For him, a life spent in disciplined work and with rigorous time management was a good life free of sin. It was the life of a person mindful of his Creator and aware of his indebtedness. This person earned salvation not so much through occasional good deeds or penitence as through his self-discipline, rational time management, life-long efforts, and persistent labour. This was not only about providing religious sanction to a work ethic but also offering a new, more individual approach to religion. The vernacular writings of an even wealthier and more influential merchant, Giovanni Rucellai (1403–1481), a close friend and supporter of Cosimo de’ Medici, suggest that Manetti’s work ethic was far from unique. Rucellai (Manetti’s business partner and later father-in-law) is now famous for his so-called Zibaldone, an autobiographical notebook or commonplace book, which he started writing in 1457 and continued practically until his death.67 Although Rucellai originally meant his notes, addressed to his sons, to serve merely as a compendium of his ideas about the rules of commerce and honesty, they soon developed into a voluminous miscellany of counsel, diary, Florentine history, annotations on his readings, translations, letters, etc. For instance, he explains to his children how to deal with one’s agents, how to keep records of every single commercial act (the good merchant’s hands are always covered with ink68 ), how to preserve riches and health, raise children, and manage time, which Rucellai also stresses as the most precious of things. Time must be saved, correctly and orderly distributed, and never ever wasted: In the morning, you should plan your entire day and then follow what your daily schedule requires. Then, in the evening, before you go to bed, mull over what you did during the day. And if you were negligent in something that can still be remedied, then provide for it immediately. You should

Landes, Revolution in Time: Clocks and the Making of the Modern World (Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 1983); Gerhard Dohrn-van Rossum, Die Geschichte der Stunde: Uhren und moderne Zeitordnung (Munich: C. Hanser 1992); Carlo M. Cipolla, Le macchine del tempo (Bologna: Il mulino, 2000); Paul Glennie and Nigel Thrift, Shaping the Day: A History of Timekeeping in England and Wales 1300–1800 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). 67 G. di Pagolo Rucellai, Zibaldone, ed. G. Battista (Florence: SISMEL, 2013). On Rucellai, see F. W. Kent, A. Perosa et al., A Florentine Patrician and His Palace (2nd vol. of Giovanni Rucellai ed il suo Zibaldone) (London: The Warburg Institute, 1981); A. Warburg, The Renewal of Pagan Antiquity, eds. J. Bloomfield et al. (Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 1999), 240–42, 461–63. 68 Cf. Alberti, I libri della famiglia (as in note 60), 253.

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rather not sleep than waste time […]. Manage your life in a way that you might blame fortune [for failures] but not yourselves […]. Choose honest jobs that secure fame and reputation for you and our family and then make sure to do them intelligently, diligently, and by working hard.69

The question of how (if at all) one could avoid misfortune was particularly dear to Rucellai. In fact, his ideas about self-discipline and hard work were intrinsically linked to the problem of fortune, to which he dedicated an entire chapter of his Zibaldone.70 He introduced the chapter with an address to his sons in which he argued that “good management, sense, and prudence are of great benefit in adversity and can help in keeping chance events under control, so that little or no harm is done.”71 Although Rucellai seems to have believed profoundly that “for the most part, a wise man can protect himself from adversity” (here he stressed hard work less than foresight and reason) he was not at all comfortable with the theological problems regarding fortune. He well understood that fortune raised a delicate problem with any orthodox believer, who would insist that fortune was “nothing but a name […] a fiction or a lie invented by the pagans”72 or would claim that it was only another term for fate and predestination. Any space ceded to the rule of the goddess Fortune detracted from God’s predestination. Was there any such space at all? If one accidently stumbled upon some treasures hidden

69 “La mattina v’ordinate a tutto il dì et seguite quello vi si richiede; po’ la sera innanzi vi posiate, ricogliete in voi quello avete facto il dì, et se sete stati in alcuna cosa negligente alla quale possiate per allora rimediare, subito vi so

erite, et più tosto vogliate perdere il sonno che il tempo […]. Governatevi in modo che v’abiate più tosto a dolere della fortuna che di voi medesimi […]. Pigliate honesti exercitii che rendono fama et gratia a voi et alla nostra famiglia, et in quelli vi sforzate stare desti, solleciti et operosi.” Rucellai, Zibaldone, 29. Cf. again with Alberti, I libri della famiglia, 216–17. However, mulling over the events of the day when going to bed was an ancient advice found also in Cicero and Seneca (two of Rucellai’s favourite authors). It also appeared in one the letters by Lorenzo de’ Medici to his sixteen-year-old son Giovanni: The Life of Lorenzo De’ Medici Called the Magnificent, ed. W. Roscoe, vol. 3 (London: Strahan, 1800, 4th ed.), 343 (appendix 66). 70 Rucellai, Zibaldone, 39–49. 71 Rucellai, Zibaldone, 39. Trans. in Warburg, The Renewal, 462. 72 “Tutti e’ teologi tengono questa oppinione che fortuna et caso niente sia se none

in nome, riputando che l’uno et l’autro sieno fittioni e bugie da pagani immaginate.” Rucellai, Zibaldone, 41.

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in the ground, was that owing to God or Fortune?73 The problem of fortune was a problem about human will and effort versus divine predestination, about God’s foreknowledge, and about the sense of secular history in the face of a divinely planned human history.74 Rucellai seems to have been aware of the complexities of the problem, as his research into the opinions of Boethius, Epictetus, Aristotle, Dante, Sallust, Fazio degli Uberti, Seneca, Cecco d’Ascoli, Saint Bernard, Lucian, Leonardo Dati, Petrarch, and Cicero suggests.75 Still, he believed that virtuous citizens—i.e. calculating, rational, disciplined, and industrious men—could overcome fortune, or to put it another way, fortune was not or at the very least ought not to exist as a problem for the virtuous.76 Nonetheless, the fact that he kept returning to the question and that he even asked Marsilio Ficino for his opinion suggests that some doubts remained in his mind. Interestingly, Ficino’s answer (a letter included in the Zibaldone) added a social dimension to the problem.77 While the miserable common people, Ficino claimed, foolishly lacked foresight and consequently struggled to remedy future troubles, Giovanni Rucellai and a select few of his kind were able to act with a prudence that could foresee future mishaps and find solutions.78 Although Leon Battista Alberti, a member of a once powerful but economically ruined and politically humiliated family, saw the issue of 73 The example comes from Aristotle (Metaphysics 1025a16–20). Rucellai, who is referring to it on p. 40 (without raising my question about God), does not actually quote Aristotle but probably one of his commentators. The same example is used to explain fortune in Cavalcanti, Istorie fiorentine, 150. 74 On the concept of fortune during the Renaissance, see J. G. A. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment. Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975), 3–49; F. Buttay-Jutier, Fortuna: usages politiques d’une allégorie morale à la Renaissance (Paris: Presses de l’Université Paris-Sorbonne, 2008). 75 The order of the authors reveals that Rucellai’s education was not a standard humanist education. 76 See the presumed quote by Aristotle in Rucellai, Zibaldone, 46. One of the addressees of the Zibaldone, Bernardo Rucellai (1448–1514) was already less optimistic than his father and more liable to emphasise the power of fortune and historical circumstances. See M. Santoro, Fortuna, ragione e prudenza nella civiltà letteraria del Cinquecento (Naples: Editori Liguori, 1967), 135–78. 77 Rucellai, Zibaldone, 146–49. I disregard here Ficino’s complicated Platonic argument and only engage with the beginning of his letter. 78 Ibid., 146–47.

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fortune and wealth from a very different angle than his much richer and more fortunate contemporaries Manetti and Rucellai (whom he knew well),79 he certainly placed no less emphasis on the importance of individual effort, diligence, and parsimonious use of time than they did. Like Rucellai, Alberti related time management to fortune, and like Manetti, he also felt compelled by his commercial environment to justify the hard work he had invested into the study of antiquity.80 In fact, the interrelated questions of fortune versus virtue and idleness versus industriousness were central problems in Alberti’s thinking. In his autobiographical writings, he repeatedly emphasised his diligence and day-to-day efforts.81 In his self-portrait, Alberti idealised the hardworking, responsible, disciplined, honest, and rational citizen, the person who relied on his own efforts and who therefore merited his position in society.82 An especially clear articulation of the language of labour is offered by one of Alberti’s table talks, entitled Erumna (“Misfortune”), a Latin dialogue between Philoponius (“Friend of suffering”) and an anonymous speaker. The dialogue culminates in the question as to whether cultured Philoponius would exchange his fate with the rich but uneducated courtier, Triscatarus. Philoponius indignantly asks,

79 Although Alberti worked as an architect on several of Rucellai’s prestigious building projects, we have no precise knowledge of their relationship, since Alberti’s name is absent from Rucellai’s Zibaldone and the surviving documents; he is mentioned only once in the notes of one of Rucellai’s sons as “nobilissimo gentil’huomo e d’architettura sovrano maestro” in ibid., p. 576. On Alberti, see M. McLaughlin, Leon Battista Alberti: la vita, l’umanesimo, le opere letterarie (Florence: Olschki, 2016); E. Garin, Leon Battista Alberti, intr. M. Ciliberto (Pisa: Edizioni della Normale, 2013); Alberti e la cultura del Quattrocento, 2 vols., eds. R. Cardini and M. Regoliosi (Florence: Polistampa, 2007); and M. Paoli, Leon Battista Alberti (Turin: Bollati, 2007). 80 See, for example, L. B. Alberti, De commodis litterarum atque incommodis, ed. L. Goggi Carotti (Florence: L. S. Olschki, 1976). 81 A selection of these texts (De Commodis Literarum atque Incommodis, Vita S. Potiti, Vita, Canis, Musca) will soon appear in the I Tatti Renaissance Library edited by Martin McLaughlin. 82 L. B. Alberti, “Vita (Autobiografia),” in Alberti, Autobiografia e altre opere latine, bilingual eds. L. Chines and A. Severi (Milan: RCS, 2012), 61–105. Cf. the prologue to I libri della famiglia: L. B. Alberti, The Family in Renaissance Florence. Book Three, trans. R. Neu Watkins (Long Grove, IL: Waveland, 1994), 17–18.

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Do you perhaps want to convince me to exchange all that durable, stable, and lasting goods, which I have obtained with my own striving, industriousness and fatigue [studio, industria et labore], with my night-time work [lucubrationes ] and extreme vigil [vigilia] for those fragile, perishable, and inconstant goods which you, Fortuna, ceded for his idleness and sloth?83

The rhetoric of labour is inflated here to such an extent as to border on self-irony. The impression that Alberti was ironical and playing with an already well-established idiom is confirmed by the reply of the anonymous speaker, who turns against Philoponius with his own weapons. He claims that the rich courtier, Tristacarus, does not indeed blame Fortuna for having given Philoponius a sharp and versatile mind, which was at least as important as his work and fatigue in his successes. Neither does Tristacarus blame Fortuna for his lack of a good education, but rather affirms that it is inelegant to say that he obtained his riches from the merit of others when in reality he got it through his own fatigue (industria), as he had been serving his prince in extraordinary ways and with much fatigue (labor), spending many nights with labour (vigilia), and dedicating all his time, energy, and industriousness (opera et industria) to the goal.84 Diligence, industry, virtue, and fortune figure prominently in Alberti’s vocabulary in many other of his works but nowhere so densely than in his I libri della famiglia (1430s), which so often has been related to a “capitalist spirit” since Sombart.85 Written in the vernacular and addressed to younger members of the Alberti family in the decade when the family was striving to reintegrate into Florentine society after an extended period of exile, the book confessedly served the goal of investigating the things that “exalt and increase the family,” and it explained how a family could successfully resist misfortune. If one looked at history, one could easily observe, Alberti noted in the prologue, how families once great and powerful were cast down into poverty and desolation by “fortune’s fickleness and imprudence.” But did “fortune really have such power over 83 “Itane firma, fixa et omnino permanentia, que ipse meo studio, industria et labore, que meis lucubrationibus et maximis vigiliis adeptus sum bona, cum istis fragilibus, caducis et inconstantissimis bonis, que tu, Fortuna, illius ignavie et desidie condonasti, ut commutem suades?” Alberti, Autobiografia e altre opere, 298. 84 Ibid., 300. 85 According to my calculations, the words diligence (or diligent) and industry figure

in I libri della famiglia 213 times, virtue and related words 321 times, and fortune 262 times.

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human affairs,” as people are liable to claim? Alberti’s answer was a definite no. “Praises, greatness, and fame are won more by virtue than by fortune.”86 The goal of the book is to explicate the substance of virtue and identify the other necessary qualities that enable one to triumph over misfortune. The prologue offers a number of lists: “character, discipline, and manly labor [virtù, costumi e opere virili] […], good counsel, wisdom [prudenza], strong and constant and persevering spirits, reason, order, method, good arts and skills, equity, justice, diligence, and zeal […] overcome the might of deceitful fortune”; or “by good management, careful and diligent rule by the father, good habits, and the utmost integrity of conduct, culture, courtesy, and responsibility [l’umanità, facilità, civilità] the family can become great and fortunate.”87 The idiom of work, organised around words like industry, diligence, fatigue, assiduity, perseverance, vigil, etc., fitted into a humanist vocabulary in which the key concept was virtue. If virtue became so central to humanist discourses for around two centuries, it was due to the great flexibility and adaptability of the concept. Newcomers to these discourses like Alberti had no difficulty stuffing virtue with their own values, the origins of which lay as much in mercantile traditions as in state administration or other vocations. Indeed, Alberti’s ideas about a prosperous family reflect mercantile values: disciplined time-management, industriousness, and wealth. One had to spend “no more time on anything than is needed to do it well,” and one also had to plan carefully the days ahead.88 Riches were essential for the happiness of the family—and also for that of the patria—as long as they were honestly obtained and well used. In acquiring riches, the easiest way was trade: in truth, selling is nothing but a commercial action [cosa mercennaria]— you serve the buyer’s need, reward yourself for your effort, and get a profit by charging others more than what it cost you. That way, you see, you are not selling things, but your effort.89

86 Alberti, I libri della famiglia (as in note 60), 3–4. The translation is based on Alberti, The Family (as in note 82), 13–14. 87 Ibid., 10–11 (trans.: Alberti, The Family, 17–18). 88 Ibid., 216–17 (trans.: Alberti, The Family, 41–42). On his ideas about time, see also

ibid., 206–8, 228–29, 263. 89 “in verità el vendere non è se non cosa mercennaria, tu servi alla utilità del comperatore, paghiti della fatica tua, ricevi premio sopraponendo ad altri quello che manco era

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Although this argument was hardly new by the 1430s, the way Alberti set himself to fight against common biases concerning trade was relatively new. His family, for example, had gotten wealthy in the most honourable manner, and “they [their wealth] have always been much useful for the needs of the fatherland.”90 What mattered was personal fatigue: “Getting rich in a fair manner and only from one’s earnings depends on the gains we make with our industry and not on the gift of fortune or the gentleness or favour of someone else.”91 We, Alberti claimed, talk too much about fortune, and by “we,” he meant not only Florentine society in general, but also his family. Yet in the logic of individual striving and assiduity, fortune had no say, and one should not use it as an excuse for one’s moral failings92 : If, then, wealth grows in making profit, and if profit derives from effort, diligence, and our capacity to work, then a decline in wealth will be the result of the contrary—negligence, sloth and indecisiveness—vices which are not part of fortune nor of things around us, but which are in oneself alone.93

While on the one hand Alberti was integrating a work ethic via the concept of fortune into humanist virtue ethics, on the other, he made sure to connect it also to a republican ideology, which he expressed in terms characteristic of Sallust.94 His main strategy was drawing a direct parallel between the family and the state: his teachings on fortune were as valid for the family as for the state. “Good and pious traditions of

costato a te. In quel modo adunque vendi non la roba, ma la fatica tua; per la roba rimane a te commutato el danaio; per la fatica ricevi il soprapagato.” Ibid., 173. 90 “E sono e’ nostri Alberti sempre a’ bisogni della patria nostra stati non poco utilissimi.” Ibid., 175. 91 “Consiste adunque, se io non erro, quanto ci acquista la nostra industria, non quanto ci doni la ventura, grazia o favore d’alcuno, el ragionevole diventare ricco solo ne’ guadagni.” Ibid., 177. 92 “Ma escludiamo la fortuna ove noi ragioniamo della industria.” Ibid. 93 “Se adunque nel guadagnare s’adempie le ricchezze, e se i guadagni seguono la fatica,

diligenza e industria nostra, adunque l’impoverire contrario al guadagno diverrà dalle cose contrarie, dalla negligenza, ignavia e tardità, li quali vizii non sono in la fortuna, né in le cose estrinsece, ma in te stessi.” Ibid. 94 On the influence of Sallust on the prologue, see McLaughlin, Leon Battista Alberti, 101–3.

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conduct” matter more than fortune in both places. In the case of the state, good traditions meant “just laws, virtuous princes, good counsels, and strong and consistent acts.” Families and states flourish not because of their political constitution or because of fortune, but because of the individuals who inhabit them. Glory is won by their “love of country, fidelity, diligence, and highly disciplined and honourable behaviour.”95 Although a meritocratic ideal of society and politics was not as explicit in Alberti’s text as it was, for example, in Leonardo Bruni’s funeral speech on the death of Nanni Strozzi, where Bruni famously argued that “the hope of gaining offices and raising oneself to a high position is the same for everyone, provided they have the industry, some proven talent, and a venerable way of life,”96 it is clear that a republic was supposed to value the hard-working citizen more than would a monarchic regime, which prized leisure and idleness97 : A great lord loves and esteems you just exactly as long as you are useful to him. He does not appreciate you for any good quality you may have. […] If you will stop and consider, you will realize that probably the majority of courtiers live in idleness and waste their time. They have no occupation by which to earn an honest living. They live on the bread of others and shun all work requiring industry and honorable effort.98

The lazy courtier has nothing to do with the liberty of the diligent republican citizen, who values that liberty highly. As Rucellai observed in the Zibaldone, “if you don’t know what liberty is, I will tell you: it means not to be subordinated to anything, neither to necessity nor to chance events,

95 Alberti, I libri della famiglia, 5 (trans.: Alberti, The Family, 14). 96 The Humanism of Leonardo Bruni: Selected Texts, trans. and eds. G. Griffiths et al.

(Binghamton: Medieval & Renaissance Texts, 1987), 88. 97 However, Alberti was no rigid republican. Despite his Sallustian arguments for a virtuous republican Rome, at one point of the prologue he acknowledges that “industry, skill, persevering labors [l’industria, le buone arti, le constanti opera], wise counsel, honest activity, just demands and reasonable expectations do maintain and defend both republics and principalities. With these any empire can rise to glory…” Alberti, I libri della famiglia, 11 (trans.: Alberti, The Family, 18). 98 Ibid., 308 (trans.: Alberti, The Family, 107).

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but to fight honestly against fortune.”99 For the mercantile and humanist elite of Florence, the work ethic expressed, among other things, the very essence of that fight.

Conclusions The goal of the chapter was to explain why, in a certain historical moment and context, a group of laymen came openly to promote an ethic of hard work. In the first part, it aimed to show why this did not happen on a larger scale before the fourteenth century, when a sophisticated idiom of work and industriousness had not yet emerged, mercantile wealth was still a subject of intense debate, and ideas about labour were greatly determined by the low social status of manual labourers. By 1300, thanks to the rapid social-intellectual shifts of the previous centuries, this had changed. Work could now justify one’s wealth and social rise, and as an abstract concept, it was less and less sullied by a dogmatic association with manual labour. These developments appear to be strongly related to the social and economic rise of merchants and moneylenders. In the second part, focusing on fourteenth-century Florence, this chapter showed that despite the availability of conceptual tools, work ethics were not typically promoted in the surviving sources. The case of Giovanni di Pagolo Morelli’s brother-in-law showed that referring to one’s industriousness and putting trust in a work ethic could even be viewed as counterproductive. Morelli advised his heirs to keep a low profile and adjust themselves to the ruling group. His Ricordi is a document which offers testament to the limited possibilities for social rise for his social group. Not actively engaged in commerce but rather living on revenues (and on the social and cultural capital provided by his network and humanist learning), he was a member of one of the nonelite merchant-rentier families whose compromise with the ruling elite guaranteed the stability of the republic after the Ciompi revolt. He could agree with an ideology of active political participation (which repaid his family in “honour” instead of power), but his support of negotium hardly entailed an idea about personal success based on disciplined hard work. One of the foils of Alberti’s I libri della famiglia was, in fact, the group 99 “Se tu non sai che cosa è libertade, io il ti dico: Non servire a niuna cosa, a neuna necessità, a niuno avenimento, e combattere francamente contro a fortuna.” Rucellai, Zibaldone, 48.

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of the Morellis, the clients of the “homines fabri” of the truly powerful families. This chapter assumed that one needed more than an idiom of work for the promotion of a work ethic. One also needed a broader cultural language and a literate audience. That audience was in the making during the fourteenth century, yet, as shown above, it was still not addressed in the language of hard work. In as much as humanism was greatly inspired by Ciceronian cultural-political ideas and the writer-politician Cicero himself, this is somewhat curious. Industriousness was part of the Ciceronian language of virtue, and humanist authors who sought to promote a new work ethic only needed to reach out for it.100 Still, when the work ethic came to be integrated into humanism during the first part of the fifteenth century, it was only partially related to a more thorough adoption of Cicero, as in Bruni, Vergerio, and other humanists of low or mediocre social origins. More importantly, this chapter has emphasised the considerable broadening of humanist culture from the last decade of the fourteenth century and the consequent arrival of new men, especially from the higher echelons of society. The main motive underlying the embrace and promotion of a work ethic by the new elite members of humanism was to legitimise their status as members of both a wealthy elite and a hypereducated one. We can further qualify this thesis with reference to the individual cases. The case of Giannozzo Manetti, as registered by Vespasiano da Bisticci, suggests that the principal audience for Manetti’s promotion of hard work and disciplined time management was his family, although his selfadvertisement could also reach the ears of his learned friends, like Bisticci. He expressed himself in the commercial language of his family. Although he spent a part of his day on intense studies, this did not mean that he was less industrious than the rest of the Manetti family. It was rather the other way round. He could account for every second God had given him with a clean conscience. If in the end he became a rich man, he was every bit as deserving of his wealth as the fruit of his industriousness as he was of his reputation as an erudite man.

100 See, for example, Cicero’s Against Verres (2.3.7). In an attempt to establish his credibility as a prosecutor, working for the common good, Cicero referred to his industriousness in relation to his status as novus homo: “You hate the industry of new men—Cicero addressed Hortensius, Verres’ defender—you despise their economy [ frugalitas ]; you scorn their modesty; you wish their talents and virtues to be depressed and extinguished.”

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The most important audience for Giovanni di Paolo Rucellai’s ideas was similarly the family, more precisely his sons. Rucellai wanted to pass on to them an ethic that could ensure, as he believed, the family’s enduring fortune. Supposedly, that ethic of prudence, diligence, and selfdiscipline had been forged during a long mercantile tradition and had for long helped his family both maintain and justify its distinctiveness. Rucellai’s motives for giving it a voice were apparently intellectual. As an erudite person, a “consumer” of humanist culture, he was curious to see the question of fortune more clearly, as this question lay at the crossroads of theological, classical, and vulgar intellectual traditions. Nevertheless, while he was integrating his work ethic into a humanist discourse on fortune versus virtue, placing emphasis on self-reliance and liberty, he was at the same time masking his family’s increasing dependence on the Medici. More complicated is the case of Leon Battista Alberti. When compared to Manetti or Rucellai, Alberti was in many ways disadvantaged. Although his family could look back on a glorious mercantile past which had once made it powerful, after its return to Florence, it was highly questionable whether the family could regain its earlier prestige only by relying on its own talents, industriousness, and resources. What makes Alberti’s case even more complicated is that he was an illegitimate child whose prestige was not secured anymore by commercial activity but rather by the offices he held and his unique erudition. Although the principal audience for I libri della famiglia was arguably the family, Alberti was writing at the same time with a broader public in mind. The sophisticated irony that one senses in the Latin Erumna is mostly missing here. Alberti appears to have been deadly serious about the importance of industriousness and hard work, laying greater stress on them than on prudence, wisdom, talent, or reason. As he repeatedly underlines in the prologue, he needed great effort and zeal to write the book itself. However, his goal was not simply to emphasise labour and demand more active, responsible, and disciplined behaviour from his family members. Neither did he aim simply to justify his own investment into learning or legitimise the wealth of the Alberti family in general. His goal was also to figure as a moral philosopher—a humanist— offering important corrections on the previous monastic-scholarly facets of humanism and to guide it towards a more socially and economically engaged, civic model. In this model, the ideal citizen was a self-reliant,

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responsible, rational, and industrious person, who relied little on clientpatron relationships or state service and therefore fully merited his place in society. He believed that the success of a state depended on the efforts of this type of citizen and the public appreciation shown for them. In the decade approaching the Medici regime, this ideal was wishful thinking, not merely for Morelli and his peers but increasingly also for the so-called ruling elite. In summary, the work ethic in Florence—incorporated into virtue ethic and stressing self-reliance—came to be expressed in intellectually, socially, and politically contested situations. Most importantly, it was used for ideological and legitimising purposes, reflecting the values of the elite families that had been able to remain successful and self-reliant in the previous decades or centuries. With regard to leisured aristocrats and churchmen, it could function as social criticism. With regard to nonelite merchants, minor guildsmen, and artisans it was an element of a civic ideology, as it entailed and buttressed the claim that social-political rewards depended only on “virtue, discipline, and manly labour.”

CHAPTER 3

Preaching About Manual/Artisanal Labour: A New Focus and Ambivalent Messages (1200–1500) Marjorie Burghart

and Pietro Delcorno

Twenty years ago, the book Le petit peuple dans l’Occident médiéval came out.1 It remains a remarkable collective effort to shed light on a vast and multifaceted area of medieval societies often left in the shadows both by primary sources and by dominant trends in the secondary literature. Laboratores, pauperes, artifices mechanici, servi and servae, and many 1 Le petit peuple dans l’Occident médiéval: terminologies, perceptions, réalités, eds. P. Boglioni, R. Delort, C. Gauvard (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 2002).

M. Burghart CIHAM UMR 5648—CNRS, Lyon, France e-mail: [email protected] P. Delcorno (B) Dipartimento di Storia Culture Civiltà, Università di Bologna, Bologna, Italy e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 G. Almási and G. Lizzul (eds.), Rethinking the Work Ethic in Premodern Europe, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38092-1_3

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other categories figure prominently in this volume.2 Immediately after the introduction, the book uses a diptych about preaching as a point of departure.3 The choice seems neither obvious nor accidental. It shows an increasing awareness of the key role played by preaching in medieval society. Even more, it attests to the strategic value of sermons (and other preaching aids) as sources for intellectual and social history. In doing this, consciously or not, the volume follows the path blazed by a previous book, Lavorare nel medio evo (1983), which opens with a programmatic contribution by Jacques Le Goff emphasizing the value of the sermones ad status as sources for the study of the late medieval conception of work.4 The relevance of this type of source is clearly demonstrated by Nicole Bériou in her contribution on the petit peuple in thirteenth-century model sermons. Bériou underlines how sermons show the keen attention paid by preachers to the dynamics of the societies in which they lived, since “observing and depicting society helped them to devise and explain how it should be reformed.”5 The interplay between these two dimensions (society and reform) is crucial. Sermons presented the audience of the time (and scholars today) with a rich and overarching interpretation of society. Still, in doing so, they not only reflect the culture of those who wrote them but are also programmatically tendentious, since they depict society with the aim of changing it. Sermons are, therefore, pragmatic texts, intended and structured to serve the preachers’ aims.6 In order to 2 The volume is very attentive to the terminology used to depict the figures of which

the otherwise elusive group of the petit peuple consisted, as attested by its rich index of the terms (723–32). 3 The two contributions approach the topic from two complementary sets of sources: N. Bériou, “Le petit peuple dans les sermons ad status (XIIIe siècle),” 19–39 and J. Berlioz and M.-A. Polo de Beaulieu, “Entre lieux communs et vie quotidienne: le petit peuple dans les recueils d’exempla des XIIIe et XIVe siècles,” 41–66. Both contributions contain a rich bibliography about the conception of work in the Middle Ages. 4 J. Le Goff, “Pour une étude du travail dans les idéologie et les mentalités du Moyen Âge,” in Lavorare nel medio evo: rappresentazioni ed esempi dall’Italia dei secc. X–VI (Todi: Accademia Tudertina, 1983), 9–33. The essay discusses three sermons by Jacques de Vitry, two on peasants and one on manual workers (24–32). 5 “Observer cette société et la décrire les aidait à concevoir et à expliquer comment il fallait la réformer”; Bériou, “Le petit peuple,” 22. 6 See N. Bériou, Religion et communication: un autre regard sur la prédication au Moyen Age (Genève: Droz, 2018), 9–41 and, from a linguistic point of view, C. Delcorno, “Comunicare dal pulpito (secc XIII–XV),” in Comunicare nel Medioevo. La conoscenza e l’uso delle lingue nei secoli XII–XV , eds. I. Lori Sanfilippo and G. Pinto (Roma: ISIME,

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achieve this transformative goal, the contents of the sermons needed to be perceived—first by preachers and then by their listeners—as real, sensible, and close to an audience’s everyday experiences. From a comparable perspective, Peter Burke depicts preachers as “amphibious or bi-cultural,” that is to say as “men of the university as well as men of the marketplace,” able to mediate between theological theory (or ideology, if we prefer) and social reality.7 This entanglement remains true when considering—as this contribution will do—the discourses (or work ethics) about artisanal and manual labour elaborated and disseminated by model sermons in the late medieval period. The additional value of this type of source is that it formed the backbone of a system of mass-communication.8 Sermons—especially model sermon collections that were widely disseminated—represented invaluable working tools for preachers, who used these texts to construct their own oral performances. From this perspective, model sermons reflected the horizon of expectation of their readers—mainly professional preachers all over Latin Christendom—and they also played a crucial role in circulating ideas and forming a shared “grammar.”9 This means that some of their concepts were repeated constantly, arguably by many and possibly most preachers. Thus, model sermons provided first the preachers and then their listeners with key building blocks for any theological or ethical discourse, which was presented to the audience in a simplified and yet not oversimplistic form.10 Appropriated and repeated by thousands of preachers in front of their congregations across Europe, the ideas that circulated through this type of text contributed significantly to shaping public opinion and the dominant culture of the time.

2015), 183–208. See also E. Lombardo, “La pragmatica politica nei sermoni minoritici tra Due e Trecento: due casi di studio,” in Francescani e politica nelle autonomie cittadine dell’Italia basso-medievale, eds. R. Lambertini and I. Lori Sanfilippo (Roma: ISIME, 2017), 91–119. 7 P. Burke, Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009), 109. 8 D. d’Avray, The Preaching of the Friars: Sermons Diffused from Paris Before

1300 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985) and Id., Medieval Marriage Sermons: Mass Communication in a Culture Without Print (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001). 9 We borrow the terminology from H. Johnson, The Grammar of Good Friday: Macaronic Sermons of Late Medieval England (Turnhout: Brepols, 2012), XVI. 10 P. Delcorno, In the Mirror of the Prodigal Son: The Multiple Uses of a Biblical Narrative (c. 1200–1550) (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 445–46.

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Given the broader topic of her aforementioned contribution, Bériou touches on manual workers only briefly, since they are just one of the “fragments” that form le petit peuple as discussed in sermons.11 Still, her work provides an important reference point, including methodologically, since it underlines the potential of sermones ad status to shed light on discourses about specific social categories. This type of sermon remains central in our contribution too. However, since sermones ad status are mainly a thirteenth-century product (although they continued to be used later), in order to chart later developments, we extend our analysis to fifteenth-century sermon collections that contain comparable materials. This will allow us to trace the dynamic of continuity and change in these socio-religious discourses. In order to navigate a vast selection of sources in a meaningful way (characteristically sermons are in all but short supply), we analyse model sermons addressed to (or at least in theory, to be addressed to) manual workers, with a main focus on craftsmanship or, as some of them indicate, to artifices mechanici.12 This choice allows us to limit the spectrum of investigation. This category will not be considered in a rigid way, since the texts that we analyse are sometimes quite flexible and deal with different social categories. This means that we also encounter references to merchants and peasants.13 Preachers used social categories, yet their main goal remained to organize an effective form of communication. In any case, by focusing on (largely urban) manual labour as a case

11 Bériou, “Le petit peuple,” notes that the very idea of petit peuple is scarcely attested in sermons, which implies that it needs to be recovered by considering the social taxonomy adopted by preachers and by analysing some of its “fragments” (29). 12 On the scholastic reflections about the artes mechanicae see F. Alessio, “La riflessione sulle artes mechanicae,” in Lavorare nel medio evo (as in footnote 4), 257–93. 13 On peasants, see the observations by Le Goff, “Pour une étude du travail,” 25– 29. Considering this category would require an evaluation of the role and influence of widespread biases against peasants, on which see P. Freedman, Images of the Medieval Peasant (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999). Among the studies on late medieval sermons about merchants, see L. K. Little, Religious Poverty and Profit Economy in Medieval Europe (London: Elek, 1978); G. Todeschini, I mercanti e il tempio: la società cristiana e il circolo virtuoso della ricchezza fra Medioevo ed Età Moderna (Bologna: il Mulino, 2002); Id., Come Giuda. La gente comune e i giochi dell’economia all’inizio dell’epoca moderna (Bologna: il Mulino, 2011); M. G. Muzzarelli, Il denaro e la salvezza. L’invenzione del Monte di Pietà (Bologna: il Mulino, 2001) and, among the most recent contributions, P. Evangelisti, “Messi in forma di parola. Moneta, denari e mercato nei sermoni di Bernardino da Feltre (1493–1494),” Archivio storico cenedese 5 (2019), 3–58.

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study, in this contribution, we deliberately explore only one side of the broader discussion about work developed by and in sermons. In light of the overarching goal of the present volume, we aim to unravel the key concepts and discursive elements that were adopted by preachers when they reflected on and presented their audiences with reflections about labour (and a work ethic) in a broad time span, namely from the thirteenth-century pastoral revolution to the eve of the Reformation. In the following pages, we first present the corpus of sermons considered here, which attest to a new focus on work from the thirteenth century onwards while consistently depicting work as consubstantial with human nature. Next, we outline preachers’ twofold view on labour: while they insisted on its redeeming value and function within society, they were quite vocal in pointing out its perils for the soul. In the conclusion, this ambivalent discourse on manual labour is connected to the crucial role that intention plays within evaluations of this form of work.

A New Focus on Work While ad status sermon collections were relatively rare, the idea that sermons must be adapted to their audiences had long been running through medieval thought. Adaptation is a basic rule of rhetoric, known as aptum,14 and it was often emphasized by preachers. We find one of the very first examples of this attention to the nature of the audience in Gregory the Great († 604). In his Liber regulae pastoralis, he strongly emphasized the need to adapt sermons to the actual listeners. After stating in the prologue, with powerful images, that the same sermon cannot have the same effect on different audiences,15 in the first chapter, titled “How diverse must the art of preaching be,”16 he lists no fewer than 35 pairs of (alleged) opposites, such as men and women, the rich and the poor, the happy and the sad, the generous and the envious, etc. In the following chapters, Gregory gives examples and pieces of advice to preachers on how to speak to each category. But these status are not necessarily linked to an activity. Rather, they concern the vices and virtues

14 Cf. Cicero, De oratore, III, ed. D. Manskin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010). 15 Gregorius Magnus, Liber regulae pastoralis, tertia pars, PL 77, col. 49–126, at 49. 16 “Quantum debet esse diversitas in arte predicationis” (PL 77, col. 50–52).

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of the audience members, their level of knowledge, their personality, and only very marginally their social position. We can barely find six pairs defined by a social dimension: men and women, the young and the old, the rich and the poor, subjects and lords, the married and the unmarried, and the healthy and the sick, if we consider that illness could cause social exclusion, such as for lepers. None of these pairs concerns a craft or professional occupation. Gregory seems more interested in the inner and moral life of the audience than in its material activities and, at least in this text, he does not consider different forms of labour as defining elements for Christians. After this early show of interest by Gregory the Great, for a long time, few people devoted much attention to ad status preaching. Peter Damian († 1072) offered a series of brief bits of ad status spiritual advice in a poem,17 but we must wait until the twelfth century for major authors to show real interest in this type of preaching.18 Honorius Augustodunensis (c. 1080–c. 1157),19 for instance, wrote the Speculum Ecclesiae, a sermon collection for use by priests.20 It is not an ad status collection in a strict sense, but it contains a relatively short ad status section which consists of a single, long sermo generalis.21 This sermon has eight subparts, each dedicated to a particular group of people: priests, judges, the rich, the poor, knights, merchants, peasants, and married people. If we compare these categories to those used by Gregory the Great, the evolution towards a more social approach emerges. Alan of Lille († 1202)22 also offers 17 Petrus Damianus, Carmina sacra et preces, PL 145, col. 874–977. 18 The influential classification of the artes mechanicae proposed by Hugh of Saint-

Victor († 1141) in his Didascalicon dates from the same period; see Alessio, “La riflessione sulle artes mechanicae,” 259–93. Among the writings by preachers, it finds a reception in Berthold of Regensburg (see below). 19 On Honorius’s life and work, see V. I. Flint, “The Career of Honorius Augustodunensis. Some Fresh Evidence,” Revue bénédictine 84 (1972), 63–86; id., “The Place and Purpose of the Works of Honorius Augustodunensis,” Revue bénédictine 87 (1977), 97– 127. M. O. Garrigues, “Qui était Honorius Augustodunensis?,” Angelicum 50 (1975), 20–49. Id., “Quelques recherches sur l’œuvre d’Honorius Augustodunensis,” in Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique 70 (1975), 388–425. 20 Honorius Augustodunensis, Speculum Ecclesiae, PL 172, col. 813–1108, especially at 815–16. 21 This section fills only a few columns in PL 172, col. 861–70. 22 On this author, see M.-T. D’Alverny, Alain de Lille. Textes inédits, avec une

introduction sur sa vie et ses œuvres (Paris: Vrin, 1965).

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nine models of ad status sermons. Within his Summa de arte praedicatoria, they illustrate the necessity of adapting sermon to audience.23 He provides readers with a model sermon for knights, lawyers, princes and judges, monks, priests, married people, widows, virgins, and, somewhat surprisingly, “those who are drowsy.”24 If the ad status character of these texts is undeniable, we can note that categories like peasants, merchants, or craftsmen are not considered. Only top professions are mentioned. As part of a broader renewal of the forms and contents of preaching,25 proper ad status sermon collections bloomed in the thirteenth century, when manual workers in the “mechanical arts” also started to be considered as a status of their own. They make a discreet appearance in the Sermones rusticani by the Franciscan friar Berthold of Regensburg († 1272).26 Although he did not produce an ad status collection, one of his sermons compares ten human conditions to the angelic choirs.27 First come three superior functions: those of clerics (who hold the highest dignity), religious people, and nobles or knights.28 Then follow seven “mechanical” functions: wool workers, those who build with iron tools,

23 Alanus de Insula, Summa de arte praedicatoria, PL 145, col. 109–98. 24 The chapters are: ad milites (ch. 40), ad oratores seu advocatos (41), ad principes et

judices (42), ad claustrales (43), ad sacerdotes (44), ad conjugatos (45), de viduis (46), ad virgines (47), ad somnolentes (48). 25 On the transformation of preaching in the thirteenth century and its connection with wider socio-religious transformations, see N. Bériou, L’avènement des maîtres de la Parole. La prédication à Paris au XIIIe siècle (Turnhout: Brepols, 1998) and The Sermon, ed. B. M. Kienzle (Turnhout: Brepols, 2000). 26 On Berthold’s life and works, see A. Francone, La predicazione latina e volgare di Bertoldo di Ratisbona (1210 ca.–1272) (Rome: Istituto storico dei Cappuccini, 2020). 27 “Novem ordines angelorum vocantur Seraphyn, Cherubyn, etc. Novem ordines in Ecclesia christianorum officiorum dicuntur”; Fribourg, Couvent des Cordeliers, ms 117 II, f. 37v . There are actually ten officia listed. The Sermones rusticani are still unpublished. We used a thirteenth-century manuscript that was accessible to Marjorie Burghard. On this type of scheme in Berthold’s sermons, see Francone, La predicazione, 190–214 (especially 204–7). In the appendix, Francone publishes sermons 10, 15, and 18 of the Sermones rusticani de sanctis, which present a similar overarching description of society and its inner subdivisions. 28 “Officium clericorum quod est sumum in dignitate, religiosorum, nobilium sive militum. Hii sunt superiores”; Fribourg, Couvent des Cordeliers, ms 117 II, f. 37v .

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merchants, peasants, hunters and fishers, medical doctors, and thespians.29 Still, the description is somehow disappointing. While Berthold lists three conditions for the salvation of each of the three superior functions, he gives only three for the whole of the “mechanical” functions: they must work in activities established by God and not the devil; they must practice them faithfully, without fraud; and they must buy and sell according to the rules established by God.30 Nevertheless, Berthold’s sermons are rich with observations about contemporary society. He seems to be aware of the ongoing transformations of social relationships, and he shows keen interest in economic ethics.31 Still, his sermons privilege an all-encompassing description of society, for instance using an organic metaphor in which workers and merchants represent the dorsum, the back of the body.32 In another sermon, he exploits the image of the celestial Jerusalem as a city with three doors on each side. The three doors on the west side symbolize that those of lower status in society, meaning peasants, manual workers, merchants, and servants (all defined as operarii laborantes diversi) can obtain salvation by respecting three rules: being honest/faithful in their work; keeping the true faith (they are seen as exposed to heresy); and being patient in their work and in front of injustices.33 These examples show that in Berthold’s discourse; manual workers are generally not distinguished from other categories, and 29 Here as in other sermons, Berthold adopts the influential scheme proposed by Hugh of Saint Victor’s Didascalicon; cf. Francone, La predicazione, 203–7. 30 Fribourg, Couvent des Cordeliers, ms 117 II, ff. 37v –39r . 31 Francone, La predicazione, 187–289. 32 “Dorsum, quod diversa habet ossa, significat diversos mechanicis artibus traditos et corpus simul continentens, ut dorsum corpus simul continet, quales sunt mercatores, sutores, lapicide et huiusmodi; hoc iam plenum est gibbis, qui gibbi pleni sunt fraude et circumventione, dolo et mendaciis”; quoted in Francone, La predicazione, 195. Here, manual workers and merchants are considered together, while peasants symbolize the legs and feet of the body. 33 “Quartum latus ad occasum sunt operarii laborantes diversi, qui inferiorem gradum tenent ut sol cum est in occasu. Horum tria sunt genera. Primi mechanici diversi, qui elaborant arando, pistando, fabricando, texendo, incidendo et cetera huius modi. Secundi qui ita laborata transmutantur in alia, ut fruges in panem et huiusmodi, vendunt, emunt diversimode. Tertii sunt servientes diversi […]. Istos tres oportet habere tres virtutes, que significantur per tres portas. Tres iste porte quibus intrare debent, qui etsi aliis conveniunt, eis tamen singulariter. Prima est ut sint fideles unusquisque in officio suo […]. Secunda porta est fides recta. […] Tertia ut sint patientes et in labore et iniqua oppressione…” Sermo rusticanus de sanctis 10, in Francone, La predicazione, 346–47.

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more significantly, they are considered not per se but as a group within a broader description of society. The discourse changes when we turn to the three major ad status collections from the thirteenth century, namely those composed by Jacques de Vitry (a secular prelate), Guibert de Tournai (a Franciscan), and Humbert of Romans (a Dominican). They all consider workers in the mechanical arts as a specific category. Towards the end of the 1220s, in his Sermones vulgares, Jacques de Vitry considers 31 categories, including “workers in the mechanical arts” (artifices mechanicarum artium) but also peasants and sailors.34 The ad status collection by Guibert de Tournai freely reuses and reorganizes Jacques de Vitry’s material. Guibert considers 35 categories, including 12 for “active men,” among whom we find again the workers in the mechanical arts (with two sermons), as well as peasants.35 The collection by Humbert of Romans circulated approximately at the same time as the sermons by Guibert (around the late 1260s), but is independent from Jacques and Guibert.36 Humbert of Romans added two series of model sermons to his famous Liber de eruditione predicatorum.37 Unlike the two previous collections, which propose fully developed sermons, Humbert offers simple sketches of sermons as a form of practical illustration of the advice he gives in the treatise. The first series, Ad omne genus hominum, deals more specifically with the various status of the audience members, offering 100 models. Manual workers are explicitly represented by the category of day labourers (Ad operarios conductivos, sermon 88).

34 The first half of the collection has been published: Sermones vulgares vel ad status I , ed. J. Longère (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013). The sermons for manual workers (ad artifices mechanicarum artium) are in the second and still unpublished part. They will be quoted from Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Latin 17509, f. 126vb –128vb . For the sermons on peasants, see note 4. 35 See M. Burghart, Une œuvre médiévale à succès: les Sermones ad status de Guibert de Tournai, maître en théologie franciscain († 1284). Étude et édition (Rome: École française de Rome, forthcoming). 36 On Humbert, see E. T. Brett, Humbert of Romans: His Life and Views of Thirteenth century Society (Toronto: PIMS, 1984). 37 As there is no critical edition, we use Humbert de Romans, De eruditione religiosorum Praedicatorum, ed. M. de la Bigne, in Bibliotheca maxima veterum Patrum, vol. 25 (Lyon, 1677), 424–567.

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In the late fourteenth century, we find the Sermones arboris ad status.38 This collection has been much less studied than the previously mentioned works. Even its authorship is uncertain, although now scholars generally ascribe it to a Spanish Franciscan friar, Pedro Perez de Burgos. The rather short models cover 66 situations, among which we find a sermon “when one is among workers” (“65a collatio, uidelicet si inter alios operantes”).39 In the fifteenth century, strictly speaking, we do not find major collections labelled ad status, although several sermon collections include sections that bear some resemblance to this organizational principle, such as the final parts of the Lenten sermon collections by two Franciscan friars, Cherubino da Spoleto († 1484) and Bernardino Busti († 1512).40 Moreover, one finds a very peculiar case in the Navicula sive speculum fatuorum, a long sermon cycle preached by Johannes Geiler von Kaysersberg in Strasbourg in 1498. It was based on a recent bestseller, Das Narrenshiff (“The Ship of Fools”), published in 1494 by his friend Sebastian Brant. The satirical poem’s chapters comment on many aspects of contemporary society, harshly condemning its sinful madness.

38 The collection has long been ascribed to Bertrand de la Tour. Patrick Nold proposes a possible ascription to Pedro Perez de Burgos. See P. Nold, “Bertrand de la Tour, Omin, his life and works,” Archivum Franciscanum historicum 94 (2001), 275–323, and Id., “Bertrand de la Tour Omin. Manuscript List and Sermon Supplement,” Archivum Franciscanum historicum 95 (2002), 3–52. See also B. Marcotegui Barber, Instructio morum et fidei: la predicación en el Reino de Navarra en el siglo XV (Pamplona: Gobierno de Navarra, 2008), 140–45. 39 The collection does not have any edition and its complex manuscript tradition is yet largely unexplored. We used Paris, BnF, latin 3276, f. 22ra –22va . 40 In Cherubino da Spoleto’s Lenten sermon collection (edited and reworked by a fellow friar, Serafino da Mantova, in 1502), the last sermons address the rich and the poor, the women, the young, and the married (sermons 81–85). Concerning work, the collection is mainly interested in merchants (sermons 39–42) and, in that context, it discusses the acts of fraud committed by merchants and artisans in selling (sermon 40); Cherubino da Spoleto, Sermones quadragesimales, ed. Serafino da Mantova (Venice: Giorgio Arrivabene, 1502). In a similar fashion, in the second volume of the Rosarium sermonum by Bernardino Busti, sermons 24–32 deal with several categories of people, often more than one per sermon. Manual workers, again joined with merchants and focusing on acts of fraud in the market, are discussed in sermon 32; Bernardino Busti, Rosarium sermonum, 2 vols. (Venice: Giorgio Arrivabene, 1498). On these two preachers, see the references provided in B. Roest, Franciscan Literature of Religious Instruction before the Council of Trent (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 72–78.

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In the hands of Geiler, who was the preacher of the cathedral of Strasbourg, Brant’s book became the basis for a detailed discussion of society, with sermons on the follies/sins of social categories such as preachers and students, astronomers and doctors, gamblers and usurers, lovers and cooks, beggars and priests, and so on.41 It would be very tempting to embark on the ship of fools, but a narrow focus on the Navicula would imply taking as a benchmark what instead is a quite peculiar sermon collection produced by a prominent but also exceptional preacher. Moreover, in this sermon collection there are no sermons specifically attuned to artisans. Instead, sermons about manual labour and the work performed by artisans can be found in some of the main sermon collections of the time, even if these collections are not structured as ad status cycles. Hence, for the fifteenth century, we will focus on two sermons by Johannes Herolt († 1468), which are part of his Sermones de tempore. Herolt was a Dominican friar and lector in theology. He composed his de tempore collection around 1418 and revised it in the 1430s, when he was in the friary of Nuremberg, one of the main hubs of the Dominican Observant movement.42 This sermon collection, which already circulated at large in manuscript form, became immensely popular in print from 1474 onwards. It was an astonishing bestseller, with more than fifty incunabula editions, surpassing the dissemination of any other printed sermon collections before Luther’s age.43 This type of book was clearly not made for leisure reading. Mainly, it was meant for other preachers as a valuable handbook or, better, as a device with which they could construct (with different degrees of innovation) their own sermons. This means that entire generations of preachers—thousands of professionals who routinely 41 On this preacher, see R. Voltmer, “Wie der Wächter auf dem Turm”. Ein Prediger und seine Stadt. Johannes Geiler von Kaysersberg (1445–1510) und Straßburg (Trier: Porta Alba, 1998) and Ead., “The Design, Performance, and Recording of Johannes Geiler of Kaysersberg’s Lenten Sermons,” in I sermoni quaresimali. Digiuno del corpo, banchetto dell’anima, eds. P. Delcorno, E. Lombardo, and L. Tromboni (Florence: Nerbini, 2017), 277–92. On his sermons on the Ship of the Fool, see also P. Delcorno, Lazzaro e il ricco epulone: metamorfosi di una parabola fra Quattro e Cinquecento (Bologna: il Mulino, 2014), 116–32 and 242–57. 42 As an introduction, see I. Siggins, A Harvest of Medieval Preaching: The Sermon Books of Johann Herolt, OP (Discipulus) (Bloomington: Xlibris, 2009). 43 See A. Thayer, Penitence, Preaching, and the Coming of the Reformation (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002), 32–40.

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engaged in public speeches at the pulpit—actually had this book on hand when preparing their sermons.44 Within Herolt’s sermon collection, the key text for us will be the sermon de laboratoribus. It looks like a pocket-sized treatise on work ethics, focusing in particular on the situation of artisans and manual workers. According to Herolt, the topic needed specific treatment, and he devoted the sermon for the Wednesday after Easter to it. He chose (and suggested therefore to future preachers that they chose) this liturgical occasion for a specific practical reason: “Since today is the last day of the feast of Easter and soon the men will return to their work, today we read the Gospel about the seven disciples who went fishing […]. We must take this fishing as an example in our work.”45 The Gospel of the day tells the story of the apostles who laboured all night, fishing without any results, until the Risen Christ showed up on the shore (cf. John 21). In Herolt’s hands, the biblical episode becomes a symbol of the (moral) rules for workers. The sermon presents the listeners with a work ethic, indicating the kind of behaviour that makes work virtuous and an instrument of sanctification, since those who follow these rules “buy heaven with their work/suffering” (labor clearly has a twofold meaning here).46 While in the thirteenth-century ad status sermons the categories of workers are (at least in theory) defined with precision, Herolt does not immediately define the term (“worker”). Still, his text clarifies which type of worker he is talking about and—indirectly—which kind of audience he envisions for this sermon. He speaks first of all of “workers and artisans, servants and maids” (“laboratores et mechanici, famuli et famule”). The text shows that he has in mind lower-status jobs in a mainly urban

44 The wide dissemination of this text makes it more representative than many other sermons, such as the Wycliffite sermon preached by William Taylor in 1406, which prizes hard work over (voluntary) poverty as a means of salvation and a contribution to society; on this quite specific text see K. Crassons, “‘The workman is with his mede’: Poverty, Labor, and Charity in the Sermon of William Taylor,” in The Middle Ages at Work: Practicing Labor in Late Medieval England, eds. K. Robertson and M. Uebel (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2004), 67–90. 45 “Ex quo hodie est ultima dies celebris presentis festivitatis pasce et modo homines solent ad pristinos labores suos, tunc hodie legitur evangelia de septem disciplulis qui ad piscationem iverunt […]. Ex illa piscatione debemus sumere exemplum laborandi”; Johannes Herolt, Sermones discipuli de tempore et de sanctis (Nuremberg: Anton Koberger, 1482), sermon 55.T. 46 “Et hi laboratores cum laboribus suis celum acquirunt”; Ibid., 55.X.

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society. His examples include bakers and innkeepers, cobblers and tailors, blacksmiths and merchants, weavers and butchers, construction workers and servants, and he refers only tangentially to farmers, shepherds, and carters, that is to say to categories of workers whose activities were done entirely or mainly outside the town.

A Proprium for Every Human Being A key concept which was shared and often repeated by late medieval preachers is that work is a just punishment imposed on human beings by God, yet it is also a path to salvation. Jacques de Vitry and Guibert de Tournai, whose sermons are very similar in this respect, insist on this. Guibert underlines all the benefits that our work on earth will allow us to earn in the afterlife, and Jacques writes that “the craftsman must not only work for the temporal wages, but also for divine reward.”47 The message does not change in the fifteenth century. Reasserting that work is “good and licit” per se, Herolt underlines that it is the workers’ attitude that makes it either a path to salvation or to damnation. He states that everyone must work with “patience and the tranquillity of the heart,” since this is the way to atone for sins. The reference here is Genesis 3:16–19, a key text which gives an explicit penitential meaning to work and frames suffering related to it as willed by God. Work enables us to earn both what is needed now and what will be needed in the eternal life. Working with impatientia, in contrast, leads to hell. Indeed, this is true not only of impatience but also of greed, envy, wrath, and sloth.48 Above all, one should curse neither God nor other people, and not even animals, since they are God’s creatures too. Herolt refers here mainly

47 “Non solum autem pro temporali mercede debet artifex operari, sed pro diuina retributione.”; Paris, BnF, Latin 17509, f. 127ra . 48 “Tercium quod laboratores et mechanici debent laborare cum patientia et tranquillitate cordis, quia sunt in penitentia Ade et totius generis humani constituti, Genesis 3: In sudore vultus tui vesceris pane tuo, etgo penitentia illa patienter est sufferenda. Ex quo deus vult te sic habere, tunc libenter et fideliter et patienter debes laborare, et hic cum labore tuo necessarie querere, et in futuro vitam eternam possidere, et hi laboratores cum laboribus suis celum acquirunt, sed illi laboratores cum laboribus suis infernum acquirunt qui cum impatientia, vel ex nimia avaricia, vel invidia, vel cum corrupta intentione vires suas cum labores consumunt, vel qui blasphemant deum vel maledicunt proximis in laboribis ex ira vel impatientia et vindicta…”; Herolt, Sermones, 55.X.

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to farm workers (rustici et pastores ), which may reflect urban preconceptions about them. While this point warrants further investigation, the insistence on patience and the “normality” or even positive meaning of suffering as part of every working experience attests to the political value of this type of discourse, something inextricably entangled with its spiritual dimension.49 Since work is inherently part of the human condition, Herolt insists that the duty to work also applies to the rich. It is a secondary topic in his sermon, but this brief reference is quite significant. It occurs in the final part of the sermon, which deals with the worker’s good intentions. Herolt praises learning practical jobs (artificium) and illustrates his argumentation by referring to the exemplum of Emperor Octavianus, who wanted his daughters to learn a profession (an ars laborandi), saying that if he were to become poor, they would be able to support themselves with those skills.50 Herolt complains that many rich people are ashamed to work and do not understand that it is a proprium of the human being; a claim he supports with two key biblical references: “The man is born to work as a bird to fly” (Job 5:7)—a quotation used also by Guibert de Tournai51 —and the teaching of the Apostle: “if anyone will not work, neither shall he eat” (2 Thessalonians 3:10).52 Herolt replies also to a possible objection to this collective call to work. He claims that no one can say, “I am rich enough, so I do not need to work.” In fact, Herolt admonishes his listeners: “If you do not need anything [for yourself], 49 On the political value of sermons that exhorted the poor to be patient (a discourse that can be extended to a certain degree to the working poor), see J. Hanska, “And the rich man also died; and he was buried in hell”: the social ethos in mendicant sermons (Helsinki: Suomen historiallinen seura, 1997). On the increasing concerns about social order, see L. Coccoli, Il governo dei poveri all’inizio dell’età moderna: riforma delle istituzioni assistenziali e dibattiti sulla povertà nell’Europa del Cinquecento (Milan: Jouvence, 2017). Already a sermon by Humbert of Romans ad potentes et milites hints at the risk that misery leads to social disorder: “periculosa enim res est desperatio. Multi enim servi lesi aliquando dominos suos occiderunt vel domos eorum incenderunt”; quoted in Bériou, “Le petit peuple,” 32. 50 Herolt, Sermones, 55.Y. The exemplum occurs in John of Salisbury, Polycraticus,

VI.4. 51 It occurs in Guibert de Tournai’s second sermon ad mechanicos; Burghart, Une œuvre, sermon Ad mechanicos artifices 2 (forthcoming). 52 “Sed multi divites nostris temporibus verecundant laborare, cum tamen laborare proprioum est hominis, unde Iob 5: Homo ad laborem nascitur sicut avis ad volandum. Unde apostolus: Qui non laborat non manducet ”; Herolt, Sermones, 55.Y.

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you must still work to support the poor (pauperes ), who cannot work for themselves, following the example of Elisabeth, who spun with her maids and made clothes for the poor”.53 While the first example is the “pagan” Emperor’s daughters, here, a Christian princess offers a model of active engagement in manual labour for charity. The association between work and charity was far from new. We find it in the thirteenth-century ad status sermons and, ultimately, it translates into the lay world concepts elaborated (and experimented with) in monastic environments.54 By linking work with charity, the repetition of this type of concept over the centuries offered listeners “an enriched view of the meaning and the value of their work,” strengthening “the idea of the dignity of work,” going beyond its meritorious penitential dimension.55 Herolt’s underlying message is quite clear: the call to work is meant for everyone. No one is exempt, except the poor who are unable to perform work. Herolt did not define exactly who these pauperes who deserve to be assisted are, and this was an increasingly debated topic, both in sermons and other social fora. Erasmus’s character of Misoponus, the astute beggar who despises work (and in doing so debases all mendicants’ claims), was on his way.56 In this sermon, instead of discussing such a delicate issue, Herolt introduces a final example derived from the Vitae patrum, where a holy monk is unable to expel a devil, while a simple peasant does it without difficulty. The latter is asked to describe his life in the hope that this description will shed some light on the origins of his spiritual strength, but his account reveals only that this peasant always lived his

53 “Sed si aliquis dives persona diceret: Laborare non idigeo, quia alia satis habeo. Respondeo: Si tu non indiges, tamen adhuc laborare debes propter pauperes qui per se laborare non possunt, exemplo beate Elizabeth que cum ancillis suis filabat et inde vestes pauperibus faciebat”; Herolt, Sermones, 55Y. 54 With reference to the Cistercian world, see P. De Leo, “L’esegesi medievale dell’immagine biblica del lavoro,” in Lavorare nel medio evo (as in footnote 4), 219–55: 241–47. 55 Bériou, “Le petit peuple,” 37. 56 See Delcorno, Lazzaro, 187–262 and Coccoli, Il governo dei poveri. Still, this type

of suspicion, which became dominant in the late fifteenth century and the early sixteenth, was not new and had several antecedents in earlier centuries; see the texts quoted by De Leo, “L’esegesi medievale,” 243 (a sermon by Radulphus Ardens) and G. Todeschini, Visibilmente crudeli: Malviventi, persone sospette e gente qualunque dal Medioevo all’età moderna (Bologna: il Mulino, 2007), 218–25 (texts by Thomas of Chobham and Vincent of Beauvais).

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life working with absolute honesty, devotion, and as a virgin.57 Thus, the exemplum underlines that a lay person who does an honest job faithfully may be spiritually more powerful even than a virtuous monk.

The Redemptive Value of Work The positive image of work is certainly prominent in these sermons, as its possible connection with charity or even with spiritual power has demonstrated. The (spiritual) importance of work and its personal and social utility are further emphasized by late medieval preachers. For instance, good workers who strive to feed their families are even compared to martyrs because, as Jacques of Vitry and Guibert of Tournai state, “they do not work less than hermits or monks.”58 According to Guibert, “we are all workers labouring together in the Church’s field, but in different ways: clerics and the religious busy themselves with spiritual matters, while secular and lay people do so with temporal matters.”59 Herolt also labels manual work a martirium. However, this time, martyrdom can be either virtuous or vicious. Good workers are martires Christi, whereas those who transgress the rules (that Herolt lists in this sermon) are martires diaboli. The latter experience a double hell; the torments of work in this life will bring them eternal damnation in the next.60 Still, the first type of torment linked with work seems inescapable for anybody, as an intrinsic part of the postlapsarian condition. A similar ambivalence occurs in another sermon by Herolt, which is devoted to “seven types of poor people” (sermon 81) and complements

57 Herolt, Sermones, 55.Z. The example is only introduced, giving the cross reference to a sermon that fully develops it (26.U). 58 Jacques de Vitry: “Non minus enim laborant quam heremite uel claustrales”; Paris, BnF, Latin 17509, f. 128rb; Guibert de Tournai: “Qui enim operantur manibus ut se et familiam pascant dum tamen se a peccatis custodiant, quodammodo martyres reputo, quia non minus laborant quam heremite uel claustrales et cotidie se mortificant”; edited in Burghart, Une œuvre, sermon Ad mechanicos artifices 1 (forthcoming). 59 “Omnes enim sumus operarii in eodem agro Ecclesie laborantes, licet diuersimode, clerici et religiosi magis uacantes circa spiritualia, seculares uero et layci circa temporalia”; ibid. 60 “Et dicuntur martires diaboli et tales habent duplicem infernum, quia hic habent laborem istum et in futuro eternum suplicium. Sed boni laboratores qui volunt esse martires Christi debent fideliter et cum patientia laborare, nec talia turpia verba ex ira proferre.” Herolt, Sermones, 55.X.

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the one on workers, as its cross references show. The occasion is the pericope of Lazarus and the rich man (Luke 16:19–31), which traditionally offered a basis to reflect on “social ethos.”61 Noteworthy for us is that a discourse about workers developed in a liturgical space usually devoted to discussing the non-working poor, the destitute, and the deserving beggars, who were embodied by Lazarus. Fifteenth-century preachers like Herolt were increasingly aware that the idealized icon of Lazarus—the sick, perfect, virtuous, and patient poor man—needed to be put in a broader perspective by taking into account the growing complexity of society.62 In his sermon, Herolt discusses seven different types of (real or imaginary) poor, four destined to damnation and three to salvation.63 Looking at these categories, it seems clear that he speaks of (vicious) beggars but even more of a larger social class, which includes prominently the working poor. Predictably, categories such as patience and impatience play a key role in the discourse once again.64 Moreover, the damned poor include those who live off “small gain obtained illegally” (“parva bona iniuste lucrantur”), committing petty crimes such as the theft of grain, fruit, and wood, small deceptions in buying or selling, or by means of modest profits obtained from sinful jobs, such as prostitution, but also a series of laboratores mechanici characterized as (usually) fraudulent, such as blacksmiths, cobblers, bakers, and tailors, which are the same categories that we find in Herolt’s sermon about workers. As we will see in the next section, the dubious morality of artisans and labourers was a well-established commonplace.65 This link between the two sermons is also evident when the text on the poor switches to the positive side. Among the virtuous poor, we find two classic groups: those who patiently endure “the poverty of

61 Hanska, The Social Ethos, 20–27. See also P. Howard, “The Language of Dives and Lazarus: Preaching Generosity and Almsgiving in Renaissance Florence,” I Tatti studies 23 (2020), 33–51. 62 See Delcorno, Lazzaro, 187–232. 63 On the same day, Herolt also presents a sermon on seven types of rich people; cf.

ibid., 148–51. 64 See Herolt, Sermones, 81.Y. On the commonplace of the pauper superbus, see G. Ricci, “Poveri superbi fra Italia e Francia. Le incarnazioni di un tipo scritturale,” in Disciplina dell’anima, disciplina del corpo e disciplina della società tra Medioevo ed età moderna, ed. P. Prodi (Bologna: il Mulino, 1994), 607–32. 65 See note 81.

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Lazarus” (“paupertatem Lazari”) and those who become poor voluntarily by renouncing riches for God, in the footsteps of the apostles. However, the traditional distinction between pauperes cum Lazaro and pauperes cum Petro, to adopt the definition offered by Gerhoch of Reichersberg66 († 1169), had become insufficient. Herolt felt it necessary to include a third category, namely the poor “who live off their work, doing it faithfully” (“illi qui se nutriunt de suis fidelibus laboribus”). Discussing this point, Herolt provides his readers (i.e. his fellow preachers) with a cross reference to his sermon de laboratoribus to show how the two themes are perceived (and presented) as intertwined. In doing so, he shows an awareness (or concern) clearly visible in other sermon collections of the time.67 From a different perspective but still focusing on the final outcome of work in terms of salvation or damnation, Jacques de Vitry argues that workers must use the “talents” bestowed upon them, since they will be held to account for it by God. Manual workers must therefore use their talents to do good, help the poor, and honour churches. Work alone is not enough; one must work on good things. Under the rubric “Against craftsmen who work to produce things not useful but vain,” Jacques gives the example of shoemakers who produce luxurious shoes or gilt saddles, which he calls “diabolical inventions.” Predictably, those workers are threatened with the fires of hell.68 Herolt echoes these ideas, which found a solid bedrock in established dichotomies (usus vs. abusus, necessitas vs. commodum, simplicitas vs. superfluitas ) that already defined the moral evaluation of mechanical arts

66 Gerhoch von Reichersberg, Liber de Aedificatio Dei, PL 194, col. 1234 and 1300. 67 See Sermones thesauri novi de tempore (Nuremberg: Anton Koberger, 1496), f. r–v t3 (sermon 105, which may derive from Herolt’s model). The Sermones thesauri novi

(wrongly ascribed to Petrus de Palude) was another bestseller in the early print market, with 12 incunabula editions. On this sermon, see Delcorno, Lazzaro, 130–32 and 193. 68 “Caueant igitur sibi qui uestes caudatas uel incisas uel perforatas, qui sotulares rostratos et perforatos, et sellas deauratas et calcaria nimis sumptuosa et alia que ad uanitatem et pompam secularem inuenta sunt, faciunt. Hec enim sunt adinuentiones dyabolice, que si in primitiua Ecclesia a Christianis fierent, non reputarentur ueri Christiani”; Paris, BnF, Latin 17509, f. 128ra . The rubric title “Contra artifices qui talia operantur que non sunt ad utilitatem, sed ad uanitatem” is missing in this manuscript and restituted from mss. Paris, BnF, Latin 3284, 147v and Cambridge (MA), Harvard, Houghton Library, Riant 35, f. 101r .

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in Hugh of Saint Victor.69 Herolt targets the innovators (inventores ) by saying that artisans (mechanici) must not invent novelties to gain more money or earn it more quickly. Similarly, they must refuse to do new things, which are generally labelled vanities. This applies to clothes but also to buildings.70 Herolt insists that one must produce only things that are licit and useful, and one should only sell them to those who will use these products lawfully. As negative examples, he mentions those who produce or sell poisoned swords and clothes or cheat at dice. Still, one is also responsible for selling something licit per se to someone who intends to abuse it, like a sword to (illicitly) kill or a ring to seduce a woman. Extending the seller’s moral responsibility to the actual use of the objects sold was a type of reasoning common among preachers. Nevertheless, the necessity and advantages of work were indisputable. Guibert de Tournai and Jacques de Vitry both state that work is useful, both on a social and on a personal level. The social utility of manual work is illustrated by the image of a city that cannot flourish without the contribution of each craft.71 For Jacques, the mechanical arts exist so that the one provide for the needs of the other and find in the other what is missing in him, so that what is lacking in one should be provided by the other. As it is said in the Proverbs: The brother helping his brother is like a strong city [Proverbs 18:19]. Indeed, without the different crafts and works, the city of this world cannot survive.72

69 See Alessio, “La riflessione sulle artes mechanicae,” 286. 70 Herolt, Sermones, 55.X. For this commonplace in sermons, see M. G. Muzzarelli,

Gli inganni delle apparenze: disciplina di vesti e ornamenti alla fine del Medioevo (Turin: Scriptorium, 1996) and Delcorno, Lazzaro, 147–55. 71 In the twelfth century, Hugh of Saint Victor depicts manual labour in the postlapsarian condition not only as a (meritorious) form of penitence but also as a remedium to support and comfort the human being in this world; cf. Alessio, “La riflessione sulle artes mechanicae,” 279–80. 72 “Sicut sunt diuisiones gratiarum in donis spiritualibus, ita diuisiones sunt ministeriorum in artibus mechanicis et donis materialibus. Tam enim hec quam illa dona Dei sunt, qui dat unicuique prout uult, ut unus alii subministret, et quod unus [non] habet in se habeat in alio, et defectus unius ab altero suppleatur. Iuxta illud in Parabolis: Frater fratrem adiuuans quasi ciuitas firma . Nam sine diuersis artibus et operationibus non posset subsistere ciuitas huius seculi”; Paris, BnF, Latin 17509, f. 127ra .

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This key point in Guibert de Tournai’s and Jacques de Vitry’s idealized vision of society was often repeated in the following centuries.73 Guibert and Jacques enumerate several benefits of work on the personal level. Their list is slightly different, but they agree that work protects from idleness and its dangers, and it allows workers to provide for their families and for the poor. It is thanks to work that one can give alms but also pay tithes, that is to say, support the economic and charitable structures of the Church.74 Guibert adds that working is a fulfilment of the divine commandment, and he reminds his readers that the fruits of work will also be reaped in the afterlife.75 These are concepts that, in other forms, we have already seen in Herolt’s sermon on workers. Specific to Guibert is the emphasis on the notion of mortification of the body by means of manual work, which he considers highly beneficial.76

The Perils of Manual Labour The preachers whose writings we are considering consistently insist that manual work can be a path to salvation. However, work alone is not sufficient to gain salvation. By living in sin, one loses all its benefits. While this would be true for any capital sin, the authors of our corpus note the dangers and vices specifically threatening (and connected with) manual workers. This does not mean that they considered this category of people alarmingly sinful. They could apply the same moralizing lens to any part of society, and sermons do not hesitate to warn against other allegedly specific vices when discussing, for instance, monastic life.

73 For instance, see the sermon by Giordano da Pisa preached in Florence in 1305; C. Delcorno, La predicazione nell’età comunale (Florence: Sansoni, 1974), 98–104. 74 Jacques de Vitry: “Secundus fructus laboris manuum est ut habeat homo unde se et familiam suam sustentet […]. Tertius fructus laboris manuum est ut habeat homo unde largiatur elemosinas pauperibus et reddat de laboribus sui decimas ministris ecclesie, qui illi spiritualiter seruiunt et ministrant sacramenta…”; Paris, BnF, Latin 17509, f. 128rb–va . 75 Guibert develops this idea in the last part of his first sermon Ad mechanicos artifices and in the second one. 76 “Corpus nostrum asininum et pigrum ad omne bonum indiget pane ad eius sustentationem et disciplina ad eius eruditionem, et opere ad eius macerationem et superbie depressionem. Sicut enim seruus fugitiuus debet retineri, ita cor carnale aliqua honesta operatione debet occupari”; edited in Burghart, Une œuvre, sermon Ad mechanicos artifices 1 (forthcoming).

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The idea that some vices are inherently related to specific trades runs through these late medieval sermon collections. Jacques de Vitry develops this in detail: It is very difficult to find a trade which does not have its own deceptions and its peculiar little secrets, because of which the wretched men, when they deceive others, are much more deceived themselves and lose their soul.77

The workers in the mechanical arts are deemed particularly susceptible to fraud and trickery. They could simply set an unfair price for their work, or they could find more cunning ways of cheating their customers, for instance by doing shoddy work (e.g., poorly mending the shoes of a pilgrim), deceiving their buyers with fraudulent goods (brushing and dying old clothes and then selling them as new), or simply stealing (like goldsmiths who take some of the precious metal for themselves when they smelt it). From the perspective of their prejudices, the preachers agree with the contemporary Summae confessorum. For instance, Raymond of Peyñafort († 1275) recommended that confessors ask merchants and workers in the mechanical arts about “perjury, lying, theft, fraud, and similar things.”78 Sermons and penitential aids reflected and strengthened a widespread conception that excluded the lower strata of society and many categories of artisans or labourers from public trust by characterizing them as inherently suspicious, treacherous or, in Giacomo Todeschini’s words, “visibly cruel.”79 Herolt’s aforementioned remarks on the deceptions and crimes committed by poor workers offer yet another example of this widespread discourse. Thirteenth-century preachers also considered manual workers particularly susceptible to debauchery in taverns and to the gambling games played there, which dragged them into idleness, blasphemy, and ruin. 77 “Vix autem reperire est aliquid ministerium quod fraudes speciales et latentes adinuentiones non habeat, quibus miseri homines, dum decipiunt, ipsi magis decipiuntur, et animas suas perdunt”; Paris, BnF, Latin 17509, f. 127va . 78 “circa mercatores necnon et officiales, artes mechanicas exercentes, de periurio, mendacio, furto, dolo et similibus.” Raymond de Penafort, Summa de Poenitentia, III, xxxiv, 33, eds. X. Ochoa and A. Diez (Rome: Editiones Institutum Iuridicum Claretianum, 1976). 79 Todeschini, Visibilmente crudeli.

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Humbert of Romans soberly condemns those who “on feast days spend in taverns everything they earned during the week” instead of using the money for good things.80 Jacques de Vitry, and Guibert de Tournai who reuses his material here, give a much longer and more colourful description of the debauchery in taverns and the games played there under the complicitous gaze of the landlord as a way of condemning the social devastation allegedly caused by those sinful practices.81 Similar comments also abound in the works of later preachers, who kept crying out against “the sins of the tavern.”82 There were other sins directly connected with manual labour. Humbert of Romans adds that some workers are unfaithful to their masters, either by doing sloppy work or by working shorter shifts than they should and thus stealing their salaries.83 This issue—which Jacques of Vitry and Guibert de Tournai overlook—is also mentioned by Herolt. He states that workers must earn the right salary, which means that they should not be dishonest. Herolt attacks workers who ask for more than is due to them or who prolong tasks that could be done more quickly. He adapts the golden rule of the Gospel to working relationships, saying that “everyone must work for others as one would like others to work for him.”84 Breaking a rule presented as an application of a crucial divine commandment means sinning not only against one’s fellow mortal but 80 “Circa hos ultimos, notandum est, quod sunt quidam qui quicquid lucrantur in diebus ferialibus, totum fere expendunt in tabernis in diebus festiuis, et ideo semper remanent pauperes. Eccl. 19. Operarius ebriosus non locupletabitur: et ideo qui talis est inique agit in domesticos, et pauperes, quia quod deberet expendere in uxorem, et filios, et alios domesticos pauperes, uel in alias eleemosynas, totum consumit in tabernis”; Humbert de Romans, De eruditione, 500. 81 Jacques de Vitry: Paris, BnF, Latin 17509, f. 127vb . Guibert de Tournai: Burghart,

Une œuvre, sermon Ad mechanicos artifices 1 (forthcoming). 82 Delcorno, In the Mirror of the Prodigal Son, 293. Preachers develop in detail the topos of the tavern as the satanic church, where a demonic “liturgy” takes place; see for instance the scheme by Bernardino da Siena († 1444) in Budapest, Eötvös Loránd Tudományegyetem Könyvtára, Lat. 102, ff. 194v –199v . 83 “Alii sunt qui in operando infideliter se habent ad dominos quibus operantur, uel minus debite laborando, uel de bono opere non curando, uel nimias expensas faciendo, et similia. Contra quos Col. 3: Quodcunque facitis ex animo operamini, id est ex corde, quod qui facit, facit fideliter, sicut Domino, et non hominibus. Quis enim iterum est, qui Deum habeat pre oculis, et faciat infideliter?”; Humbert de Romans, De eruditione, 500. 84 “quilibet debet laborare proximis sicut sibi vellet fieri si ipse laborantes conduceret; Matthei VII: Que vultis ut faciant vobis homines, hec facite illis ”; Herolt, Sermones, 55.X.

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also against God. It also implies that everyone will be accountable for their work on Doomsday.85 Supported by the parable echoed in this sentence (the famous redde rationem, which in Luke 16:2 concerns a working relationship), the discourse once again projects the outcome of work into eternity. While actual products will perish, the consequences of the actions and intentions connected to work will last forever. From this perspective, a key rule to gain eternal reward through work is that workers, artisans, and merchants must do their work “faithfully, according to the rules of their city and without fraud.”86 The overlapping in Herolt between the semantic fields of fides and labor (already encountered in Berthold’s sermons) is relevant, as is the reference to urban legislation.87 The sermon offers a long list of workers who act infideliter, emphasizing two main sins: perjury and deception, which will lead them to hell by their own labour. On the contrary, the golden rule for workers should be “if you want your work to be meritorious, do it faithfully.”88 With a more negative tone, in the Sermones arboris ad status ascribed to Pedro Perez de Burgos, we find the idea that work and the necessity of making a living are mainly a distraction from spiritual matters. In the introduction to his sermon When One Is among Workers, Pedro Perez de Burgos explains that, “workers, in their trade, frequently drift away from God because of their occupation, sometimes because of the deception of fraud, often because they must earn their bread.”89 Although the last line seems to acknowledge the dire state of need in which workers may find themselves (i.e. a condition similar to the working poor mentioned by Herolt), the whole sermon aims to convince them that even the work they do to earn their bread must not distract them from the work to be done

85 “unusquisque redditurus est rationem in die iudicii de suo artificio et de suo labore”; Ibidem. 86 “Primum est ut fideliter laborent suos labores sive suum artificium, et vendant secundum institutionem civitatis sue sine fraude. Et hi mererentur cum suis laboribus celum”; Ibid., 55.U. 87 On the overlapping between fides and fiducia within the medieval economic language and the ideal of citizenship, see Todeschini, I mercanti e il tempio and Id., Come Giuda. 88 “Si vis quod labor tuus sit meritorius, tunc fideliter labora”; Herolt, Sermones, 55.U. 89 “operantes in suis ministeriis discedunt ab eo plerumque propter sui distractionem,

aliquando propter doli deceptionem, non numquam propter cibi acquisitionem”; Paris, BnF, latin 3276, f. 22ra.

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to earn eternal life, which is a much more important task. Work seems to be considered here simply as a means of acquiring material goods (as necessary as they might be), which can be in conflict with the acquisition of spiritual goods. This is the most negative—or at least wary—view of manual labour in our corpus of texts. Still, this sermon puts in the forefront ideas present in the writings of other preachers. For instance, according to Herolt, manual workers (“laboratores et mechanici”) must abstain from work during the feasts and instead must serve God by going to church, participating in mass, and listening to sermons. He threatens those who work on feast days with disastrous consequences to their belongings, body (including references to work accidents), and soul.90 The idea that manual work could threaten eternal salvation was brilliantly encapsulated by the so-called “Christ of the Sunday,” a midfourteenth-century iconography in which the working tools replace the arma Christi and literally threaten or assault his most holy body. Performing work during the feasts is presented with a powerful symbolism as an act that means torturing Christ again and prolonging his Passion.91 This impressive iconography, in which actual working tools become weapons, further developed the traditional link between work and pain. This time, social practices related to work, instead of representing a salvific martyrium that connects workers to Christ, are depicted as a savage and demonic form of torture that wounds him (and makes workers worthy of eternal condemnation). The discursive interplay with the sermons analysed here is crystal-clear; as was characteristic in late medieval society,

90 “Insuper quandoque ex permissione divina infortunia habebunt in temporalibus […] vel alia infortunia talibus accident quod sic depauperentur. Secundo in corpore puniuntur ut sicut quandoque tales infirmentur per mensem vel per duos, vel cadunt quandoque et frangunt crura vel brachia et sic de aliis”; Herolt, Sermones, 55.X. On this, see also C. Casagrande, “Astensione dalle opere servili e santificazione delle feste: Il lavoro nell’esegesi del terzo precetto (secoli XIII–XIV),” in La grazia del lavoro, eds. A. Caciotti and M. Melli (Milan: EBF, 2010), 59–75. 91 D. Rigaux, Le Christ du dimanche, histoire d’une image médiévale (Paris: l’Harmattan, 2005). Simultaneously, late medieval images of several saints dignify the working tools, such as in the Saint Joseph depicted by Robert Campin and Derick Baegert or the Saint Eligius painted by Peter Christus.

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visual and oral forms communication supported and influenced each other within a multifaceted communicative process.92

An Ambivalent Message: The Role of Intention Overall, each preacher may have underlined different aspects or may have given a peculiar tone to his discourse, stressing more the positive or negative side of working activities and linking them either with charity and redemption or with sin and damnation, but these differences remain within a largely shared theological framework. The ambivalent message about manual work and artisans’ activities that emerges from the sermons analysed here is not surprising or contradictory. Beyond those activities that were considered intrinsically illegal and sinful, this ambiguity depends on the (inner) attitude of each person towards his or her duties. If work is an inescapable proprium of each human being, the task is to transform it into something meritorious (or at least not reprehensible). In the thirteenth century, Berthold of Regensburg expressed this idea with force. When he discusses how workers in the seven artes mechanicae can reach salvation, the key point is “good and right intention.” Once illicit works are avoided, intention becomes crucial; what matters is not the action itself but its goal (“intentio est minimum in opere, maximum in remuneratione”).93 On a practical level, the worker’s intention should be to support himself and his family, yet without aiming to be rich. Rather, he should seek to be able to give alms and perform the corporal works of mercy, as well as to flee from laziness, which is “the bilgewater of all the vices” (“sentina omnium vitiorum”), and dominate the body. On a higher level, Berthold states that the intention must be to work seeking eternal reward. Otherwise, even a job done faithfully would not differ from the work performed by an ox.94 This implies the 92 L. Bolzoni, The Web of Images: Vernacular Preaching from Its Origins to Saint Bernardino da Siena (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004). 93 “Ideo docendi sunt omnes mechanici, ut intentionem suam dirigant ad bonum finem, nam tunc in decuplo, in centuplo, in mellesima parte plus merentur quam si non dirigant. Intentio est minimum in opere, maximum in remuneratione.” Francone, La predicazione, 352. 94 “qui in suis laboribus nec bonum nec malum intendit implicite vel explicite, sed, quasi bos, illicitum non operatur nec indebito modo exercet opus; nullam tamen bonam intentionem habet, sicut nec brutus, sed semper non nisi pro terra et terrenis laboret. […] Nichil habet amplius homo iumento, videlicet talis homo brutalis. Nam vel parum vel

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importance of desiring God’s glory first and foremost and accepting the penitential dimension of work, acknowledging that the actual wages of any work will be given by God in the eternal hereafter, something that should be “of great consolation to workers.” Berthold uses this argumentation to explain the deeper meaning of the biblical sentence “the labourer is worthy of his wages” (Luke 10:7), saying that only God is able to pay for the real value of work performed by a human being, who is created in the image of God and redeemed by the blood of Christ.95 While this last element seems specific to Berthold’s sermon, the other concepts largely overlap with the ideas that we encountered before. Intention also plays a prominent role for Herolt. He emphasizes, as a final rule “without which all the others become useless,” that good intentions are crucial if work is to be meritorious; without good intentions, a worker would be like a beast who works hard without gaining any merit. There is more than a resemblance with Berthold’s sermon here. Herolt takes and recombines several sentences from it, including the aforementioned adage “intentio est minimum in opere, maximum in remuneratione.”96 According to Herolt, three things characterize the necessity of good intentions, in evident continuity with Berthold’s teaching. First, the intention should be to earn an honest living, so that one is not forced to steal or commit fraud. Second, one needs to accept the penitential dimension of work, not only as a right way to atone for sin nichil hic glorie celestis meretur suis laboribus talis brutalis, cum sit quasi pecus nichil cogitans vel intendens, nisi in terrena.” Ibid., 353. 95 “Verbum hoc valde est consolatorium laborantibus; homo enim tantum non habet ut ad plenum valeat hominem alium laboratorem remunerare, cum quilibet homo prevaleat mundo; ideo oportet ut Deus remuneret, ut hic promittit Apostolus. […] Luce 10: Dignus est operarius mercede sua. Vere dignus talis mercenarius, qui ita est nobilis quod non secundum brutum vel secundum angelum vel archangelum, sed secundum Deum ipsum est factus, et sanguine ipsius filii Dei redemptus.” Ibid., 354. 96 “Septimum sine quo omnia precedentia non valent est quod homo in suo labore habeat rectam et bonam intentionem. Intentione est minimum in opere et maximum in remuneratione. Ergo laborans intentionem debet dirigere ad deum ut in omnibis suis dei gloriam querat, et non solum corporis sed etiam anime sue salutem a deo expostulet pro suis laboribus, et sic in centuplo plus meretur. Sed sunt quidam qui in suis laboribus nec bonum, nec malum intendunt, sed quasi bos laborant, illicitum non operatur, nec indebito modo, sed nulla intentionem bonam habent nisi sicut brutum animal, quod semper pro terrena esca laborat. Ecclesiastis VI: Nihil habet homo amplius stulto. Et talis homo brutalis nihil vel parum glorie celestis meritur pro suis laboribus, quia est quasi pecus”; Herolt, Sermones, 55.Y. Herolt recombines some of the sentences from Berthold’s sermon quoted in footnotes 92–94.

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but also to avoid the spiritual dangers of idleness. Third, one should work with the desire to be able to help those who cannot support themselves, such as the blind and the crippled, the sick and the poor, who deserve and need assistance. By echoing concepts already found in thirteenthcentury sermons, Herolt states that such help can also be provided in kind by using the specific skills one has. Hence, a tailor should mend for free the clothes of the poor or a cobbler their shoes, since—as Herolt reasserts—work, time, and things will all be presented before the eternal judge.97

97 “Quia sicut servimus deo de rebus nostris et de persona et de tempore, sic etiam de artificio, quia rationem reddituri sumus de artificio sicut de tempore et de rebus”; Herolt, Sermones, 55.Y.

CHAPTER 4

Industry, Utility, and the Distribution of Wealth in Quattrocento Humanist Thought Giorgio Lizzul

The Florentine humanist Matteo Palmieri argued in the Vita civile (c. 1436) that republics should redistribute surplus tax revenues as a reward to those who, through their ingenuity, arts, and effort, undertake works that profit the common good. He sought to link a moral psychology of citizen work to practical problems of tax distribution in republican politics. Securing the common good required knowledge of the relationship between republics and commerce and an understanding of how the profits earned by an individual related to the prosperity of the political community. In this chapter, I revisit key contentions concerning wealth in early Quattrocento humanist thought. I focus on how ideas of effort in work and the wealth accumulated through work

G. Lizzul (B) Fondazione 1563, Turin, Italy e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] Università di Torino, Turin, Italy University of Warwick, Coventry, UK © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 G. Almási and G. Lizzul (eds.), Rethinking the Work Ethic in Premodern Europe, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38092-1_4

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were connected to discussions of practical problems of political economy, such as the distribution of the tax burden.1 By focusing on the oftenoverlooked Matteo Palmieri (1406–75), a quintessential example of the “civic humanist,” I explore the central role played by industria and utilità in the conceptualisation of diligent hard work and ideas about social hierarchy, as well as attitudes towards the redistribution of wealth.2 Palmieri’s use of a rhetoric of civic industriousness provides an interesting example of how a new political language was used to analyse contemporary problems in fiscal exaction. It offered a new humanist vision of public spending that sought to foster economically profitable civic virtue. Palmieri’s Vita civile has rightly been recognised as vernacular Ciceronian political philosophy. His account of the formation and preservation of the republic and citizen duties and his emphasis on the preservation of private property demonstrate the unmistakable influence of Cicero and in particular De officiis. Palmieri’s contribution to Florentine humanist political philosophy, however, has suffered from a perceived ultra-Ciceronianism that casts the Florentine as merely a translator of Cicero into the volgare.3 Palmieri’s originality has been more highly esteemed in the history of economic thought. Beginning in the nineteenth century, Palmieri came to be placed within a canon of Italian thinkers in courses of 1 H. Baron, followed by E. Garin, argued that a radical transformation of economic attitudes occurred from the turn of the fifteenth century by humanist moral philosophers actively engaged in political life. See Baron, “Franciscan Poverty and Civic Wealth as Factors in the Rise of Humanistic Thought,” Speculum 13 (1938), 1–37; Baron later updated and expanded this essay in three chapters of his In Search of Florentine Civic Humanism, 2 vols. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988), 1:158–257; Garin, L’umanesimo italiano (Bari: Laterza, [1952] 1994), 54–57. For a contextualisation of Baron’s thought, see R. Fubini, “Renaissance Historian: The Career of Hans Baron,” Journal of Modern History 64 (1992), 543, 553–4. For the significance of Baron’s essays on conceptualising the republican tradition, see M. Jurdevic, “Virtue, Commerce and the Enduring Florentine Republican Moment: Reintegrating Italy into the Atlantic Republican Debate,” Journal History of Ideas 63 (2001), 728–31. For a discussion of the work ethic in the fifteenth century, see M. Villa, “L’etica del lavoro nel Quattrocento letterario: sondaggi nei “Libri della famiglia” albertani,” Annali d’italianistica 31 (2014), 91–116. 2 A notable exception is A. Mita Ferraro, “Il pensiero politico di Matteo Palmieri nella Vita civile,” in Prima di Machiavelli, itinerari e linguaggi della politica tra il XIV e il XIV secolo, ed G. Carletti (Pescara: Edizioni Scientifiche Abruzzesi, 2007), 139–64, who draws attention to how his thinking on tax relates to his wider political philosophy. 3 See Q. Skinner, Visions of Politics: Renaissance Virtues (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 134: “almost slavishly Ciceronian.”

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political economy.4 His appellation often derived from being read as a precocious commentator on the importance of proportionality in the distribution of the tax burden. Nineteenth-century historians’ interest was captured by statements such as “in short, in distributing exactions, the most praised arrangement above any other should be that which equally consumes the specific resources of citizens.”5 Scholars of Florence saw this as symptomatic of the fiscal ideas that had surged to the surface of political argument during the debates that preceded the introduction of the Catasto in 1427.6 In the 1420s, renewed fighting with Visconti Milan provoked fierce contestation over how the fiscal burden ought to be distributed amongst the citizenry and inhabitants of the Florentine territory and raised questions concerning the need for fiscal equity and objective rules in the methods of calculating assessments. Palmieri’s Vita has been read as capturing the spirit of those who sought a more accurate and equitable distribution of exactions, which ultimately led to the Catasto. The reform introduced a register based on declarations of fixed and moveable wealth which would be the basis for a one and a half per

4 This followed the edition of Della vita civile published in Milano 1830, for example, F. Cavalli, La scienza politica in Italia, 4 vols. (Venice: G. Antonelli, 1864–81), 2:69–76; V. Cusumano, Dell’economia politica nel medioevo (Bologna: 1876), 69; G. Ricca-Salerno, Storia delle dottrine finanziarie in Italia (Palermo: Alberto Reber, 1896 [1881]), 67– 8; and later see J. Schumpeter’s History of Economic Analysis (London: Routledge, 1955), 162, n. 3; idem, Economic Doctrine and Method (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1954), 37; more recently, see E. Isenmann, “Medieval and Renaissance Theories of State Finance,” in Economic Systems and State Finance, ed. R. Bonney (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 46, 48–49. 5 “Sia insomma quello ordine in distribuire graveze sopra qualunche altro lodato, il quale le particulari sustantie de’ cittadini parimente consuma.” M. Palmieri, Vita civile, ed. P. Stoppelli (Bologna: Zanichelli, 2011), 3.34. See Ricca-Salerno, Storia, 67. 6 For the records of the debates preceeding the creation of the Catasto, see P. Berti, “Nuovi documenti Intorno il Catasto fiorentino,” Giornale storico degli archivi toscani 4 (1860), 32–62. On the Catasto debates, see E. Conti, I catasti agrari della repubblica fiorentina e il catasto particellare toscano (secoli XIV–XIX) (Rome: Istituto Palazzo Borromini, 2014); for an overview of its introduction and operations see the classic study by D. Herlihy and C. Klapisch-Zuber, Tuscans and Their Families: A Study of the Florentine Catasto of 1427 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985), 1–27. For a more recent account of the Catasto debates that approaches the topic from the perspectives of both intellectual and social history, see A. Field, The Intellectual Struggle for Florence: Humanists and the Beginning of the Medici Regime 1420–1440 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 26–68. Cf. H. Schadee’s review in H-Italy, H-Net Reviews (November 2019) for strictures on Field’s interpretation of the evidence.

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cent tax on individuals’ computed capital.7 This replaced the old method of assessment based on the Estimo, which was a rough approximation of patrimony. In the words of Rinaldo Albizzi, the figurehead of the oligarchic regime of Florence, the Catasto was intended to distribute fiscal assessments “with open eyes on a certain basis.”8 This chapter argues that Palmieri’s argument is more nuanced than a simple repetition of the ideological justification for a proportional tax based on fixed property and moveable wealth. Although Palmieri certainly responded to many of these contentious issues, his contribution offered a certain scepticism about the possibility of a truly equitable distribution of the fiscal burden in a profit-seeking society. To understand Palmieri’s intervention, he needs to be placed in the larger context of older medieval traditions of describing the common good of the city in terms of its economic activities and prosperity. These traditions, as we shall see, likewise recognised the tensions between the individual’s pursuit of profit and the common good, while also emphasising the contribution made by citizens’ industriousness and the benefits of their wealth. Beginning in the thirteenth century, a range of authors began to argue more and more vociferously that virtues associated with commercial and assiduous work were central to the preservation of political communities. This had a bearing on how republics should govern citizen property. The writings of Palmieri and his contemporaries on household management and politics inherited these preoccupations. Palmieri reinvigorated these arguments by laying new political emphasis on the virtues of work. The value of citizen work would inform the political actions needed to correct institutional imperfections in matters of taxation in the republic. This chapter explains how Palmieri conceptualised this relationship and intervened, by drawing on these ideas, in Florence’s fiscal-political debates, which legitimated deviation from the Catasto in the aftermath of the struggle between the Medici faction and the Albizzi “oligarchy.”

7 For more on the nature of the catasti see A. Molho, “‘Tassa dei Traffichi’ of 1451,” in Studies in the Renaissance 17 (1970), 75–78. 8 Quoted in Herlihy and Klapisch-Zuber, Tuscans, 9.

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The Industrious City Representation of the political community in terms of its economic activity and its well-being as a product of civic industriousness can be traced back to the urban panegyrics that began to flourish in the twelfth century.9 Depictions of trades, professions, and their attendant virtues and benefits became topoi of communal panegyrics found in chronicles and as an autonomous genre. For example, the very early eleventh-century panegyric De situ civititatis Mediolani praised Milan’s productivity and its people’s industriousness.10 In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, these descriptions would increasingly start to represent the power and condition of cities through quantification of a range of economic activities and revenues.11 Bonvesin de la Riva, a tertiary of the Umiliati who revisited the description of Milan (c. 1280s), in his own words, “with great diligence and great labour,”12 fleshed out in meticulous detail the trades and professions of Milan and the number of citizens who practised them, placing artisans and merchants alongside the clergy, monastic orders, and charitable foundations.13 Citizens and the material opulence they created represented the common good of the city: it is evident that in our city, which has sufficient money, there is the best life, where everything which serves human pleasure is at hand. For it is clear enough that anyone, providing they are healthy and not worthless, may gain riches and honour according to their state.14

9 For a more extended discussion of panegyric writing and a wide survey of European examples, see P. Oldfield, Urban Transformation and the Medieval City 1100–1300 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), esp. 111–29 for the representation of economic life and 114–18 for Italian examples. 10 Ibid., 25. 11 For the classic study of the development of the “arithmetical mentality,” see A.

Murray, Reason and Society in the Middle Ages (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978), esp. 182–87 for the use of numbers in chronicles. 12 “cum ingenti diligentia et multo labore deliberate investigate.” Bonvesin da la Riva, De magnalibus Mediolani, ed. M. Corti (Milan: Bompiani, 1974), 20. 13 Ibid., 3.27–34. 14 Oldfield’s translation of De magnalibus, 4.18 in Urban Transformation, 116.

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Merchant literacy and the flourishing of writing by merchants in the vernacular fed into new literary techniques for representing political life.15 Accounting methods were used to portray the status and well-being of a state. In his fourteenth-century Florentine chronicle, Giovanni Villani offered a survey of revenues and expenditures as a way of providing future generations a means with which “they could comprehend the condition” of Florence by measuring and gauging the power of the Commune during the war with Mastino della Scala.16 The urban descriptions of writers such as Giovanni Villani listed and quantified economic activities and flows of wealth, describing the well-being of the members of a polity as if completing a ledger. Authors described cities in relation to specific and unique mercantile natures. For example, in his Cronica, the Florentine popolano Dino Compagni (1246/47–1324) argued that Florence “was full of necessary crafts, more than other cities.”17 An anonymous thirteenth-century Genoese poet, after praising honest work for nourishing and bringing honour, celebrated how the “city was furnished with every type of good” in its lavish shops. He remarked that if it had been considered honest, shops would not want to close on feast days or Sundays.18 The thirteenthcentury Venetian chronicler Martin da Canal, in Les estoires de Venise (c. 1267–75), praised Venice as a fountain of world commerce.19 Such themes were absorbed into fifteenth-century humanist urban panegyrics. Pier Paolo Vergerio’s De republica veneta celebrated Venetian industriousness, describing how “the common pursuit of everyone is trade:

15 See C. Bec, Les marchands écrivains. Affaires et humanisme à Florence. 1375– 1434 (Paris: E.P.H.E., 1967), 131–74 which explores the relationship between Florentine merchant literacy and an empirical, quantitative approach to history writing and politics that was attuned to economic affairs. 16 “Del podere ed entrata ch’avea il Comune di Firenze in questi tempi. Acciò che’ nostri discendenti possano comprendere lo stato ch’avea il nostro Comune.” Giovanni Villani, Cronica, 3.91, 190. 17 “pieni di molti bisognevoli arti.” Dino Compagni, Cronica, ed. D. Cappi (Rome:

Carocci, 2013), 32. 18 “butege averte con le soe cose/cha quando e’ le vego piose:/en domenga e in festa/ se la fose cosa honesta/ mai no iose le vorea.” L’Anonimo genovese e la sua raccolta de rime sec. XIII–XVI , ed. F. L. Mannucci (Genova: Fratelli Pagano, 1904), 109–110. 19 Martin da Canal, Les estoires de Venise, ed. and trans. A. Limentani (Florence: Olschki, 1972), 1.2.

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merchandise sought in every corner of the globe is brought here, making the city the emporium of the entire world, as Petrarch called it.”20 Descriptions of cities’ wealth invited discussion of citizen virtues and moral conduct in work. Bishop of Genoa Jacopo da Varagine (c. 1230–1298) explained his enterprise of writing the Chronica civitatis Ianuensis in a strikingly commercial vocabulary: he wanted to avoid idleness and serve the public by making use of his intelligence, which was loaned to him by God (talentum intelligentie nobis a Deo creditum), in order to return to Him the multiplied profit of this capital (lucrum … reportemus ).21 According to Jacopo da Varagine, Genoese citizens should learn from ancient Rome, where Cato the Elder had taught that good republican governance was not based on resources, such as wealth and military force, but on its citizen’s industriousness in household governance.22 This required, as he further elaborates, continual supervision of the lazy (pigri) and idle (otiosi) servants (servi).23

20 Pier Paolo Vergerio, De republica veneta, trans. R. G. Witt, in Cambridge Translations of Renaissance Philosophical Texts, 2 vols., ed. J. Kraye (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 2:125. See also Petrarch, Res seniles, ed. S. Rizzo (Florence: Le Lettere, 2006), 4.3 and 10.2. 21 “Evangelica eruditione instruimur ne talentum intelligentie nobis a Deo creditum sub torpore vel otio abscondamus, sed ad mensam Scripture illud ponentes, lucrum multiplicati fenoris Domino reportemus. Siquidem Dominus talenta sua multiplicantes remunerat, servum vero ab opere torpentem dampnat.” Iacopo da Varagine, Cronaca di Genova, dalle origini al MCCXCVII , 2 vols., ed. G. Monleone (Rome: Istituto Storico Italiano, 1941), 1. 22 “habundantia armoroum et equorum, personarum et divitiarum, non sunt causa quare res publica strenue administretur, sed … primum est ut ipsi cives sint industrij circa domestica.” Iacopo da Varagine, Chronica civitatis ianuensis, 180. This account of Cato’s advice is based on Augustine, City of God, 5.12 citing Sallust, Catilinarian Conspiracy, 52.21. For an English translation and introduction to the chronicle see Iacopo da Varagine’s Chronicle of the City of Genoa, trans. and annot. C. E. Beneš (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2020). 23 Iacopo da Varagine, Chronica civitatis ianuensis, 212–3. The reference to the gover-

nance of slaves is supported by a citation from Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) 33:26–29. See Iacopo da Varagine’s Chronicle, 158: “He works under discipline, and he seeks to rest: his hands are idle, and he seeks liberty. A yoke and a whip bend a stiff neck, and continual labours bow a slave down. Put him to work lest he be idle, for idleness has taught much evil.” Trans Beneš.

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Profit and the Common Good The growing commercialisation of the medieval European economy saw increasingly variegated economic activities and the emergence of new urban social groups, which together spurred new challenges in formulating how the common good could be achieved in urban political communities.24 Novel values and ways of representing political life confronted and shaped social thinking both within the universities and outside.25 The variety of trades and economic activities represented in city descriptions was also defended in new conceptualisations of social stratification and the common good in political philosophy. For example, Ptolemy of Lucca (c. 1236–1327) contended that “the greater the diversity of arts and offices in a city, the more celebrated it is because in it the sufficiency of human life can be found in a great degree.”26 The rhetorician and statesman Brunetto Latini’s Livre de tresor (early 1260s) was one of the first writings to offer a deeply mercantile vision of republican politics, where the bonum commune was conceptualised through a model of a profit-based economy that supported citizen life and well-being.27 He argued that besides its rhetorical component, politics is concerned with trades (mestiers ) as well as the mechanical arts (mecaniques ) that are

24 For a comprehensive study of the notion of the common good in late medieval political thought, see M. S. Kempshall, The Common Good in Late Medieval Political Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999). 25 For the new ideas about the virtuous circulation of wealth, see G. Todeschini, I mercanti e il tempio: La società cristiana e il circolo virtuoso della ricchezza fra Medioevo ed Età Moderna (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2002) amongst his many other indispensable studies; O. Langholm, Economics in the Medieval Schools. Wealth, Exchange, Value, Money and Usury, according to the Paris Theological Tradition, 1200–1350 (Leiden: Brill, 1992), and see also the classic study of J. Gilchrist, The Church and Economic Activity in the Middle Ages (London: Macmillan, 1969). For a general overview of developments in medieval economic thinking, see D. Wood, Medieval Economic Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002) and more recently G. Ceccarelli, “Economic Thought in the Middle Ages,” in Encyclopedia of Medieval Philosophy, ed. H. Lagerlund (Dordrecht: Springer, 2011), 283–90. See S. Piron, L’Occupation du monde (Bruxelles: Zones Sensibles, 2018), esp. 158 on the importance of industria. 26 Ptolemy of Lucca, De regimine principum, trans. J. M. Blythe (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997). See also Marsilius of Padua, Defensor pacis, 1.4.5. 27 In this paragraph I follow the analysis of C. J. Nederman, “Commercial Society and Republican Government in the Latin Middle Ages: The Economic Dimensions of Brunetto Latini’s Republicanism,” in Political Theory 31 (2003), 644–63.

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necessary for the life of man.28 Human fellowship in political communities enables an exchange of wealth that is individually profitable and also gives rise to common profit, securing mutual respect for others’ property.29 Different economic activities performed by a variety of labourers, artisans, and trades contribute to the common good,30 since a shared love of gold and silver unites them in a common enterprise of serving one another through exchange.31 Justice, for Latini, is particularly concerned with commercial exchange.32 Contracts and money act as important instruments with which to equalise what individuals are owed for the goods and services they have rendered.33 The reception and reinterpretation of Aristotle in thirteenth-century moral philosophy and theology saw wealth increasingly as an instrumental good necessary for life. Since material goods supported social existence, they were essential to the common good. Although material riches were potentially dangerous causes of sin if accumulated in excess, they enabled, according to this view, the exercise of virtues, such as charity and liberality, necessary for spiritual works.34 These arguments accompanied celebrations of labour and the legitimation of activities required to gather and

28 Brunetto Latini, Li livres dou tresor, eds. S. Baldwin and P. Barrette (Tempe, AZ: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2003), 1.4.5–6; Nederman, “Commercial Society,” 648. 29 Latini, Tresor, 2.108.1–2. 30 Ibid., 2.50.3. 31 Ibid., 2.44.18 and 2.29.2. 32 Ibid., 2.91.3. 33 Ibid., 2.44.21–22. On the invention of money: “It brought equality to unequal things … because it is a middle ground through which unequal things become equal” (2.29.2), trans. Nederman, “Commercial Society,” 652. 34 For the origins of these ideas in late antiquity and in particular the importance of

Ambrose, see P. Brown, Through the Eye of a Needle (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012). For their later medieval development, G. Todeschini, Les marchands et le temple la société chrétienne et le cercle vertueux de la richesse du Moyen Âge (Paris: Albin Michel, 2017). See the classic studies by J. Le Goff, Time, Work, and Culture in the Middle Ages (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1980) and idem, Your Money or Your Life: Economy and Religion in the Middle Ages (New York: Zone Books, 1988), 65–84.

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produce wealth, such as artisanship and mercantile exchange.35 Commercial profit could be seen not as “foul profit,” turpe lucrum, but as a reward for labour and diligence. Some canonists and theologians would justify increments contracted from the beginning of a loan by framing them as compensation for foregone profitable investment of capital, lucrum cessans.36 This wealth could enable almsgiving and the attendant salvific benefits for the charitable giver. Although many of the early commentators on Aristotle would inherit and retain a certain prejudice against commerce, seeing it as always removed by at least one degree from the most natural forms of acquisition found in cultivation and pasture, which gathered wealth directly from nature and enabled the greatest autonomy, or even preservation “without labour (sine labore),”37 the pursuit of monetary wealth, the ars pecuniaria found in commercial exchange, was not condemned outright. On the contrary, as long as it remained part of household management focused on acquiring the necessities of life and not accumulating limitless wealth, it was even encouraged. Thomas Aquinas reflected this critical position towards trade in his commentary on the Politics, though in De regimine principum he argued that “it is necessary for the perfect city to practice

35 For an analysis of the development of a more positive view of the mechanical arts, see E. Whitney, “Paradise Restored: The Mechanical Arts from Antiquity through the Thirteenth Century,” in Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 80 (1990), no. 1, 75–146. 36 This was seen most clearly in the development of the concepts of capitale, damnum emergens, and lucrum cessans in the writings of the canonist Hostiensis (c.1200–1271) and the Franciscan theologian Pierre de Jean Olivi (1248–1298). For an overview of these developments see L. Armstrong, Usury and Public Debt in Early Renaissance Florence: Lorenzo Ridolfi on the Monte Comune (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2003), 62–65. These concepts put forward a notion of money not as sterile but as productive, since its lending or delayed repayment could come at a cost to the merchant in foregone profit from its productive investment. An increment on a loan could, therefore, legitimately be charged to compensate for this loss or to cover for the risk undergone in extending credit to a borrower. For a general overview of the Franciscans’ and Olivi’s specific contributions to these intellectual developments, see Todeschini, Un trattato di economia di economia politica francescano: il De emptionibus et venditionibus, de usuris, de restitutionibus, di Pietro Giovanni Olivi (Rome: Istituto storico per il Medio Evo, 1980); Pierre de Jean Olivi, Traité des contracts, ed., intr. and trans. S. Piron (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2012). 37 Thomas Aquinas, In libros politicorum Aristotelis expositio, ed. P. Fr. R. M. Spiazzi O. P. (Turin and Rome: Marietti, 1951), commentary on 1.6.

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mercantile exchanges in moderation.”38 He conceded that trade could be an alternative basis for city life after the preferable choice of an agricultural community, which enabled greater self-sufficiency.39 Extreme reliance on merchants, however, could be dangerous: not only do merchants tend to undermine martial virtues, import foreign customs, and make provisions suspectable to fortune, but where work is motivated by profit rather than the common good, there is a propensity towards the vice of avarice.40 The neglect of the common good, which Aquinas casts as an almost inevitable consequence of too much commerce, hampers the widespread development of civic virtue, with honours being bestowed exclusively on the rich.41

Wealth and Virtue Leonardo Bruni’s Laudatio Florentine urbis (c.1403–1404) celebrated Florence’s “power and wealth.”42 Bruni praised the prevalence of a great natural talent, ingenium, exercised in every activity in the city, including mercatura, where Florentines display virtues and assiduousness.43 For Bruni, Florence did not just apply itself to advance its own wealth but rather also to practice industria and magnificentia.44 Florence’s daily “splendid acts” at home and abroad were undertaken through virtue and industry.45

38 Thomas of Aquinas, De regimine principum, 2.4.8 the text is found in Ptolemy of Lucca, Thomas Aquinas, On the Government of Rulers, trans. J. Blythe (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997), 110. 39 Thomas Aquinas, De regimine, 2.3.2. 40 Ibid., 2.3.4–6. 41 Ibid., 2.3.5. 42 “poteniam atque opes.” Leonardo Bruni, “Laudatio Florentine urbis,” in Opere letter-

arie e politiche di Leonardo Bruni, ed. P. Viti (Turin: Unione Tipografico-Editrice Torinese, 1996), 570. 43 Ibid., 644–45. 44 “Neque enim divitiis solum prestare studuit, sed multo magis industria atque

magnificentia.” Ibid., 608. 45 Ibid., 646 (cf. Cicero, Philippics, 2.28). See also ibid., 596–97, where industria is placed alongside population, human wealth, the virtues, and humanity as ornaments of Florence.

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From the fourteenth century, the question of the nature of private wealth and its social value, use, and political role was increasingly debated in emergent humanist moral philosophy and rhetoric. Discussion intensified in the years following Leonardo Bruni’s translation of the Ethics and especially so after his translation of and commentary on the pseudoAristotelian Oeconomica (1419), which was dedicated to Cosimo de’ Medici (1389–1464).46 These debates should be read against the backdrop of renewed conflict with Milan and consequent heavy taxation, which placed new burdens upon citizens’ wealth. It was Bruni’s new version of the Economics that particularly attracted the attention of Hans Baron in “Franciscan Poverty and Civic Wealth,” which framed Bruni’s work as a powerful lay celebration of the mercantile world and the pursuit of wealth. Bruni’s influence, according to Baron, changed the course of humanist thinking away from championing scholarly poverty, characteristic of writers such Petrarch, Boccaccio, and Coluccio Salutati (1332–1406), towards an appraisal of civic wealth.47 In De seculo et religione, Salutati had described the world after the Fall as an arena of labours. Self-preservation in Paradise had been effortless, sine labore, but following the expulsion, humanity was condemned to be consumed by infiniti labores as a punishment from God.48 The birth of 46 See Bruni’s subsequent Isagogicon moralis disciplinae (c. 1421–24), in Leonardo Bruni Aretino, Humanistisch-Philosophische Schriften; mit einer Chronologie seiner Werke und Briefe, ed. H. Baron (Leipzig and Berlin: Teubner, 1928; reprint Wiesbaden: Martin Sändig, 1969), as well as the epistle to Tommaso Cambiatori defending the Oeconomica’s position on wealth in L. Bruni, Epistolarum libri VIII, recensente Laurentio Mehus (1741), ed. J. Hankins (Rome: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 2007), 5.2.9. The other central texts of the querelle over wealth included Poggio Bracciolini’s De avaritia (1429) and Francesco Filelfo’s Commentationes florentinae de exilio (1440). On the periphery of the debate, we can include Lorenzo Valla’s De voluptate (1431) and Leon Battista Alberti’s Della famiglia (1433–34) and the Intercenales (1430–40). 47 H. Baron, “Franciscan Poverty” and “Franciscan Poverty and Civic Wealth in the Shaping of Trecento Humanistic Thought: The Role of Florence,” in idem, In Search of Florentine Civic Humanism, vol. 1; see Petrarch, De vita solitaria. See Coluccio Salutati, On the World and Religious Life, trans. T. Marshall, intr. R. G. Witt (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014). See also Chapter 2 of this volume. 48 “The world is an arena of labours … This punishment God inflicted upon man for

the transgression of his precept; as a result, he would have been able to preserve himself eternally in the seed of his immortality by eating spontaneously created fruits without labour was held by sin’s contagion to the inevitable necessity of dying, and used up whatever portion and duration of life he was granted in a series of infinite of labours.” Salutati, On the World and Religious Life, 1.19, 92–93.

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urban life saw the growth and multiplication of manual labour, which was necessary to build the city’s superfluous structures and embellishments. Even an apostolic life beyond the city still required laborious agriculture and spinning for the production of bread and cloth.49 The desire amongst mortals for more than is necessary, for Salutati, leads to too much time spent accumulating fleeting wealth.50 Wealth, although necessary, requires activities to gather it that are not worthy of praise. When it came to defending Florence against Antonio Loschi’s invective, however, Salutati was happy to celebrate Florence’s unlimited wealth (“inexhaustior divitis ”), industrious arts (“operosior artibus ”), and economic activities, and this praise is found again in Bruni’s Laudatio.51 Bruni shook off the traces of his teacher Salutati’s contemptus mundi and stoic position on the transience of wealth. Bruni’s was not a new moral language: his peripatetic defence of the pursuit of wealth for the exercise of virtue had many antecedents in the writings of late medieval thinkers who discussed the virtuous circle between wealth, good deeds, and salvation. What was more novel with Bruni was the lay milieu of the production and many of the audience for these new Latin translations and commentaries, written both to shape and reflect contemporary economic attitudes.52 A treatise on household governance had already been used by Bruni’s Venetian contemporary Francesco Barbaro (1390–1454) in De re uxoria (1415) as a means of commenting on the contemporary social world in a work dedicated to Cosimo’s brother, Lorenzo di Giovanni de’ Medici.53 Barbaro argues that it is necessary to manage wealth to benefit from its utility in order to exercise some of the highest virtues in action.54 Men enrich the household through industry and labour. It is women’s role in

49 Ibid., 1.19, 92–95. 50 “Mortals’ wretched susceptibility to desire, not content to be concerned only for the

essentials, with the result that it heaps up fleeting riches.” Ibid., 1.19, 96–97: 51 Salutati, Invectiva in Antonium Luschum. This parallel was noted in C. Bec, Cultura e società a Firenze nell’età della rinascenza (Rome: Salerno editrice, 1981), 18–19. 52 See also Chapter 2 in this volume. 53 F. Barbaro, The Wealth of Wives: A Fifteenth-Century Marriage Manual, trans. M.

L. King (Toronto: Iter Press, 2015). For the Latin text, see Barbaro, De re uxoria, eds. C. Griggio and C. Kravina, (Florence: Olschki, 2021). 54 Barbaro, The Wealth of Wives, 85. Cf. Cicero, De officiis, 1.121.

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household management, owing to their weaker nature, to supervise property, slaves, and children diligently and zealously. Here, Barbaro draws a parallel between a wife’s acquaintance with the household and a general’s knowledge of his army.55 Wives are overseers of the wealth needed for the liberality that enables children to be educated. For this, “a diligent account of wealth must be kept.”56 Bruni, in his preface to the Economics (which is addressed to Cosimo), latched on to Barbaro’s argument: “for our own sake and even more for the love of our children, we ought to strive as far as we honourably can to increase our wealth, since it is included by the philosophers among the things that are good and considered to be related to happiness ( felicitas ).”57 “Wealth,” Bruni states in the preface, “is indeed useful (utiles ), since it is both an embellishment (ornamentum) for those who possess it and the means by which they may exercise their virtue. It is also of benefit to one’s sons, who can by means of it rise more easily to positions of honour and distinction.”58 In his epistle to Tommaso Cambiatori, Bruni defined oeconomica as the discipline of increasing patrimony.59 The role of the paterfamilias, therefore, is to acquire and use the wealth needed for the good life. This requires the possession of four talents: firstly, one must be able to acquire goods; secondly, one ought to have the talent to look after what he has accumulated; thirdly, one must know how to make his possessions an adornment; lastly, one must know how to enjoy ( fruor) them.60 Bruni considered man’s acquisitive nature essential: the paterfamilias must be “the kind of man who will be quick and skilful at making a profit.”61 Bruni, following Cicero and

55 Ibid., 115–19. See Xenophon, Oeconomicus, 7.35. 56 Barbaro, The Wealth of Wives, 85. 57 L. Bruni, “Preface to Book I of the Aristotelian Treatise on Economics,” in The Humanism of Leonardo Bruni: Selected Texts, eds. G. Griffiths, J. Hankins, and D. Thompson (Binghamton, NY: RSA, 1987), 305. Hereafter, referenced as Oeconomica. The partial translation of the preface is by G. Griffiths and is found in Bruni’s “Translation and Notes on the Economics.” For the Latin text, I use Oeconomica (Lyon, 1542). 58 Oeconomica, Preface, 305. 59 “Disciplina … circa patrimonium augendum”. Bruni, Ep. 5.2, 9. 60 Bruni, Oeconomica. 1.6, 316, cf. Aristotle, Politics, 1.4.125b23, 1.8.1256a1–b39. 61 Ibid., 1.6, 316.

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unlike Aristotle, prescribed no limit on the extent of acquisition (amplificatio patrimonium) as long as it did not bring harm on others.62 The ability to make a profit and preserve this wealth is prioritised: “for he who does not make or preserve a profit will not be able to spend anything. And so in these are to be found the foundation of liberality and of its limits.”63 The implications of Bruni’s position were satirised in Poggio Bracciolini’s De avaritia, in which Antonio Loschi states: “who are those who seek the common good, without considering their private profit.”64 Humanist works of practical philosophy were intended to provide guidance for their readerships with regard to their general ethical conduct. Humanist moral culture also permeated family books and works of political counsel, which often had overtly pragmatic ambitions. Written in the vernacular, such texts spread humanist ideas to a non-Latinate audience.65 The Ragusan merchant-humanist and diplomat Benedetto Cotrugli, in his Il libro de l’arte de la mercatura (which was written in the Kingdom of Naples following an outbreak of plague in 1458), married the tradition of pragmatic merchant and family books to a burgeoning humanist culture to demonstrate how the status of a merchant elite could be defended in a humanist vision of commercial work and its social value synthesised with scholastic economics. His literary career accompanied a life involved in Mediterranean trade, especially in the Kingdom of Naples, where he also held office in the mints of Naples and Aquila during the reign of Ferrante I.66 Cotrugli argues that political life depends on a merchant 62 See Cicero, De officiis, 1.25, cf. Aristotle’s natural limits in Politics, 1257b35, on limiting the appetites 1265a30–36, and on the limit of wealth needed for the good life in his Ethics, 4.1–6. 63 Bruni, Oeconomica, 317. 64 P. Bracciolini, “On Avarice,” trans. Benjamin G. Kohl and E. B. Welles, in The

Earthly Republic, eds. Kohl and R. G. Witt (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1978), 263; For the Latin text see P. Bracciolini, Opera omnia, ed. R. Fubini, 4 vols. (Turin: Bottega d’Erasmo, 1964–69), 1:80: “qui enim sunt isti qui pubblicum quaerant bonum, seposito privato emolumento?” 65 See, for example, Giovanni di Pagolo Rucellai, Zibaldone, ed. G. Battista (Florence: SISMEL, 2013). See A. Tenenti, “Famiglia borghese e ideologia nel Quattrocento,” in idem, Credenze e libertinismi tra Medioevo ed Età Moderna (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1978), 125–35. 66 For biographical details, see D. Parisi, “Benedetto Cotrugli,” in Il contributo italiano alla storia del pensiero: Economia (Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 2012); and M. Luzzati, “Benedetto Cotrugli,” in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani 30 (1984), 446–50.

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class to provide for the common good: “The prosperity (utilità), advantages, and soundness of the republic derive in large measure from merchants, and I refer as always not to vulgar and plebeian traders, but to those estimable merchants […] And this is due to the industry and practice of trade.”67 Although the purpose of merchant life is “honorable enrichment,” the exercicio mercantile provides for the city, multiplies its arts and trades, and funds the revenues of lords and republics, letting the public treasury grow. Their commercial wealth enabled the virtue of liberality necessary for almsgiving to the poor.68 Cotrugli celebrates industriousness as an ethic that promotes utility: “it is essential to set aside every other concern and to dedicate oneself as diligently as possible to all the things that may prove useful to or advance that occupation” and that brings corporeal and spiritual peace: “never let yourself be idle, praying, writing, dictating, reading, engaging in manual activities; be active always and your life will be prolonged in tranquillity, peace of body and mind.”69 The life of the merchant also requires a certain asceticism: This means sometimes putting up with privations day and night, travelling on foot or on horseback, and by land and sea, working one’s hardest at buying and selling and in making attractive the goods bought and sold, and applying as much diligence as possible to these and similar matters. And every other consideration, as I have said, must take second place, and not only superfluous things but even those necessary to the maintenance of human life. It may well be required sometimes that eating and drinking and sleeping be postponed to another occasion, indeed that one endure hunger and thirst and white nights and other similar inconveniences deleterious to the normal equilibrium of the body.70

The profits and honour won through trade are justified not only by the physical effort required to sustain hard work (supportere le fatiche) but also through the application of industria.71 67 B. Cotrugli, The Book of the Art of Trade, trans. J. F. Phillimore (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 113; for the original vernacular text, see B. Cotrugli, Libro de l’arte de la mercatura, eds. C. Carraro and G. Favero (Venice: Edizioni Ca’ Foscari, 2016), 125. 68 On charity in Cotrugli, see P. Delcorno, Lazzaro e il ricco epulone, metamorfosi di una parabola fra Quattro e Cinquecento (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2014), 215–9. 69 Cotrugli, Art of Trade, 38, 173. 70 Ibid., 38. 71 Ibid.

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Matteo Palmieri and the vita civile Matteo Palmieri shared many of these writers’ deeply commercial visions of social life. For Palmieri, the best life was to be had in a republic, where men exercised virtue in their affairs and avoided idleness72 and social stratification was based on the just distribution of honour and wealth, derived from virtuous effort (industria) in work. This model republican polity was based on the pursuit of profit from nature and exchange, to be celebrated as long as it did not harm others or imperil civic unity. In aggregate, profits contributed to the common good of the community as a whole. Palmieri recognised the problem of citizens concealing their accounts, however, and he realised that this made it difficult to know whether households contributed equitably in their fiscal obligations. This problem required a republican political solution that respected the city’s commercial character and did not stifle citizen virtue. To understand where Palmieri’s concern came from, it is worth taking a moment to consider how his social origins and ambitions helped shape his work. Born in 1406 into a family of reasonably wealthy speziali (apothecaries), by the time of his father’s death, Matteo Palmieri would become one of the wealthiest apothecaries in Florence.73 In the 1427 Catasto, Palmieri’s family was amongst the top four per cent of taxpayers in Florence. Matteo’s branch held assets in landed property, real estate, government debt, and other financial investments. No simple conclusion can be drawn on whether the Palmieri suffered or benefitted from the assessment changes introduced by the Catasto, but by 1433, the capital of the family’s speziale shop had more than doubled.74 Proximity to the Medici would bring more favourable assessments in the changed 72 Palmieri, Vita civile, 1.1. 73 The biographical details are drawn from A. Messeri, “Matteo Palmieri, cittadino

del secolo XV,” in Archivio storico italiano 13 (5th ser.) (1894), 257–340; M. Palmieri, Vita civile, ed. G. Belloni (Florence: Sansoni, 1982); C. Finzi, Matteo Palmieri, ‘Della Vita civile’ alla ‘Città di vita’ (Milan: Giuffrè, 1984); G. M. Carpetto, The Humanism of Matteo Palmieri (Rome: Bulzoni, 1984); E. Valeri, “Matteo Palmieri” in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani 80 (2014), 614–18; A. Mita Ferraro, Matteo Palmieri. Una biografia intellettuale (Genova: Name, 2005). For Palmieri’s social background and details of his wealth see L. Martines, The Social World of the Florentine Humanists (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963), 131, 138–139; 370–1. See also his fiscal ledger in M. Palmieri, Ricordi fiscali (1427–1474), ed. E. Conti (Rome: Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medioevo, 1983). 74 Martines, The Social World, 138.

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fiscal environment that later scrapped many aspects of the Catasto.75 The Florentine bookseller and biographer Vespasiano da Bisticci drew attention to Matteo’s social ascendancy. He claimed Palmieri came from a family of middling wealth, mediocre conditione, and it was Palmieri “who made his house and made it noble through his singular virtues.”76 Although Palmieri’s wealth and status surpassed that of his father, Bisticci’s emphasis on Palmieri’s rise should be read as almost a trope of descriptions of humanists’ propensity for social mobility owing to their own virtue.77 Educated under Carlo Marsuppini, he was part of the humanist circle around Ambrogio Traversari. His commercial and literary career would run parallel to a lifelong engagement in Florentine politics. He entered political life in 1432 as vicario in the Florentine dominium, and in 1434, he was on the committee that assented to the return of Cosimo from exile. He then held numerous prestigious offices, including Gonfaloniere di Compagnia (1437), chamberlain of the treasury (1438), Florentine legate to the Council of Ferrara-Florence (1438–39), an official of the public debt (1440, 1446), and subsequently Gonfaloniere di Giustizia (1453). He also held numerous later ambassadorial assignments to the Kingdom of Naples and the papacy. His successful political career can be associated with his proximity to the Medici, to whom he would remain close throughout his life, and he served in Consulte, Balìe (especially on fiscal matters) and was one of the ten Accoppiatori (1458–65), who were responsible for selecting members for entry to the Signoria. The Vita civile was written in the first half of the 1430s, during the Medicean tussle for power, and was completed in 1436, though some additions may have been made in the subsequent two years.78 Palmieri 75 See Palmieri, Ricordi fiscali, 75; E. Conti, L’imposta diretta a Firenze nel Quattro-

cento (1427–1494) (Rome: Istituto storico italiano per il medio evo, 1984), 192–93. 76 Vespasiano Bisticci, Le vite, edizione critica con introduzione e commento, ed. A. Greco, 2 vols. (Florence: Istituto nazionale di studi sul rinascimento, 1970), 563: “naque di parenti di mediocre conditione, dette principio alla casa sua, et nobilitòlla per la singulari virtù.” 77 For the reality behind this image, see in general Martines, Social World, esp. 138 for Matteo Palmieri’s case. His paternal grandfather had been in the top 13% of taxpayers. On the humanist rhetoric of virtue, novus homo, and social mobility, see generally J. Hankins, Virtue Politics: Soulcraft and Statecraft in Renaissance Italy (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2019), esp. 248 and 541, n. 36. 78 For the problem of dating the Vita civile, see M. Palmieri, La vita di Niccolò Acciaioli, ed. A. Mita Ferraro (Bologna: Il mulino, 2001), and more recently Mita

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dedicated it to his older friend and powerful Medici partisan, Alessandro di Ugo degli Alessandri (1391–1460). The Alessandri were a branch of the Albizzi family that had split away in 1372; they were prominent members of the Guelf party who could be found in the Calimala, silk, and wool major guilds. Relevant to a reading of parts of Palmieri’s elitist message, which warned of the political danger of the unvirtuous unemployed poor and stressed the importance of protecting property, is the fact that during the Ciompi revolt of 1378, the Alessandri were declared magnates, were excluded from office, and had their palace torched. The Vita translated Ciceronian political thought into the Tuscan vernacular. Palmieri stated the purpose for the volgarizatione was to enable those ignorant of Latin to live virtuously.79 Although presented loosely as a Ciceronian dialogue between the elder merchant-statesman Agnolo Pandolfini (1360–1446) and his two Florentine students Luigi Guicciardini and Franco Sachetti, it is more of a treatise which in large parts owes much to works of oikonomia.80 It consists of four books, the first of which is concerned with the education of children into citizens. The second deals with natural law and the origins of the republic as well as the words and deeds of great men. The third is entirely on justice, and the fourth takes up the theme of utilità (understood both in the classical sense of beneficial and a contemporary vernacular sense of economically profitable).81 The discussants’ backdrop is a villa in Mugello during the minor plague of 1430, a time at which, Palmieri states, citizens were afraid that the outbreak would steal the joy and “ornaments” they firmly believed ought to be found throughout their lives.82

Ferrero’s Matteo Palmieri, in which she dates the dialogue to 1433–4, the years of Medici exile and return (p. 201). The Vita civile was first published in 1529 (Florence, Eredi F. Giunti) and appeared in a French translation by C. Des Rosiers as La vie civile de Maistre Mathieu Palmier (Paris: Estienne Groulleau, 1557). 79 Palmieri, Vita civile, Proemio, 2. 80 It circulated in the fifteenth century under the title Del governo della republica e

della casa; see Vespasiano da Bisticci, Vite, 563: “He wrote a book in the vernacular … called Of the Governance of the Republic and the Household.” 81 Its structure very loosely follows Cicero’s De officiis. The first three books covering the honestum and book 4 covering the second and third books of De officiis on the beneficial (utile) as well as Cicero’s resolution in book 3 of the honestum with utile. 82 Palmieri, Vita civile, 1.1.

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Education, industria, and Virtue Palmieri sketches an idealised vision of civic life that seeks to foster the good life, the vivere bene, on the basis of citizens’ vita activa, understood as both political and economic participation. In a discussion structured around the classical distinction between otium and negotium, the first part of the Vita civile details how the virtues necessary for active life are rooted in the education of future citizens. A life focused on participation in the world should not be separate from the vita contemplativa, which informs the virtues needed in active political life. The perfect soul “restrains the passions” in civic life under the rule of reason: “the appetites are always bound like slaves under the watch of the soul.”83 This is done by following the cardinal virtues, which in the preface Palmieri states have been inherited in (the memory of) the precepts of the ancient Latins and Greeks.84 It is in the discussion of the active life that Palmieri clarifies key conceptual relationships, such as the relationship between knowledge (scientia) and industria. Pandolfini praises the two students for studying, since too many neglect learning by instead pursing the goods of the body. The goods of the mind, however, fostered through study, are superior, as they supply the soul with virtue. The highest fruit of the soul, philosophy and in particular moral philosophy, teaches virtue and guides human works.85 Palmieri emphasises Cicero’s point that virtue lies in action for which thought prepares us when he states that “I don’t believe reading makes you live better or more virtuously, nevertheless the end of every good is not in intending but in acting (operare), and the more one knows, so much worse is it for he who follows non-rational appetites.”86 Paradoxically phrased by Agnolo, the “peasant idleness” (contadinesco otio) of the youths’ time spent studying in Mugello is superior to the “servile crafts” pursued by young men, because study, he says, is an ornament to oneself 83 “rafrena le passioni dell animo.” Ibid., 2.19. “Siano dunque gli appetiti sempre rilegati sotto la guardia dell’animo come servi.” Ibid., 1.4. 84 Ibid., 1.6–10. 85 “Questa debbe conducere e grandi et esere guida di tutte l’opere humane.” Ibid.,

1.31–32. 86 “non credo che il leggere vi faccia meglio vivere, né anche più virtuosi, però che il fine d’ogni bene è non quello intendere, ma secondo quello operare; et quanto più sa, tanto è peggiore chi segue gli appetiti non ragionevoli.” Ibid., 1.6. See Cicero, De officiis, 1.19.

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and is profitable (utile) for one’s family, and when the need arises, the patria can profit from it too.87 Those not suited for the highest virtues pursue the mechanical and servile arts (arti meccaniche et servili). They may require corporeal punishment to learn right from wrong, unlike those suited for the highest virtues, where such punishment is not only not benign but is against nature and makes the soul servile.88 The benefits of a humanist education are shown to be vital not only for a knowledge of philosophy but also because they enrich the practice of work. For example, the importance of geometry is shown to lie in part in the fact that scientia “lightens industry” because, through an exertion of the anima and ingegno, the world becomes more intelligible.89 For Palmieri, the exercise of ingenuity in subtle and worthy matters was what God had intended by giving man a soul.90 Palmieri says the contemporary revival of the ancients by figures such as Giotto and Bruni elevated certain arts that had previously been lost. The present greatness of these arts derives, he claims, from grace, industria, elevated and superior intellect, or sustained diligence (continuata diligentia), which he argued had shamefully been lost by previous generations who had been content to imitate their fathers or masters and didn’t trouble themselves to bother with the improvement of the arts.91 On the use of time, Palmieri warns against spending all one’s time in the day on one specific industria, whether it is academic or economic.92 It is important to vary arti not only to avoid tedium but also because different pursuits inform one another and should, therefore, not be learned sequentially but simultaneously. Palmieri illustrates this point by discussing oikonomia: one cannot hope to learn how to master the governance of the household prior to learning about commerce and the means to converse with one’s fellow citizens, for how would one make “profitable use of his property?”93 The same is also true for a good worker

87 Ibid., 1.2. 88 Ibid., 1.42. 89 “assottigliono la industria.” Ibid., 1.29. 90 Ibid., 1.14. 91 Ibid., 1.50. 92 Ibid., 1.47. 93 “Veggiàno che non si truova alcuno che prima cerchi imparare come si governi in casa colla propria famiglia, poi come governi il traffico suo, poi in che maniera conversi

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(lavoratore). One must mix activities through practical application (per pratica exercitatio).94

Utilita` and Property For Palmieri, the arts and industrie are essential in making many natural things profitable. Men should be disposed to “toil their lives in honest works (opere) with exertions and crafts (arti),” and in doing so, “they should not despise private profit or advantage, but rather always pursue them honourably. Wasting profit justly obtained ensures deserved blame. In no way is it appropriate for the virtuous.”95 The profitable things, the utili, are divided into four categories. The first group includes the honestum: the virtues, the truth, the sciences, and the arts. The second includes the family, friends, health, and good reputation. The third category of utili is the most literally “profitable,” as they are sought because they provide economic profit (money, property, agriculture, slaves, and manual workers). The fourth group includes those things that give public advantage and dignity: the magnificent, public buildings, precious furnishings, family, horses, and everything needed for a splendid life.96 The application of effort to extract wealth from nature or create it through the arti—profitable for the common utilità—enabled urban living and ultimately created the foundations of laws and political life.97 Wealth ought to be gathered for three ends: to provide the necessaries of life, to furnish the honourable comforts of life, and to enable the exercise of virtue by those capable of it by nature.98 Since not all men have a rationally governed soul, there are different kinds of occupations suitable for different grades of men. Palmieri returns to the myth of

co’ suoi cittadini, et di per sé in che modo gli sieno fructose le sua possessioni.” Ibid., 1.47. 94 Ibid., 1.47. 95 “Gl’huomini d’età perfecta, poi saranno disposti travagliare loro vita in nelle opere

honeste con gli exercitii et arti già conte da noi, non debbono spregiare l’utilità et commodi proprii ma quelle sempre honestamente seguire, però che lo sprezare l’utile il quale iustamente si può conseguitare merita biasimo, né in alcuno modo si confà a chi è virtuoso.” Ibid., 4.7. 96 Ibid., 4.5–7. 97 Palmieri, Ibid., 4.32 and 3.4; Cicero, De officiis, 1.22. 98 Palmieri, Vita civile, 4.41.

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the golden age to explain how economic activities emerged and what their social consequences were. Before the arrival of the god Saturn in Italy, men everywhere across the world did not apply themselves in any activity to provide for the refinements of life. They were content with the necessaries of life, which were provided by nature.99 This was a world without private property, laws, or money. If anything was missing, it was provided as a gift—no one paid attention to utilità. This changed with the arrival of Saturn, “who exercised virtue in various works” and who, for the utilità of a better furnished life, taught men agriculture.100 With the growth of crafts (arti) developed for “the use and the common profit of men,”101 those who exerted effort in work wanted to keep their profits. This led to the division of the world into private property and the emergence of inequality.102 This narrative was complemented by the Ciceronian account in book 2 of the origins of political association: men seek out natural fellowship for their own preservation and prosperity. Life in cities provides utilità by meeting the necessities of life and providing for a certain degree of “ornamentation,” or luxury.103 In book 3, Palmieri gives a more generalised account of the origins of the right to private property. Like Cicero, he asserts that property is not natural: “by nature, nothing is private, but everything in the world was common when man was created.”104 He gives four reasons for why

99 Palmieri’s account of the arrival of Saturn is in part drawn from Macrobius, Saturnalia, 1.7.21–25; 1.10.19. See also Ovid, Fasti, 1.229–40; Pliny the Elder, Naturalis historia, 33.13, Plutarch, Moral., 274e–275b, Lactantius, Institutiones divinae, 1.13.7. 100 Palmieri, Vita civile, 4.32. 101 “nella abondante et fecunda terra è per natura o per arte generato, tutto è creato

et fructifica per uso et commune utilità degl’ huomini.” Ibid., 3.4. See Cicero, De officiis, 1.22. 102 Palmieri, Vita civile, 4.32. 103 “si sono conciliati in unione di ragunata multitudine. Quinci hanno avuto principio

le città, in nelle quali l’uso et coversatione civile ha dimonstrato infinite utilità, con le quali si subministra prima alla necessità poi all amplitudine et hornamento di nostro vivere.” Ibid., 2.6. 104 “per natura niuna cosa è privata, ma è tutto il mondo commune alla humana generatione.” Ibid., 3.4. See Cicero, De officiis, 1.22. See also Ambrose, De officiis, 1.28.132.

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initial acquisition emerged105 : first, by ancient occupation of places not owned by another. Second, property is acquired by conquest, which gives “owners to the defeated provinces.”106 Third, “the rightful makers of things have dominio over that which they make” (this is a justification not given by Cicero).107 And finally, property is acquired by the order of the law, agreements, custom, circumstances, and fortune.108 The emergence of property (a just title to acquired wealth) and the arti were both born of the desire for utilità. The consequence of which, for Palmieri, was an unequal social distribution of wealth. The introduction of money, however, made the maintenance of social concord possible through the possibility of equivalence and exchange.109 He repeated the Ciceronian rule, which Bruni had earlier made use of in his preface to the Economics, that citizens should earn as much as possible from natural resources as well as individual property as long as they do not injure others in doing so. This is because wealth and an abundance of means are the instruments with which valiant men act virtuously (it is much harder to be virtuous with a meagre patrimony).110 The best citizens ought to accumulate the most, as they are able to put wealth to virtuous use through liberality, and this makes the city rich and benefits the common good. Honest profit comes from one’s own property.111 Those who accumulate beyond their private means should have their wealth transferred to

105 “the causes which divided and gave worldly goods into private hands are varied and

many” (“Varie et molte sono state poi le cagioni che hanno diviso et dato in privato i beni mondani”). Palmieri, Vita civile, 3.4. 106 “La iusta victoria ancora ha dato poi posseditori alle vincte province.” Ibid., 3.4. 107 “i proprii factori d’alcune cose hanno il dominio di quello hanno facto.” Ibid., 3.4. 108 “Di poi l’ordine delle leggi, i pacti, consuetudini, conditioni, et sorti hanno facto private le possessioni che erano per natura communi.” Ibid., 3.1. See Cicero, De officiis, 1.21: “There is, however, no such thing as private ownership established by nature, but property becomes private either through long occupancy (as in the case of those who long ago settled in unoccupied territory) or through conquest (as in the case of those who took it in war), or by due process of law, bargain, or purchase, or by allotment.” 109 For the earlier Aristotelian roots of this problem and its discussion in medieval scholastic philosophy see J. Kaye, A History of Balance, 1250–1375: The Emergence of a New Model of Equilibrium and Its Impact on Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014). 110 Palmieri, Vita civile, 4.7. 111 Ibid., 4.33–34.

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the public.112 Palmieri here is keen to limit the accumulation of wealth amongst the lower social orders. In Palmieri’s vision of profitable work, the most praised activities are those which involve the exercise of industria, prudence, and acumen, leading, in this order, to a hierarchy of agriculture, the professions, and high commerce.113 Differing from Cicero’s general disdain, Palmieri praises commerce when it is undertaken on a large scale, involves considerable wealth, and promotes the exchange of a wide variety of goods across many places. Its merits, however, depend on the ends to which the wealth accumulated is put. Palmieri condemns hawkers, usurers, tax farmers, and innkeepers, as trade at this level is poor and not generous.114 “Wage-labouring crafts,” arti mercennarii, are servile when one sells work (opera), which in effect means the sale of one’s liberty as a base commodity (merce vile), as opposed to those who sell their application (industria) in an art.115 In agriculture, citizens can acquire wealth using lavoratori (workers) who are either free (taking a share of profit) or hired. The virtuous citizen’s role is to oversee workers’ activity. In organising hired labour, this virtuous citizen must ensure that wage-expenses do not “consume the profit of the enterprise.”116 Servants (servi) and manual workers (meccanice) are the modern equivalents of Roman slaves but now are paid a wage. They should be computed as part of the total civic utilità.117 Workers who are idle (ociosi) and “inert” are harmful and pose a danger to the city. They must be either forced to work or expelled from the city “so that the city is purged of harmful plebs” who are inutile.118 112 Ibid., 4.41. 113 Ibid., 4.40. 114 Ibid. Cf. Cicero, De officiis, 1.150. 115 Palmieri, Vita civile, 4.34. This is Palmieri’s version of Cicero, De officiis, 1.150–1:

“Unbecoming to a gentleman, too, and vulgar are the means of livelihood of all hired workmen whom we pay for mere manual labour, not for artistic skill; for in their case the very wage they receive is a pledge of their slavery.” 116 Palmieri, Vita civile, 4.34. 117 Ibid., 4.36. 118 “acciò che la città si purghi della nociva plebe.” Ibid. 4.40. After the Black Death,

labour ordinances targeting idleness by forcing labourers to work, such as the famous post plague Ordinance and Statute of Labourers in England (1349 and 1351), were common across Europe. An early example predating the plague comes from mid-thirteenth-century kingdom of Castile and León, see R. Braid, “The Political Culture of Work,” in A Cultural History of Work in the Medieval Age (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2020),

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Civil Justice and Fiscality Protecting citizen wealth and property, which is the basis of virtuous and profitable activity in the city, is a key concern of the Vita civile. Palmieri goes into detail on this in his exposition of civil justice. Following Cicero, he contends that justice preserves concord: “Civil justice does nothing more than preserve that which belongs to each. … exalts the innocent, remunerates the virtuous. It conserves, fosters, and maintains relations, friendship, and the concord of the human multitude.”119 He further specifies justice’s relationship to property: the first commandment [of justice] and singular gift which one receives from this most comprehensive virtue is that one should not harm another person. The other teaching that must be maintained and taught is that all public things are common and used publicly; private things the owner uses as his own.120

As was shown earlier, property, while not natural, is accumulated through one’s own labour in accordance with natural law (i.e. man’s natural inclination for self-preservation). The purpose of Cicero’s account of private property, which Palmieri for the most part follows closely, is to show that coerced redistribution is against the laws of human society.121 Palmieri follows Cicero to argue

390–91. For Florence, see S. Cohn, “After the Black Death: Labour Legislation and Attitudes Towards Labour in Late-medieval Western Europe,” in Economic History Review 60 (2007), 468. In Florence, the more restrictive decrees were targeted at agricultural labourers, who were pronounced exbannitos et rebelles if they shunned work to the damage of citizen’s farms, leading to execution and humiliation. Later legislation sought to incentivise against rural abandonment. 119 “La Giustitia civile solo conserva a ciascuno quello che è suo, punisce i rei, gli innocenti exalta, rimunera i virtuosi, conserva, acresce et mantiene le parentele, amicitie et concordie dell’humana multitudine.” Palmieri, Vita civile, 1.59. 120 “El primo comandamento [di giustizia] et singulare dono che si riceve da questa amplissima virtù è che non si nuoca a persona, se non per chi è constituto iudice degli ingiusti. L’altro servandissimo amaestramento è che tutte le cose publice sieno communi et publicamente usate; le private usi il possessore come sue.” Ibid., 3.4. See Cicero, De officiis, 1.20–21; 1.51. 121 Cicero, De officiis, 1.22, 1.20, and 2.78.

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that anyone who seizes property that is not rightfully theirs is a “rapacious violator of the human law of concord.”122 Cicero had proclaimed this idea with reference to the reform of the Agrarian Laws proposed by the Gracchi brothers (Tiberius and Gaius, each of whom served as tribune of the plebs), which he believed would undermine the foundations of the Republic. Palmieri seems to be drawing a parallel by invoking the Florentine elites’ memory of and disdain for the participants in the Ciompi revolt (1378), who were described as robbers and arsonists of citizen property. He described these workers in his Liber de temporibus as the “basest wage-working plebs,” whose “sedition created great discord in Florence by demanding its honours for themselves.”123 These warnings against the political ambitions of these “plebs” and social danger they allegedly posed inform Palmieri’s insistence on preserving the social hierarchy in Florence based in no small part on wealth. Palmieri’s lengthy discussion of the meritorious and industrious origins of property and its virtuous distribution provided a defence for Florence’s fiscal system, which relied on citizen credit. This system had been restored after the popular government that followed the Ciompi revolt, when interest payments on forced loans were resumed. Palmieri was also making a more precise intervention with regard to dissatisfaction with the introduction of the Catasto of 1427. Although he contended that it introduced a more rational and equitable means of calculating fiscal assessments, because before its reintroduction “forced loans had never been imposed according to a true valuation of wealth” and had depended on the assessors’ discretione concerning the people to whom they imposed a forced loan, he did not believe it was an infallible and proportionate gauge of property.124 In book 3 on justice, in a discussion of distributive justice, Palmieri was interested in how the republic allocates resources, honours, and the burden of forced loans. He focused specifically on the problem of

122 “Chi più possiede, occupa o toglie, sarà rapace violatore dell’ordine della humana coniunctione.” Palmieri, Vita civile, 2.4. See Cicero, De officiis, 2.78. 123 “Infima et mercennaria plebs per discordias maiorum civium Florentiae sublevata honores civitatis sibi comedi postulavit, quibus seditionibus civitas varie quassata maximum detrimentum suscepit.” Palmieri, Liber de temporibus, ed. G. Scaramella, in Rerum italicarum scriptores, ser. 2, vol. 26, pt. 1 (Città di Castello: Lapi, 1906–16), 118. 124 “né mai si posono le graveze secondo stima vera di sustanze”; “aveano a porre secondo loro discretione, a chi pareva loro, quella prestanza voleano.” Palmieri, Ricordi fiscali, 4–5.

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how a republic equitably calls upon wealth that is unequally distributed owing to citizens’ differing capacities for virtue and industria.125 Since the accumulation of wealth takes place under the protection of the republic, citizen riches can all be used by the republic for the defence of the patria.126 For Palmieri, Florence’s mode of exaction, which was centred on the Monte Comune (a funded debt that used indirect revenues to pay interest on citizen forced loans), was compatible with the imperative of preserving private property.127 This was because it was premised on the principle of returning citizens’ wealth extended through loans (even if in effect it had become almost akin to a direct tax in the fifteenth century). With regard to the “the most difficult matter” of distribution, Palmieri famously espoused a system of proportional rather than progressive exaction of citizens’ wealth. This was distributive justice in action: “the possessions of each should be requested with a true proportional rule that takes from each a proportional share.”128 Despite this confirmation of the principles behind the Catasto, Palmieri was keen to point out why this was very problematic, stating that the very commercial nature of the republic made the implementation of this idea extremely difficult: Here it is impossible to govern according to true justice because private citizens cloak their income and do not give a real gauge to those who distribute [the fiscal burden]. In every civil administration, he who governs should always follow two principles of convenience (commodità): first, do not harm individually, second, serve the common utility of the whole civic body. It is certainly impossible in this matter to arrive at the truth, so with

125 Palmieri, Vita civile, 3.33. 126 Ibid. Cf. Cicero, De officiis, 1.22, where Cicero claims that men ought to use their

private property in acts of kindness for the benefit of the common good that strengthen social bonds, since “we are not born for ourselves alone.” 127 See Palmieri’s description of the origin of the Monte commune in his Ricordi fiscali, 5–6, which recounts how the Monte originated in the restoration of Florentine liberty and the emergence of a new fiscal order following the expulsion of the Duke of Athens. For the controversy around this institution see J. Kirshner, “Reading Bernardino’s Sermon on the Public Debt,” in Atti del simposio internazionale caterinianobernardiniano, eds. D. Maffei and P. Nardi (Siena: Accademia senese degli Intronati, 1982), 547–622. See also Armstrong, Usury and Public Debt, 53–84. 128 “con vera proportione d’ordine che pigli da ciascuno la rata di quello possiede debbono essere richieste.” Palmieri, Vita civile, 3.33.

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diligence, one should choose the least harmful path, because this is one of the most important things in preserving the civil union.129

So while there was a just criterion of proportional equity for wealth assessment, it remained a difficult area of governance, because “everyone exerts great effort to protect their own property.”130 In spite of the attempt through the Catasto to introduce a more rational means of calculating assessments of citizen wealth, it still relied on honest reporting of private accounts and estimates to calculate capitalisation.131 In part, Palmieri’s criticisms and instruction to use prudence by following “principles of convenience” legitimised changes introduced after the return of Cosimo de’ Medici in 1434, which saw a watering down of many of the Catasto reforms with the return of commissions estimating taxpayers’ contributions and the exclusion of liquid assets from assessments.132 Palmieri recognised that this kind of wealth was more easily concealed. The problems that arise from concealing wealth and making misleading or inaccurate estimates are over and under-exaction. There was a risk that the republic would end up with surplus revenues beyond its expenditures on wars and debt service. This would be an injustice, since wealth was not taxed in proportional correspondence to need. Since the nature of justice in the republic is to preserve citizen possessions, this can be seen as a threat to the very fabric of the political association. To deal with this issue, Palmieri makes an interesting move:

129 “Quello in che è posta la somma dificultà delle pecunie è secondo quale ordine o con che misura si debbono a i privati cittadini domandare, quando viene il bisogno publico. Qui è impossibile l’ordine della vera iustitia, perché i privati, coperti, non danno vera regola a chi distribuisce. In ogni administratione civile chi governa sempre si dirizi alle dua principali commodità: l’una, che non si nuoca a persona, l’altra, che egli si serva alla commune utilità di tutto il corpo civile. Impossibile è certo in questa materia giungnere al vero; ma con ogni diligentia debbe essere cerca la meno errante via, perché è una delle principalissime parti a conservare l’unione civile.” Ibid., 3.29–30. 130 “perché ogni uno con fatica exercitandosi guarda le sue.” Ibid., 3.33. 131 See Molho, “The Florentine ‘Tassa,’’’ 78. For the failures of the Catasto see Herlihy

and Klapisch-Zuber, Tuscans, 26. 132 Molho, “The State and Public Finance: A Hypothesis Based on the History of Late Medieval Florence,” in The Origins of the State in Italy, 1300–1600, ed. J. Kirshner (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2009), 118. For a discussion of prudence in Palmieri’s thought see Mita Ferraro, “Il pensiero politico,” 140–43.

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Should there be a surfeit of public riches, once everyone has been repaid the amount they have lent, these riches should not be gathered as a dead sum of wealth, producing neither profit nor beauty, such that the city be oppressed and milked of money; instead they should be invested into singular projects (sia qualche singulare cosa ordinata) for the magnificence and the utility of the common advantage (commodi communi), where ingenuity, art, and some human power can exert itself to the utmost degree. Then, according to the virtues, material works, or services offered, these monies should be distributed as a reward to each specific person according to reason and ordered measure.133

Palmieri goes on to say that beyond providing for those who profit the common good, such as artists and scholars, wealth should also be used for the virtuous poor and orphans, but it should not be channelled to the idle poor. This passage has been described by Alessandra Mita Ferraro as one of Palmieri’s most modern and innovative claims in the Vita civile, as it advocates a model of public welfare.134 This “welfare,” however, had to avoid making indiscriminate handouts to the poor and collect surplus wealth into a single fund to spend on the higher common good. For Palmieri, government liberality and magnificence become a key corrective for distributive tax injustices by fostering scholarship, arts, and industry and thus providing profit (utilità) for the whole community.135 This was not simple charity. It recognised the merit of the recipient in view of the profit they could provide to the political community through their work.

Conclusion Palmieri’s Vita civile needs to be placed within a longer tradition of Latin and vernacular political writing on the city-republic which linked the common good to the economic activities of its citizens. Beginning in

133 “Se le richeze publici avanzassino, poi sarà ristituito a ciascuno quanto avesse conferito, non sieno in massa morta ragunate, dove né utilità né bellezza si vegga di quelle, et la città si priema et sia di danari muncta, ma in magnificentia et utilità di commodi communi sia qualche singulare cosa ordinata, dove gli ‘ngegni, l’arti et qualunche forza humana quanto più può se exerciti, et secondo le virtù o facte opere o favori prestati, sieno tali pecunie con ragione et ordinata misura in particulare a ciascuno per premio distribute.” Palmieri, Vita civile, 3.29. Cf. Aristotle, Politics, 1320a35. 134 Mita Ferraro, “Pensiero Politico,” 151. 135 See Palmieri, Vita civile, 3.43.

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the thirteenth century, a range of medieval writers, from theologians to chroniclers and rhetoricians, began praising economic occupations for the exercise of virtue in their performance and for the initiatives that could be undertaken with the wealth they earned. Private profit was not necessarily harmful to the common good. As long as wealth was acquired justly by avoiding sinful behaviour and was used virtuously it could be a benefit to the republic. Palmieri drew upon these broad intellectual currents, as well as a more specific republican tradition that was concerned with the preservation of private property accumulated through work. Writers such as Brunetto Latini were interested in stressing a Ciceronian conception of justice, according to which the protection of property was a core function of the commune. This went alongside a legitimation of the crafts and trade, which were fundamental to the wealth of the Italian city republics. This new republican ideology saw no contradiction between the productive and commercial activities of citizens and their liberty. Its ethic could also be found in the works of scholastic, merchant, and humanist writers, many of whom legitimated private economic activity with reference to the common good through the prism of fiscality. As a focus on the discussion of work and fiscality in the Vita civile shows, it is far from a mere vernacularisation of De officiis. Palmieri uses Cicero’s political thought to introduce an original idea concerning the role of citizen industriousness and virtue. Earning profit through the application of effort and diligence enables select citizens to accumulate wealth, and this wealth in turn facilitates virtuous action for the benefit of the republic. The active life promoted by Palmieri and contemporaries, such as Barbaro and Bruni, combined both public service through politics and scholarship with the pursuit of worldly goods. Palmieri’s concept of utilità entailed an understanding of profit not merely as private gain but also as public benefit. It included the materially beneficial things that enable the accumulation of riches by the virtuous and consequently open the space for the public use of wealth as the instrument of virtuous action that benefits the whole community. These were key arguments that shaped his vision of republican fiscal politics. His idiosyncratic views on fiscal distribution in the republic cannot be reduced to a simple legitimation of the Catasto reforms (indeed, to a certain extent, his ideas justified the fall from use of these reforms until 1457). Rather, these notions should be understood as a broader defence of the city’s system of public finance based on citizen credit. This system theoretically helped preserve the social distribution of wealth by

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not levelling disparities between the city’s classes. Moreover, his views also reflect a recognition of the imperfections of assessing wealth in Florence despite the more equitable intentions of the Catasto, and they assert a place for judgement in fiscal distribution. By stressing parallels between the dangers presented by Florence’s labouring class and “idle poor” and Cicero’s warning against the Gracchi’s championing of the plebian cause and programme of social reform, he sought to warn against the dangers of redistribution. His ideal fiscal system, close to the principles behind Florence’s actual one, had to ensure that wealth not be redistributed to the idle poor from those whose industry could put it to virtuous use. For Palmieri, regressive facets of fiscal exaction caused by citizens disguising liquid wealth, as well as the inequality of wealth distribution in the city, were to be compensated for by the republic’s liberality and the actions of the virtuous rich, through spending, that advanced civic industry and disciplined the idle poor. Some of Palmieri’s originality lies in his multifaceted approach to the value of a citizen work ethic. Industry is not only linked to utility (partly redefined in line with common economic usage) and the common good (as in the writings of earlier authors), it also becomes an essential part of a more oligarchic republican vision that explains property acquisition and inequality. Although Palmieri’s ideas are fundamentally Ciceronian, he updated ancient arguments with contemporary concerns over credit, fiscal equity, and redistribution. In part, civic concord and the benefits of social peace were achieved through governance of the public funds that could be used to reinforce the privileged industry of the wealthy taxpayer, whose virtuous acts benefitted the whole community and could keep in check the perceived dangers of the poor and unemployed popolo minuto.

CHAPTER 5

Work, Morality, and Discipline in Sixteenth-Century Geneva Graeme Murdock

The 1536 political revolution in Geneva was quickly followed by the formal adoption of a Reformed church as the state religion of the new Republic. The executive Small Council of the Republic employed as one of the pastors for the city’s churches a French refugee and humanist intellectual, John Calvin.1 Calvin’s ideas about God, the human condition, and salvation profoundly influenced the emerging character of the

G. Murdock (B) Department of History, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland e-mail: [email protected] 1 F. Wendel, Calvin. The Origins and Development of His Religious Thought (London: Collins, 1963); Q. Breen, John Calvin: A Study in French Humanism (London: Archon, 1968); T. H. L. Parker, Calvin’s Doctrine of the Knowledge of God (Edinburgh: Oliver Boyd, 1969); T. H. L. Parker, John Calvin: A Biography (London: J. M. Dent and Sons,

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 G. Almási and G. Lizzul (eds.), Rethinking the Work Ethic in Premodern Europe, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38092-1_5

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Reformed church in Geneva as well as other Reformed churches in states and societies far beyond the city’s walls. However, Calvin also faced persistent and entrenched resistance within Geneva from other pastors, from members of elite families, and from ordinary women and men to some of his ideas and to his demands for changes to religious practices and moral norms. The Genevan population swelled during the middle decades of the sixteenth century with an influx of thousands of migrants (mostly, but not only, from the French monarchy), attracted in part or in whole by the opportunity to freely practise their religion. Not least because of support from these refugee families, by the mid-1550s Calvin and his supporters were able to overcome the political opposition of largely Genevan-born elite families to their vision of the right practice of moral discipline within the state. These refugees also proved of considerable economic benefit to Geneva, and exiles were among entrepreneurial artisans who developed successful enterprises in a range of different areas of production in Geneva.2 This article will reflect on ideas about work and the practice of moral discipline in sixteenth-century Geneva. We will first consider how Calvin’s own life was portrayed as entirely dedicated to work, before turning to analyse the programme of moral discipline pursued in Geneva. We will assess the representation of Calvin’s life as directed by a consistent moral purpose to work for the cause of true religion. Calvin’s first biographer provided a resonant and enduring image of the reformer as engaged in endless labours on behalf of the church and community in Geneva. In connecting Calvin’s apparent work ethic to the forces that shaped the

1975); H. Höpfl, The Christian Polity of John Calvin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982); W. J. Bouwsma, John Calvin. A Sixteenth-Century Portrait (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988); A. Ganoczy, The Young Calvin (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1988); B. Cottret, Calvin. A Biography (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000); R. A. Muller, The Unaccommodated Calvin. Studies in the Foundation of a Theological Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000); B. Gordon, Calvin (New Haven, CT, 2009). 2 J. Balserak, A Companion to the Reformation in Geneva (Leiden: Brill, 2021); E. W. Monter, Calvin’s Geneva (Huntington, NY: Krieger, 1975); G. Lewis, “Calvinism in Geneva in the Time of Calvin and Beza, 1541–1608,” in International Calvinism, 1541– 1715, ed. M. Prestwich (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), 39–70; W. Naphy, Calvin and the Consolidation of the Genevan Reformation (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994); A.-M. Piuz and L. Mottu-Weber, L’économie genevoise, de la Réforme à la fin de l’Ancien Régime, XVI e –XVIII e siècle (Geneva: Droz, 1990); E. W. Monter, “The Italians in Geneva, 1550–1600: A New Look,” in Genève et l’Italie, ed. L. Monnier (Geneva: Droz, 1969), 53–77.

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attitudes of Genevans (including the city’s industrious and innovative artisans), we will not emphasise the communication or reception of Reformed soteriology as a causative force in the development of attitudes about work and discipline. Rather, consideration of the impact of moral discipline in Geneva tends in the first place to support the image of Calvin as engaged in endless labour to promote his vision of religious and moral reform. It also supports a view of the variegated and complex role of Reformed religion in sixteenth-century Geneva rather than providing any solid basis for grand narratives about long-term cultural change in Geneva or in other Reformed societies.

Calvin and Work John Calvin’s most fervent admirers and his most strident detractors could largely agree that he lived an industrious life even if they disagreed entirely about the motives and impact of his labours. Calvin’s life as a theologian, church leader, and pastor was filled with reading, writing, and speaking. Such scholarly dedication was hardly unique to Calvin and reflected a common set of values in all religious traditions after the Reformation as a shared inheritance from earlier generations of humanist intellectuals. Nevertheless, the ways in which Calvin’s commitment to work was represented are of interest not least because of the powerful legacy of Weberian ideas that have long associated Reformed Protestants with particular ideas about a work ethic. When Calvin’s life of work was described by his first biographer, Theodore Beza, there was very little in the text to suggest any direct connection between Calvin’s work ethic and his internalisation of ideas about election and vocations. Beza’s biography, first published in the year of Calvin’s death in 1564, focused on commemorating Calvin’s lifetime of commitment to the church in Geneva at the cost of his health. According to Beza, Calvin’s hard work drove him to an early grave. Calvin’s labours were presented as a form of martyrdom in the context of an emerging cult of martyrs in sixteenth-century Reformed religion. This image of Calvin as a martyr to his work was also well-suited to the genre of biography that Beza was attempting to construct. In Beza’s work, Calvin could not be portrayed as a Reformed saint with the capacity to perform miracles but he could show an entirely human, if divinely inspired, sacrificial dedication to labour in the cause of true religion. Beza’s text was published as stories of those suffering persecution and death at the hands of the authorities and Catholic community in France were being compiled

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and began to circulate. Calvin was open to criticism from Reformed readers in France that while they endured persecution he remained in exile and relative safety behind Geneva’s walls. Beza’s portrayal defended Calvin as a martyr who suffered and died for the Reformed cause in a manner obviously different from, but nevertheless comparable with, those who died at the hands of Catholics within the French monarchy.3 Beza’s work proved very popular among readers with a number of reprints in 1564 and 1565. There were quickly translations of the work published in English, German, and Latin. The text was also revised and published as a preface to Calvin’s commentary on the book of Joshua in 1565 which was reprinted both separately and as a preface five times by 1663.4 While the text proved a success, Beza was very aware of the difficulties of his task as a biographer of Calvin. For one thing, Beza had first come from France to Geneva in 1548. Remaining only briefly in the city, he moved to Lausanne where he taught Greek at the academy. In 1558 Beza moved back to Geneva where he served as a pastor and taught at the new academy in the city. In the following years up to Calvin’s death, Beza was absent from Geneva on several occasions. He was not therefore a first-hand witness of the greater part of Calvin’s life. Beza was also keenly aware that his work would attract not only Reformed readers but also Catholic opponents only too ready to identify and use any errors in the text to undermine the overall purpose of the biography of defending the reputation of both Calvin and the Reformed church in Geneva.5 Beza was certainly very concerned to avoid any suggestion that he was providing Reformed religion with a new saint. Beza opened 3 J. Tucker, The Construction of Reformed Identity in Jean Crespin’s “Livre des Martyrs” (London: Routledge, 2017). P. Benedict, Graphic History: The Wars, Massacres and Troubles of Tortorel and Perrissin (Geneva: Droz, 2007). 4 I. Backus, Life Writing in Reformation Europe. Lives of Reformers by Friends, Disci-

ples and Foes (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008), 127–28; D. Ménager, “Théodore de Bezè, biographie de Calvin,” Bibliotheque d’Humanisme et Renaissance 45 (1983), 231–55; see Discours de M. Théodore de Besze, contenant en bref l’histoire de la vie et mort de Maistre Iean Calvin avec le Testament et derniere volonté dudit Calvin (Geneva: S.n., 1564); and Commentaires de M. Jean Calvin, sur le livre de Josué. Avec une preface de Theodore de Bèze, contenant en brief l’histoire de la vie et mort d’iceluy (Geneva: François Perrin, 1565). 5 K. M. Summers, Morality After Calvin. Theodore Beza’s Christian Censor and Reformed Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017). Theodore Beza at 500. New Perspectives on an Old Reformer, eds. K. M. Summers and S. M. Manetsch (Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2020).

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his text with a careful and even nervous defence of his endeavour. Beza presented his motivation as merely “to maintain the truth” about Calvin’s life and to write a “simple narrative.” Beza suggested that “nobody, I presume, will deny, that of all the works of God, men best deserve to be known and observed, and of men, those of them who have been distinguished at once for learning and piety.”6 Beza wrote that while it was entirely appropriate to “commemorate the labours which holy men have undertaken on behalf of religion, together with their words and actions” this was a “very different thing” from the work of writers of saints’ lives who “either bring disgrace on the lives of men who were truly pious, by narratives not less impious than childish… or compose fabulous histories filled with the vilest falsehoods… and endeavour, moreover, to bring back the idols of the ancient gods, the only difference being a change of name.”7 That having been said, Beza then presented Calvin to his readers at the beginning of his text as a “Christian Hercules.”8 This image suggested a life of penitential labour and emphasised the particular significance, extent, and moral meaning of Calvin’s work. Beza highlighted from the beginning of his biography that Calvin’s life of dedication to work would come at a cost. As a student, “in the midst of his other labours, he [Calvin] made so great a progress in the study of the Scriptures, which he at the same time diligently prosecuted, that all those who were zealous to be instructed in the reformed religion, frequently applied to him for information, and were struck with deep admiration of the extent of his erudition, and of the ardour of his pursuits.” Fellow students reported that Calvin “was accustomed at this period of his life, after taking a very frugal supper, to pursue his lucubrations till midnight, and employ his morning hours in bed, reviewing, and as it were, digesting the studies of the preceding night; nor did he easily allow any interruption to this train of meditation.” Beza concluded that Calvin’s commitment to his studies as a young man “assisted him indeed in attaining solid erudition, and improving an excellent memory, but there is every reason for thinking

6 Quotations here are taken from Theodore de Beza, The Historie of the Life and Death of Maister Iohn Calvin (London: Henry Denham, 1564), 1–2. 7 Beza, The Historie of Calvin, 1. 8 Ibid., 39.

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that in return he contracted a weakness of the digestive organs, productive of various diseases, and finally even of an untimely death.”9 As Beza set out Calvin’s later career, his role in the church in Geneva, as well as his publications, an overarching sense of Calvin’s enduring and constant labour is a consistent theme. Continuing his expressed commitment to rehearse only a “simple narrative” of Calvin’s activities, Beza suggested that the “following statement of facts will enable us to form a judgment of his ordinary labours.”10 Beza listed the key features of Calvin’s everyday work in his pattern of giving sermons on Sundays and at weekday services, his prominent role on Thursdays at meetings of the city’s consistory, and his regular contributions on Fridays at formal lectures and Bible study meetings open to both clergy and interested laity.11 Beza also listed Calvin’s literary output of commentaries and polemic works as well as the demands to keep up exchanges with any number of correspondents. Beza noted that the “various labours in which Calvin was thus involved by writing, admonishing, and exhorting, and by other methods of affording assistance, are clearly proved by the great number of his published letters.”12 Beza also insisted on the quality of Calvin’s work in these different arenas of speaking and writing. He wrote that “Calvin filled the minds of his hearers with as many most weighty sentiments as he uttered words.”13 Beza concluded by again drawing the contrast between this demanding routine and Calvin’s physical state. He wrote that “every attentive reader of his numerous productions will be astonished to find one weak little man able to accomplish so many and such great labours.”14 Beza presented Calvin’s career as a constant battle against enemies of true religion both within the city and beyond that demanded he maintain a ceaseless campaign of work. Although regarded “with terror by the wicked,” “many opponents were still raised up to keep him actively

9 Ibid., 2–3. 10 Ibid., 9. 11 E. A. McKee, The Pastoral Ministry and Worship in Calvin’s Geneva (Geneva: Droz, 2016); E. de Boer, The Genevan School of the Prophets: The congrégations of the Company of Pastors and Their Influence in 16th Century Europe (Geneva: Droz, 2012). 12 Beza, The Historie of Calvin, 11. 13 Ibid., 10–11. 14 Ibid., 9.

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employed.” The pastors in Geneva, including Calvin, also took on new and time-consuming duties because of the opposition they encountered. Beza wrote that in 1550 the consistory resolved that the ministers “should not confine their instruction to public preaching, which was neglected by some, and heard with very little advantage by others, but at stated seasons should visit every family from house to house… to explain the Christian doctrines to the common people and require from everyone a brief account of their faith.”15 Beza explained how Calvin at the same time undertook a ceaseless schedule of work for the church in Geneva and the wider Reformed world. By way of example, Beza presented Calvin’s activities in 1554 when he published a “copious refutation of the doctrine of Servetus,” undertook “unwearied labours” in dealing with other threats to the church, “continued to be very much occupied” and “laboured by his usual reproofs to recall the abandoned to habits of virtue,” while also engaged in “great labours” for the advantage of different churches inducing “many princes to embrace the Gospel” through his correspondence.”16 In the following year, while there was a “desired rest” within the church and state of Geneva from its “domestic contentions,” according to Beza Calvin was still “not left without occasion for strenuous exertions” in particular through promoting the cause of reform in Poland. Beza noted that Calvin was “the first, and almost the only person in our time, who with so much labour” battled against anti-Trinitarianism and other “blasphemies.”17 As Beza’s narrative moved on to the late 1550s he turned ever more to the impact of Calvin’s commitment to work on his health. In 1559 Calvin fell victim to a fever and “the result of our experience has too strongly confirmed the prognostic sentiments of our physicians, that this disease is fatal to men of advanced life.” The impact of this fever “reduced his body, thin and worn out with labours and constant exertions, to a state of debility from which he never afterwards completely recovered.”18 Beza explained that doctors advised Calvin to rest and his friends implored him to “pay some regard to his health.” While Calvin did stop giving public sermons, he “continued day and night to the dictating and writing

15 Ibid., 17. 16 Ibid., 23. 17 Ibid., 27. 18 Ibid., 28.

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of various letters” and “very frequently uttered the following sentence: “How unpleasant to me is an idle life!” For Beza, even the suggestion that Calvin was idle seemed remarkable since “such of us as enjoyed a good state of health, might justly be regarded idlers when compared with him.”19 In the following years, Calvin’s “bodily infirmities were likewise so much increased, that it might even be easily foreseen he was hastily advancing to a better state of existence.” However, despite this, Calvin continued “to comfort and encourage such as suffered under affliction, and to preach, and deliver lectures on divinity.”20 By 1563, Beza reported that Calvin’s “bodily infirmities became so severe and complicated that it is indeed incredible that such a brave and noble soul could have been any longer confined in a body of so much weakness, exhausted by so many labours, and worn down at last by such a variety of diseases. Yet when his body was even in such a state of debility, he could not be induced to spare himself.” Calvin continued to write and delivered his last sermon in February 1564 even if only “with difficulty.”21 Beza commented that Calvin’s diseases were by this stage various and complicated and “contracted by incredible labours of mind and body.” Though “tormented by so many diseases,” as described by Beza in some detail, “no one ever heard him utter a word unbecoming a man of bravery, much less a Christian.” Despite all the efforts of his friends to urge Calvin to rest and reduce his burdens of work, Beza wrote that he replied “would you have my Lord find me idle when he cometh?”22 Beza also reproduced Calvin’s last speech in which he offered his own review of his life of work for the church in Geneva. Calvin declared that he had diligently endeavoured to preach and to interpret the Scriptures and that “unless the infinite bounty of God had been present, all my study would have been vain and transient.”23 He continued that “my study and my zeal, if they deserve the name, have been so remiss and languid, that I confess innumerable things have been wanting in me to discharge the duties of my office in an excellent manner.”24 In this final address 19 Ibid., 28. 20 Ibid., 30. 21 Ibid., 31. 22 Ibid., 31. 23 Ibid., 33. 24 Ibid., 33.

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to Geneva’s councillors given in his home, Calvin sought their pardon “for having performed so little either in my private or public capacity, in comparison with what I ought to have done.” Calvin then encouraged his fellow ministers to “persist” in their work, and Calvin also “perceived at length that the Lord had in reality blessed my labours.”25 Beza’s final commentary on “this splendid light of the reformation” returned inevitably to the theme of Calvin’s work, his body, and his physical suffering. Beza emphasised that Calvin’s “dress, neither highly ornamental nor slovenly, was well-suited to his singular modesty; his victuals were so moderate that they were very far removed from the pride of luxury, or the littleness of parsimony” and that “his numerous labours answer the charge of his delighting in luxury and indulgence.”26 Beza acknowledged that Calvin was “naturally of an irritable temperament, and this fault was augmented by the excessive laboriousness of his life. But the Spirit of the Lord had so taught him to moderate his anger, that he was never heard to utter a word unbecoming a good man, or which went beyond the bounds of virtue.”27 Beza’s assessment of the place of work in Calvin’s life is difficult to contradict. Calvin’s remarkable literary output, vast correspondence, and record of involvement in the life of the Genevan church provided those clear facts that Beza told his readers would be basis of his “simple narrative.” However, Beza’s construction of that narrative had a clear set of purposes for the readers of the mid-1560s. He provided his Reformed readers with a text that defended the reputation of the leader of the Genevan church from polemic attacks.28 Beza offered a clear image of Calvin as blessed by God to act as a divinely inspired prophet able to provide authoritative interpretation of the Bible.29 Finally, Calvin was a martyr who willingly embraced suffering as a consequence of his labours for the church. Beza also wanted to ensure that readers understood that Calvin had died well. A considerable portion of Beza’s text was devoted

25 Ibid., 34, 36. 26 Ibid., 38, 40. 27 Ibid., 39. 28 Note the negative biography of Calvin by Jérôme Bolsec, Histoire de la vie, moeurs, actes, doctrine, constance et mort de Jean Calvin… (Paris: G. Mallot, 1577). 29 J. Balserak, John Calvin as Sixteenth-Century Prophet (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014).

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to Calvin’s final days and death. This theme of dying well was of enduring cultural resonance within Reformed societies though of little obvious religious relevance given the nature of Reformed doctrine on salvation. The image of the martyr Calvin who worked himself to death for the cause of true faith was not memorialised in stone but rather established through the language of Beza’s biography. After Calvin’s death, on his own instructions, his body was placed in an unmarked grave to avoid any veneration of his earthly remains—a final gesture suggesting both humility and pride. Beza’s representation of Calvin’s life had any number of purposes. It was significant for Beza personally as he succeeded Calvin as moderator of the Company of Pastors. Beza also mounted a credible and powerful defence of the reputation of the leading figure of the Reformed church in the Genevan republic, and by extension a defence of that Reformed church and Genevan republic. Beza’s focus on Calvin’s dedication to his work placed Calvin into a model of a suffering servant of the church at a time of conflict and persecution for the Reformed community in the French monarchy. Calvin’s character through his work was in some ways exemplary; under God’s providence, Calvin had been a willing labourer in Geneva. At the same time, there was a strong sense in which Calvin’s life of work was in no small measure a clear rebuke to the people of Geneva. Why had Calvin been forced to strive over so many years against opponents of his teaching and detractors of his plans to reform the moral life of the city? Why did people not attend more sermons or pay more attention to sermons? Beza himself admitted that preaching was “neglected by some, and heard with very little advantage by others.”30 Why had the consistory needed to meet so late into the evenings on Thursdays as Calvin and his colleagues listened to the obfuscations and lies of those brought before them for religious and moral offences? One obvious cause for Calvin’s need for such a determined work ethic was his battle against religious indifference, irreligion, and immorality in Geneva. Beza did not write of how Calvin’s dedicated leadership and service had been matched by the commitment of Genevans to build up the church and the moral life of their community. Calvin’s exceptional work ethic rather served to emphasise the shortcomings of the people of Geneva. Beza’s text reflected Calvin’s perception of his own life in Geneva as a constant battle against

30 Beza, The Historie of Calvin, 17.

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those who were neglectful in their religious duties and who lacked consistent commitment to a life of moral virtue. In reading Beza’s biography, Calvin’s Genevan readers could celebrate the dead reformer’s dedication to their city, but were hardly invited by Beza to rest on their own laurels.

The Work of Moral Discipline The experience of Reformed Christianity as lived by ordinary women and men in Geneva seems in many ways rather remote from Calvin’s life dedicated to sacrificial endeavour and serious moral purpose for the cause of true religion. Life in Geneva was certainly impacted by Calvin’s preaching, by his leadership of the Company of Pastors, and by his advocacy that the Council should adopt an institutionalised approach to promote high levels of moral discipline in the city. Calvin’s attempts to advance strict standards of morality within Geneva had a clear narrative development. Before Calvin ever arrived in the city, the call for moral renewal had been a significant part of the appeal of religious reform. Clergy through their sermons offered moral advice and warnings about the need for the people to repent of their sins to avoid divine judgement. In 1541 Calvin returned to Geneva after a three-year absence in Strasbourg following a dispute with the city authorities. As part of the arrangements under which Calvin agreed to return to Geneva, the Council considered and agreed proposals for new ordinances to regulate the life of the church in the Republic. These new ordinances included provision for a new consistory to be staffed by councillors and clergy (who were employees of the Council) to oversee religious observance and the moral life of the community.31 Calvin and his supporters saw themselves as engaged through this consistory in a battle against lukewarm enthusiasm to embrace true

31 R. M. Kingdon, Reforming Geneva: Discipline, Faith and Anger in Calvin’s Geneva (Geneva: Droz, 2012). See also essays on the Genevan consistory in Judging Faith, Punishing Sin: Inquisitions and Consistories in the Early Modern World, eds. G. Starr-LeBeau and C. H. Parker (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017); J. R. Watt, The Consistory and Social Discipline in Calvin’s Geneva (Rochester, NY: Univeristy of Rochester Press, 2020); S. M. Manetsch, Calvin’s Company of Pastors. Pastoral Care and the Emerging Reformed Church, 1536–1609 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). M. Engammare, On Time, Punctuality, and Discipline in Early Modern Calvinism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009); P. S. Gorski, The Disciplinary Revolution: Calvinism and the Rise of the Early Modern State (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003).

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religion and immoral conduct at all levels of society. However, others opposed the intrusive powers of the consistory not (as Calvin alleged) merely in order to evade a strict moral code. Some Genevans simply reacted angrily to persistent inquiries from clergy about the most intimate details of their lives and to humiliating reprimands for perceived offences. Members of many of the city’s leading families as well as many ordinary people resented the power of Calvin and his largely French-born ministerial colleagues.32 In the face of both elite and popular resistance to the consistory and its programme of moral discipline, Calvin and his allies looked for further powers to buttress their appeals to the consciences of believers and the consistory’s efforts to reprimand offenders and foster repentance among members of the church. Calvin was certain that the “safety of the church rests on nothing but the power of excommunication to cleanse it, to restrain evil desires, to remove shameful behaviour, and to correct wrong ways of acting.” Once the faction around Ami Perrin was ousted from power, the Council agreed that the consistory should be granted the power to excommunicate church members.33 Calvin’s attitude towards these mechanisms to advance moral discipline was founded upon his conviction that the faithful who heard the Gospel should respond by aspiring to live pious lives, although their dedicated labours to do so were not the means by which they achieved righteousness before God. Christian freedom was confidence in the knowledge that God would not judge people according to the perfect standards of his laws but rather that God would save his people as a demonstration of his

32 E. W. Monter, “The Consistory of Geneva, 1559–1569,” Bibliotheque d’Humanisme et Renaissance 38 (1976), 467–84; R. White, “Oil and Vinegar: Calvin on Church Discipline,” Scottish Journal of Theology 38 (1985), 25–40; M. Valeri, “Religion, Discipline, and the Economy in Calvin’s Geneva,” Sixteenth Century Journal 28 (1997), 123–42; R. M. Kingdon, “The Control of Morals in Calvin’s Geneva,” in The Social History of the Reformation, eds. L. P. Buck and J. W. Zophy (Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 1972), 3–16; R. M. Kingdon, “Calvin and the Establishment of Consistory Discipline in Geneva: The Institutions and The Men Who Directed It,” Nederlands Archief voor Kerkgeschiedenis 70 (1990), 158–72; E. W. Monter, “Crime and Punishment in Calvin’s Geneva, 1562,” Archiv Für Reformationsgeschichte 64 (1973), 281–87; S. M. Manetsch, “Pastoral Care East of Eden: The Consistory of Geneva, 1568–1582,” Church History 75 (2006), 274–313. 33 Registres de la Compagnie des pasteurs de Genève au temps de Calvin, eds. R. M. Kingdon and J.-F. Bergier, 12 vols. (Geneva: Droz, 1964–95), 1:59; J. Calvin, Ecclesiastical Advice, trans. M. Beaty and B. W. Farley (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1991), 111–2.

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grace.34 Christian freedom also meant that people were not obliged to abide by regulations on matters which were indifferent to their salvation. However, things were only indifferent, “provided they are used indifferently,” and Christian liberty was according to Calvin often “perversely interpreted by those who use it as a cloak for their lusts, that they may licentiously abuse the good gifts of God.”35 Calvin thus intended to free Christians to live in Geneva according to their consciences. A Christian’s conscience was, according to Calvin, a “living inclination to worship God, a sincere desire to live piously,” and a “kind of middle place between God and men.”36 So while it seemed to Calvin that although the “liberty of the Christian in external matters is not to be tied down to a strict rule” still, “he must indulge as little as possible; on the other hand, it must be a constant aim, not only to curb luxury, but to cut off all show of superfluous abundance.”37 For example, if Christians were to “understand that it is of no consequence in the sight of God whether they eat flesh or eggs, whether they are clothed in red or black, this is amply sufficient… therefore, though they should afterwards, during their whole life, abstain from flesh, and constantly wear one colour, they are not less free.”38 In Calvin’s theology, moral discipline was, therefore, a reflection of a true Christian freedom. The morality of an individual was not only a personal and private matter but also affected neighbours and the community. Embracing a life of moral discipline was thus a requirement for those wishing to participate in the sacraments to avoid public scandal. The role of the church in exerting discipline over church members was to assist pious individuals in their moral struggles, to challenge the indifferent as “a kind of fatherly rod,” and to chastise those who have committed some “grievous lapse.”39 When offenders appeared before the consistory, clergy 34 J. Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. H. Beveridge, 3 vols. (Edinburgh:

Calvin Translation Society, 1845–46), 2:430 (3/19/2), 2:436 (3/19/9). K. Barth, The Theology of John Calvin, trans. G. W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995), 196–7. 35 Calvin, Institutes, 2:436 (3/19/9). 36 Ibid., 3:195 (4/10/3–4). 37 Ibid., 2:297 (3/10/4). 38 J. Calvin, Commentary on the Epistles of Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians, trans.

J. Pringle, 2 vols. (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1848–49), 1:341–42; Calvin, Institutes, 2:438 (3/19/10). 39 Calvin, Institutes, 3:248 (4/12/1), 3:250–51 (4/12/5).

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and elders required a verbal performance of repentance as a signal of acceptance of the authority of the church and to reveal the truly penitent heart of the sinner. The consistory questioned people about their wrongdoing, with the clergy and elders looking for people to give truthful evidence about their behaviour, to admit their faults, to be reconciled with their enemies, to express sincere repentance for their offences, and to humbly accept a reprimand for their behaviour. The consistory often had to listen to evasive answers and conflicting testimony from different witnesses. Some people were caught openly lying, while others refused to answer questions or refused to attend when summoned to appear before the consistory. The consistory proved itself to be both determined and patient, and in many cases, their persistence was rewarded by many people who eventually expressed regret for their past behaviour and promised to amend their ways in future. Calvin and his colleagues did not expect that the consistory would ever run out of sinners to call to attend their weekly meetings. Rather the clergy and elders were embarked on an endless war against the challenge of sin in their community. The consistory was on the front-line of a corporate effort to challenge sinful behaviour and confront reluctant penitents. The clergy and the elders through their warnings and disciplinary sanctions were ever watchful and active in the community aiming to keep hearts and minds focused on the business of preventing and responding to moral challenges. In the busy lay monastery that was Reformed Geneva, citizens and residents of the Republic were supposed as members of the state church to commit to consistent thought and methodical action to counteract waves of sinful desire and emotion. The vocabulary that was frequently adopted to explain this world of discipline was one of labour. There was also a rhythm to the work of moral discipline around the meetings of the consistory on Thursdays, and seasons of disciplinary action with busy periods of work for the consistory in the weeks leading up to Communion services as people acknowledged the need to be reconciled with the church if they wanted to gain access to the sacrament. The words and actions of clergy and elders and the work of the state’s consistory injected ideas about morality and discipline into the Genevan community. What individual Genevans made of it all is very difficult to know (though the records of interviews in the consistory are often compelling). The meaning of silence as an individual appeared before the consistory to listen to a rebuke of their conduct and the internal thoughts behind expressed regret for contravening the church’s demands remain entirely beyond our

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reach. Nevertheless, the role of the consistory and its dedicated work to promote high standards of moral conduct impacted the everyday lives of Genevans in much more obvious ways than any popular reception of abstract and complex ideas about callings and vocations within a scheme of predestination.

Efforts to Reform Clothing and Appearance To trace the very mixed impact of this collective labour of clergy, elders, Council, and community in pursuit of moral discipline in Geneva, we turn to a key concern of the consistory of the moral challenges associated with the human body and clothing.40 Theodore Beza had emphasised Calvin’s commitment to modesty and moderation in his own appearance in his biography, commenting that Calvin adopted a balance between luxury and parsimony in his clothing.41 Concealment of the body in sober, undecorated clothing was conceived by Calvin in his own writing as one important way in which individuals could signal their embrace of Reformed religion. Calvin wrote that his efforts to reform standards of appearance in Geneva were like “undertaking a war not just against one person or another but against this entire age,” and that although some would “look down on me” and others “laugh at me with their usual jokes,” “it will be enough reward for me if some people return to a more 40 For further discussion of the ideas on clothing, appearance, and moral discipline as summarised here see G. Murdock, “Dressed to Repress? Protestant Clergy Dress and the Regulation of Morality in Early Modern Europe,” Fashion Theory. The Journal of Dress, Body and Culture 2 (2000), 179–200. G. Murdock, “Did Calvinists Have a Guilt Complex? Reformed Religion, Conscience, and Regulation in Early Modern Europe,” in Studies in Church History 40. Retribution, Repentance and Reconciliation, eds. K. Cooper and J. Gregory (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2004), 138–58. G. Murdock, “Dress, Nudity and Calvinist Culture in Sixteenth-Century France,” in Clothing Culture, 1350–1650, ed. C. Richardson (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), 123–36. G. Murdock, “Calvin, Clothing and the Body in Reformed Geneva,” Proceedings of the Huguenot Society of Great Britain and Ireland 28 (2006), 481–94. G. Murdock, “The Elders’ Gaze: Women and Consistorial Discipline in Late Sixteenth-Century France,” in John Calvin, Myth and Reality. Images and Impact of Geneva’s Reformer, ed. A. Burnett (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2011), 69–90. G. Murdock, “The Dancing Calvinists of Montauban: Testing the Boundaries of a Reformed Community in the 1590s in France,” in Emancipating Calvin. Culture and Confessional Identity in Francophone Reformed Communities. Essays in Honor of Raymond A. Mentzer, Jr., eds. Karen Spierling, Erik de Boer and Ward Holder (Leiden: Brill, 2018), 44–59. 41 The Historie of Calvin, 38, 40.

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virtuous life, and if I can expose the worthlessness of those on whom neither truth nor honour has any effect.”42 While Calvin emphasised the “wonderful workmanship which God has put into us,” he was anxious that people should not take any undue pride in their bodies.43 Calvin acknowledged that there was “nothing more difficult than to bid farewell to the will of the flesh.” Although Christians “love God in their mind, and with a sincere affection of heart, yet, both are still in a great measure occupied with the lusts of the flesh, by which they are retarded and prevented from proceeding with quickened pace towards God.”44 Calvin identified the eyes as particularly dangerous to a Christian’s moral well-being. He suggested that “our nature is so corrupted as we cannot look upon anything that is termed fair and beautiful, but that instead of being provoked to love God and to praise him for his goodness, and for bestowing of so many benefits upon us; we offend him.”45 Calvin argued that while the “eye of itself would not sin, unless it be provoked by an evil mind,” and that if the “heart were not already infected and corrupted with some lewd liking; the eye should be pure and clean.” However, he also argued that it was true that sometimes “our bodily senses make us to conceive some evil thought.” Therefore, Christians must train their eyesight to become “more pure and chaste than it is, and all our senses, as our hearing, our speaking and all the rest.” Calvin acknowledged that even if we cannot rule ourselves “to be utterly faultless,” still we should learn to “keep good watch,” seek forgiveness from God for our sins. The life of a Christian, therefore, involved a constant labour to keep watch over the unruly body.46

42 Calvin, Ecclesiastical Advice, 84. 43 J. Calvin, Sermons Upon the Booke of Iob, trans. A. Golding ([London]: [Henry

Bynneman], 1574), 182a. 44 Calvin, Institutes, 2:263 (3/7/3), 2:269 (3/7/8), 2:432 (3/19/4). 45 Calvin, Sermons upon Iob, 522b. 46 Ibid., 522b, 523a, and 529a.

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Calvin understood that the Bible advised that only “two things are to be regarded in clothing; usefulness and decency, and what decency requires is moderation and modesty.”47 Moderation in expenditure on clothing was a key virtue for Calvin, and he advocated a moderation which was “closer to abstinence than luxury.”48 Calvin indeed suggested that the “life of Christians ought to be tempered with frugality and sobriety, so that the whole course of it should present some appearance of fasting.”49 People were, therefore, not to “wallow in luxury” but to regulate their use of goods. “Let everyone then live in his own station, poorly or moderately, or in splendour: but let all remember that the nourishment which God gives is for life, not luxury.”50 There were particularly grave dangers for the wealthy since; “there is scarcely any one whose means allow him to live sumptuously, who does not delight in feasting, dress, and the luxurious grandeur of his house, who wishes not to surpass his neighbour in every kind of delicacy, and who does not plume himself amazingly on his splendour.”51 Such luxury was indulgent selfishness and demonstrated conspicuous heartlessness towards the poor. “No-one should say, ‘I am not hurting anyone by my manner of dress,’” since “they all bear the blood of the poor, for where do the more fortunate get their wealth except from the poor?” Calvin thus concluded that “the whole body is infected” with the blood of the poor if clothed in extravagant or expensive garments.52 Clothing which was too revealing or which attracted attention to the body according to Calvin unveiled the wearer’s vanity,

47 Calvin, Institutes, 2:295 (3/10/2); J. Calvin, Commentaries on the Catholic Epistles,

ed. J. Owen (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1850), 96. 48 Calvin, Institutes, 2:293 (3/10/1), 2: 297–98 (3/10/5); Calvin, Ecclesiastical Advice, 84. 49 Calvin, Institutes, 2:169 (3/3/17). 50 Ibid., 2:437 (1/19/9), 2: 296 (3/10/3). 51 Ibid., 2:436 (3/19/9). 52 Calvin, Ecclesiastical Advice, 86; Bouwsma, John Calvin, 56; E. A. McKee, John

Calvin on the Diaconate and Liturgical Almsgiving (Geneva, Droz: 1984); J. E. Olson, Calvin and Social Welfare. Deacons and the Bourse Francaise (Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Presses, 1989).

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ambition, and shamelessness, and also fostered sin in the eyes and hearts of others.53 These ideas applied to both women and men. However, this is not to say that Calvin and the consistory did not make distinctions based on gender or that the ideas of male responsibility as fathers and husbands for the behaviour of women in their household were not also frequently rehearsed. Calvin reflected that it was women who were “almost always prone” to the vice of “excessive eagerness and desire to be richly dressed” and the “ambition to show themselves off.” Calvin asked why “do women take so much care to adorn themselves, except that they may turn the eyes of men on themselves?”54 While the Bible did not absolutely condemn the use of gold or of costly jewels, it did condemn their prominent display in adorning the body. “Superfluous ornaments” were temptations to pride and “the evil of vanity, to which women are subject.” Therefore, “wives are to adorn themselves sparingly and modestly: for we know that they are in this respect much more curious and ambitious than they ought to be.”55 Calvin was also concerned that the appearance of men and women had to be clearly different, and thus to see a “woman shaven is a spectacle that is disgusting and monstrous.” Just as it was wrong for “women to affect manliness” in their dress and appearance, so “it is disgraceful for men to become effeminate” for example by allowing their hair to “grow long.”56 Calvin repeatedly expressed his concern about the dangers of effeminacy. If men were moderate in their consumption of goods, they avoided not only gluttony, ambition, pride, excessive show, and austerity, but also effeminacy.57 Before the consistory had been established in Geneva, the Council had paid attention to issues relating to moral appearance and banned

53 Calvin, Institutes, 1:474–75 (2/8/44); J. Calvin, Commentaries on the Epistles to Timothy, Titus, and Philemon, trans. W. Pringle (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1856), 66. 54 Calvin, Commentaries on the Catholic Epistles, 97–98. 55 Ibid., 96; J. Calvin, Commentaries … on the Prophet Ezekiel, 2 vols. (Edinburgh:

The Calvin Translation Society, 1849–50), 2:108. 56 Commentary on … Corinthians, 2 vols. (Edinburgh: The Calvin Translation Society, 1848–49), 1:356 and 362; Calvin, Ecclesiastical Advice, 86; Bouwsma, John Calvin, 35. 57 Calvin, Institutes, 2:296 (3/10/4).

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items of clothing deemed immoral.58 During the 1540s the consistory reprimanded offenders on one specific concern about slashed clothing. Slashed breeches were criticised for their lack of practical use, their vain display, and Calvin advised that wearing garments of many different colours “would not be manly.”59 In March 1546 the Council renewed its ban against slashed clothing. The consistory also reprimanded men who wore slashed breeches. On 20 April 1546, a tailor called Pierre Busevet was questioned by the consistory for wearing slashed breeches and for speaking ill of Calvin. Busevet at first tried to excuse himself but then fell to his knees to display his repentance.60 On 27 May 1547, Pierre Bienvenu appeared before the consistory charged for having said that his son could wear slashed breeches so long as Calvin’s wife was allowed to “wear a bonnet.”61 The same day Calvin explained to councillors his view of the serious problem of slashed breeches in the city. Calvin argued that the Bible required that clothes ought to be made only for necessity. The Council accepted Calvin’s demands that the city’s edict against slashed breeches ought to be better observed and enforced.62 Calvin saw this issue as a clear demonstration of the need for the consistory to redouble its efforts to challenge moral disorder in Geneva. In July 1547 Calvin wrote about the resistance of “many hard-headed and stiff-necked rebels” in Geneva who had adopted “riotous courses to dissipate and abolish all order in the Church.” Calvin thought that the youth of Geneva were “corrupt,” and had become “sorely enraged” about the prohibition against slashed breeches. His opponents had tried to use the issue of breeches “to bring in all manner of disorders.”63 Despite Calvin’s complaints about resistance to good moral order, the Council offered support for the efforts of the consistory (and elders were also councillors) to promote moderate and modest forms of appearance in the city. In May 1547 the Council had discussed the need for

58 Registres du Consistoire de Genève au temps de Calvin, eds. R. M. Kingdon, I. M. Watt and J. R. Watt et al., 16 vols. (Geneva: Droz, 1996–), 2:158, n. 265. 59 Calvin, Commentaries on the Prophet Ezekiel, 2:107. 60 Registres du Consistoire, 2:205; Naphy, Calvin and the Consolidation. 61 Registres du Consistoire, 3:117–18, 125. 62 Registres du Consistoire, 2:158, 3:189. 63 J. Calvin, Letters, trans. J. Bonnet, 2 vols. (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society,

1855–1857), 2:116.

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greater moderation in the consumption of clothing. In January 1549 the Council ordered a statement to be read out from the pulpits which criticised both magistrates and ministers for their failure to set a moral example over a wide range of “iniquities and scandals” including “dissolution in clothing.” The Council accepted that this immorality had enflamed God’s anger against the city.64 The Council renewed its regulations against slashed breeches in 1550, 1551, 1552, 1554, 1555, 1556, and in 1557 when it also banned “loose-fitting trousers, even if they are not slashed.” The prohibition against slashed breeches was then included in more general sumptuary regulations after 1558. Individuals were occasionally discovered to have worn slashed breeches, as in July 1562 when Amblard Pechod was sent to prison for three days and ordered to stitch up his trousers.65 During the 1550s Genevan society underwent rapid change with an influx of refugees including many people involved in textile, clothing, and jewellery production.66 After the defeat of the Perrinist faction in 1555, the consistory was able to work in closer co-operation with the Council and ever more comprehensive regulations on clothing and appearance were introduced in the city. Calvin expressed reservations about the likely success of any such regulations. However, in February 1558 the consistory asked the Council to support its efforts to promote morality in the public appearance and clothing of Genevans. A committee of ministers and magistrates was set up to discuss the issue and then formal city regulations were issued against excesses in clothing and appearance. The apparently limited impact of preaching and of consistorial discipline were bolstered by further state regulations “because superfluities and excess increase among us rather than diminishing, so that by this means great scandal is given to those others who, thinking to find us Christians, on

64 Kingdon and Bergier, Registres de la Compagne des Pasteurs, 1:45–6; Cottret, Calvin,

177. 65 M.-L. de Gallatin, “Les ordonnances somptuaires a Genève au XVI siècle.” Memoires et documents publies par la Societe d’histoire et d’archeologie de Geneve 36 (1938), 207 and 219. 66 Of 2247 refugees who specified their profession when they arrived in Geneva in the 1550s, 672 who were involved in textile production, 181 were cobblers, and 67 were goldsmiths. Monter, Calvin’s Geneva, 5.

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seeing such excesses are scandalised. Against these excesses, no remonstrances have served, but the said excesses increase from day to day, as much in clothing as in banquets and foods.”67 A further set of ordinances on clothing was issued in October 1560. The clergy had made new representations to the Council about the need to combat excesses in clothing. The Council responded by prohibiting a long list of items of clothing, jewellery, and forms of decoration, including slashed breeches, gold or silver chains, farthingales, head-dresses of gold, and any embroidered clothes. No more than two rings were allowed to be worn, except by brides on their wedding day and one day following their wedding.68 The English exile Robert Field suggested that although preaching ought to have been sufficient to inspire Christian behaviour among Genevans, experience had shown that many continued to offend by wearing sumptuous clothing. To ensure that people turned from their love of excess which could provoke divine wrath against Geneva, people living in the city were ordered by the Council to dress “honestly and simply,” and according to their rank. All Genevans were also required to reveal any “persons, which they shall perceive or know, to be offenders against these present ordinances,” and each offence was to be punished by a monetary fine.69 Over time Geneva’s regulations on clothing were extended and became more and more detailed. This was partly because of the need to clarify existing laws and also to keep up with changes in fashion and efforts to circumvent the rules. In November 1562 new ordinances explained that it had only been intended to outlaw silver and gold chains worn around shirt collars out of pride, but not to ban silver belts which were merely worn to be useful. Gold and silver bracelets remained prohibited, but this ban was extended to coral bracelets which had any golden or silver buttons or embellishment on them. On the question of head-dresses, while those made entirely of gold remained banned, the ordinances allowed head-dresses to be worn if they were mostly of silk and only had a few golden buttons on them for decoration. One woman caught 67 Gallatin, “Les ordonnances somptuaires,” 213; Cottret, Calvin, 177–78. 68 M. Roset, Les Chroniques de Genève, ed. H. Fazy (Geneva: Georg, 1894), 423. 69 The lawes and statutes of Geneva, as well concerning ecclesiastical discipline, as civill

regiment, with certained proclamations duly executed, whereby Gods religion is most purely maintained; and their common wealth quietlie governmed, trans. R. Fills (London: Fawcet, 1562), 74v –75v .

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wearing an illegal head-dress in November 1562 was ordered to hand it over to the authorities. She tried to evade punishment by presenting a different head-dress, but her deception was discovered, and she was fined and imprisoned.70 Just after Calvin’s death in 1564 a further set of ordinances on clothing were issued by the Council which again extended and clarified existing regulations. The ordinances demanded that Genevans abandon immodest clothing which brought “great dishonour to this church and its reformation.”71 The Council complained that after hearing “warnings from God’s word, we would have hoped that each person would order themselves voluntarily to all sobriety and honest moderation, according to their rank and vocation. However, the total opposite has happened, to our great regret, and more new and superfluous styles of clothing and other excesses have reached us from foreign countries, instead of correcting the faults which are already here, and it is not possible that more great vices and wrongs should occur, without provoking God’s anger.”72 The 1564 ordinances included a lengthy list of outlawed forms of dress. The regulations prohibited the use of gold and silver in embroidery, trimmings and fringes, gold or silver chains, bracelets, gold belts, cut silk clothes, silk shoes, silk sheaths for swords, and low collars and revealing necklines for women, although silver hooks used to fasten cloaks were permitted. Any immodest enrichment of breeches with slashes, padding, or embroidery was banned, as were gold or silver buckles, and any excessive head-dresses including those made of, or enriched with, gold or silver. Women and girls were not allowed to twist or curl their hair, which “the holy Apostle reproves.” The regulations also specified that the families of artisans were not allowed to wear any garments made of silk or other expensive cloths, while female servants and chambermaids were not allowed to wear any silk head-dresses. All offences against these ordinances were to be fined, and “so that the present ordinances are better observed,” the same penalties were also imposed on any goldsmiths or tailors responsible for making any prohibited items for anyone who lived in Geneva.73 During the latter decades of the sixteenth century, the clergy

70 Gallatin, “Les ordonnances somptuaires,” 219–20. 71 Ibid., 223. 72 Ibid., 223. 73 Ibid., 224–25.

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and consistory continued to press the Council for further regulations on clothing and jewellery. In April 1569 the clergy requested a revision of the regulations, and ordinances were issued again in 1570. In 1574 the Company of Pastors pressed for better enforcement of the clothing ordinances.74 Under further ministerial pressure, in March 1575 the Council issued a new set of ordinances.75 More regulations followed in 1581, which repeated the Council’s determination that “each person should dress honestly and simply according to their estate and quality, and that all, from the least to the greatest should give a good example of Christian modesty to each other.”76 Across the latter decades of the sixteenth century, the Council and clergy persisted with their determined efforts to enforce regulations concerning clothing. Their endless labours to attempt to implement these rules stand again as a testament to the failure of many Genevans to adopt the required moral standards of personal appearance.

Conclusion The degree to which regulations on clothing proved effective in making Genevans dress in a more moderate and modest way is difficult to establish. The Council’s need to issue repeated demands for compliance to their regulations on clothing and jewellery and the relatively small number of prosecutions against offenders both suggest the limits of what regulations of this kind could achieve. However, the consistent promotion of moral reform of clothing and efforts made by the consistory and the Genevan state to enforce these standards had some clear consequences even if they were not exactly what the church and state authorities had intended. In 1601 the first guild of watchmakers was established in Geneva. The development of watchmaking in Geneva was certainly reflective of the ingenuity and commercial acumen of goldsmiths and other craftsmen who included many descendants of refugees who had fled from Catholic persecution in France. However, the innovative turn to watchmaking by goldsmiths, silversmiths, and enamel-workers in Geneva was primarily driven by the need to find a way around the strict moral limits on the production and consumption of goods in the Republic. The livelihood

74 Ibid., 229–32 and 235. 75 Ibid., 236, 239, and 241–42. 76 Ibid., 244–48.

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which the city’s goldsmiths and other skilled artisans could make from selling different pieces of jewellery was affected by regulations banning the wearing of all sorts of different items of gold and silver jewellery. The ordinances introduced in 1564 had demanded that workers leave useless occupations that promoted immorality, and instead be employed in activities that advanced the public good. How could Geneva’s goldsmiths and jewellery-makers preserve their consciences, maintain their social respectability, and ensure that they could employ their skills within viable businesses in the city?77 Necessity proved the mother of invention among the city’s artisans who turned to making watches, viewed by the state authorities as having a practical value and thus exempted from the proscriptions against other purely decorative forms of jewellery. Surviving pieces made by successful Genevan watchmakers of the early seventeenth century are exceptionally beautiful both in the decoration on their faces and in the presentation of their delicate and complex mechanisms. Some watches conveyed direct spiritual messages including watches in the shape of skulls and bearing the text of Psalm 89: 47 (“Remember how short my time is”).78 The amalgamation of different trades into a single professional body to oversee watchmaking in Reformed Geneva might at first sight seem like an example of the spirit of capitalism emerging among industrious Calvinist artisans and proto-capitalists called to a life of hard work in their vocation. Unable to spend the profits of their enterprises on expensive goods banned under Genevan laws, were these Reformed watchmakers also driven by a desire to provide signs of their election through their industry and commitment to hard work? Such ideas lack any clear supporting evidence from the watchmakers themselves. Rather, the watchmakers of Geneva seem more convincing as examples of the creative tensions of life within early modern Geneva. Over decades the clergy in Geneva warned people about the dangers of a life without dedication to moral discipline. The clergy turned increasingly to their state partners to introduce laws to attempt to enforce their vision of a well-ordered community. Whatever progress was made by these campaigns and programmes, one response from producers and consumers 77 Ibid., 223. 78 C. Vincent and J. H. Leopold, “Seventeenth-Century European Watches,” Heilbrunn

Timeline of Art History, March 2009 (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art), and www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/watc/hd_watc.htm [April 2023] for links to some of the pieces in the collection of the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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of jewellery was to embrace the watch as a permitted evasion of the moral disciplinary regime. Watchmaking was a business first developed by Calvinists in Geneva not because the watchmakers had learned from Calvin the ethical value of hard work nor because of the reception of ideas about salvation that sacralised all aspects of life into a methodical system. Rather, the industrious creativity of these watchmakers emerged as a sign of the complexities of Reformed religious culture. The lives of Genevan Calvinists were indeed a constant labour of attempting to balance the demands of work and worship, piety and pragmatism, charity and commerce, beauty and utility, anxiety and certainty, and concern for self with concern for the moral economy of the community.

CHAPTER 6

Critical Responses to the Humanist Work Ethic: The Image of the Pedant Arnoud Visser

Hard work, diligence, and grit are prominent characteristics of the work ethic in the community of humanist scholars that gradually emerged in the fifteenth century and became a European phenomenon in the sixteenth century. In their ambition to promote knowledge of the literature of Antiquity, they tirelessly compared, transcribed, and corrected manuscripts, exchanged information both through their correspondence and by travelling to consult with one another, published a massive number of books (something made considerably easier by the advent of the printing press), and taught generations of schoolboys and university students. The members of this Latin-speaking community differed considerably in background, interests, and ambitions, and the results of their learning varied accordingly. Yet while they may have lacked a coherent programme, they shared a studious approach in which scholarship “was a

A. Visser (B) Department of Languages, Literature and Communication, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 G. Almási and G. Lizzul (eds.), Rethinking the Work Ethic in Premodern Europe, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38092-1_6

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form of work” which, as a leading intellectual historian recently observed, “required drudgery.”1 Modern historians were hardly the first to identify hard work as a striking practice of the humanist community. This commitment to work was very much part of the professional identity and self-perception of the members of this community. Styling themselves as inhabitants of an alternative state, a transnational, cross-confessional Republic of Letters, humanists cultivated specific norms and values amongst which diligent, tireless study was a central virtue.2 Early biographical collections provided models of excellent behaviour. In his biographical gallery of famous customers, the Florentine bookseller Vespasiano da Bisticci, for example, celebrated the time-management skills of the scholar-diplomat Gianozzo Manetti. “He gave no more than five hours to sleep,” Vespasiano writes, “and devoted the rest to study.”3 In the bibliophile scholar Niccolò Niccoli, he praises his tireless efforts to build a library and highlighted the generous help he provided for fellow students. This went together with a lifestyle of almost cultic studious devotion: “he never took a wife so as not to be hindered in his studies. He had a housekeeper to provide for his wants, and was one of the most particular of men in his diet as in all else…”4 As these examples suggest, hard work was an essential part of an ethical code based on the premise that erudition made one a better human being. Scholarly study was not just about acquiring and building on knowledge. It was an instrument of self-realization and a pathway to virtue and self-discipline. Such justifications were similar to those common amongst religious communities, where study and contemplation traditionally served a spiritual purpose. In contrast to the monastic tradition,

1 A. Grafton, Inky Fingers: The Making of Books in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2021), 254. 2 K. Scholten, D. van Miert, and K. Enenkel (eds.), Memory and Identity in the Learned World: Community Formation in the Early Modern World of Learning and Science (Leiden: Brill, 2022); G. Almási, “The Work Ethic in Humanist Biographies: The Case of Willem Canter,” Hungarian Historical Review 8 (2019), 594–619; R. Kirwan (ed.), Scholarly Self-Fashioning and Community in the Early Modern University (Burlington: Ashgate, 2013). 3 Vespasiano da Bisticci, The Vespasiano Memoirs: Lives of Illustrious Men of the XVth Century, trans. W. George and E. Waters (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1963), 373. 4 Bisticci, The Vespasiano Memoirs, 402.

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however, humanist learning was also meant to serve concrete and practical purposes and to be useful in the active life. As teachers, secretaries, diplomats, and historians, humanists promoted studious diligence and erudition as important civic virtues, as attested in a stream of treatises and instructions about the best form of education.5 In addition to cultivating virtues within the scholarly community, therefore, such humanist statements were also meant to convince those outside their professional circle, including potential customers, of the value of their knowledge. The potential customer could be a young aristocrat or even a king, as in the case of Enea Silvio Piccolomini’s treatise De liberorum educatione, written in 1450 as a Christmas gift for Ladislas Posthumus, King of Hungary and Bohemia and also Duke of Austria, then ten years old. “The pursuit of learning,” Piccolomini writes, “offers the greatest assistance in acquiring virtue,” and he recommended it to princes and prospective rulers.6 In another treatise, De ingenuis moribus et liberalibus adulescentiae studiis liber, written around 1402–1403 and directed more generally at young men, Pier Paolo Vergerio explains why a zest for work is an important quality in gentlemen. The best students are those with a “liberal temper,” he writes, meaning that they are “keen for endeavour, flee inaction, and always love to do what is right.” Work, moreover, protects adolescents from potentially harmful, immoral distractions. “Success is most likely if they are never allowed holidays,” Vergerio argues, “for leisure makes young people inclined to lust and every intemperance.” Yet solitude is also to be avoided, “which caresses a weak mind with constant thoughts.”7 With these ideas about the ideal training, humanists positioned themselves as brokers of both prestigious and practical knowledge. Some anecdotes even credit humanism with wielding hard political power. The late fourteenth-century ruler Giangaleazzo Visconti, Duke of Milan, for

5 On humanist ideas about the political significance of their educational programme, see J. Hankins, Virtue Politics: Soulcraft and Statecraft in Renaissance Italy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2019), 20–2 and 42–3; G. Almási, “Educating the Christian Prince for Learning and Peace: The Cases of Archdukes Rudolf and Ernst in Spain (1564–1571),” Central European Cultures 1 (2021), 2–43. For selected examples, see C. Kallendorf (ed. and trans.), Humanist Educational Treatises (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002). 6 Cited from Kallendorf, Educational Treatises, 128–9. 7 Ibid., 10–1.

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example, is famously said to have complained about how the writings of the Florentine chancellor Coluccio Salutati had caused him more harm than a thousand Florentine horsemen. Other indications of the prestige enjoyed by humanist scholars can be found in appointments. Cities, courts, and universities were prepared to pay serious sums of money to attract humanist stars. Even in 1632, Gerardus Vossius was employed by the city of Amsterdam in its newly founded athenaeum for the impressive salary of 2,600 guilders. Success and recognition were not, however, inevitable or uncontested. The social position of humanists was inherently unstable. It required constant justification and advertising of one’s learning, services, and added value. The rhetoric of effort on title pages and prefaces testifies to this need. In contrast to the courtly code of sprezzatura often associated with Renaissance high culture, many humanist authors actually highlighted their burdensome toils, “herculean” labours, and sleepless nights of work by candlelight (lucubrationes ).8 Many of the confident claims to prestige also have to be understood in this light as active contributions in a struggle for recognition and respect. A significant example of this is the scholarly motif of the learned as part of a nobility of the mind, an intellectual aristocracy, every bit as honourable as the nobility of the sword.9 While historians have studied the social challenges faced by professional humanists and the ways in which these challenges impacted their scholarly development, we still have only a limited understanding of the criticism they sought to overcome.10 Critical voices within and outside the learned community targeted in particular what they perceived to be 8 See also Erasmus, Adage, 3.1.1: “Labores Herculi,” which offers a lengthy exposition on the efforts involved in humanist scholarship. On the use of lucubratio, see also M. Lemmer, “Ich hab ettwan gewacht zu nacht. Zum ‘Narrenschiff’-Prolog, Vers 90,” in Kritische Bewahrung: Beiträge zur deutschen Philologie: Festschrift für Werner Schröder zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. E.-J. Schmidt (Berlin: E. Schmidt, 1974), 357–70. 9 M. Füssel, “A Struggle for Nobility: ‘Nobilitas litteraria’ as Academic Self-Fashioning in Early Modern Germany,” in Scholarly Self-Fashioning and Community in the Early Modern University, ed. R. Kirwan (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013), 92–106. See also the seminal study by E. Trunz, “Der Deutsche Humanismus um 1600 als Standeskultur,” in Deutsche Barockforschung: Dokumentation einer Epoche, ed. R. Alewyn (Cologne: Kiepenheuer, 1966), 147–81. 10 Most research in this area focuses on German Späthumanismus: W. Kühlmann, Gelehrtenrepublik und Fürstenstaat: Entwicklung und Kritik des deutschen Späthumanismus in der Literatur des Barockzeitalters (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1982); G. E. Grimm,

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excessive zeal in learning, exemplified in pretentious parading of knowledge or a hypercritical priggishness. Although their objections were not part of a dedicated debate on the idea of the work ethic, they offer an illuminating foil, since they directly address key aspects of the humanist ideal of useful intellectual labour, criticizing them in social terms as forms of excessive, undesirable behaviour. In tracing these critical responses, this chapter focuses on the representation of humanists as pedants. The caricature of the pedant is a sixteenth-century phenomenon. First appearing in early sixteenth-century Italian comedy but clearly resonating with existing caricatures of the scholar, the image of the humanist pedant developed into a negative stereotype that highlights in particular the anti-social nature of these learned men. Warnings against the risks of excessive studiousness can be discerned early on within the intellectual community. By analysing these critical perspectives and placing them in their historical context, this chapter seeks to illuminate how the humanist cultivation of a work ethic with an emphasis on the importance of diligence and devotion provoked a counternarrative that would prove at least equally powerful and effective. The success of this critical narrative can be explained at least in part by competition and envy within the community of scholars. It also reflects, in part, the social tensions between humanists and their intended customers, to whom the humanist commitment to classical learning seemed excessive, pretentious, or uncivil.11 Humanists were never entirely blind to the risks of a bookish, studious life. Even before humanism had grown into a full-blown movement, Petrarch already pondered the addictive nature of the return to classical literature in his Secretum, staging a therapeutic dialogue with Augustine to explore possible cures. In an assessment of the pros and cons of learning

Letternkultur: Wissenschaftskritik und antigelehrtes Dichten in Deutschland von der Renaissance bis zum Sturm und Drang (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1998); M. Füssel, “Die Experten, die Verkehrten? Gelehrtensatire als Expertenkritik in der Frühen Neuzeit,” in Wissen, maßgeschneidert: Experten und Expertenkulturen im Europa der Vormoderne, eds. B. Reich, F. Rexroth and M. Roick (Munich: Oldenbourg Verlag, 2012), 269–88. 11 Much research has been done on the role of civility in the Republic of Letters of the

seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. See S. Shapin, A Social History of Truth (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994) and A. Goldgar, Impolite Learning: Conduct and Community in the Republic of Letters 1680–1750 (New Haven: Yale, 1995). K. Thomas, In Pursuit of Civility: Manners and Conduct in Early Modern England (New Haven: Yale, 2018).

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in De commodis litterarum atque incommodis (c. 1428), Leon Battista Alberti is explicit and extensive about the risks of obsession. Books make the scholar feel guilty about any other form of amusement, and they affect one’s rest, health, even one’s life expectancy and offer only slim chances for worldly success.12 Most relevant for our purposes, however, are the critical perspectives that emerge once humanism had become a successful movement of reform in society, visible especially in educational institutions across Europe. We will consider two types of criticism represented by Erasmus and Montaigne which illuminate conflicts within the intellectual community in the case of Erasmus and social tensions outside it in the case of Montaigne.

Style Over Substance: Erasmus Against Purism In 1528, Erasmus of Rotterdam published a razor-sharp satirical dialogue against linguistic purism titled Ciceronianus (The Ciceronian). Its theme goes back to a fundamental humanist issue: how best to revive classical Latin. The quality of Cicero’s style was beyond doubt, but the extent to which his use of language should be normative became the issue of heated debates from the late fifteenth century onward.13 As a representative of a pragmatic use of Latin, Erasmus lampoons the Ciceronian as an obsessive scholar whose approach to learning was not simply unproductive but also potentially dangerous. The central character of Erasmus’ dialogue is a talented scholar, Nosoponus (Mr Workaholic). His old friends, Bulephorus (Mr Counsillor) and Hypologus (Mr Backup), knew him as an ebullient, sociable man, but when he enters the scene, he appears seriously ill. Bulephorus knows that Nosoponus suffers from a new, mysterious condition, zelodulea, Greek for “imitation-addiction.” When the two friends catch up with Nosoponus, 12 L. B. Aberti, De commodis litterarum atque incommodis, ed. L. G. Carotti (Florence: Olschki, 1976). 13 On the Ciceronian debate, see Remigio Sabbadini’s seminal Storia del ciceronianismo e di altre questioni letterarie nell’età della rinascenza (Turin: Ermanno Loescher, 1885), J. DellaNeva, “Following Their Own Genius: Debates on Ciceronianism in 16th-Century Italy,” in Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Cicero, ed. W. H. F. Altman (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 357–76, and P. Mack, A History of Renaissance Rhetoric, 1380–1620 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), esp. 166–69. For a selection of primary contributions to the debate with English translations, see Ciceronian Controversies, ed. J. DellaNeva, trans. B. Duvick (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007).

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we quickly learn that Nosoponos is addicted to Cicero. He refuses to read works by any other author and has put away all his other books to avoid using “some alien phrase.”14 Erasmus’ satirical portrait shows a scholar with extremely anti-social behaviour. For over seven years, he has essentially been hiding in his study. To protect him from the outside world, the place has been especially adapted “with thick walls and double doors and windows, and all the cracks carefully sealed up with plaster and pitch, so that hardly any light or sound can penetrate even by day.”15 Social interaction would destroy his concentration. A traditional family life and a job are impossible for similar reasons. To free his mind from emotional disturbance, Nosoponus has assumed a semi-monastic lifestyle and has foregone marriage. He has decided neither to take a job nor to assume any public responsibility, as either one would bring too many worries and distractions. Instead, he is completely devoted to Cicero. Painted portraits of the author hang everywhere in his house, and he always carries with him an image of Cicero carved into gems.16 In his portrayal of this Nosoponus’ studies, Erasmus presents his approach as hyper-scrupulous and sterile and obsessed with lists, semantic subtleties, and rewriting. Nosoponus spends most of his time compiling three massive indexes from Cicero’s works. The first offers an exhaustive alphabetical lexicon (not just of single words, but of all their different meanings in different contexts), the second lists word combinations (idiomatic expressions, witticisms, figures of style, etc.), and the third gives an overview of the metrical patterns in Cicero’s oeuvre. Nosoponus reports about his scholarly zeal in relentless detail, including his careful approach to referencing:

14 The English translation is taken from The Ciceronian: A Dialogue on the Ideal Latin Style, trans. and annot. B. I. Knott, in Collected Works of Erasmus [henceforth CWE], vol. 28 (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 1986), 346. For the Latin text, see the edition by P. Mesnard in the Opera omnia Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami [henceforth ASD] I.2 (Amsterdam: North Holland Press, 1971), 609: “Iam annos septem totos nihil attingo praeter libros Ciceronianos, a caeteris non minore religione temperans, quam Cartusiani temperant a carnibus. Bulephorus: quur isthuc? Nosoponus. Ne quid alicunde haereat alienae phraseos…”. 15 CWE28:351; ASD I.2. 16 CWE28:346; ASD I.2: 609.

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And I am not satisfied with recording one or two occurrences, which is what other people do, but every time I come across a usage in Cicero, however similar it is to other examples, without fail I make a note of page, recto or verso, and line, adding a sign to indicate whether it occurs in the middle, beginning, or end of the line.17

Despite their exhaustive coverage, however, these tools do not make Nosoponus’ writing process less cumbersome. Indeed, Erasmus represents his work as overly forced. During his nightly labours (Nosoponus only works when others sleep), he typically manages to produce merely one line. After this tiresome process of composition come the phases of extensive revision, at least ten times, and of putting the text aside, so that even the shortest and most prosaic letters take months to complete. When it comes to speaking, Nosoponus altogether resists the idea of spontaneity. Much to the surprise of his interlocutors, he declares that he generally avoids speaking in Latin and would only agree to speak in public if he had the chance to prepare his speech and learn it by heart. If critics would object that his words “stank of lamp oil,” a proverbial reprove of artificial speech, he would not mind at all.18 This satirical picture of excessive rigour and sterility offers a clear indication of Erasmus’ contrasting values, based on the pragmatic use and practical value of Latin. An arguably more dangerous point of concern behind Erasmus’ satirical picture is religious rather than scholarly. He feared that the Ciceronian attitude could raise the spectre of paganism, on account of the fundamental incompatibility of the ancient vocabulary and the Christian culture of his time. Erasmus illustrates this tension with an anecdote about a Good Friday mass that he had attended in Rome. The anecdote is told by Bulephorus, who explains that the sermon was delivered by a true Ciceronian orator in the presence of Pope Julius II and many cardinals. While technically accomplished, the sermon was anything but effective in Bulephorus’ eyes. When the preacher had sought to appeal to his audience’s emotions, Bulephorus had “wanted to laugh” about the alienating comparisons between Christ’s crucifixion and ancient heroes:

17 CWE28:347; ASD I.2, 610. 18 CWE28:356; ASD I.2: 616. See also Adagia, 1.7.71: “Olet lucernam.”

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He spoke of the Decii and Quintus Curtius who dedicated themselves to the spirits of the dead to save the republic, and of Cecrops, Menoeceus, Iphigenia, and several others who had set the safety and honour of the fatherland above their own lives. With a sob in his throat he bemoaned the fact that the heroes who came to the aid of the republic of Rome by putting themselves in peril received the thanks of the nation by official proclamation: some were awarded a gold statue in the forum, others became the recipients of divine honours; but Christ, in return for his benefits, received from the thankless Jewish race not a reward but the cross, horrible sufferings, and utter degradation.19

In Bulephorus’ eyes, the sermon completely missed the point of Christian gratitude for God’s grace. Instead, it exemplified human arrogance, reducing Christ’s death to the level of ancient men such as Socrates. Also, on a practical level, the linguistic purism of the Ciceronians was problematic. The key words of the Christian faith were all stylistically improper, because they were all “new” words, that is, coined after Cicero had written his oeuvre. In a bravura catalogue of possible Ciceronian alternatives for Christian terms, including “Jupiter Optimus Maximus” for God the Father and “Apollo or Aesculapius” for Christ, Bulephorus points out the absurdity of the ambition to mimic Cicero.20 By thus linking the literary ambition of the Ciceronians to the risk of paganism, Erasmus restated the position of his beloved church father Jerome, who had squarely placed the terms “Ciceronian” and “Christian” in opposition. In a famous letter, Jerome reported of dreaming about an encounter with God, who confronted him with his preference for pagan literature when he declared himself a Christian, saying: “You lie: you are a Ciceronian, not a Christian.”21 This long-standing tension between ancient and Christian culture gains a new significance in the context of the political and religious tensions of the Reformation. When Erasmus’ dialogue was published, the crisis of the Church had also affected relations within the Republic of Letters, notably between scholars from northern Europe and their Italian colleagues. 19 CWE28:385; ASD I.2, 638. 20 CWE28: 388; ASD I.2: 641: “An pro patre Christi dicet, Iuppiter opt. Max.; pro

filio dicet Apollinem, aut Aesculapium…”. 21 Jerome, Letter 22.30 to Eustochium, in Epistulae, ed. I. Hilberg, CSEL 54 (Vienna: Verl. der Österr. Akad. der Wiss., 1996), 1:190: “Et ille, qui residebat: ‘mentiris’, ait, ‘Ciceronianus es, non Christianus; ubi thesaurus tuus, ibi et cor tuum’.”

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Indeed, Erasmus himself had become a controversial figure on account of his agenda for religious reform and its perceived connections to the rise of Luther. In turn, Erasmus here regarded the Ciceronian movement as a sect, like Lutheranism, only in this case with a particular presence in Italian cities, especially Rome. The Ciceronianus thus shows how his critical perspective on scholarly excess was also informed by religious considerations. Where Erasmus exemplifies criticism of perceived aberrations, Montaigne’s essay against pedantry represents a more fundamental type of criticism which questions the intrinsic value of erudition.

Quantity Over Quality: Montaigne Against Useless Knowledge Michel de Montaigne may at first sight seem an unlikely candidate for criticism of the humanist work ethic. He was raised in Latin, educated by a humanist teacher, a German physician probably named Horstanus, who simply knew no French. His Essays (composed between 1571 and 1592) bear all the marks of his intimate acquaintance with the classics of Latin and Greek literature. Indeed, Montaigne opens his essay “Du pédantisme” by admitting that he used to be “upset” about the ridiculing of pedants “as buffoons” in Italian comedies. And yet he later found out that the picture was true.22 His subsequent moral criticism is socially and politically marked, revealing how Montaigne’s aristocratic ethos clashed with humanist educational practice. Montaigne organizes his essay as an attempt to understand how the pursuit of learning could have such a negative effect. He starts by showing that, historically, learning has never been regarded as a guarantee of good behaviour. Even in Antiquity, some of the brightest minds had been ridiculed for their eccentric manners and social indiscretions. Relying on Plato, Montaigne recounts how some early philosophers indulged in

22 M. de Montaigne, Les Essais, eds. P. Villey and V.-L. Saulnier (Paris: Puf, 1965), essay

1.25, p. 133: “Je me suis souvent despité, en mon enfance, de voir és comedies Italiennes tousjours un pedante pour badin, et le surnom de magister n’avoit guiere plus honorable signification parmy nous.” For the English translation, see The Complete Essays, trans. M. A. Screech (London: Penguin, 2003), where the title is translated as “On schoolmasters’ learning,” 150–62, at 150.

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absurd research, spurned public affairs, and exhibited obstinate manners, including a resistance to hierarchy and disrespect for authority: Do they hear a king or their own ruler praised? To them he is but an idle shepherd who spends his time exploiting his sheep’s wool and milk, only more harshly than a real shepherd does. Do you think a man may be more important because he possesses as his own a couple of thousand acres? They laugh at that, used as they are to treating the whole world as their own. Do you pride yourself on your nobility, since you reckon to have seven rich forebears? They do not think much of you: you have no conception of the universality of Nature—nor of the great many forebears each of us has—rich ones, poor ones, kings, lackeys, Greeks, Barbarians…23

To Montaigne, such behaviour exemplifies the ignorance of these philosophers about “basic everyday matters,” despite their obvious intellectual qualities. The humanist teachers of his time, however, are worse, he believes, because they lack quality altogether, are “incapable of public duties,” and show “base, vile morals.”24 A key reason why this could happen, Montaigne suggests, is a mistaken approach to knowledge, according to which quantity is more important than quality. This is a systemic problem that goes beyond the teachers themselves, resulting from a calculating culture that aims for profit rather than value. Parents pay pedagogues to fill the heads of their children with knowledge. Yet strangely enough, according to Montaigne, “nobody talks about judgement or virtue.”25 This leads to a very shallow use of knowledge, in which learning has become a commodity that can be traded without making a useful difference for its possessor: The learning is passed from hand to hand with only one end in view: to show it off, to put into our accounts to entertain others with it, as though it were merely counters, useful for totting up and producing statements, but having no other use or currency.26

23 Trans. Screech, 152; Essai 1.25, p. 134. 24 Trans. Screech, 152; Essai 1.25, p. 135. 25 Trans. Screech, 153; Essai 1.25, p. 136. 26 Trans. Screech, 154; Essai 1.25, pp. 136–37.

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This culture of learning stimulates parroting behaviour, Montaigne argues, and a lazy reliance on external authority, but it does not improve individual judgement. “We know how to say: ‘This is what Cicero said’; ‘This is morality for Plato’ […] But what have we got to say? What judgements do we make? What are we doing?”27 These moral considerations lead Montaigne to examine the difference between learned knowledge on the one hand and judgement, or even wisdom, on the other. Becoming wise, he argues, requires moral improvement of the soul, and knowledge should be a means to this end. Montaigne compares it to eating: “What use is it to us to have a belly full of meat if we do not digest it, if we do not transmute it into ourselves, if it does not make us grow in size and strength?” If learning does not lead to this type of improvement, he would rather have the pupil spend his time playing tennis, so that “at least his body would become more agile.”28 For by itself, bookish knowledge only makes students or teachers more arrogant or downright confused. Suggesting that this observation is more widely shared, Montaigne explains how in his local Périgord dialect, such scholars are called “lettreférits,” as if “their reading has given them, so to speak, a whack with a hammer.”29 This critical view of learning also has a gendered dimension. For Montaigne, knowledge is a “dangerous sword” that can wound “a weak hand.” He suggests that this may also explain why French men “do not require much learning” in their wives.30 On a political level, too, the use of learning is limited. Montaigne approvingly cites classical examples about Sparta, where education was about courageous action and manly valour, contrasting it to Athens, where education was more about successful talking. Such examples clearly show that “studying the arts and sciences makes hearts soft and womanish rather than teaching them to be firm and ready for war.”31 Contemporary examples confirm this, Montaigne argues. The Turks are raised with respect for arms and 27 Trans. Screech, 154; Essai 1.25, p. 137. 28 Trans. Screech, 155–6; Essai 1.25, pp. 137–38. 29 Trans. Screech, 156; Essai 1.25, p. 139. 30 Trans. Screech, 158. Essai 1.25, p. 140. 31 Trans. Screech, 162; Essai 1.25, p. 143. For the reverse image of the Latinate

scholar as a representative of crude and unsophisticated masculinity that emerged in the seventeenth century, see A. J. La Vopa, The Labor of the Mind: Intellect and Gender in Enlightenment Cultures (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017), esp. 33–35.

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contempt for learning, and their state is the strongest of the age. The other example tells of Charles VIII and his easy conquest of Naples (1495), which took place without any armed conflict. Charles’ entourage explained this as a result of the fact that the Italian leaders “spent more time becoming clever and learned than vigorous and soldierly.”32 Montaigne’s essay thus culminates in a strong affirmation of valour over learning as a key to virtue. Yet in drawing such a strong contrast between the traditional aristocratic ethos and the value of learning as promoted by professional humanists, it also raises new questions about Montaigne’s own copious use of learning in his Essays. Montaigne seems aware of this and tries to mitigate the idea of double standards. “Am I for the most part not doing the same when assembling my material?” he writes, labelling it “foolishness.” By showing such awareness, Montaigne subtly marks his own sense of judgement and separates his use of learning from that of pedants he criticizes.33

Criticism from Outside: The Caricature of the Pedant Montaigne’s essay took its cue from recent satirical portrayals of “pedants” in Italian comedies. This development can be pinpointed to the first quarter of the sixteenth century, arising in the commedia erudita, the genre of scripted comedy. The earliest example is a play entitled El pedante by the relatively unknown Roman writer Francesco Belo.34 The title character displays the traits that would become the pedant’s standard features as a farcical type. A messy, unkempt figure, he speaks in a barbarous mixture of Latin and Italian and prides himself on his superior knowledge even as he patently acts like a fool. His comic potential thus revolves around a series of contrasts and oppositions: pretension and incompetence, wisdom and foolishness, words and deeds, high culture and low. The term “pedant” was initially neutral, signifying a professional teacher of Latin grammar, literature, and rhetoric. Yet it is also clear that it

32 Trans. Screech, 162. Essai 1.25, p. 144. 33 Trans. Screech, 154; Essai 1.25, p. 136. 34 F. Belo, El pedante (Rome: Valerio Dorico e Luigi fratelli bresciani, 1529 [lost]; edn

1538).

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concerned a profession that occupied a relatively modest status.35 Indeed, the earliest known uses of the term foreshadow the satirical potential that would eventually be drawn from it. A sonnet by the Florentine barber and poet Burchiello (1404–49) disparages a group of fellow poets as “a band of ignorant pedants” engaged in literary studies.36 Around the same time, another sonnet belittles an aspiring poet as a pedant “who with his speech puffs himself up like a barrel.”37 The caricature of the pedant proved an instant success. During the sixteenth century, he became one of the most frequently used stock characters in Italian comedy. Antonio Stäuble has identified 47 plays featuring pedants by diverse authors, including the master satirist Pietro Aretino and experimenters such as Giordano Bruno and the Neapolitan polymath Giambattista della Porta. The type also appears in the moralizing comedies of Sforza Oddi and Bernardino Pino.38 Apart from the learned, scripted comedy, the pedant also became a popular stock figure in its popular, unscripted counterpart, the commedia dell’arte. Working from brief scenarios that served as a basis for further improvisation by professional actors, these comedies offered a set cast of types that frequently included the figure of the old man Graziano, also known as “il dottore,” often said to be an academic from Bologna, who spoke in a learned yet incomprehensible gibberish of Latin.39 35 On the social position of grammar teachers, see P. Grendler, Schooling in Renaissance Italy: Literacy and Learning, 1300–1600 (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989), 17–20, 36–41. 36 “Un nugol di pedanti marchigiani / che avevano studiato il Pecorone / vidi venire in ver settentrïone / disputando le legge colle mani […]” Cited from M. Zaccarello (ed.), I sonnetti del Burchiello (Turin: Einaudi, 2004), sonnet CLII, pp. 214–5. See for more early references the lemma “pedante” in the Grande dizionario della lingua italiana 12 (1961–2002), 917–18. 37 “Deh, va’, dormi in servizio in un fenile / novel Petrarca, imitator de Dante / omuncol che ti stimi esser gigante / va’ guarda i porci e statte in qualche ovile! / S’tu portasse per lancia un campanile / e cavalcassi sopra uno elefante, non sireste però se non pedante, ché te gonfi nel dir come un barile” The citation is taken from a series of ‘rime di corrispondenza’ by a group of poets surrounding Comedio Venuti (1424–?), a notary and poet from Cortona. See Antonio Lanza (ed.), Lirici toscani del Quattrocento, vol. 2 (Roma: Bulzoni, 1975), 741–42. 38 A. Stäuble, “Parlar per lettera.” Il pedante nella commedia del cinquecento e altri saggi sul teatro rinascimentale (Rome: Bulzoni, 1991), esp. 11–3. 39 P. Jordan, “Pantalone and Il Dottore: The Old Men of Commedia,” in The Routledge Companion to Commedia dell’Arte, eds. J. Chaffee and O. Crick (London: Routledge,

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The pedant’s success as a recurring character trope soon spread beyond the Alps. Beginning in the second half of the century, pedants stepped onto the stage in France, as exemplified in several plays by Pierre de Larivey based on Italian examples. We find new uses of the pedant in the seventeenth century in plays by Cyrano de Bergerac and Molière.40 In English drama, the impact of the Italian invention is also visible, for instance in the character of Holofernes in Shakespeare’s early comedy Love’s Labour’s Lost. Moreover, the phenomenon of pedantry became increasingly a theme of interest off the stage and beyond comedy, finding a place in other literary genres. It appears in dialogues, novels, poems, and essays. The theatrical pedant is especially interesting for our purposes because it brings us closer to the humanists’ customers. These comedies mostly originated in the elite environments of local courts and academies, where amateur actors performed the plays for private audiences of highly educated aristocrats, both male and female. Reflecting this social context, the humour in the plays often served to confirm an upper-class ethos. The critical approach to the pedant should thus be located in precisely the social circles that humanist educators sought to serve with their educational agenda. It seems generally to have functioned as a means of putting the authority and standing of this new class of humanist teachers into perspective. Two specific strategies of this critical script will be examined here: the deflating of intellectual pretensions and the exposure of vanity.

Deflating Pretensions The first strategy, in which the schoolmaster’s pretensions are mocked, magnifies in particular the pedant’s most conspicuous affectation: his manner of speaking, marked by a mix of Latin and Italian, along with a preference for obscure words, technical jargon, and the abundant use of quotations. Competence in Latin implied membership in an elite,

2015), 62–69. For the form and use of scenarios, see R. Andrews (trans. and ed.), The Commedia dell’Arte of Flaminio Scala: A Translation and Analysis of 30 Scenarios (Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press, 2008). 40 J. Royé, La figure du pédant de Montaigne à Molière (Geneva: Droz, 2008); K. Breiding, Untersuchungen zum Typus des Pedanten in der französischen Literatur des 17. Jahrhunderts, PhD thesis Frankfurt on the Main, 1970.

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whether academic or clerical. So when Latin was introduced into an otherwise vernacular speech context, this second language could be seen as an attempt to mark out distinction and claim symbolic capital. In the plays, however, the use of Latin is presented as ridiculous rather than impressive. One form of ridicule is the inversion of high and low culture through the fusion of prestigious knowledge and banal situations. A good example is the first appearance of the pedant Prudenzio in Belo’s Il pedante. In the play, the middle-aged Prudenzio is madly in love with a young girl, itself a well-known scenario for laughter. Yet what makes him look especially ridiculous is his manner of speaking: Omnia vincit amor et nos cedamus amori. It certainly seems, to the judgement of the experts, that totiens quotiens a man leaves the age of adolescence, verbi gratia in my case, non deceat sibi to love these tenderaged girls; although dicitur that an old cat suits a young mouse. Ah terque quaterque miserable Prudenzio! Of how little use are his virtues, his extensive night-works and daily studies.41

Rather than impressing the viewer, Prudenzio’s classical allusions and pompous style of reasoning provoke laughter, especially because of the sharp contrast between his style and the lustful sentiments his words express. Besides being mocked as pompous, the pedant’s language was also derided as obscure. When, in Pietro Aretino’s play Il Marescalco (The Stablemaster, 1533), the pedant enters the scene, he greets the title character in Latin. Instead of being impressed, however, the stablemaster finds it annoying to be addressed this way: Pedant: Bona dies. Quid agitis, magister mi? Marescalco: Ah, pardon me, Professor. I’m very upset and didn’t see you. Pedante: Sis letus.

41 “Omnia vincit amor et nos cedamus amori. Certamente pare, al giudizio dei periti, che totiens quotiens un uomo esce delli anni adolescentuli, verbi gratia un par nostro, non deceat sibi l’amare queste puellule tenere; benché dicitur che a fele, senio confetto, se lli convenga un mure tenero. Oh terque quaterque infelice Prudenzio! a cui poco le virtú e le lunghe lucubrazioni e i quotidiani studi prosunt.” Belo, Il pedante I, 4. Italian text taken from the edition of G. D. Bonino, La commedia del Cinquecento, in Il teatro italiano, vol. 2 (Turin: Einaudi, 1977), 17, henceforth: Bonino. The English translation is mine.

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Marescalco: Speak Italian; I have things on my mind other than your astrological jargon.42

Many other instances offer characters complaining that they could not understand what the pedant had meant. “Speak to us as much as you can in everyday language,” the pedant is told in The Stablemaster, “because all this ‘ibus, ibas’ business is too constipated for us to be understood.”43 The original performance context of the play, which Aretino composed during his stay at Duke Federico Gonzaga’s court at Mantua in 1526, suggests that the pretensions of the pedant must have been as laughable to the Duke of Mantua as they were annoying to the stablemaster. In the context of the commedia dell’arte, the comic potential of incomprehensible Latin was taken a step further by having the character of the dottore, Graziano, speak in a completely garbled version of it. Actors also used this mock language off stage, as a form of riddle, in playful correspondence with their patrons, complete with translations in Tuscan.44 Obscurity particularly became an object of ridicule when it was coupled with self-righteousness. One could cite the exchange between the pedant Messer Piero and the servant Stragualcia in Gl’Ingannati (The Deceived, 1538), written by members of the Accademia degl’Intronati, a cultural society of aristocrats and literati in Siena. When Messer Piero warns a gluttonous Stragualcia against overindulgent eating, the servant responds to his Latin words with an angry set of mock-Latin terms that sound like Italian profanities: Messer Piero: Variorum ciborum commistio pessima generat digestionem. Stragualcia: Bus asinorum, buorum, castronorum, tatte, batatte, pecoronibus! What the devil are you up to? May you catch the pox, you and

42 “Pedante: Bona dies. Quid agitis, magister mi? Marescalco: Perdonatemi, maestro, che non vi avea visto, sì son fuor di me. Pedante: Sis letus. Marescalco: Parlate per volgare, che ho altro da pensare che a le vostre astrologie.” Pietro Aretino, Il Marescalco I, 9. Italian text taken from the edition of G. Petrocchi, in Teatro (Milan: Mondadori, 1971), 20–21, henceforth: Petrocchi. Italian text from Five Comedies from the Italian Renaissance, trans. by L. Giannetti and G. Ruggiero (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003), 134, henceforth Giannetti and Ruggiero. 43 Il Marescalco V, 10: “Parlateci più alla carlona che voi potete, ché il vostro in bus et in bas è troppo stitico ad intenderlo.” Giannetti and Ruggiero, 200. 44 For examples, see R. Henke, Performance and Literature in the Commedia dell’arte (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 137–46.

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all the other pedants in the world! You’re a scoundrel, as far as I’m concerned.45

Stragualcia’s use of mock-Latin thus aggressively dismisses Piero’s claim to authority, ridiculing it as quasi-scholarly and sanctimonious. Giordano Bruno applies the same technique in Il Candelaio (The Candlebearer, 1582), but he goes a step further. Here, the character of Sanguino uses suggestive, quasi-Latin terms to tell Manfurio plainly how ridiculous his manner of speaking is: Master, with this infernal way of talking in grammouldian, with all these catacombries and smellegant latrinities, you infect the air, and make yourself a laughing stock.46

With these mock-pedantic terms intentionally botched according to key humanist concepts (grammar, elegance, Latin), Bruno not only makes fun of the pedant’s intellectual pretentiousness but also puts his finger on the sore spot. Rather than a source of respectable knowledge, the pedant’s language is a social embarrassment. Another way to deflate pretension was to question the relevance of the pedant’s knowledge. Whereas humanists prided themselves on the usefulness of rhetoric and the pedagogical value of their teachings, the comedies took the opposite perspective. They represent pedants as experts in pointless rhetorical copia, offering synonyms and circumlocutions and presenting tedious catalogues of examples. In Bruno’s Candlebearer, for example, the pedant Manfurio is always prone to correct the Latin wording of his interlocutors, but when he is asked to write a love letter for someone else, he produces a text whose high-flown style makes it virtually incomprehensible, and thus, the text is useless.47

45 Giannetti and Ruggiero, 247. Gl’Ingannati III, 2, ed. Bonino, 142: “Messer Piero: Variorum ciborum commistio pessima generat digestionem. Stra. Bus asinorum, buorum, castronorum, tatte, batatte pecoronibus! Che diavolo andate intrigando l’accia? Che vi venga il cancaro a voi e quanti pedanti si trova! Mi parete un manigoldo, a me…” 46 English translation by G. Moliterno from Renaissance Comedy: The Italian Masters, vol. 2, ed. D. Beecher (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009), 354. Il Candelaio I, 5, ed. Bonino, vol. 3, 164: “Mastro, con questo diavolo di parlare per grammuffo o catacumbaro o delegante e latrinesco, amorbate il cielo, e tutt’il mondo vi burla.” 47 Il Candelaio II, 7, in Bonino, vol. 3, 193–4.

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The targets of derision include the philological teaching practices that the humanists themselves promoted as the ideal preparation of rhetorical skills.48 The same Manfurio, for example, is mocked for his use of absurd etymologies, a standard feature of the analysis of classical texts. Upon being addressed as “magister,” he explains the term as “magis ter: three times really great.” This prompts his interlocutor, the painter Gianbernardo, to ask for the meaning of the term “pedant.” Manfurio hypothesizes that it goes back to three words: PE for “perfectos,” DAN for “dans,” and TE for “thesauros”: giving perfect treasures. Gianbernardo, however, keen to expose the pedant as a pompous fool, suggests another etymology: PE for “pecorone,” DAN for “da nulla,” TE for “testa d’asino,” or: silly idiot, donkey head.49 Similarly, Aretino lampoons the practical uses of classical rhetoric in The Stablemaster. When the pedant is asked to convince the stablemaster to marry (something the stablemaster absolutely does not want to do), he delivers a verbose speech about the opportunities for honour that offspring could bring. This oration includes a catalogue of illustrious examples which is particularly impressive because of its length, which prompts the other characters to make ironic comments which underline his complete lack of authority: “He’s just getting warmed up,” “The words of the learned are certainly enjoyable,” “You know lots of names,” “You sound like a parish priest reading the calendar of saints to the peasants,” “O dear devil, save us!” and “This could go on until nightfall.” 48 For a modern assessment of the contrast between ideal and practice, see A. Grafton and L. Jardine, From Humanism to the Humanities: Education and the Liberal Arts in Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century Europe (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986). 49 Beecher and Moliterno, 383–84. Il Candelaio III, 7, ed. Bonino, vol. 3, 203: “Gio. Bernardo: Sapete, domine Magister…? Manfurio: Hoc est magis ter, tre volte maggiore: “Pauci, quos aequus amavit Iuppiter, aut ardens evexit in aethera virtus [Verg. Aen. VI.129–30, AV]. Gio. Bernardo: Quello che voglio dir è questo: vorrei sapere da voi che vuol dir: pedante. Manfurio: Lubentissime voglio dirvelo, insegnarvelo, declararvelo, exporvelo, propalarvelo, palam farvelo, insinuarvelo, et, – particula coniunctiva in ultima dictione apposita, – enuclearvelo; sicut, ut velut, veluti, quemadmodum, nucem ovidianam meis coram discipulis, – quo melius nucleum eius edere possint, – enucleavi. Pedante vuol dire quasi pede ante: utpote quia ave lo incesso prosequitivo, col quale fa andare avanti gli erudiendi puberi; vel, per strictiorem arctioremque aethymologiam: Pe, perfectos, – Dan, dans, – Te, thesauros. – Or che dite de le ambidue? Gio. Bernardo: Son buone, ma a me non piace né l’una né l’altra, né mi par a proposito. Manfurio: Cotesto vi è dirlo lecito, alia meliore in medium prolata, idest quando arrete apportatene un’altra vie piú degna. Gio. Bernardo: Eccovela: Pe pecorone, – Dan, da nulla, Te, testa d’asino.”

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The skills he possesses, moreover, are presented as pointless. “What do all these names have to do with me?”, the stablemaster interrupts at one point, only to be told he should regard the catalogue as “the precious gems adorning an embroidered robe…” In the end, the Stablemaster gives up, exasperated: “Oh, God, what a way to die!”50 The critical perspective on the pedant’s pretensions culminates in its sharpest form in takedowns of the sense of superiority possessed by this learned fool. Such a deflation occurs when the pedant is exposed (as he is fairly frequently) as incompetent. With their dramatic irony, these scenes offer some indication of how erudite the audience was expected to be. Audiences and readers of Aretino’s Stablemaster, for instance, will have noticed that the pedant’s knowledge of the classics is decidedly shaky when he refers to the non-existent works De agilibus mundi and De insomnio Scipionis, the former supposedly by Seneca and the latter by Plutarch. Similarly, the misattribution of a verse from Ephesians to Revelation may cause a chuckle.51 Incompetence becomes an explicit subject in a scene in which the pedant speaks of ten muses: Knight: Sir, there are only nine, unless you want to include among them your housekeeper. Pedant: What do you mean, nine? I count Clio, one; Euterpe, two; Urania, three; Calliope, quatuor; Erato, quinque; Thalia, sex; Venus, seven; Pallas, eight; Minerva, nine, verum est. Stablemaster: Play the pipes for the second act. Knight: Ha, ha, ha! Count: Ha, ha, ha, ha! Jacopo: Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!52

50 Giannetti and Ruggiero, 186–193; Il Marescalco V, 3, ed. Petrocchi, 74–79: “Ei s’ha affibiato la giornea” [lit. “girded the philosopher’s toga”]; “E pur bella cosa il parlar di i dotti”; “Voi sapete di molti nominativi”; “Voi mi parete un piovano che sfoderi il calendario a i contadini”; “O diavolo, riparaci tu!”; “Noi ci siamo per fino a notte”; “Che ho io a fare di tanti nomi?” “A ricamartene, perché sono margarite, unioni, zaffiri, iacinti e balasci”; “Oimè, che morte è questa!” 51 Il Marescalco IV, 5, ed. Petrocchi, 61, 63, and 64. 52 Giannetti and Ruggiero, 191–192; Il Marescalco V, 3, ed. Petrocchi, 78: “Cavalliere:

Domine, le son nove, se già non ci volete mettere la vostra massara. Pedante: Come nove? saldi: Clio una, Euterpe due, Eurania tre, Caliope quatuor, Erato quinque, Talia sex, Venus sette, Pallas otto, e Minerva novem, verum est. Marescalco: Risonate i pivi al secondo. Cavalliere: Ah, ah, ah! Conte: Ah, ah, ah! Messer Jacopo: Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah!”

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Punctured with dramatic irony, the pedant’s pretence to expertise thus becomes the basis of a farcical scene.

Exposing Vanity The second comic strategy which exposes the pedant’s vanity reveals underlying tensions over social status. Moving beyond intellectual qualities, the aim here is to represent pedants as being excessively concerned with status. In contrast to the perception of those surrounding him, he considers himself a man of high standing who deserves great respect due to his profession and position. This representation resonates with contemporary debates about the meaning of nobility and its proper forms of virtue.53 In the fifteenth century, many humanists began cultivating the idea of the nobility of the mind, according to which learning, rather than ancestry or wealth, signalled true, moral virtue. A studious life, in their view, produced a noble mind, equal in status to the traditional nobility.54 The argument of a “nobilitas litteraria” followed, in a way, similar claims made by legal scholars, who had been asserting their right to noble status since the late twelfth century.55 The lawyers’ claim to the status of the traditional nobility is exemplified by a famous anecdote, gleefully related by the humanist and future pope Enea Silvio Piccolomini, about Georg Fischel, an early fifteenth-century lawyer and vice-chancellor to Sigismund, emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. Recently knighted by Sigismund, Fischel arrived at the Council of Basel (in 1433) and hesitated when the moment came for him to take his proper place: should it be amongst the jurists or amongst the knights? He decided to join the latter group, only to be berated by the emperor: “You are acting foolishly

53 For selected contributions to this debate, see A. Rabil, Jr, Knowledge, Goodness, and Power: The Debate over Nobility Among Quattrocento Italian Humanists (Binghampton, NY, 1991). 54 Füssel, “A Struggle for Nobility.” 55 M. Vester, “Social Hierarchies: The Upper Classes,” in A Companion to the Worlds

of the Renaissance, ed. G. Ruggiero (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002), 227–42, at 229.

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to prefer arms to letters. For I could make a thousand knights in one day, but I could not make a doctor in a thousand years.”56 The humanists’ claim to honour went hand in hand with a critical assessment of aristocratic conduct, resulting in a distinction between true and false nobility.57 Accordingly, the discourse of the nobility of the mind reflects the humanist scholars’ strong aura of confidence in their social position. This sense of identity clearly benefitted the communicative ideals of the Republic of Letters by removing social hurdles amongst like-minded scholars. Outside this Latin-speaking community, however, this stance was more subversive, since it challenged the traditional social order by emphasizing a meritocratic alternative to the class system. The humanist sense of honour prompted an equally aggressive response in our comedies. Many jokes attack the pedant’s misguided social vanity, reflected for example in the pedant’s obsession with forms of address. In Aretino’s Stablemaster, a servant seeks to flatter the pedant by addressing him as a nobleman (Your Lordship; Vostra Signoria) and calling him a “valiant man” with a weapon of his own. The double entendre is lost on the pedant, who, highly pleased, confirms his social pride with a nod to Virgil: “Both with arma virum and with books, I do not give a quarter to any man.”58 Elsewhere in the play, the pedant can be seen to trample etiquette by changing the order of precedence to his own advantage, entering a house before a knight with an accompanying citation of Cicero: “Let arms give way to the toga.”59 On a nonverbal level, the pedant’s outward appearance signals that his vanity is misguided: the pedant is generally presented as ugly, dirty, and badly dressed. He wears a toga, from antiquity onwards a symbol of authority and respectability, but it is nothing more than a shoddy piece of cloth. Taking its place within a long tradition of depicting intellectuals 56 “Stulte agis, inquit Sigismundus, qui literis militiam praefers. Nam ego milites mille una die fecerim, doctorem mille annis non fecerim.” Latin text and English translation taken from Barbara C. Bowen, One Hundred Renaissance Jokes: An Anthology (Birmingham, AL: Summa Publications, 1988), 14–15. See also Füssel, “A Struggle for Nobility,” 93. 57 See Hankins, Virtue Politics, esp. 38–45; see also, e.g., Erasmus’ Christiani matrimonii institutio, ASD 5.6, 164–6. 58 Il Marescalco II, 2: “E con arma virum e con i libri non cedo a niuno…,” ed. Petrocchi, 26; trans. Ruggiero, 138–9. 59 Ruggiero 193; Il Marescalco, V, 3, ed. Petrocchi, 79: “Cedant arma togae”; see Cicero, De officiis, 1, 22, 77.

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as slovenly, this visual presentation was a powerful way of discrediting the pedant’s respectability.60 Physical appearance and dressing habits were often taken to reflect a person’s character, as we know from sixteenthcentury conduct books such as Castiglione’s Courtier and Erasmus’s On Good Manners for Boys.61 The pedant’s shoddy appearance was also exported beyond the theatre, often with the aim of discrediting literary critics with classical tastes. In a chapter “On grammar teachers and pedants” in his encyclopaedia of professions, Tomaso Garzoni depicts him as wearing “a bare gown that survived for at least 250 years” or, elsewhere, “a saggy gown, completely moth-ridden, without a single trace of fur.”62 Similarly, in a mock-biography of Maecenas in verse dating from the early 1590s, Cesare Caporali listed the sartorial attributes of the pedant as “two worndown gowns, a stained cap, an old shirt without laces.”63 The point of these representations is to demonstrate the foolishness of the pedants’ social aspirations as a group. Despite their language and pretensions, their appearance shows who they really are. In some cases, pedants are explicitly described as being of humble background. Messer Piero in The Deceived, for example, is scolded by a servant for being “the son of a mule driver.”

60 In learned treatises on scholarly vices this is also known as on misocosmia, see S. Kivistö, The Vices of Learning: Morality and Knowledge at Early Modern Universities (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 240–1; Stäuble, “Parlar per lettera,” 22–24; Royé, La figure du pédant, 38 and 59–69. 61 Erasmus, On Good Manners for Boys – De civilitate morum puerilium, trans. B. McGregor, in CWE 25, p. 278; Castiglione, Il Cortegiano, 2, 27–8. 62 Garzoni, La piazza, discorso iv, p. 165 “De’ grammatici e pedanti” (“con quella

toga pelata che non ha visto manco di cinque iubilei”) and in the preliminary “Lettera del Garzoni al sopremo coro de’ dei,” p. 59 (“l’abito non è altro che una toga labile, tutta tarmata, che non ha pur un pelo per testimonio?”). 63 C. Caporali, Vita di Mecenate, ed. D. Romei (Rome: Lulu, 2018), p. 106, part 10, lines 310–21. See also his poem “Il pedante,” in Capitoli Con le Osservazioni di Carlo Caporali suo nipote. Nuovamente messi in luce per cura di mastro Stoppino filologo maccheronico, ed. Danilo Romei, published online http://www.nuovorinascimento.org/ n-rinasc/default.html, accessed 9 December 2019: “Or veniamo ai legati dei pedanti,/ Presuntuosi e brutti animalacci,/ E de le carni altrui viziosi amanti,/ Che lasciò loro un valigion di stracci,/ Due toghe rotte, un berrettin macchiato/ E una camicia vecchia e senza lacci…”

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The pedant in The Stablemaster is derided for his lowly position as “a soup slurper, bean eater, lasagna pit.”64 Based on the contrast between the pedant’s claims to status and the actual class to which he belongs, this comic strategy reveals the social setting in which these learned comedies were performed. Staged at courts and in the venues of literary societies, they were offered as entertainment for highly educated aristocrats and courtiers. The perspective on the pedant betrays a sense of superiority on the part of the audience. By exposing his social vanity, the comedies confirm the codes of civility famously explored in Castiglione’s Courtier, which restricts the ideal of graceful sprezzatura to the nobility. Conversely, ostentation and visible effort are presented as examples of rude conduct, including, significantly, typically scholarly forms of behaviour, such as the use of overly learned language.65

Conclusion Scholarly dedication, diligence, and hard work were key values in the intellectual culture of Renaissance humanism. The ethos of hard work was expressly articulated on several levels. Within the transnational community of the Republic of Letters, humanists cultivated hard work as a cardinal scholarly virtue that was not just a sign of excellence and a condition for scholarly success, but an intrinsic part of their shared identity. Biographical collections of humanist scholars celebrated, often in almost hagiographical terms, the perseverance and stamina of the model scholars who embodied this ideal. But in addition to using it in their presentations of themselves and their identities as scholars, humanists also cast hard work as an important civic virtue which they sought to promote in their teachings. In educational treatises, famous humanists eloquently emphasized the importance of diligence and dedication as cornerstones of the new approach to learning. And yet, these presentations of the humanist ethos with their confident claims to cultural authority did not go uncontested. This chapter has traced two strands of criticism regarding perceived excesses in humanist 64 Ruggiero 138; Il Marescalco II, 1, ed. Petrocchi, 25: “Paggio: Ah, ah, ah, non mi potea imbatter meglio che a questo sorbi-bruodo, a questo pappa-fava e a questo trangugia-lasagne.” 65 Castiglione, Il Cortegiano, e.g. 1.27, 1.37, and 3.17.

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attitudes to work. The first consisted of critical voices within the scholarly community who cautioned that excessive humanist diligence could cause social, moral, and religious problems. With his characteristic satirical humour, Erasmus presented the studious attitude of the Ciceronians as extreme, eccentric, anti-social, and dangerously disconnected from Christian spirituality. The humanist project should not lose itself in stylistic purism, he argued, but be of practical use to contemporary Christian society. While Erasmus did not believe hard work to be harmful per se, it was harmful when humanist scholarship was pursued as a purely antiquarian end in itself. Writing in 1528, in the starkly polarized context of the early Reformation, Erasmus also wanted to free humanism from associations with paganism. Italian humanists, and particularly a circle of scholars in Rome led by Girolamo Aleandro and Alberto Pio, often seemed to Erasmus like a “pagan society of erudites” or even a “sect.”66 Significantly, these Italian humanists in turn suspected Erasmus of sympathizing with Luther, which illustrates the extent to which Erasmus’ criticism of excessive scholarly zeal was not just about hard work, but part of larger religious and scholarly conflicts. Half a century later, Montaigne voiced his sweeping moral critique of the quantitative orientation of humanist teachers. In his view, the laborious accumulation of erudition was pointless because there was no direct relationship between learning on the one hand and virtue or sound judgement on the other. Studious diligence, in his eyes, was not enough for self-realization. In fact, it could prove morally stultifying and debilitating. Paradoxically, Montaigne deployed an impressive array of classical sources to confirm the aristocratic ethos of virtue and valour, thus showing that his sense of judgement went together with a deep, inside knowledge of the matter as a humanistically trained intellectual. A second strand of criticism emerged outside the scholarly community in the form of the caricature of the pedant. A product of the Italian commedia erudita (scripted comedies produced in the elite setting of local aristocratic courts and academies), this caricature represented humanist

66 Opus epistolarum Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami, ed. P. S. Allen (et al.), vol. 6 (Oxford:

In Typographeo Clarendoniano, 1926), ep. 1717 to Franciscus Molinius, [c. 6 June] 1526, ll. 34–36: “Romae paganum illud eruditorum sodalitium iam pridem fremit in me, ducibus, ut ferunt, Aleandro et Alberto quodam Principe Carpensi.” And in the same letter, ll. 51–53: “Ad haec, exorta est nova secta Ciceronianorum, quae non minus incruduit quam Lutheranorum, vetus quidem sed per Longolium innovata.”

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teachers and secretaries from the perspective of the patrons and employers who used their services. Some of these plays are set in the same environment where they were meant to be performed, as in the case of Belo’s Pedant, situated in Rome, and Aretino’s Stablemaster, first written at the court of Federico II Gonzaga in Mantua in 1526–27 (even if the surviving text is the revised version published in Venice in 1533). Others situate the action in a different but still recognizable contemporary context, such as The Deceived, which was staged by the Accademia degl’Intronati in Siena on the closing day of carnival in 1532 but set in Modena. As a medium of social critique, the comedies targeted misapplications of humanist learning in particular. Still, in selecting these misapplications, they question key aspects of the humanist work ethic. Refracted through the lens of comedy, the humanist ideals of classical erudition and studious dedication were associated with different forms of unsociable conduct, ranging from mildly amusing eccentricity (obscure and laboured language, pompous self-presentation) to more subversive forms of improper behaviour (arrogance, social climbing). The nature of the jokes indicates that both producers and audiences of these plays were intimately familiar with humanist culture but they were also keen to mark their superior social position. Complementing the critical arguments of humanist authors, these sixteenth-century representations of the pedant thus illuminate how humanist values of scholarly dedication and classical erudition clashed with prevailing codes of sociability.

CHAPTER 7

Scholars Working Themselves to Death: Casaubon and Baronio Compared Dirk van Miert

I was so industrious that I thought to waste time if I did not spend sixteen hours a day on my studies. … Kuchlinus [the head of the Theological College] once gave me permission (against the rules of the college) to keep a bottle of wine in my room (without my fellow students knowing). I never used that privilege, because I trusted in my strong constitution.1

These lines were penned by seventeenth-century scholar Gerard Vossius. Vossius (1577–1649) would maintain his work ethic throughout his life. His correspondence is dotted with complaints about interruptions from

D. van Miert (B) Department of History and Art History, Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands e-mail: [email protected] 1 C. S. M. Rademaker, “Gerardi Joannis Vossii De vita sua usque ad annume MDCXVII

delineatio,” Lias 1 (1974), 243–65 (at 250, lines 241–48): “Industria ea fuit, ut tempus me perdidisse putarem nisi sexdecim horas studio quotidie impenderem; […] Kuchlinus […] quod alioqui praeter collegii leges erat, vasculum vini, clam condiscipulis, in musaeo ut haberem aliquando autor erat; quo tamen privilegio valetudinis fiducia usus sum numquam.”

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 G. Almási and G. Lizzul (eds.), Rethinking the Work Ethic in Premodern Europe, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38092-1_7

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his work by students and visiting scholars, and he once noted that, for his studies, he “stole away the time that God has destined for the refreshment of the body.”2 In a letter to Swedish scholar and statesman Johan Skytte (who founded the University of Tartu), for instance, he shared the following lament: From morning to evening I am greeted, sought after, kept back by some, for the pleasure of myself and the public, but also to my own expense and that of the Republic of Letters, for which I cannot accomplish what I want and what I have been promising for many years.3

Vossius seems to have died of an infection to a wound he suffered after falling from a ladder in his library, although this cause was never confirmed. Others recounted how he had an argument with someone in a bookshop, after which he fell sick from emotional stress. Somehow, his death had to be related to books. “A General must die fighting” (Censeo stantem imperatorem mori oportere), Vossius once wrote. But he was actually in his bed when he died. He had been lying in it for five days, suffering great pain, and having a high fever while his face was red and swollen. According to one account, “Vossius died of a serious and painful disease.”4 To investigate the question of a scholarly work ethic, this article compares the deathbed scenes of two other famed church historians: Isaac Casaubon (1559–1614) and Cesare Baronio (1538–1607). Both Casaubon and Baronio acted as champions of their respective confessions: on the one hand, a Reformed Protestantism (difficult to pinpoint more clearly as Calvinist, Anglican, or Arminian), and on the other, a clearly Roman Catholicism. Casaubon and Baronio were explicit adversaries: the last work by Casaubon, which appeared shortly before his death, was a 2 Vossius to Johan Skytte, 1632 (Gerardi Joannis Vossii et clarorum virorum ad eum epistolae, collectore Paolo Colomesio, London: Sam. Smith and Benj. Walford, 1693, no. 315, 305): “vix patiuntur occupationes ut tempora a Deo quieti destinata, reficiendo corpori impendam.”. 3 Vossius to Ludovicus Crocius, 8 June 1636, (ibid, no. 283, 286): “A mane ad vesperam salutor, compellor, distineor ab nonnullis, commodo et meo et publico a pluribus, dispendio et meo et Reipublicae Literariae, cui non possum praestare, quod volo et a multis annis pollicitus sum.” 4 C. S. M. Rademaker, Leven en Werk van Gerardus Joannes Vossius (1577–1649) (Hilversum: Verloren, 1999), 243.

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line-by-line refutation of the first half (!) of the first volume of the twelve volumes of Annales Ecclesiastici by cardinal Baronio. What was at stake for these scholars was not merely scholarly truth, but truth charged with divine justice. The truth is urgent, and it is precisely because of the religious stakes that the sufferings of scholars obtain their martyrological meaning. It is fascinating that one can speak of a martyrological aspect in the case of a Protestant scholar such as Casaubon. This would suggest that, beyond the confessional context in which they were operating, there was a structural similarity: the need to defend a divine truth led to similar acknowledgements of the importance of hard work. Indeed, despite the anecdotal differences between the events during the last days of their lives, as reported in their deathbed accounts, it would appear that the scholarly work ethic as such was confessionally neutral. To test this somewhat paradoxical hypothesis, this article focuses on deathbed scenes. The early modern archive abounds in such descriptions of the last days and moments of scholars’ lives. They lend themselves particularly well to the study of work ethics, not so much because the patient actually lived and died as portrayed, but because of the way in which the scholarly ethos of the man of letters is presented and constructed by those who survive him. These accounts follow a fixed rhetorical narratio, beginning with the family background of the deceased and then moving on to his birth (his siblings), his early education, his inclination to study, his studious regime, the recognition of talent by his teachers, his university studies at a young age, the names of all the professors (important for the setting), his marriage, his children, his career, and his daily routines.5 Sometimes, mentions of publications are interwoven into the biographical narrative, but bibliographies also appear after the description of the deathbed, where we also sometimes encounter a description of the deceased’s character.6 To demonstrate the richness of this type of source for the study of the scholarly work ethic, one can turn, for example, to the funeral oration of the pastor and professor Louis Wolzogen (1633–1690), who

5 G. Almási, “The Work Ethic in Humanist Biographies: The Case of Willem Canter,” Hungarian Historical Review 8 (2019), 594–619. 6 For the study of funeral orations, see J. McManamanon, Funeral Oratory and the Cultural Ideals of Italian Humanism (Chapel Hill, NC, 1989); Id., “An Incipitarium of Funeral Orations and a Smattering of Other Panegyrical Literature from the Italian Renaissance (ca. 1350–1550),” available at http://www.luc.edu/media/lucedu/history/ pdfs/Incipit_Catalogue.pdf, accessed on 13 December 2022.

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allegedly preached five times a month, lectured publicly three times a week, and taught private lessons for more than four hours a day, ruining his health. He had kidney stones and suffered long and violent fevers, but when they passed, he refused to take on less work, and he was punished with a fever which kept him bedridden for two months. He developed an abscess around “the place of his pains.” He received only colleagues, as he could not move because of the extreme pains he was suffering. The whole congregation knew about the circumstances of his death; his senses were intact, and his colleagues would in turn repeat his final thoughts from their lecterns for their audiences.7 Likewise, one can read in another funeral oration how Henricus Reneri (1593–1639), a professor of philosophy in Utrecht, perished because of his devotion to work: broken by continuous labour and exhausted by numerous sleepless nights, [he] finally caught a fever that tormented him for more than six months, consuming him more and more every day. […] the fever tormented him even more fiercely, after which a lack of food consumed the remains of his exhausted meagre body. Amidst such horrifying pains, such confusion of the senses, his spirit, prevailing over all torture and focused upon itself, was as it were released from the bodily shackles.8

Accounts like these strike a very familiar chord, because they immediately call to mind the notion of martyrdom. The examples above concern Protestant scholars, but perseverance in spite of suffering and death was, as noted above, as popular an ethic (or trope) in narratives concerning Catholic heroes on their deathbeds as it was for Protestants.9 The 7 Lettres sur la vie et la mort de Monsieur de Wolzogue, Pasteur de l’Eglise Wallone d’Amsterdam, et Professeur en l’Histoire Civile et Sacrée dans l’Ecole Illustre de la même ville (Amsterdam: Jean Garrel, 1692), 17. 8 “Quo continuo labore fractus et crebris vigiliis exhaustus, febri denique corripitur, qua per menses amplius sex misere conflictatus, cum in dies plus plusque consumeretur … [F]ebris ardentior lancinabat miserum: illinc edax inedia carpebat exhausti corpusculi reliquias: inter quos carnifices dolores, inter quae turbamenta sensuum, omnium cruciatuum victor animus, in semet conversus, quasi corporis vinculis exolutus.” Antonius Aemilius, Oratio in obitum clariss[imi] et praestantissimi viri Henrici Renerii, liberalium artium magistri et philosophiae in Academia Ultrajectina professoris (Utrecht: Aegidius Romanus, 1639), 13–14. 9 Prime examples are the Protestant martyrologies of Jean Crespin (Le livre des martyrs, 1554) and John Fox (Booke of Martyrs, 1562). See also J. Exalto, Gereformeerde heiligen.

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deathbed scenes draw not only on the tradition of Christian martyrdom and sainthood, they are also reminiscent of accounts of famous deaths of Greek and Roman scholars, such as the death of Socrates, who was forced to drink poison hemlock after having been charged with corrupting the youth of Athens, or of Seneca, who was forced to commit suicide after an allegation of involvement in a plot to kill the emperor Nero. Both men displayed constancy and composition. But the circumstances of the martyrdom of the scholars described above are different: these men were not condemned to death. They ignored bodily necessities, so their suffering was self-inflicted, although there is a thin line between choosing a destructive physical regime and passively getting a terminal disease. The pain was blunted by a dedication to a divine truth that needed to be proven by scholarly or theological research. It is this higher goal of defending a cause that gives these accounts a morality. The authors clearly present their subjects as virtuous because they were champions of truth, and because they continued to defend their truths in the face of extreme pain. The notion of sainthood and of martyrdom is therefore palpable, even if these scholars were not put to death. The connection between scholarship and sanctity is evident in Erasmus’ vita of St. Jerome. Erasmus cleared the life of Jerome from legendary accretions and drew a portrait of a scholarly saint, an example of piety and industry. This portrait contributed to the reinvention of Jerome from a penitent in the wild to an author and scholar.10 This avowed attempt at a factual intellectual biography was in many ways also a “mirror of scholars”: a model for the virtuous student of the bonae literae: “As for his industry, who ever either read or wrote so many volumes? Who had the whole of Scripture by heart, as he had, drinking it in, digesting it, turning it over and over, pondering upon it? Who expended so much effort in

De religieuze exempeltraditie in vroegmodern Nederland (Nijmegen: Vantilt, 2005); and W. Frijhoff, Heiligen, Idolen, Iconen (Nijmegen: SUN, 1998), 19–20. 10 F. C. Domínguez, “Relics and Saints: Commemoration and Memorialization of the Holy Dead,” in A Companion to Death, Burial, and Remembrance in late Medieval and Early Modern Europe, c. 1300–1700, eds. P. Booth and E. Tingle (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2021), 393–417, at 399.

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every branch of learning?”11 In fact, Erasmus modelled his own intellectual image on that of Jerome, being a scholarly figure of repute himself from an early stage and a model of learning that could be appropriated by various groups in different circumstances.12 The pursuit of scholarship itself had religious overtones, with ancient manuscripts containing texts by classical authors, which figured almost as relics.13 The reason to focus on the accounts of scholars on their deathbeds, however, is that the ethic appears not to be bound to work as a job or office, but as a calling that endures until the soul has been released from the body. Old age is no reason for taking it easy, and neither is illness. In fact, imminent death is the crucial situation in which the call of duty acquires its gravity. Erasmus himself, author of the treatise Preparation to Death, recommends constant reading of the New Testament in the hour of death (although only faith itself counts), but he spoke not of continuing one’s studies until the very end.14 A second reason to focus on deathbed scenes is that they are usually ignored in the history of scholarship. Whereas deathbed scenes or scenes of martyrdom are part of the ars bene moriendi, a popular genre throughout the early modern period about the craft of dying well,15 11 L. Jardine, Erasmus, Man of Letters. The Construction of Charisma in Print (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 60–64, at 64 from Erasmus’s Eximii Doctoris Hieronymi Stridonensis vita ex ipsius potissimum litteris contexta (1516). 12 K. Scholten, “Introduction: Memory and Identity in Learned Communities,” in Memory and Identity in the Learned World. Community Formation in the Early Modern World of Learning and Science, eds. K. Scholten, D. van Miert, and K. Enenkel (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2022), 1–27; and Frijhoff, Heiligen, Idolen, Iconen, 60–64. 13 H. Schadee, “Ancient Texts and Holy Bodies: Humanist Hermeneutics and the Language of Relics,” in For the Sake of Learning. Essays in Honor of Anthony Grafton, eds. A. Blair and A.-S. Goeing, 2 vols. (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2016), 2: 675–91. 14 Erasmus, De praeparatione ad mortem, in Opera omnia Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami,

Ordinis quinti, tomus primus (= ASD V:1), ed. A. van Heck (Amsterdam–Oxford: NorthHolland Publishing Company, 1977), 337–92. 15 M. C. O’Connor, The Art of Dying Well. The Development of the Ars moriendi (New York, Columbia University Press); N. Beat (ed.), The Craft of Dying: A Study of the Literary Traditions of the Ars Moriendi in England (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1970); C. M. N. Eire, From Madrid to Purgatory. The Art and Craft of Dying in Sixteenth-Century Spain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995); A. Reinis, Reforming the Art of Dying: the Ars moriendi in the German Reformation (1591–1528) (Aldershot and Burlington VT: Ashgate, 2007); R. Bartlet, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things? Saints and Worshippers from the Martyrs to the Reformation (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013).

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historians of scholarship focus largely on people’s lives and careers and, of course, on their actual work. Even funeral addresses are pillaged primarily for biographical details rather than as sources which would shed light on the contemporary work ethic as a scholarly virtue and as part of the cultural history of scholarship.

Isaac Casaubon (1559–1614) Casaubon was a Swiss-French classical scholar who was heavily invested in Protestantism. He was born in Geneva to two French Huguenot parents.16 In 1599, he was called to Paris by King Henri IV, the former Protestant champion who turned Catholic king, and he stayed at the court for eleven years. The Catholic authorities attempted to convert him, but Casaubon was protected by Henri IV. He remained steadfast in his beliefs, although he and his family had to negotiate their confessional identity quite carefully. When Henri IV was murdered in 1610, Casaubon fled to England, where he spent the last four years of his life in the service of James I. The English king commissioned him to write polemical works against a number of high-ranking Jesuits and to refute the famous twelve volumes of ecclesiastical history by the Oratorian cardinal Cesare Baronio. These volumes had been published at the end of the sixteenth century as the Annales Ecclesiastici. Casaubon compiled his Exercitationes, although he only managed to publish one sizeable folio, which refuted the first half of the first folio of Baronio’s work line by line. The full refutation of Baronio’s work continued to be a desideratum of Calvinism for the rest of the seventeenth century. It was never accomplished, although Protestant scholars all agreed that Baronio’s Annales ecclesiasitici were a shoddy business, despite (or because of) their crushing magnitude. The controversy over the Christian past is an important element of the larger context: for Casaubon, his scholarly work was a service to the Almighty. In his diary Ephemerides, Casaubon records how prayers and the study of the Fathers are the elements of a disciplined life, in which social visits are but a distraction: “From breakfast onwards, friends

16 The classical biographical account of Casaubon’s life is M. Pattison, Isaac Casaubon 1559–1614, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1892).

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detained me until four o’clock. O, nuisance,” he wrote in 1598.17 “Why do these enemies of my studies torture me with their visits? God, have mercy,” runs another typical entry from 3 October 1603.18 “I rose at five (alas, how late!) and at once entered my study. There, having prayed, I was with Basil.”19 Basil, not being a friend who distracted Casaubon from his work, but the fourth-century Church Father Basil of Caesarea, whose “698 exceptionally close-packed folio pages” in Greek Casaubon scrutinized over the course of three weeks early in 1597, as Anthony Grafton recounts with noticeable relish.20 Casaubon’s obsession with work was not an addiction, it was a devotion.21 It was also the result of a calling: the obligation to live up to a responsibility. God had bestowed an extraordinary intellect on Casaubon, but this was not a free gift: it was armour against the enemies of the true religion. Casaubon’s gifts were also a cross he had to carry, hence the asceticism and the relentless renunciation of his body. That doesn’t mean that Casaubon merely suffered his fate. His scholarship and his ecclesiastical and classical studies were as much a plight as a source of inspiration.22 Casaubon’s nineteenth-century biographer put it like this: “Isaac Casaubon was the martyr of learning. […] He killed himself over the ‘Exercitations’ ”23

17 “‘A prandio amici ad quartam me habuerunt. O molestiam v. Non. Nov. [1598].” I. Casaubon, Ephemerides, vol. 1, ed. J. Russel (Oxford: E typographeo academico, 1850), 100. 18 “V. Non. Oct. [1603] ‘Uxor Dei gratia meliuscule hodie. Sed isti studiorum meorum hostes quorsum me torquent suis visitationibus? Tu, Deus, miserere. Amen.” Ibid., 316. See, for example, also p. 516 (15 January 1603): “xviii. Kal. Jan. [1603] ‘Serius surreximus, et multum postea amici nobis fuerunt molesti. Tu nos serva, aeterne Deus. Amen.” 19 A. Grafton, “Protestant versus Prophet: Isaac Casaubon on Hermes Trismegistus,” in Defenders of the Text (Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press, 1994), 145–61, at 146. The quotation is from Casaubon, Ephemerides, 4: “Feb. xx. [1597]: ‘A quinta (heu quam sero) surreximus: ac statim museum ingressi, Dei implorata ope, cum Basilio fuimus.’”. 20 Grafton, “Protestant versus Prophet,” 147. 21 Pattison, Isaac Casaubon, 417. 22 See Grafton and J. Weinberg, “I have always loved the Holy Tongue.” Isaac Casaubon, the Jews, and a Forgotten Chapter in Renaissance Scholarship (Cambridge, MA:, The Belknap Press, 2011), for a critique of the picture that Casaubon would have been “dead from the waist down.”. 23 Pattison, Isaac Casaubon, 412 and 422.

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Casaubon died on 1 July 1614. There are three accounts of his deathbed, two of which were written by Casaubon’s physician Raphael Thorius. The remaining account was written by Casaubon’s second physician, the humanist physician and political thinker Theodore Turquet de Mayerne (1573–1655). The latter account merely mentions the cause of death without describing the circumstances, although even this briefest of accounts mentions that “his mind, dedicated entirely to learning, had little consideration with its home,” i.e. with Casaubon’s “thin and slender body, dry by nature, and of bilious temperament, which degenerated due to his way of life.”24 The first account is a relatively short Epistola, or letter, about “the cause of the illness and death of Casaubon,” printed in 1619 and reprinted several times, not only in medical works in the seventeenth century (due to the physiological anomaly of Casaubon’s uniquely deformed bladder), but also in the three editions of Casaubon’s letters. The second one is also by Thorius, but it is much longer: it is not an Epistola, but a Narratio. In his Epistola, Thorius focused on the medical side of the matter and almost anonymized the patient. In the Narratio, Thorius did more to expound on Casaubon’s exemplary virtues, including the epistemic virtue of hard work. Although Thorius writes as a physician, he was also a Huguenot like Casaubon and a classical scholar and poet. His religious-philological interests colour his positive opinion of Casaubon as a hero of Protestant scholarship. His desire to analyse the medical side of the matter in no way hinders his unconditional admiration for his patient. Thorius not only reported on the medical case, he also praised Casaubon. This is less evident in the Epistola than in the Narratio. In the letter, Thorius immediately gets to the point, without elucidating the circumstances of Casaubon’s demise. He starts his account on the day of Casaubon’s death. He offers no information concerning the history of the affliction, and he does not state why he was in Casaubon’ presence. The recipient of the letter, Hugo Grotius, was supposedly aware of Casaubon’s condition and of Thorius’ role as Casaubon’s physician. We

24 See D. van Miert, “The Curious Case of Isaac Casaubon’s Monstrous Bladder: the

Networked Construction of Learned Memory within the Seventeenth-Century Reformed World of Learning,” in Memory and Identity in the Early Modern Learned World. Community Formation in the Early Modern World of Learning and Science, eds. K. Scholten et al. (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2022), 307–41, at 323–24. The brief description was redacted and truncated by Johannes Brouvaert before it appeared in print.

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simply learn that he died from “dysuria,” or painful urination due to an unknown and unheard cause. All outward symptoms pointed to a bladder stone. But at the post-mortem, it turned out that Casaubon’s bladder was monstrously disfigured, on account of which “the great man died in the torment of death and reached the stars through pains showing such constancy and liveliness that he chased away all fear from the hearts of those who looked on.”25 Though he was in great agony when he died, Casaubon remained composed, even lively, and he showed no fear.26 Thorius subsequently reworked this Epistola into the much longer Narratio. This time, he aimed at a wider audience, no doubt in order to praise Casaubon and to hold up his constancy as a model for his readers to emulate. Moreover, Thorius no doubt seized the opportunity to capitalize on Casaubon’s fame to display his own specialized knowledge of urological afflictions and thus enhance his own reputation as a scholarly physician. The details give the impression of precise observations, but the rhetorical should remind us that Thorius was constructing a picture of Casaubon as a champion of tough Protestant scholarship. The rewritten story presents dramatic scenes, such as a description of the increasingly complicated urological problem in the weeks leading up to Casaubon’s end. The deathbed scene features Casaubon singing the Nunc Dimittis or Song of Simeon. We are also witness to the entry of wife and children (a very brief appearance, it must be noted, reminiscent of Socrates briefly receiving his children and “the women in his family,” as Plato recounts in the Phaedon, 116B). Thorius concludes that Casaubon worked so hard on his final project that he took no time to urinate, which only aggravated his pain. The torment of this pain is described in great detail. There is explicit mention, for example, of the precise part of his penis that hurt most when he urinated. Thorius describes the changing colour and temperature of Casaubon’s urine, as well as the gravel and mucus it contained. The most notable aspect for the purposes of this chapter is that Casaubon refused to rest: he worked day and night, and

25 R. Thorius, Epistola medici Londinensis R.T. de viri celeberrimi Isaaci Casauboni morbi mortisque causa, edita ex museao Joachimi Morsi (Leiden: Jacobus Marcus, 1619), fol. A2v : “vir magnus inter lethi cruciatus extinctus per dolores ad astra penetravit, ea constantia et alacritate ut spectantibus omnem mortis metum expectoraret.”. 26 For an analysis of Thorius’ account and of the reception of Casaubon’s bladder as a relic of learned Protestantism, see Van Miert, “The Curious Case”.

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he thought it a waste of time to relax. As Thorius puts it in a Homeric comparison, Casaubon in the way of travellers who when the evening is starting to fall and they are still far from the inn, compensate for the brief period of remaining light by travelling more speedily. Casaubon’s weak body was shattered by the orders of an imperious master: it collapsed and in doing so constructed an aeternum memoriae monumentum. … But in the manner in which animals for sacrifice are fed not to live, but to die on a festive day, so this man ate only to migrate into that bright light in which an innocent soul leaves its dungeon to return to the place from which came.27

Casaubon ate just enough to keep himself going until the hour came to hand over his soul (full of fat and juice) to heaven and his body (completely consumed and desiccated) to the earth. In this state, he lived for almost four years, if one can call it living, when one carries in one’s chest the instruments of clear death. … And like an invincible soldier, who continues to fight on his upper legs once his legs have been cut off at the knees, stronger in his rage than his forces, thus this man, broken by the long battle with his troubles and illnesses: not by his mind, but by his members; not by the sharpness of his spirit but by his organs, affirmed to carry on in his task to the very last breath.28

27 “exemplo viatorum, qui declinante die et procul adhuc hospitio celeritate compensant residuae lucis brevitatem: hoc consecutus tanto ardore, ut et vitae actum ultimum citius pertransiret, et immortalitatem effrenis animus maturius attingeret; nam infirmum corpus heri imperiosi mandatis inquietum, paulatim concussum, subito tandem concidit, suaque ruina aeternum memoriae monumentum exstruxit. […] Verum quemadmodum victimae aluntur non ut vivant, sed ut festo die moriantur; sic ille pascebatur in candidam illam lucem, qua innocens anima carcerem egressa in patriam remigraret.” Raphael Thorius, ‘De morbo et morte Isaaci Casauboni Narratio’, in I. Casaubon, Epistolae, insertis ad easdem responsionibus, quotquot hactenus reperiri potuerunt, secundum seriem temporum accurate digestae, ed. Th. Janssonius ab Almeloveen (Rotterdam: typis Fritsch et Böhm, 1709), 65–68, at 65. 28 “coelo mentem succi plenam, corpus tabe absumptum terrae traderet. In illo itaque

declinationis statu prope quadriennium vixit, si vivere est, in sinu gestare apertae mortis instrumenta; … velut invictus miles succisis poplitibus de genu pugnat ira valentior quam viribus, sic ille longo cum laboribus et morbis conflictu fractus non animo, sed membris; non mentis acie, sed organis, ad ultimum usque spiritum in munere sibi persistendum affirmabat.” Ibid., 65–66.

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Thorius then cites Casaubon as having said that it would be harmful to take a break from his work: it would make him deeply unhappy to lie in bed and only think of the shipwreck of his studies29 : “[t]riumphing over the weakness of his own nature, he carried around his skeleton not anymore as a body part but as a death bier.” Casaubon died, according to Thorius (who indulges in another fine Homeric comparison), in the manner of soldiers who in the heat of the battle do not feel the pain of wounds inflicted upon them, who do not feel that their arm or leg has been cut off, and only notice it when they see they have no power to strike or to move.30

In this self-inflicted martyrdom for what Casaubon regarded as the truth, his mind totally enslaved his body. Scholarship appears to have been for Casaubon a deeply spiritual exercise: the neglect of the body and the service to the soul that characterizes Casaubon’s attitude fits into a long tradition of asceticism. But Casaubon did not do this merely for his own soul. Thorius’ description calls to mind Erasmus’ depiction of the Miles Christianus, the soldier of Christ. Raphael Thorius’ deathbed account was first and foremost an autopsy report. The short “letter” published in 1619 was in fact part of a slightly longer letter that he had sent to Hugo Grotius in 1614 and that was published without his knowledge in 1619. The complicated history of its circulation in print has been treated elsewhere,31 but it is worth noting that there is a double reception of the history. On the one hand, there is a medical one, in which the monstrosity of Casaubon’s bladder developed into a notorious urological case, discussed by such physicians as Theodore Turquet de Mayerne, Johan van Beverwijck, and Caspar Bartholinus. On the other hand, there is a biographical tradition: in the first two editions of 29 “‘Quid enim vultis?’ (dicebat amicis quietem suadentibus) ‘aliam ut naturam hoc aevo induam? Parebo si jubetis; sed ambos poenitebit; vos consilii, me obsequii. Mihi antehac imperatum otium, a me quaesitum, sed conatu irrito, imo pernicioso; non enim morbo, sed morte gravior est desidia; nec unquam infelicius valeo, quam ubi iners retracto corporis mala, et ex iis studiorum naufragium praesentio’.” Ibid., 66. 30 “deque naturae ipsius infirmitate triumphans sceleton suum non amplius ut organum, sed ut feretrum circumferret. … more militum, qui in calore pugnae nec vulneribus acceptis dolent, nec brachium aut crus abscissum sentiunt, nisi cum aut feriendi, aut incedendi vim ablatam sibi vident.” Ibid., 66. 31 Van Miert, “The Curious Case.”

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his correspondence, the deathbed description was printed as an appendix, and in the third edition (published in 1709), it is presented as the final scene of an extensive Vita Casauboni authored by the editor, Theodorus Janssonius ab Almeloveen. Here, the collection of letters was treated as testimony to a life dedicated to scholarship.32 Due to the medical origin of the description of Casaubon’s deathbed, however, the account retains a tone of caution: scholarly asceticism is presented as harmful. We cannot escape the feeling that there is also an admonition to maintain a better balance. Thus, praise for Casaubon seems to be mixed with a warning: scholars have to heed a regimen, take breaks, and get enough sleep. This undertone of medical advice that enters Casaubon’s biography becomes more clearly discernible if we compare Casaubon’s deathbed with that of his great adversary, Cesare Baronio. This scene was not written by a doctor, but by a member of his congregation. Although it lacks the medical undertones of a warning, it does point to a healthier way of bearing one’s fate.

Cesare Baronio (1538–1607) Baronio was a priest of the order of the Oratorians who rose to become a Cardinal and one of the most influential Catholic churchmen. His vita was published in 1651 by a fellow member of his order, one Hieronymus Barnabeus, 44 years after Baronio’s death in 1607.33 Unlike Thorius, Barnabeus was not an eyewitness to the events he narrates. He drew on an earlier work by a fellow Oratorian, one Michelangelo Buccio, who died before he could finish his vita of Baronio. Barnabeus then collected whatever he heard or found written and incorporated it into the story. He explicitly mentioned that he relied on human authority, unsupported by the Catholic Church. Urban VIII had forbidden that “books be printed that treated men who, famous on account of their sanctity or martyrdom, left this life, and that contained the deeds, miracles, or revelations or whatever benefices that seemed to be coming from God through their intercessions.” If such books were printed without approbation, they were 32 Th. Janssonius ab Almeloveen, “Isaaci Casauboni Vita,” in Casaubon, Epistolae, 1–76. 33 Hieronymus Barnabeus Perusinus, Vita Caesaris Baronii, ex congregatione Oratorii

S.R.E. Presbyteri Cardinalis et Apostolicae Sedis Bibliothecarii (Rome: Vitalis Mascardus, 1651).

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not sanctioned by the Church.34 The dedication of the book to Innocent X was meant to obtain the blessing of the Church: “May it thus happen that, like his famous writings travel across the world to the great benefit of the Christian Republic, also his deeds will become much better known.”35 In all, it would appear that Barnabeus aimed at the beatification of Baronio. Thus, the account sheds light on the kind of work ethic that was deemed positive by Barnabeus and his intended audience. According to his biographer, when Baronio felt the end drew near, he went back to his cell in the congregation of the Oratorians and denounced the pomp of his cardinal residence. He wished to spend his last days amongst his brethren and listen to the daily sermons of the Oratory.36 “I want to die in the hands of my Fathers and Brethren,” Baronio supposedly announced. He appeared all the more happy about this decision. He made himself much beloved with his fellow Oratorians, and the words he spoke to them were (according to Barnabeus) always kept in their memories.37 When Baronio fell seriously ill, he could only consume liquid or liquefied food, because if he ate anything else, it made him vomit. His strength failed him more and more, though according to the account, “the weaker in the flesh, the more prompt in spirit he appeared.”38 This resembles the scene of Casaubon’s death, but in contrast with Casaubon, Baronio set aside concerns about his business, including his studies. Instead, he concentrated fully on contemplating divine matters. Almost in ecstasy, he prayed. Meanwhile, news of his fatal state spread, and not only through

34 “[Decretum … 5 Iulii, anno 1634, quo inhibuit Urbanus VIII] imprimi libros, hominum qui sanctitatis seu martyrii fama celebres e vita migraverunt, gesta, miracula vel revelationes seu quaecunque beneficia, tanquam eorum intercessionibus a Deo accepta, continentes, sine cognitione atque approbatione Ordinarii; et quae hactenus sine ea impressa sunt, nullo modo vult censeri approbata.” Ibid., sig. †[5]v . 35 “sic enim fiet ut quemadmodum eius praeclara scripta per Orbem vagantur magno Christianae reipublicae bono, ita quoque eiusdem facta longe clariora latius innotescant.” Ibid., sig. †2v –†3r . 36 “Cum autem extremum vitae suae diem iam appropinquare videret, ‘Eamus’ inquit,

‘et Romae moriamur, neque enim decet Cardinalem mori in agro, eamus; quandoquidem nihil mihi optatius esse potest quam ut in Congregatione mea apud Patres meos diem atque oculos claudam.” Ibid., 113. 37 “Emori volo in manibus Patrum fratrumque meorum,” ibid., 109–10; “verba etiam ipsa fere omnes memoria alte retinuerint.” Ibid., 108. 38 “quo carne infirmior, hoc spiritu promptior apparebat.” Ibid., 110.

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the city of Rome, but also to foreign nations. Letters of support started to flood into the convent on a daily basis. Here, we note a second important difference between the case of Baronio and that of Casaubon: in London, people did not flock to Casaubon’s dwelling. When doctors advised Baronio to travel to the countryside, he thought that to do such a thing would be useless. Nevertheless, he complied: “Because the physicians order this, I must obey.”39 This is a third difference with Casaubon, who ignored doctors’ advice. However, like Casaubon, Baronio was concerned more with his mind than his body. As a consequence he started to lecture and pray, and he did so in the company of two trusted fellow-Oratorian brothers, whom he told a curious story: long ago, when he was young and lived in the convent, the number 69 appeared various times miraculously on the wall of his cell. He thought at the time that this was a prophecy revealing the number of the years he would live, although he recognized the danger of such an assumption, since the devil frequently makes use of such signs.40 Again, we discern a major difference with the case of the accounts of the last days of the Protestant Casaubon, in which there are no mentions of the devil or any supernatural occurrences. Casaubon’s deathbed was described by a physician who harboured less interest in supernatural stories than Baronio’s biographer. Also, Barnabeus described the death of Baronio as part of an entire vita, whereas Thorius merely aimed to describe his deathbed, without references to earlier events in Casaubon’s life. Yet, the details of a monstruous bladder or a prophesy concerning someone’s age at his time of death both work as a memento mori: life is unpredictable, and one does best to devote it to virtuous work. Perhaps Casaubon prayed as much as Baronio did (judging by Casaubon’s diary, he prayed assiduously), but Thorius does not stress Casaubon’s piety as much as Barnabeus does in his descriptions of and citations from Baronio’s constant praying, an act in which he engaged even while his health was further deteriorating. Baronius “threw out such prayers,” as Barnabeus put it. Feeling the end drawing near, Baronio ordered that he be transported back from the countryside to Rome, where all the brethren of the congregation flocked to him. Baronio asked to take communion. He took the host, denounced 39 “Equidem satis scio hanc coeli mutationem nihil mihi profuturam, quippe iam proximam mortem pulsare fores sentio; tamen quia ita medici iubent, parendum est.” Ibid., 111. 40 Ibid.

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Satan and his helpers, and sang the Song of Simeon (just as Casaubon would allegedly do on his deathbed). Meanwhile, he also had the energy to lecture a young family member: “I hear that you spend too much energy on studying literature and learning. You should rather concentrate on Christian virtues.”41 This constitutes a fifth contrast with the death scene of Casaubon, who gave no advice whatsoever. Perhaps there was no one at Casaubon’s bed to lecture, but regardless of the actual situation, the idea that Casaubon would advise students to keep away from studying is inconceivable. Baronio, on the other hand, gave life lessons to other people in the Oratorian household as well. Moreover, he complained about his own career: the cardinalship had been too much for him, it had brought him pain, and he felt unworthy of it. According to his biographer, God had wanted to crown his servant’s patience and therefore had sent more pain: the entry point of Baronio’s stomach (as noted in the post-mortem) was inflamed, and because it was so swollen and painful, no food could enter, and his stomach shrunk. In the end, it could hold no food whatsoever; food caused “extremely sharp pains for him.” But Baronio uttered not a single complaint. His only weakness was that he once whispered, “[b]rother, I can no more. Listen, I ask, to your poor little Cesare. Please be so kind as to sustain me a while.” With this attitude, he won the admiration of everybody in the house.42 So Casaubon and Baronio both suffered sharp pains in the abdomen and both displayed constancy, even if only Barnabeus confirms that Baronio was praised for it by his men, whereas Thorius does not describe the responses of those present at Casaubon’s deathbed. Baronio let go of the idea of providing any care for his body and focused solely on his mind. He wanted to be buried next to the tutelary martyrs of the Congregation, although the brethren foresaw problems: surely, his family wanted to have him in the family grave. One again finds a difference here between this account and the description of Casaubon’s last days: Casaubon kept silent about his own funeral. Baronio, by contrast, prayed continuously, ordered all the lay people in the house 41 “Audio te nimiam litterarum studiis operam dare. Incumbe potius, fili, ad Christianas virtutes.” Ibid., 114. 42 “nullae querimoniae ex illius ore audiebantur, nisi “Fratres, non possum amplius; audite, quaeso, Caesarem pauperculum; sustinete paululum pro vestra charitate,” atque his similia, quae quidem astantium omnium, maxime, autem domesticorum summam admirationem excitabant.” Ibid., 115.

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to be blessed with holy water, and kept on asking where Jesus was. He received a crucifix in his hands (another obvious difference). From that moment onward, it took another two days for him to die, during which he ordered portraits of Peter and Paul to be hung above his bed on which he could concentrate and focus his mind, while all the fathers stood by his bedside all night: a crowd of mourners. Finally, Baronio uttered his last words: “Thus, now it is time to be joyful and merry. Let’s die!”43 His arms were folded over his chest in a cross, and with his gaze on the portraits, he quietly passed away. Although Baronio, whose face continued to appear almost alive, had not wanted his body to be dissected, it nevertheless was. We hear surprisingly little about the results of this post-mortem. In contrast with the author who depicted Casaubon’s death, Barnabeus was no physician. Instead, he focuses on the crowds that gathered outside once news of Baronio’s death had spread through the city. Lamentations of the death of a great protector of the Christian Republic rose to heaven. Some people managed to tear pieces from the dead man’s clothing, his hair, or even his intestines. Again, one finds here two differences with the accounts of Casaubon’s death: there were huge crowds, and people collected spoils or rather relics. In the end, Baronio was buried in the church of his own convent. In Paris, King Henri IV of France, Casaubon’s protector at the time, ordered a mass to be held in Baronio’s honour. The biographer cites the epitaph, as did Casaubon’s biographer Almeloveen at the end of Raphael Thorius’ account.44

Concluding Observations As one might have expected, there are quite a few differences between the deathbed descriptions of these two scholarly enemies on both sides of the religious divide. The Protestant’s doggedness contrasts with the Catholic’s acquiescence. Casaubon worked until the very end, while Baronio at some point parted with his work. Few people stood by Casaubon’s bed, whereas Baronio was accompanied by his entire congregation. Moreover, the author in Casaubon’s case was a physician, not a representative of the clergy. This role gives the account of Casaubon’s

43 “Ergo (inquit) ecce nunc tempus exultationis et laetitiae. Moriamur.” Ibid., 118. 44 Ibid., 132; Casaubon, Epistolae, 68.

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last days some medical authority, but at the same time, the doctor also comments on the spiritual well-being of his patient, picturing him as a Christian soldier in the heat of combat. In Baronio’s case, the account was no doubt written to support claims to the beatification of Baronio. Yet, on closer inspection, the differences are small. Both men worked tirelessly, both were disciplined, both maintained ascetic attitudes throughout their ordeals until their excruciating ends. Moreover, in both cases, the accounts describe a work ethic rooted in the piety of their heroes: their dedication to work was deeply religiously motivated. Despite the fact that one author was a physician and an eyewitness while the other was a man of the Church who relied on hearsay, their accounts are both medical and spiritual. But if both were driven by divine motivations, the question at the outset of this chapter regarding the idea of a confessionally neutral work ethic should be answered in the affirmative: although their work ethics were rooted in religion, their confessions did not really matter for their work ethic as such. This raises the question as to whether there could have been a more transcendent work ethic at play. Did the asceticism displayed by Casaubon and Baronio perhaps fit into a broader cultural pattern of hard work as a positive value in and of itself, regardless of the actual activity? Is there a difference between the scholarly work ethic of Casaubon and Baronio and the ethic of scholars not dedicated to Church history or even to theology? Perhaps the ethic was not even particularly scholarly but more generally fitting with a Christian appreciation of labour. To identify the undercurrents in the narrative, we have to dig a bit deeper. Beyond confessional identities, these two accounts reflect similar ideas shared by Protestant and Catholic authors, whether physicians or clergymen, on how scholars of European repute worked and died. They show a positive valuation of hard work in search of a scholarly and divine truth. The scholarly character, however, is very prominent: the biographers both praise the kind of Herculean labours or Herculei labores that Erasmus had conceptualized in his Adagium no. 2001. In this essay, which functions as a defence of his entire Adagia project, Erasmus remarks that Herculean labour should first and foremost pertain to philological studies: the recovery and interpretation of Ancient literature. This type of labour comes at huge cost: diligence, sweat, discomfort, renouncement of pleasure, neglect of possessions, disregard of appearance, and health, including the failure of one’s eyesight and an early entry into old age. The fact that the half-educated and uneducated fail to value hard

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work and respond with jealousy and contempt only serves to increase the heroism of the scholar, not least of Erasmus himself.45 Herculean labour was not pejorative. Of course, there were cautionary tales about forgetting the world around oneself: Archimedes’ death was caused by his failure to notice the arrival of an enemy because he was completely preoccupied with drawing geometrical circles in the sand; the ancient philosopher Thales famously fell into a well because he was looking up at the skies and failed to take note of what lay before him on earth.46 But such stories were never meant to warn against excessive labour. For Erasmus, the recovery of ancient texts was not limited to pagan literature. As we have seen, the edition of Jerome’s complete works was for Erasmus a natural part of his philological study of the cultural and religious past. In short, for Erasmus it was natural that Herculean labour referred to scholarly labour, and this was natural for Thorius and Barnabeus too. They praised labour not as a value in itself, as a soul-saving exercise in introspection, but as something that was consequential for the learned world. Like Erasmus, Baronio and Casaubon were both scholars with a deep knowledge of classical and patristic learning. Whatever their actual accomplishments, they shared a humanist education and were both steeped in Latin and Greek literature. As is well known, the humanist movement that originated in Italy had spread over the European continent even before the Reformation. The Italian humanist movement advocated detailed programmes of engagement with sources. It was based on the premise of endless reading and writing, conversing and learning texts by heart, and dialogue and disputation. Manuals for teachers on how to educate children were accompanied by manuals on how to study (rationes studii). The Latin School was a disciplinary system, however tailored to the disposition of children educational theorists such as Erasmus may have wanted such school programmes to be. Erasmus himself, after all, was famous for his indefatigable energy and his enormous output, and he made sure

45 Erasmus, Adagia III.1.1 (no. 2001), in Opera omnia Erasmi Roterodami, Ordinis II, tomus quintus, eds. F. Heinimann and E. Kienzle (=ASD II:5) (Amsterdam–Oxford: North-Holland Publishing Company, 1981), 27, at lines 95–116. 46 S. Kivistö, The Vices of Learning. Morality and Knowledge at Early Modern Universities (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2014), 214. Excessive work in and of itself seems never to have been criticized in the numerous late-seventeenth and eighteenth-century texts that Kivistö discusses.

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to have himself portrayed time and again with a book or a pen in hand. The display of “scholarly labour” was an essential component of Erasmus’ self-portraiture.47 Erasmus helped create a common European frame of reference within which ancient Greek and Latin authors, the Bible, and the Church Fathers stood side by side. Baronio and Casaubon were both thoroughly familiar with this body of texts, but they also shared modes of thought when it came to the interpretation of these texts: historical investigation based on philological principles. Claims of accuracy (both in confirming and in rejecting the miraculous elements of hagiography, for example) rested on “assiduous source criticism, and philological acuity that were just as much the result of current secular modes of scholarship as they were the intellectual traditions within the church going back to antiquity itself.”48 Baronio’s and Casaubon’s misgivings pertained not to each other’s methods as such, self-proclaimed or not, but to the proper ways of applying source criticism. Despite their differences, Baronio and Casaubon were in many ways on speaking terms: they polemicized in Latin, drawing on the same body of sources. The shared tradition in terms of sources and methods came with common ethics and practices. Similar epistemic virtues structured the scholarly universes inhabited by these two men. The virtue of labour was one of them. Whatever the interpretation of good works in relation to salvation, hard work was valued positively on both sides of the religious divide. The Bible left no doubt about the depravity of sloth and the virtue of work and discipline. For the likes of Casaubon and Baronio, there was the added value that their work was meaningful for the protection of true Christianity, in much the same way as Erasmus’ scholarship served the Christian soldier. In the case of Baronio and Casaubon, the assiduousness of their dedication to scholarship was charged by the religious interests that were at stake. Both men lived up to the obligation, bestowed on them by pope and king, to find out and defend historical truth. Scholarship was not an end in itself or a performance of virtue for the sake of heroism or collective pride. Scholarship was consequential, as people’s

47 Jardine, Erasmus, Man of Letters, 41–51. 48 Domínguez, “Relics and Saints,” 403–04, who draws on the work of Anthony

Grafton.

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salvation depended on it. In this sense, there was something religious about work, but not because work replaced religion (as in the case of Ranke),49 but because it served God’s one and only truth. This applied to most humanists, for whom studying pagan and biblical traditions was a natural combination. Humanism might have played down the significance of some religious differences, but it certainly was a pious and devout endeavour, aimed at improving people’s spiritual well-being as virtuous Christians.50

49 See the contribution by Herman Paul to this volume. 50 This article was written in the context of the ERC Consolidator project SKILLNET:

Sharing Knowledge in Learned and Literary NETworks. The Pan-European Republic of Letters as a Knowledge Society, project no. 724972. I am indebted to the members of the SKILLNET team, to Gábor Almási and Giorgio Lizzul as two tremendously constructive and patient editors of this volume, to Thomas Cooper for his numerous stylistic corrections, and to the authors of other contributions for their comments.

CHAPTER 8

Work and Idleness in Adam Contzen’s Political Oeuvre Katharina Rilling

In 1628, German Jesuit and political thinker Adam Contzen published a novel titled Methodus Doctrinae Civilis seu Abissini Regis Historia.1 It tells the story of a fictive African kingdom ruled by a king called Abissinus. The novel can be characterized as highly didactic—it aims at the moral and political education of the reader—and is closely linked to Contzen’s

1 A. Contzen, Methodus Doctrinae Civilis seu Abissini Regis Historia (Cologne: Kinckius, 1628).

K. Rilling (B) Ludwig Boltzmann Institut für Neulateinische Studien, Innsbruck, Austria e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 G. Almási and G. Lizzul (eds.), Rethinking the Work Ethic in Premodern Europe, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38092-1_8

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political treatise Politicorum Libri decem.2 Many aspects discussed in the treatise are transformed into narrative episodes in Methodus. Among these episodes, there is a short paragraph presenting the fictive kingdom’s legislation on idleness, begging, and labour: Then, it was decided that nobody should be idle or live off begging. In this way, neither could poverty lead to illicit actions nor could idleness foster misdeeds. The old and invalid were kept busy with light work or work that could be done when seated. Anyone who was not able to work was sustained by his town or village. This was mainly financed by a generous royal donation.3

The quote presents work as a viable means for relief of the poor. Only those who are entirely unable to work are exempted from the measure and receive support to ensure their subsistence from their parish or the

2 A. Contzen, Politicorum Libri Decem (Cologne, Mainz: Kinckius, Lipp, [1621]). I follow the publication date given by VD 17 (see https://kxp.k10plus.de/DB=1.28/ CMD?ACT=SRCHA&IKT=8079&TRM=%271:001896K%27, accessed on 23 February 2022). It has been established on the basis of the Facultas of the print (ibid., 4v ). Adam Contzen was presumably born in 1571 and died in Munich in 1635. As a member of the Jesuit order, he held various positions at Jesuit educational institutions in the Upper-German province of the order. From 1613 onward, Contzen was heavily engaged in contemporary religious controversies, and he became one of the leading figures of Catholic controversial theology. Later, he turned to political theory. The monumental Politicorum Libri Decem was published in 1621 and re-edited in 1629. In 1623, Contzen became the confessor of the Bavarian duke and prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire Maximilian I. At the Bavarian court, Contzen got involved in current political debates and acted as an advisor to and correspondent with Maximilian. He remained at Maximilian’s court until his death. Cf. on Contzen’s life and the Politica E.-A. Seils, Die Staatslehre des Jesuiten Adam Contzen, Beichtvater Kurfürst Maximilian I. von Bayern (Lübeck– Hamburg: Matthiesen, 1968), 7–17 and 30–37; R. Bireley, Maximilian von Bayern, Adam Contzen S. J. und die Gegenreformation in Deutschland 1624–1635 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1975), 25–55; M. Stolleis, Geschichte des Öffentlichen Rechts in Deutschland, 4 vols. (München: Beck, 1988), 1: 122–24; H. Dreitzel, “Politische Philosophie,” in Die Philosophie des 17. Jahrhunderts, eds. H. Holzhey and W. SchmidtBiggemann, 4 vols. (Basel: Schwabe, 2001), 4.1:605–748, at 681–84; J. Eickmeyer, “Contzen, Adam,” in Frühe Neuzeit in Deutschland 1520–1620. Literaturwissenschaftliches Verfasserlexikon, eds. W. Kühlmann et al., 7 vols. (Berlin–Boston: De Gruyter, 2012), 2: 15–23. 3 “Deinde placuit neminem otiosum esse, neminem mendicimonio vivere. Ita neque paupertas ad illicita pertrahebat neque otio flagitia fovebantur. Senes debilesque levi et sedentario opere exercebantur, qui nihil poterant, a sua quisque civitate pagove alebantur, praecipue regiae liberalitatis donativo.” Contzen, Methodus Doctrinae Civilis, 213.

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king. Furthermore, the success of the legislation is “narratively proven.” In Abissinus’s fictive kingdom, the new bill helps prevent illicit and disgraceful behaviour and raises the morals of the subjects. The respective passage of the Politica on begging, idleness, and labour reinforces the impression given in the novel. Idleness is condemned and, in its place, full employment of the poor and humble-born is suggested. Neither children nor invalids are exempted from the measure. Rather, they are merely supposed to do less exhausting work. It is argued that the suggested measures would greatly diminish the number of poor people, and only one in every ten among the poor would remain needy, and almsgiving would be more than adequate to provide for this ten per cent.4 Like Contzen, most political thinkers of his age condemned otium and cast work as a means of providing relief for the poor and ensuring social discipline. First, they discuss otium with regard to the individual and argue that it leads to moral depravation. Second, otium is often considered as a threat to the state and is presented as one of the causes of political turmoil and revolt.5 Contzen, the only Catholic political thinker of the German-speaking area of the period who authored a substantial systematic treatise, does not neglect these perspectives, but he adds another one. Unlike most political treatises of the time, the Politica presents economic development as essential to the wealth and power of a state and calls on the prince to promote various branches of the economy, such as agriculture, mining, industry, and trade.6 In this context, as Bireley points out, Contzen and some of his fellow anti-Machiavellian 4 “Kids should be employed for lighter mechanical work [artificia] so that no one should be idle. The vagabonds should be rounded up and forced to work, particularly those who have the ability but lack the will to work. If this were achieved, the number of poor people would be ten times smaller. Although some poor are weak, they could do several kinds of sedentary work [sellularia officia]. The rest, who are the real poor, could easily sustain themselves from alms.” Contzen, Politicorum Libri, 586. (“Pueros continuo ad leviora artificia adhibendos, ita ut nemo vacet. Vagabundos coercendos, quibus vero non facultas, sed voluntas laborandi deest, ad opus cogendos. Quod si fiat, decuplo minor erit pauperum numerus, quorum aliqui etsi debiles sint, nonnulla tamen sellularia officia praestare poterunt. Ceteri non difficulter eleemosynis sustentabuntur, qui vere pauperes sunt.”) 5 W. Weber, Prudentia gubernatoria. Studien zur Herrschaftslehre in der deutschen politischen Wissenschaft des 17. Jahrhunderts (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1992), 299–300. 6 Seils, Die Staatslehre, 136–39, 148–53; R. Bireley, The Counter-Reformation Prince. Anti-Machiavellianism or Catholic Statecraft in Early Modern Europe (Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1990), 148–51 and 227–28.

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authors consider “social attitudes favorable to a work ethic” to be of crucial importance and “saw the need to foster [these attitudes]”.7 Consequently, Contzen also discusses work and idleness from the perspective of an early mercantilist thinker.8 In this paper, Contzen’s views on labour, work, and idleness will be discussed in more depth. My analysis will show that concepts of the work ethic are touched on in all three works forming Contzen’s political oeuvre, each of which addresses the question from a different perspective. Whereas the perspective of the state and economic policy prevails in the Politica and the Methodus, the merits of work with regard to the individual and an individual’s morals are praised in the courtier’s mirror Daniel .9 As mentioned above, the importance of work for Contzen’s political thought has already been highlighted by Bireley in his monograph The Counter-Reformation Prince,10 which is a valuable starting point for this paper. But while Bireley’s study is insightful and covers many relevant aspects of the field, his discussion remains rather cursory and is restricted to the Politica. Thus, I will deepen his analysis, first, by including Contzen’s entire political oeuvre and, second, by paying 7 Bireley, ibid., 228. In The Counter-Reformation Prince, Bireley coins the term antiMachiavellian for a set of six authors (Botero, Lipsius, Ribadeneira, Contzen, Scribani, and Saavedra Fajardo). These authors refute Machiavelli’s political ideas and share the “intent […] to develop a detailed, practical program that showed how a ruler or statesman operating with solid Christian principles could maintain and develop a powerful state and so be successful politically” (ibid., 27; cf. also 24–33). With regard to work ethics, Bireley discusses Contzen, Carlo Scribani (Politico-Christianus, 1624) and Diego Saavedra Fajardo (Idea de un príncipe político-christiano, 1640/1643) (ibid., 179; 206; 228). Contzen and Saavedra met at the court of Maximilian I and presumably discussed political questions (ibid., 192). 8 As most cameralist writings date to the second half of the seventeenth century, Contzen can be characterized as a pioneer of cameralism, the variant of mercantilism dominant mainly in lands where German was spoken. He shares with later cameralist authors a belief in the active role of the state regarding economic development. In their view, the state should implement measures to foster economic growth and raise a country’s wealth, which they considered the basis of a state’s political and military power. See Seils, Die Staatslehre, 148–49; T. Buchner, “Perceptions of Work in Early Modern Economic Thought: Dutch Mercantilism and Central European Cameralism in Comparative Perspective,” in The Idea of Work in Europe from Antiquity to Modern Times, eds. J. Ehmer and C. Lis (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009), 191–213, at 198–99. 9 A. Contzen, Daniel , Sive De Statu, Vita, Virtute Aulicorum atque Magnatum (Cologne: Kinckius, 1630). A second edition appeared in 1686. 10 Bireley, The Counter-Reformation Prince.

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attention to the rhetorical strategies employed to promote work and industriousness. I will discuss the passages of Contzen’s political oeuvre that prove the most fruitful for an analysis of his ideas on work and idleness. These are, first, a chapter from Daniel reflecting on the vice of otium, second, passages in the Politica dealing with the unemployed poor and the promotion of trade, and, third, passages from the Politica and the political novel Methodus which argue for diligent governance by the prince. Finally, in order to contextualize Contzen’s ideas concerning work and diligence and highlight remarkable aspects, I will compare his ideas to the ideas in some contemporary German political treatises.

Otium in the courtier’s Mirror Daniel The most extensive explicit discussion of otium can be found in Chapter 32 of Contzen’s courtier’s mirror Daniel . This work draws on and is part of the tradition of literature that is critical of courtly life. While this type of literature originated in the Middle Ages, it enjoyed great popularity in the Early Modern era. Texts such as Piccolomini’s De miseriis curalium (1444), Hutten’s satire Equitis Germani Aula Dialogus (1518), and Guevarra’s Aviso de privados y doctrina de cortesanos (1539)11 depict and criticize the court as a dangerous place full of vices. Although Contzen shares the general criticism of the courtly life of his time, his approach in Daniel is somewhat different. Instead of generally condemning life at court, he acknowledges the pivotal role played by the court in a monarchy and, therefore, aims not to criticize (prospective) courtiers but rather to educate them on how to maintain their virtue at court. Drawing for his main example on the biblical figure of Daniel, who served in the court of King Nebuchadnezzar and his successors, Contzen depicts the ideal of a virtuous Christian courtier (Chapters 4 – 7 ). Later, the treatise is less closely linked to the biblical prophet. It discusses various vices present at court and shows how the courtier can maintain his virtue

11 Guevarra’s work was very popular. It was translated into Latin and several vernacular languages and had appeared in about 50 editions by 1650. Cf. Seils, Die Staatslehre, 38; H. Kiesel, ‘‘Bei Hof, bei Höll.” Untersuchungen zur literarischen Hofkritik von Sebastian Brant bis Friedrich Schiller (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1979), 92–94.

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despite these challenges.12 Chapter 32, titled “Obedience at court is laborious and idleness is harmful” (Laboriosa in palatio obedientia et noxium otium), belongs to this section. In it, Contzen discusses otium as one of the vices with which the courtier must grapple.13 Since Contzen’s stated objective in Daniel was to provide a manual for the courtier on virtuous and Christian life, it should not come as a surprise that the discussion of otium remains on the level of the individual and ignores the consequences of otium for the state and the economy.14 Likewise, Contzen fails to discuss here the situation of the lower classes, as his attention is focused on the problem of idleness among the rich and noble. However, the initial discussion of otium and work in Daniel is broader. At the beginning of the second paragraph in Chapter 32, Contzen states clearly that otium is not a vice confined to the court but rather is present in all of society and has to be eliminated from both.15 Not only the courtiers, whose work is characterized as particularly dangerous, but everyone—even the prince—is supposed to work.16 The idle, on the other hand, are accused of living dishonourably at the expense of others’ work.17 Thus, idleness is cast not simply as an individual vice but also as “an offense against the commonwealth”.18 In order to support these

12 Kiesel, ‘‘Bei Hof, bei Höll’, 149–52; Seils, Staatslehre, 37–41; K. Schreiner and E. Wenzel, Hofkritik im Licht humanistischer Lebens- und Bildungsideale (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 1–12. 13 Contzen, Daniel , 221–28. 14 Seils, Staatslehre, 40; Contzen, Daniel , 4. 15 “Porro non ab aula modo, verum et civitate etiam eliminandum est otium.” Contzen,

Daniel , 222. 16 “Certainly, all have to work, but the work of courtiers is dangerous.” (“Plane laborandum est omnibus, periculose aulicis.”) Ibid., 221. On the prince being obligated by the duty to work, see ibid., 222: “Therefore, Job [5:7] also […] taught that humankind is born to work. This judgement is passed on everyone, and it is not possible to appeal against it. […]. You shall eat your bread by the sweat of your face [Gen. 3:19]. Nobility is no excuse and nor is even the sceptre. The saying of Alfonso [of Aragon] is royal: Nature has not given a pair of hands to the kings without cause.” (“Quare et Job […] Hominem nasci ad laborem docuit. Lata est in omnes sententia, a qua appellare non licet. […] In sudore vultus tui vesceris pane tuo. Nulla generositas excusat, ne sceptra quidem. Regium Alphonsi dictum: Naturam non dedisse geminam regibus manum frustra.”) 17 “Otiosum esse et de alieno labore vivere inhonestum est.” Ibid., 222. 18 M. Todd, Christian Humanism and the Puritan Social Order (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1987), 123.

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claims, Contzen draws on both biblical and ancient sources. The argument (rooted in the biblical tradition) that labour is a duty of humankind is supported by stock citations from the Bible19 and the claim that idleness is dishonourable is supported by a plethora of examples from ancient Greek rulers and lawmakers who once enacted various kinds of legislation aimed at promoting work and an honourable way of life among their citizens, which, as a result, banned idleness from their societies.20 Finally, the image of God working tirelessly as the Creator, Christ enduring trouble and pain on earth, and Saint Paul labouring to spread Christ’s teachings are also put forth as prime examples of industrious workers.21 The promotion of work is complemented by two lines of arguments concerning otium. First, a reference is made to Mt. 12:36 to show that otium is a sin by its very nature22 : “The people will have to account to God for every useless word they will have spoken.”23 This passage belongs to a speech given by Jesus to the Pharisees in which he claims that, on the Day of Judgement, people will have to account for every useless word (verbum otiosum) they have spoken.24 Having stated that useless words are to be considered sins, Contzen argues that the same would be true of useless thoughts (cogitatio otiosa) and deeds (actus otiosi). Thus, he concludes that idle deeds that are neither useful to anyone nor are intended to be so (nec ulli prosunt , nec ut prosint , aguntur, p. 225) are sinful, too. Contzen highlights, furthermore, the vicious nature of otium by presenting it as source of all vices ( fons est vitiorum, p. 226). This idea 19 Contzen cites 2 Thess. 3:10; Gen. 3:19; Job 5:7. Cf. with W. Conze, “Arbeit,” in Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe: Historisches Lexikon zur politisch-sozialen Sprache in Deutschland, eds. O. Brunner et al. (Stuttgart: Klett, 1972), 1:154–215, at 158. 20 Contzen, Daniel , 222–23. 21 “Our Lord always labours, the Saviour, while acting as a man on earth, was a man

of pains and works. Paul often invites us to labour, being himself a great example of exertion.” Ibid., 223. (“Noster autem Deus semper operatur, Redemptor vir dolorum et laborum fuit, dum homo factus in terris versaretur. Paulus crebro ad labores vocat, ipse laboris magnum exemplum.”) 22 “otium is a sin by its very nature.” Ibid., 225. (“Otium ex natura peccatum.”) 23 “De omni verbo otioso, quod locuti fuerint homines Deo rationem reddent.” Ibid.,

225. 24 H. Manuwald, “Vom Nutzen des Nutzlosen: Bonaventura und das verbum otiosum (‘nutzlose Wort’),” in Muße/muoze digital—mittelalterliche Varianten der Muße (2016) (https://www.musse-digital.uni-freiburg.de/c1/images/b/b5/Bonaventu raOtiosus.pdf, accessed on 10 March 2022), 2.

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of otium, already present in ancient Rome and perpetuated by the church fathers and medieval moralists, seems to have been a commonplace in Contzen’s time.25 Since otium is a vice, Contzen urges the courtiers to occupy themselves with earnest and useful work (serios ac fructuosos … labores, p. 223). Neither noble descent nor riches should tempt someone to live an idle life (neque nobilitas neque opes otii lenocinia esse debent, p. 224–25). Instead, the courtiers are asked to devote breaks in their duties at court to study (discant , dum intervalla sunt obsequiorum, pp. 223–24). This suggestion undoubtedly reflects the tradition of court criticism attacking the lack of education among courtiers.26 But Contzen’s promotion of work is not confined to life-long study. Rather, refuting Aristotle’s position on manual labour and drawing on Augustine as an authority, he characterizes manual labour as an honourable occupation, not a disgraceful one: “Manual labour should not be a disgrace. Of course, Aristotle considered it as slavish and common, but Augustine regarded it as honourable.”27 This claim is supported by the examples of several men of noble descent—including Saint Julian of Cuenca and Saint Winnoc—and also the patriarch Abraham and his wife Sara.28 However, after having put forth these examples, Contzen admits the unusual and—with regard to his intended noble readership—inappropriate nature of his claim.29 Still, he justifies his validation of manual labour didactically. The purpose of his exaggerated claim, Contzen argues, is to achieve some change in the behaviour of courtiers:

25 See, as an example, J. Althusius, Politica Methodice Digesta Atque Exemplis Sacris et Profanis Illustrata (Herborn: [Corvinus] 1614), 632. Cf. with B. Vickers, “Leisure and Idleness in the Renaissance: The Ambivalence of Otium,” Renaissance Studies 4 (1990), 1–37, at 14–22 and idem in ibid. no. 2 (1990), 107–54, at 107–10. 26 Seils, Staatslehre, 38. 27 “Nec pudori sit manibus laborare. Servile quidem et abiectum illud sentit esse Aris-

toteles, sed honestum Augustinus.” Contzen, Daniel , 224. Contzen cites Augustine’s De opere monachorum, presumably referring to Chapter 14 of the work. See Conze, “Arbeit,” 159; P. M. Lipburger, ‘“Quoniam si quis non vult operari nec manducet…’: Auffassungen von der Arbeit vor allem im Mittelalter,” in Praxis der Arbeit. Probleme und Perspektiven der handwerksgeschichtlichen Forschung, ed. R. Reith (Frankfurt a. M.: Campus, 1998), 55–82, at 53. 28 Contzen, Daniel , 224. 29 They seemed inappropriate when compared to the traditional estate-based idea of

society. Cf. with Conze, “Arbeit,” 160–63; Lipburger, “Quoniam,” 70–75.

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Yet, I do not bring up these examples to relegate the nobility to work with hoe and mattock or trowel and building bricks. Rather, I show them the peak that they might [at least] arrive at the mountain slope. I am suggesting the extraordinary, but my goal is the ordinary; that is, that they not be idle.30

Acknowledging that noble courtiers and the rich are not dependent on physical work to earn their living, Contzen concludes in his reflection on negotium and otium that the noble and the rich should spend their time with useful occupations and not indulge in useless recreation.31 By putting forward the expression otium negotiosum (“active inactiveness”), he offers a positive alternative to the vice otium.32 In contrast to otium desidiosum (“pointless idleness”), which Contzen characterizes as vicious, otium negotiosum is dedicated to useful purposes and not to vain enjoyments.33 Bearing in mind the book’s objective to teach the courtier a virtuous life, it becomes clear that the promoted “active inactiveness” is meant to be a way of saving courtiers from vicious otium and helping them maintain their virtue. At the same time, productivity is presented as an all-encompassing concept imposed on all aspects of life, including time dedicated to recreation.

30 “Non ad illum tamen finem haec refero, ut nobiles viros ad ligonem et sarculum aut asciam et caementa relegem. Summum ostendo verticem, ut vel in latere montis consistant. Iniqua propono, si tamen iniqua, ut aequa obtineam. Nimirum ut ne sint otiosi.” Contzen, Daniel , 224–25. 31 “I give this admonition: The rich should spend their time either with some useful physical or mental work […].” (“Hoc moneo, divites oportere aut corporis aut animi aliquo utili labore occupari […].”) Ibid., 225. 32 As Vickers (“Leisure and Idleness,” no. 1, 3–5) states, otium has “largely negative associations, only removed by some specially qualifying epithet or noun-phrase” such as negotiosum. The expression otium negotiosum was already present in antiquity but was also used in medieval monastic discourses and by Renaissance humanists (cf. Vickers, ibid., 14; L. Möllenbrink, “Zu wenig Muße, zu wenig Beschäftigung. Die Perspektivlosigkeit des Humanisten Konrad Leontorius im Kloster Maulbronn,” in Muße/muoze digital— mittelalterliche Varianten der Muße (2016) (https://www.musse-digital.uni-freiburg.de/ c1/images/3/3b/LeontoriusOtiumOtiositas.pdf, accessed on 10 March 2022), 3. 33 “For active inactiveness is praised, pointless idleness is dismissed. Otium is not to be enjoyed, but to be used.” (“Laudatur enim otium negotiosum, vituperatur desidiosum. Otio non est fruendum, sed utendum.”) Contzen, Daniel , 225.

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Promoting Work from the Perspective of Economic Policy in the Politica Otium as a threat to the individual’s virtue and work as a respective remedy are little discussed in the Politica. However, there are two passages which touch upon the topic. The first one is found in Book 4 of the Politica, which is dedicated entirely to education. In Chapter 8, several rules of the Jesuit Ratio Studiorum are presented and discussed. The paragraph attached to Regula IX 34 urges students to study continuously and diligently. This rule is justified with the contention that a lack of study (otium) has detrimental and dangerous effects on a student’s morals and cognitive and physical abilities.35 In the third book, Chapter 12 , which is titled “Great care of chastity must be taken in a commonwealth,” discusses how chastity (pudicitia) can be achieved.36 It presents otium as a breeding ground for dishonourable love affairs and negotium as a powerful remedy. Because they do not engage in work, two apparently distant groups of society—the rich and the healthy and able-bodied poor—are presented as particularly prone to fall in love. Whereas Contzen deplores that the former has not been taught to engage in honourable occupations, he suggests that forced labour should be used to raise morality among the latter.37 The suggestion that the poor should be forced to work is picked up and treated in more detail in a chapter titled “Other honourable and, for the subjects, useful means with which to strengthen the power of a state” in Book 8 of the Politica, which focuses on the power of the state (De potentia).38 This chapter heading hints at the perspective on work prevalent in Book 8. This book discusses work and diligence from the perspective of mercantilist economic politics and shows how work and industriousness contribute to the wealth and, thus, power of a state. For Contzen, increasing the power of the state is one of the government’s most important tasks. Influenced by the writings of Giovanni 34 Contzen, Politicorum Libri, 199–206. Like the other rules discussed in Chapter 8 (“Rules of behaviour to be told to students”), this regula belongs to the section “Regulae externorum Auditorum Societatis” of the Ratio Studiorum. 35 Contzen, Politicorum Libri, 204. 36 Ibid., 129–35. 37 Ibid., 133–34. 38 Ibid., 584–87.

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Botero, he conceptualizes economic and military power as decisive for the power of a state, and he sees the former as a prerequisite for the latter.39 According to Contzen, economic power is dependent on a full treasury, and thus it is essential for the prince to accumulate riches. As Contzen recommends filling the treasury mainly through taxation, the wealth of the state depends on the economic activities of the subjects, and a state can, accordingly, increase its wealth and power by fostering a flourishing economy. Thus, Contzen suggests—in the manner of an early mercantilist—that the prince should help develop relevant branches of the economy in his dominion, such as agriculture, mining, trade, and industry, but he should also aim to motivate his subjects to work.40 To summarize, he sees the power of a state first and foremost as the result of an effective economic policy, of which the attitudes of the prince’s subjects to work and their economic productivity are crucial factors. Accordingly, Contzen’s arguments concerning ways to provide relief for the poor primarily aim to get members of the lower social strata to work, ban idleness, and, consequently, increase the size of the working population. In his opinion, all able-bodied unemployed people should be forced to work.41 In comparison with other contemporary political thinkers, Contzen believes that very few people should rely on charity. In addition to the able-bodied, children, the elder, and invalids should also be integrated into the suggested work programme, because the elderly and invalids could be given tasks that can be performed when one is seated. As a result, the number of the poor who would actually deserve support, Contzen argues, would decrease significantly, and the remaining individuals in need could easily be sustained by charity.42 The nature of Contzen’s approach to providing relief for the poor by forcing them to perform work and thereby increasing the workforce 39 The notion that economic resources, the prince’s treasury and state power, are closely intertwined is formulated very prominently in Botero’s political thought. Botero, as an early mercantilist, also exhorts the prince to foster economic development. See Bireley, The Counter-Reformation Prince, 63–68, 227. For earlier models see E. Isenmann, “Medieval and Renaissance Theories of State Finance,” in Economic Systems and State Finance, ed. R. Bonney (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 505–62; G. Lizzul, “Liberality as a Fiscal Problem in Medieval and Renaissance Thought: A Genealogy from Aristotle’s Tyrant to Machiavelli’s Prince,” The Journal of the History of Ideas 83 (2022), 363–85. 40 Seils, Staatslehre, 136–39; Bireley, The Counter-Reformation Prince, 48–151, 227–28. 41 Contzen, Politicorum Libri, 586. 42 Ibid., 586; Contzen, Methodus, 129.

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of the state becomes particularly evident when he proposes to institute forced work for vagrants,43 i.e. the itinerant, able-bodied unemployed.44 Compelling people to work, he argues, would be useful as much for the given individual as for the commonwealth.45 First, work improves the morals of able-bodied vagrants and therefore is useful for them. Once compulsory labour has had a moderating effect and taught them the proper way of life (prudentes et moderati, p. 585), they could be released again. Second, a strong workforce, available to the prince and the citizens, is presented as a means for the state to accumulate wealth. Contzen identifies the various advantages of compulsory labour. Construction projects could be finished more quickly, the cost of such projects would be lower, and those forced to work could be employed in branches of the economy that are crucial to the wealth of a state.46 Whereas coercion seems to be Contzen’s preferred strategy with regard to the lower social classes, in the sectors of industry and trade, which are considered the most profitable, the suggested strategy for raising economic productivity is strikingly different.47 Instead of coercion, Contzen proposes means of positive reinforcement. For instance, he suggests that the prince awards privileges to both merchants and artisans, gives merchants access to political offices, and raises the prestige of both sectors in order to make them more attractive. He goes to great 43 Semantically, Contzen uses the term servitus (slavery). Seils, Staatslehre, 129, however, argues that Contzen does not have in mind ancient slavery, but rather a programme similar to workhouses. 44 Contzen, Politicorum Libri, 585. The stance taken by Contzen towards the unemployed poor is generally shared by the secular authorities of his time. See Chapter 10 in this volume and C. Lis and H. Soly, Worthy Efforts: Attitudes to Work and Workers in Pre-Industrial Europe (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 440–59. 45 Contzen claims in the respective chapter that he is presenting ways for the state to accumulate riches, which also benefit the subjects (Politicorum Libri, 584–85): “I showed that riches are necessary for the state. They are accumulated honestly either by doing damage to the subjects or without detriment to them, or, finally, even in a way that is of use to them.” (“Opes Reipublicae necessarias docui, illae honeste vel cum civium incommodis, vel absque eorum detrimento, vel denique cum utilitate eorum congregantur. De postremo modo ago.”) Cf. also ibid., 585: “Compulsory labour is indeed useful for the commonwealth […], being forced to perform hard labour is clearly useful for those who are unable to bear their freedom.” (“Utile vero hoc [labour coercion] est in communi […], plane utile est illis servitutem servire, qui ferre non possunt libertatem.”) 46 Contzen, Politicorum Libri, 585. 47 Bireley, The Counter-Reformation Prince, 150.

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lengths in the Politica to promote the vocational arts and trade, and he points out how the state can profit from both. In the chapter titled “Trade is to be expanded”,48 Contzen suggests that the ruler should foster trade in his dominion and engage in trading himself. Merchants, however, had a bad reputation rooted in antiquity and still present in the Early Modern era.49 Contzen, therefore, resolves to challenge and refute negative opinions of trade and draw a positive picture of the merchant. Trade was commonly charged with leading to a decline in moral standards. Contzen aims to refute this reproach by arguing that the people engaged in trade were responsible for moral corruption, and not trade per se. Similarly, he does not follow the Aristotelian criticism of profitoriented trade (negotiatio lucrativa). Rather, he legitimizes this form of trade by giving various reasons for reselling a product at a higher price and by arguing that trade is an affair as honourable as the mechanical arts and farming. He supports this claim by characterizing the patriarch Abraham as a merchant who engaged in trade with sheep, cows, and camels.50 Contzen often uses figures from the Old Testament as examples in support of his arguments.51 In the chapter on trade, however, Contzen goes further and draws a very positive picture of the merchant by presenting the job as highly dangerous. In a passage in which “artificial” trade (mercatura artificialis )—goods exchanged for money—is

48 Contzen, Politicorum Libri, 565–70. 49 Lis and Soly, Worthy Efforts, 223. The authors give a detailed discussion (pp. 225–

38) of sources spanning a period from the Church fathers to the thirteenth century and show how the attitudes of the Christian Church towards merchants and trade changed over the course of the centuries. Generally, a more positive picture of the merchant emerged, although the stereotype of the “merchant as a potential swindler and usurer and as an absolute sinner […] persisted” (ibid., 235). 50 Contzen, Politicorum Libri, 566–67. See also Aristotle, Politics, 1257b–1258a and Stollberg-Rilinger “Handelsgeist und Adelsethos.” Cf. with the medieval arguments concerning trade in Chapter 2. 51 The biblical prophet Daniel is the main example of Contzen’s eponymous courtier’s mirror. Old Testament rulers are widely used as examples in the mirror-for-princes literature. See J. Canning, A History of Medieval Political Thought 300–1450 (London: Routledge, 1996), 16–25; and R. A. Müller, “Historia als Regentenhilfe. Geschichte als Bildungsfach in deutschen Fürstenspiegeln des konfessionellen Zeitalters,” in Les princes e l’histoire du XIVe au XVIIIe siècle, eds. Ch. Grell et al. (Bonn: Bouvier, 1998), 359–71, at 367–70.

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presented as highly similar to “natural” trade (mercatura naturalis )— goods exchanged for goods, which tended to be seen as blameless—the dangerous and risky nature of trade is highlighted. After having described a short, fictive example of a Polish merchant exchanging grain for money and a Spanish merchant exchanging wine for money, Contzen argues that both commercial activities entail some effort but “artificial” trade involves more risk or danger than hard work (p. 566): “Both merchants make efforts, both are subjected to dangers. The merchant’s work entails less labour, but more danger.”52 In the rest of the chapter, this picture of the merchant is reinforced. He is presented as a Stoic who is indifferent to the dangers and hardships of his profession. On his journeys, he is threatened by heat and sea monsters, yet over and over again he sets off industriously to engage in trade.53 Another reference point for the activities of the merchant is warfare. In a section discussing the question of whether merchants are allowed to earn a profit, they are compared with soldiers, and profit-oriented trade is paralleled to the soldier’s hope for plunder. By pointing out that the soldiers’ motives would by no means diminish their reputation, Contzen argues that profit-oriented trade should also be accepted.54 In a similar picture, Contzen presents the merchants’ industriousness as a means of defending Christian states and the power of princes by asking

52 “[…] uterque operam impendit, uterque periculum subit. Minus operae, sed plus periculi est in negotiatore.” Contzen, Politicorum Libri, 566. 53 Ibid., 569. To characterize the merchant’s industriousness, Contzen (ibid.) cites verses 15–18 of Horace’s Ode 1.1: “The trader despises all sea monsters under the blistering Sun and the ‘merchant fearing the African wind wrestling the Icarian sea praises leisure and the laws [correctly: fields] of his own town; soon he repairs the battered ships, not taught to suffer poverty’.” “Omnia despicit negotiator, sub Sole torrido, monstra natantia et Luctantem Icariis fluctibus Africum/Mercator metuens , otium et oppidi/Laudat iura [rura] sui; mox reficit rates/Quassas indocilis pauperiem pati.” See also the marginal note, “The merchant does not fear dangers.” (“Negotiator pericula contemnit.”) 54 “But you will say: ‘It is shameful to put yourself in danger out of greed and it does not befit a noble man.’ You should then have a look at a military camp, and out of 30 legions pick even one cohort of men who do not put on their shrouds every day in hope of profit and booty. Why do you praise them but scold the merchants?” Ibid., 567. (“At dices: ‘Cupidine periclitari turpe est; nec magnum virum decet.’ Tu igitur mihi castra intuere et ex triginta legionibus unam cohortem delige eorum, qui non lucri et praedarum spe quotidie mortualem vestem induant. Cur hos laudas, negotiatores vituperas?”)

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the following rhetorical question: “What protects a Christian Commonwealth and the rulers’ dignity except for the merchants’ industry?”55 This question reflects, of course, the crucial role attributed to the treasury in Contzen’s concept of power, and the merchant’s activity accordingly is presented as a prerequisite for warfare and the wellbeing of the prince’s court.56 Trade and warfare are also linked when Contzen aims to convince the prince to engage in trade himself and to draw on trade instead of tributes, taxes, and warfare to fill the state coffers.57 In this context, Contzen argues that warfare only appears to be a more honourable and prestigious means of accumulating riches, but in fact it is outdone by trade, which is both more honourable and more efficient.58 However, Contzen’s efforts to cast a positive light on trade aim not only at a general promotion of this business but more particularly at the second estate. Refusing the—albeit largely customary—laws that prohibited the nobility from engaging in trade in the Holy Roman Empire and praising the commercial activities of the Spanish, Italian, and Flemish nobility, he criticizes the German nobility for falling into poverty and becoming criminal rather than engage in trade.59 The prince, he argues, should call upon noblemen, in particular, to become merchants and should not allow them to live an idle life: “Finally, in my view, this prince will act most wisely, who will rather push every noble into trade than allow them to be idle.”60 Similarly, the clergy is not banned from engaging

55 “Quidnam nunc tuetur Rempublicam Christianam ac Regum dignitatem nisi mercatorum industria?” Ibid. 56 “Indeed, if we want to confess the truth, Kings can neither wage war properly not maintain their court without merchants.” Ibid. (“Quin si verum fateri volumus, sine mercatoribus non modo bellum gerere, sed nec aulam retinere Reges commode possunt.”) 57 Ibid., 568–69. 58 Ibid., 569. See the marginal note: “It is more honest to accumulate riches by trading

than by waging war.” (“Opes augere negotiatione honestius quam bello.”) Ibid: “Warfare appears to be more noble, but, in truth, it is wiser and more straightforward if industry amasses riches and protects a kingdom; if India and Asia enlarge the treasury.” (“Hoc [warfare] in speciem maius, at revera sapientius rectiusque, si industria acquirat opes, regnum tueatur; si India, si Asia aerarium auget.”) 59 Ibid., 570. See B. Stollberg-Rilinger, “Handelsgeist und Adelsethos,” Zeitschrift für Historische Forschung 15 (1988), 273–309, at 276–82. 60 “Mihi demum Princeps ille prudentissime facturus videtur, qui honestissimum quemque ad negotiationes excitabit potius quam otiari sinat.” Contzen, Politicorum Libri, 570.

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in trade. Although Contzen acknowledges that the clergy is generally prohibited from taking part in trade, he stresses that the intention of trade is crucial. In his view, a clergyman is allowed to engage in trade as long as he is motivated by charity and not greed (si non cupiditate, sed animo iuvandi miseros id agat, p. 570). Likewise, a poor clergyman, Contzen argues, should sooner engage in trading than begging—a statement clearly reflecting the contemporary criticism of the mendicant orders.61 With regard to the mechanical arts (artes mechanicae), the argument employed by Contzen is very similar to his discussion of trade. Again, the prince is asked to foster this economic sector by raising its reputation and awarding privileges to those working in the field.62 In the course of the chapter, Contzen puts forward arguments in support of the notion that craftsmen and artisans deserve to be held in high. He provides various biblical examples and shows that the artes mechanicae used to be honoured in Roman times.63 He criticizes Aristotle for excluding craftsmen and artisans from the citizenry and, instead, praises manual labour.64 In addition, he highlights how a state can profit from the work of craftsmen and artisans. Without much effort on their behalf, they contribute to the wealth of the state by attracting merchants, avoiding idleness, and being useful in times of war.65 As in the case of trade, Contzen aims to attract the noble and the rich to the mechanical arts, and he claims that his suggestions will be successful if the prince is only willing to follow them: “Firstly, the mechanical arts should be well respected.

61 “If he [the clergyman] is poor, he should rather engage in trade than beg and burden

other people.” (“Si inops est, praestat negotiari quam mendicatione alios gravare.”) Ibid., 579. See Todd, Christian Humanism, 123. 62 The artes mechanicae are also discussed in Chapter 8.15 (ibid., 585–86). 63 Ibid. 64 “Aristotle [Politics, 1278a] excluded them [craftsmen and artisans] from the citizenry, but unjustly, because they are trained and skilful and have the means that are necessary to sustain themselves. For today, their way of working is such that they do not weaken but strengthen their bodies.” (“Aristoteles eos quidem repellit a Republica, sed iniuria, cum exercitatio prudentiaque illis sit, cum praesidia ad vitae necessaria habeant. Hodie enim haec est eorum ratio, ut non frangant laboribus corpora, sed firment […].”) Ibid., 585. 65 “In fact, craftsmen provide very great support for a state, because they attract merchants, avoid idleness, bring in riches, and are useful in times of war. […]; they will support the state with little effort and labour.” (“Maxima vero subsidia Reipublicae conferunt artifices, nam negotiatores alliciunt, otium fugiunt, opes important, in bello utiles sunt. […]; minore cura et labore Rempublicam iuvabunt.”) Ibid., 586.

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Secondly—this follows from this—some crafts should be held in such high esteem that the rich and noble would also practise them. […]. They will not be missing, if only the prince is ready and willing,”66 meaning that there would be plenty of noble and rich people working as craftsmen and artisans if the prince were willing to suggest the measures Contzen was suggesting. In the Politica, Contzen offers a comprehensive concept of work and industry. His reflection on the work ethic is not limited to a specific social estate. Rather, he imposes the ethical obligation to be productive on all of them. This is an approach that he shares with Christian humanists, such as More and Erasmus. In their writings, as Margot Todd has shown, “no social group was exempted from the ban on idleness.”67 In addition, it becomes clear how Contzen’s promotion of the work ethic is closely linked to social criticism. Social criticism is present in Daniel , in which Contzen’s discussion of a courtly work ethic is based on his critical assessment of the courtiers’ lifestyle and habits. This critical stance can also be found in the Politica and again is targeted at the second estate. In sharp criticism, the nobility is accused of relying too much on their privileges and contributing too little to the commonwealth.68 Finally, it is remarkable that the argument that idleness is a threat to the virtue of the individual does not figure very prominently in the Politica. Apart from two short passages on otium and the remark that work has a moderating effect on the vagrant’s morals, the perspective of economic policy prevails. The prince should do everything to foster industriousness among his subjects for the sake of wealth and power of the state.

66 “Primum […] est, ut artes honoratae sint, alterum quod inde sequitur, ut quaedam ita honestae habeantur, ut eas quoque divites et nobiles factitent. […]. Nec deerunt, modo Princeps velit.” Ibid. 67 Todd, Christian Humanism, 124. 68 Contzen’s critical attitude towards the nobility is not confined to the work ethic.

Generally, he is very critical of the privileges of the nobility as well. See for the Daniel, C. Menze, “Die Kritik deutscher Jesuiten am höfischen Bildungsideal in der ersten Hälfte des siebzehnten Jahrhunderts,” Vierteljahrsschrift für wissenschaftliche Pädagogik 45 (1969), 110–39, at 117–19 and Contzen, Methodus, 64. On a political level, his critical stance is shown by his desire to limit the influence of the estates. He also views the nobility as primarily concerned with their own interests but not with the common good (cf. with Seils, Staatslehre, 75).

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The Industriousness and Diligence of the Prince The highest-ranking person in the land, the prince, is not exempted from Contzen’s call for diligence and industry. Rather, the ruler in particular is obliged to work tirelessly for his kingdom. Contzen argues for the importance of tireless work on the part of the prince in a section of the Politica in which he discusses the virtues crucial for good governance, and he illustrates this aspect of his work ethic vividly in his political novel Methodus. In the chapter titled “Prudence is to be combined with diligence,” Contzen urges the prince to be diligent as a ruler and assume the responsibilities of rule himself.69 Ruling, he insists, should by no means be associated with idleness: “Nothing is less fitting for a ruler than idleness.”70 On the contrary, rulers should do all kinds of work, even tasks which seem less important or honourable, because minor matters are as important as major ones when it comes to issues of state. Contzen names the treasury among the first of the matters to which the prince should pay attention in person—a statement that can well be explained by the importance attributed to financial resources in the Politica—and he stresses that taking care of matters commonly considered less important for a prince does not undermine the prince’s prestige. He supports this claim with the contention that God’s infinite majesty would not prevent him from caring about ordinary things.71 In the course of the chapter, Contzen aims to highlight the importance of a diligent ruler from two perspectives. First, he presents the industrious ruler as a role model who encourages his subjects to be industrious by example.72 Second, he describes the detrimental consequences of idle and negligent rule. On a personal level, eternal punishment awaits the idle ruler who does not take care of those entrusted to him. In addition, if the ruler is idle, this will have practical consequences for the entire dominion: a lack of diligence and scorn for work are shown to lead to turmoil, chaos,

69 Contzen, Politicorum Libri, 110–13. 70 “Nihil minus regium est quam otium.” Ibid., 111. 71 Ibid., 110–11. 72 “The example of the princes excites the industry of others […].” (“Principes exemplo alienam industriam acuunt […].”) Ibid., 110: See also ibid., 111: “The work of the prince is useful because it awakens everyone’s hands.” (“Labor principis utilis est, quia omnium manus excitat.”)

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and disaster for the ruler’s subjects. Thus, sloth and negligence shown by a ruler are not only disgraceful but also criminal and tyrannical.73 Contzen’s novel Methodus offers a portrait of a kingdom suffering under an idle ruler and the same kingdom prospering under a diligent ruler. At some point of the story, the novel’s protagonist King Abissinus, who rules over a vast, fictive kingdom in Sub-Saharan Africa, is distracted from governing by his courtiers. Contrary to the view expressed in the Politica, the courtiers tell the king that the tribulations of rule are beneath him and convince Abissinus to lead an idle life. By doing so, they strip the king of his power and increase their own influence on state affairs. Since otium is a source of all other vices, the king is then ensnared by additional vices. On the level of the state, furthermore, the absence of the king as the head of a diligent government has harmful consequences. Corruption, injustice, and greed begin to prevail among the judges and magistrates and—as described in the Politica—Abissinus’s negligent rule degenerates into tyranny. In the end, various towns and the army revolt against the king. Abissinus has to flee, and other rulers seize his kingdom.74 While this section of the novel demonstrates the great damage a ruler can do to his dominion and subjects if he gives in to the temptations of idleness, the very same king serves as a positive example in the later passages of the Methodus. Abissinus begins to act in accordance with the advice given in the Politica and takes his place at the head of a diligent government again. After having become aware of the sinfulness and depravity of his earlier life in exile, the king repents his misdeeds and manages to regain power.75 He visits the provinces of his vast kingdom, struggles against various vices among the magistrates and the people, introduces reforms, and sits on the court tirelessly.76 Due to his industriousness, the kingdom flourishes once again, but people start worrying 73 Ibid., 112. Citing a translation of Hesiod’s Works and Days (V.311), he states that “not toiling and labouring but laziness and idleness are shameful. Yet, the laziness and idleness of a king, a prince, and a council is not only a disgrace, but it is a crime, it is treachery, it is often robbery and tyranny, as the subjects must suffer the injustice of evil people because of their sloth.” (“Operari, laborare non est probrum, at pigritia cessatioque probrum est; in rege, principe, senatu non modo probrum est, scelus est, perfidia est, saepe latrocinium, saepe tyrannis est, cum eorum ignavia improborum iniuriae in subditos insurgunt.”) 74 Contzen, Methodus, 123–33. 75 Ibid., 135–42, 168–70. 76 Ibid., 193–217.

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about his burdensome workload. When Abissinus is asked to work less, he gives an answer that reflects Contzen’s “princely” work ethic in a nutshell: “Dominion is not an end in itself. A king is destined to work for the public good. The idle kings afflict, the diligent help many people.”77 In the Politica, Contzen does not only praise the positive impact of a diligent ruler in general terms but also gives detailed suggestions on how a prince can manage a burdensome workload. He highlights the benefits of a good workflow and underlines the importance of a well-planned schedule.78 The time allotted for idle recreation should be devoted to something else.79 Instead, Contzen offers a strict daily schedule that is meant to enable the prince to fulfil the various demands of a personal government. Setting aside seven hours for sleep and two each for eating and “honourable recreations” (recreationi honestaeque animi relaxationi, p. 111), he calculates that a prince can spend thirteen hours a day on business.80 In addition, Contzen proposes that the prince should adopt a procedure used by the Superior General of the Society of Jesus to maintain control of distant provinces. When the king sends out orders, it should be reported whether and how they have been executed, and if they are not followed, then reasons for this failure should be given. This procedure is presented as a time-efficient method for exerting control and staying informed across distances without too much effort.81 These precise suggestions show that Contzen’s call for a diligent ruler who shoulders the burdens of rule himself should not be seen merely as a utopian idea but rather is meant to be taken at face value. It was, in fact, related to an idea of centralization based on Jesuit experiences.

Conclusion The analysis of Contzen’s perspective on work and diligence expressed in his political oeuvre shows that he employs a comprehensive approach to the topic. First, otium is generally considered a vice and condemned

77 “Imperium non esse sui gratia. Regem publico labori esse sacratum. Secordia regum multos affligi, vigilantia iuvari.” Ibid., 203. 78 Contzen, Politicorum Libri, 111. 79 Ibid., 112. 80 Ibid., 111. 81 Ibid., 112.

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as a threat to virtue. Consequently, recreations are legitimate only when subject to the postulate of utility. Second, productivity as an ethical obligation is imposed on all social groups. All members of the state—from the poor mendicant to the prince—are urged to work diligently. Third, the benefits of industriousness for a state are highlighted, and work is presented not only as an important value for the individual but also as crucial to the commonwealth. Therefore, trade and the mechanical arts are promoted as honourable occupations which contribute to the wealth and power of a state. This comprehensive approach, however, raises the question as to whether the work ethic of the Jesuit Contzen is representative to some degree of the political theory of his time or, rather, should be regarded as an “outlier” within the field. In the remainder of this paper, I will offer an answer to this question by comparing Contzen’s ideas on work and idleness to the ideas expressed in the systematic treatises of some contemporary German political thinkers. As the study of politics at universities in the German-speaking world witnessed a rise in popularity in the first third of the seventeenth century and a plethora of systematic treatises were published in this period,82 I am compelled to confine myself to a limited number of authors for this comparison. By drawing on the systematic treatises of Johannes Althusius, Bartholomäus Keckermann, Henning Arnisaeus, and Georg Schönborner, who were the most influential contemporary political thinkers of the time, I can consider the question from both the Lutheran and the Reformed perspectives.83 Condemnations of idleness were commonplace in the political treatises of the time. All the authors named above consider otium a vice. Their arguments resemble the one given in Daniel to a great extent. On an individual level, they tend to argue that otium leads to moral depravation. In addition, they characterize idlers as parasites and condemn idleness as an offence to the commonwealth. Likewise, they consider otium as a state which may well give rise to forms of subversion and accuse it of being a cause of turmoil and rebellion.84 Remarkably, this view on otium is missing in Contzen’s work. This is even more surprising considering that 82 Seils, Staatslehre, 30; Stolleis, Geschichte des Öffentlichen Rechts, 110–12. 83 For an overview of the works and ideas of these authors, see Stolleis, ibid., 104–22. 84 H. Arnisaeus, Doctrina Politica in Genuinam Methodum, quae est Aristotelis,

Reducta (Frankfurt, Oder: Thieme/Eichhorn, 1606), [431]–433; B. Keckermann, Systema Disciplinae Politicae (Hanau: Antonius, 1608), 209–10 and 435–36; G. Schönborner,

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Contzen dedicates an entire book of the Politica (Book 9: De seditione) to the topic.85 In accordance with laws concerning poverty in the Early Modern era, a critical and restrictive attitude towards mendicants is prevalent in the systematic treatises of Althusius, Keckermann, Arnisaeus, and Schönborner.86 Generally, it is agreed that able-bodied, idle mendicants should be banned from the commonwealth. Except for Schönborner, these authors also suggest forcing the able-bodied unemployed to work, and Althusius also regards forced work as a means of disciplining idle mendicants. At the same time, the authors acknowledge that the state should provide some basic social welfare for the deserving poor who are not able to work.87 This short overview shows that Contzen is in line with the general trend of contemporary political thought when condemning the poor for working too little. His approach, however, is more extreme. Also he adds an economic perspective, and the social aspects considered in the works of other authors do not figure very prominently in his writing. On the contrary, work is the most important means with which to provide relief for the poor in his political thought, as he suggests significantly increasing the number of those expected to work. Whereas contemporary political thinkers and the secular authorities share Contzen’s restrictive approach to the able-bodied unemployed, usually based on forced labour, he is the only one to combine this approach with an economic perspective. In his view, the able-bodied vagrants are a workforce to be exploited by the state in its quest to accumulate wealth and power.88 With regard to trade, political thinkers of the time acknowledge the general necessity of trade for the life and wealth of the people.89 Althusius

Politicorum Libri VII (Leipzig: Apel/Kober, 1614), 263–66; Althusius, Politica, 632–33 and 648–49. 85 This might be explained by the fact that religious controversies are thought to be the main cause for rebellion in the Politica. 86 Lis and Soly, Worthy Efforts, 444. 87 Arnisaeus, Doctrina Politica, 433–34; Keckermann, Systema, 218–20 and 254–55;

Schönborner, Politicorum Libri, 266–68; Althusius, Politica, 612–13, 633, and 637–38. 88 This is also reflected by the fact that, contrary to the other authors, Contzen does not suggest banning the unemployed, able-bodied poor from the commonwealth. 89 Weber, Prudentia gubernatoria, 301; Arnisaeus, Doctrina Politica, 316; Althusius, Politica, 199.

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and Keckermann even highlight the link between intensive trade and the wealth of a state, and they argue that a lack of trade leads to the impoverishment of the subjects and, thus, of the state.90 Nevertheless, Contzen’s praise of trade and the pains he takes to raise the prestige of the merchant are unprecedented. There are no similar passages in the political treatises by the authors analysed. On the contrary, the other authors exclude the nobility from trade and agree with customary law.91 Their lines of argument, however, differ from one another. Schönborner and Arnisaeus refer to the traditional view on trade as a tainted economic activity and regard it as not befitting the second estate.92 Keckermann and Althusius argue that noblemen should not deprive other members of society of opportunities to earn their livings.93 Contzen’s remarkable opinion on trade and the nobility can be understood best if we recall his view that the prince should also occupy himself with matters that seem beneath his rank and place. Both opinions show that the benefits a state could gain from the industriousness of either the prince himself or any member of society are seen as far more important than social expectations and biases associated with the respective social group. Contzen subordinates the traditions of an estate-based society to the economic requirements that result from the political maxim of maintaining and increasing the (financial) power of the state. The interest of the state—i.e. preserving and expanding the state via mercantilist economic policies—is considered far more important than the interests of certain groups of society. This prioritization also underlies the harsh social criticism of the nobility formulated in Contzen’s reflections on the work ethic. In addition, Contzen’s social criticism and his comprehensive approach show the influence of Christian humanism. Like Contzen, humanists imposed industriousness as an ethical obligation on all social estates, and they considered the work ethic beneficial to the commonwealth.94 Humanist influence on Contzen’s work ethic seems all the more plausible when we consider his educational and institutional background.

90 Keckermann, Systema, 246; Althusius, Politica, 666. 91 A broader discussion of the topic of trade and the nobility can be found in Stollberg-

Rilinger, “Handelsgeist und Adelsethos.” 92 Arnisaeus, Doctrina Politica, 316–19; Schönborner, Politicorum Libri, 327. 93 Keckermann, Systema, 242–45; Althusius, Politica, 668. 94 Todd, Christian Humanism, 123–27.

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After all, the Jesuit training he received was based on a humanist tradition which implied a critical stance to texts and authors, an understanding of the centrality of virtue and merit, and frequently also some form of social criticism. By prioritizing the interests of the state, Contzen’s work ethic also comes close to a trend in political theory very much debated at the time: his political thinking is informed by the logic of the reason of state, which—understood in a very broad and general sense—subordinates all particular interests to the interest of the state. It is primarily concerned with measures with which to conserve and expand state power.95 However, Contzen’s political theory is not merely informed by the logic of the reason of state. It is also guided by an anti-Machiavellian perspective. In no way can he be said to agree with the idea that Christian morals could be violated for the sake of maintaining dominion. Instead, similarly to Botero,96 he drafts a Catholic, moral reason of state and argues that state power and politics should be bound to Christian morals. Moreover, Contzen is convinced that this would not lessen the efficiency and success of a government but, on the contrary, would make it more successful and durable.97 Yet despite his clear anti-Machiavellian stance, it is fair to conclude that his reflections on the work ethic follow the logic inherent to the reason of state. His insistence on the notion that the work ethic applies to every member of every social strata—the ruler, the nobility, and the common man—is guided by the conviction that state interests override all other interests.

95 Dreitzel, “Politische Philosophie,” 700. In Della ragion di stato, Botero defines reason of state as the “knowledge of the means suitable to found, preserve, and expand a dominion.” R. Bireley, Botero. The Reason of State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 4. On the influence of Botero on Contzen, see Bireley, The CounterReformation Prince, 148–50. In the collected volume Finanzen und Staatsräson in Italien und Deutschland in der frühen Neuzeit, ed. H. Kellenbenz and A. De Maddalena (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1992) there are several case studies on the link between reason of state and state finance. 96 Bireley, Botero, xv–xxi. 97 Seils, Staatslehre, 1968, 176–78; Bireley, Maximilian von Bayern, 35–38.

CHAPTER 9

The Counter-Reformation Concept of Good Labour and the Inculcation of a Catholic Work Ethic Toon Van Houdt

In their monumental book on the perception of work and workers in preindustrial Europe, Catharina Lis and Hugo Soly do not pay any explicit attention to the Catholic approach during the Counter-Reformation.1 No specific sources have been adduced or analysed to shed light on

T. Van Houdt (B) KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium e-mail: [email protected] 1 C. Lis and H. Soly (eds.), Worthy Efforts: Attitudes to Work and Workers in Pre-Industrial Europe (Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2012). Recent standard works on the Counter-Reformation also neglect the subject altogether. See especially R. Po-Chia Hsia, The World of Catholic Renewal, 1540–1770 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 20052 ); id. (ed.), Reform and Expansion (1500–1660) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007); M. Mullett, Historical Dictionary of the Reformation and

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 G. Almási and G. Lizzul (eds.), Rethinking the Work Ethic in Premodern Europe, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38092-1_9

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whether religious authors made efforts to develop a discourse on work and workers that was sufficiently adapted to the new economic, social, and cultural circumstances of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The omission seems to suggest that, in so far as representatives of the Catholic Church occupied themselves with the conceptualization and moral regulation of various forms of work and types of workers, the views which they expressed and the norms which they tried to impose did not substantially differ from those expressed and imposed by their medieval counterparts. The question is whether this (largely implicit) viewpoint is valid or not. This chapter offers some preliminary explorations in a field of research that promises to be more fruitful than the current state of scholarly work suggests. I focus primarily on the southern Low Countries in the seventeenth century, a region where the Counter-Reformation was spread and internalized most successfully.2 I pay particular attention to the views expounded by religious authors who aimed to influence the ideas and behaviour of “workers,” by either sermonizing, composing teaching materials, or presenting hagiographical role models. My sources are collections of sermons delivered in church, handbooks for language instruction and the moral edification of youngsters attending Latin schools, and narratives of saints’ lives composed to stimulate meditation, self-reflection, and, ultimately, self-reformation among devout believers—genres that constitute specific and well-established CounterReformational instruments to penetrate the minds and hearts of Catholic believers and modify their behaviour. I give pride of place to the Latin treatise Encomium laboris, Acediae vituperium (“Praise of labour, blame of sloth”), a lengthy eulogy on labour and assiduity written and published by Petrus Loycx shortly before his death in 1646. Throughout his adult life, Loycx was active as a priest in the parish of Saint Willibrord, a rural community situated just outside the city walls of Antwerp. A particularly devoted parish priest, he was honoured for his unremitting zeal with the title of

Counter-Reformation (Lanham, Md.–Plymouth: Scarecrow Press, 20102 ); and A. Bamji, G. H. Janssen & M. Laven (eds.), The Ashgate Companion to the Counter-Reformation (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013). 2 See J. Machielsen, “Counter-Reformation,” in Brill’s Encyclopaedia of the Neo-Latin World, eds. Ph. Ford, J. Bloemendal & Ch. Fantazzi (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 759–73, at 760.

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protonotarius apostolicus (apostolic chancellor).3 Replete with arguments, examples, and anecdotes culled from ancient Greek and Roman authors, the Bible, the Church Fathers, and especially medieval theologians, the Encomium laboris, Acediae vituperium offers an important seventeenthcentury synthesis of Roman Catholic thought on the virtues of hard work and the vices of sloth and idleness; to my knowledge, it is the most extensive work on the subject written and published in the early modern Netherlands.4 It is safe to assume that Encomium laboris, Acediae vituperium originated from the sermons which Loycx delivered in his local church on a weekly basis and was first and foremost intended to be used by fellow-clergymen who were looking for appropriate material for their own sermons. Thus, it offers a fairly good idea of the norms and values pertaining to work and occupation that were inculcated into the minds of faithful churchgoers.5 In addition to the pulpit, from which Loycx and other parish priests held their ardent sermons in favour of assiduous labour and self-discipline, the Latin schools of the southern Netherlands also played a crucial role in inculcating a Catholic work ethic. The well-developed and widespread school system of the Jesuit order strongly insisted on the need for pupils to work hard and maintain strict self-discipline so as to avoid any waste of time, important virtues which youngsters were taught to internalize and put into practice during their adult lives. To acquaint young pupils who had just started to attend Jesuit schools with the customs and rules of these institutions, the Flemish Jesuit teacher and pedagogue

3 Information about Loycx’s life and works is sparse. For a brief but exhaustive biobibliographical account, see E. Van Arenbergh, in Biographie Nationale de Belgique 12 (1892–93), 530. That a man as highly educated as Loycx worked as a parish priest in a rural community testifies to the success of the efforts made by the ecclesiastical authorities to raise the intellectual level of the lower clergy. See H. Geybels, De Contrareformatie onderhuids. Mentaalhistorisch essay over de Contrareformatie (Kapellen: Pelckmans, 2009), 71. 4 P. Loycx, Encomium laboris, Acediae vituperium (Antwerp: G. Lesteenius, 1646). To my knowledge, Loycx’s treatise has not yet been studied in greater detail. 5 The neat composition of Encomium laboris, with its division into separate chapters

treating specific topics, the quite often homiletic style, and the addition of useful indices invited preachers to use the work as a treasure chest of materials for their sermons. It goes without saying that such a reutilization of Loycx’s work did not exclude other forms of reception, such as reading for meditational or edificatory purposes by, for instance, monks and nuns.

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Antonius van Torre (1615—1679) composed a series of Dialogi familiares. First published in 1657, they proved highly successful and were reprinted several times over the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.6 The lively and quite often mildly humoristic dialogues offer various realistic snapshots taken from the lives of schoolchildren, from rising early in the morning, attending lessons, and going home to have lunch or supper to doing homework in the evening and preparing for bed. Although Van Torre’s handbook has attracted the attention of historians of education, it has never been studied as an instrument which was intended and used to inculcate a strict work ethic based on sedulous labour and self-discipline. As I will show, the “program” of hard work and constant self-discipline which Van Torre tried to impose on his pupils was more rigorous than the message of moderation that lies at the core of Loycx’s rather traditional treatise. The hagiographical literature produced by members of the Jesuit order in the early modern period confronted readers with an even more radical work ethic. The hugely popular hagiographical account of the life and deeds of Jan Berchmans is an excellent case in point. It was written in the vernacular by the Italian Jesuit Virgilius Cepari (1564–1631) in 1627 and translated into Latin in 1630 by Herman Hugo, a Jesuit living and working in the southern Low Countries.7 Berchmans (1599—1621) was a young lad from Diest who first studied at the local Latin school and then attended the newly established Jesuit college at Malines, where he enrolled in the Sodality of the Holy Virgin Mary. On 24 September 1616, he entered the Jesuit novitiate and was soon sent to Rome to study philosophy at the Collegium Romanum, where he enjoyed the religious guidance and moral protection of his future biographer, Cepari. A few years later, at the age of 22, Berchmans succumbed to a serious illness and

6 A. van Torre, Dialogi familiares (Antwerp: M. Knobbaert, 1657). By far the best study, with references to older literature, is offered by Chr. Laes, “De Dialogis familiaribus Antonii Van Torre (1615–1679),” Vox Latina 195 (2014), 2–23. 7 Vita Joannis Berchmanni Flandro-Belgicae religiosi Societatis Jesu, Italice scripta a P. Virgilio Cepario, Latine reddita a P. Hermanno Hugone (Antwerp: B. Moretus, 1630). The year before, a Dutch translation was issued by the Jesuit Jacobus Susius (Antwerp: H. Aertssens, 1629). On Cepari’s biography and its diffusion through vernacular translations, see R. Faesen, “Virgilio Cepari S. J., Het leven van Ioannes Berchmans (1629),” in Jesuit Books in the Low Countries, 1540–1773. A Selection from the Maurits Sabbe Library, eds. P. Begeyn et al. (Leuven: Maurits Sabbebibliotheek, Faculteit Godgeleerdheid—Peeters, 2009), 74–76.

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died. As the hagiography seems to suggest, his extremely hard work and rigorous self-discipline took on truly heroic proportions and ultimately turned him into a martyr and saint.

Petrus Loycx: A Hard-Working Priest’s Views on Good and Bad Work Laboris encomium, Acediae vituperium opens with a general definition of labour: “Labour (labor) can be called a certain execution, either by the soul or by the body, of a rather burdensome task (opera) or service (munus ). Its name is derived from the fact that it renders the limbs weak (labare), while the vital spirits are dissipated during the act.”8 This definition is sufficiently broad to encompass both physical and intellectual or spiritual work. Following the lead of God, who never sleeps and whose constant work entirely centres around the contemplation and love of what he has brought forth and still plans to bring forth,9 both priests and monks are repeatedly said to work by devoting themselves, intermittently or almost continuously, to contemplation. It is important to emphasize, however, that the image of the working God is primarily adduced to legitimize and even sanctify the manual labour performed by “plebeians.” By exerting themselves physically, they too follow in God’s footsteps. Thus, Loycx softens the traditional distinction between active and contemplative life.10 Although Loycx later privileges priests and monks in his analysis of various kinds of workers, in the very first chapter he stresses that physical labour was, in fact, the first task imposed on humankind, for even before the Fall, God had placed Adam and Eve in Paradise to cultivate and guard it. Only after the Fall did man’s work become toilsome: from then on, he 8 Loycx, Encomium laboris, tract. 1, cap. 1, par. 1.1: “Labor dici potest functio quaedam vel animi vel corporis gravioris operis et muneris; sic dicta quod membra faciat labare, dissipatis inter agendum spiritibus vitalibus.” 9 Loycx, Encomium laboris, tract. 1, cap. 1, par. 3.3–9.4. It is interesting to note that Loycx does not use the well-known image of God as maker or workman (deus faber). On this image in the Old Testament, see, e.g., D. Paris, “An Economic Look at the Old Testament,” in Ancient and Medieval Economic Ideas and Concepts of Social Justice, eds. S. Todd Lowry and B. Gordon (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 39–103, at 49. 10 It would be wrong to consider Loycx’s extension of the concept of work to include the activities of the secular and regular clergy radical or novel. It is ultimately rooted in the early monastic tradition, which defined prayer as a kind of (spiritual) labour. Cf. Lis and Soly, Worthy Efforts, 116–17.

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was condemned to eat bread in the sweat of his face (to paraphrase a passage from Genesis 3.19).11 Work as a pleasurable activity performed by man in his pristine, paradisiacal state versus toilsome labour as punishment for having disobeyed God, work as blessedness and bane: it is quite clear from the outset that Loycx’s treatise reveals a fundamentally ambiguous attitude towards work, an ambivalence typical of Catholicism.12 On the one hand, Loycx stresses that work is a necessary evil, a burdensome task that needs to be fulfilled in order to gain a living and feed oneself and one’s family. On the other hand, it is precisely hard work that allows a man to defend himself against the morally depraving effects of sloth (acedia) and idleness (otium) and also to keep his passions and desires in check. As such, hard work is a necessary condition for any man to be able to save his soul and attain eternal salvation; the toil and moil one undergoes in earthly life will be recompensed by everlasting joy and bliss in the afterlife. This quite traditional viewpoint was already briefly expressed by Saint Thomas Aquinas in his Summa theologiae, an authoritative handbook in theological thinking and training in the seventeenth century.13 For Loycx, work is a means to a goal rather than an end in itself. The idea of working hard for the sake of working hard does not cross his mind. Nor does he wholeheartedly subscribe to the view that hard work is satisfactory in so far as it yields material rewards in the present life which reflect the glory and majesty of God. A successful worker, one who succeeds in accumulating riches, is not dear to God because he is successful in his professional life but rather because he uses his wealth in an honourable and virtuous way, that is to say, to sustain himself and his family and to perform good deeds such as

11 Gen. 3:19; cf. Gen. 3:17. Both passages are referred to by Loycx in his Encomium laboris, tract. 1, cap. 1, par. 2.3, cap. 2.9–10, and cap. 3, par. 1.17. On the distinction between the work done by man before and after the Fall, see, e.g., G. Agrell, Work, Toil and Sustenance. An Examination of the View of Work in the New Testament, Taking into Consideration Views Found in Old Testament, Intertestamental and Early Rabbinic Writings (Lund: Studentlitteratur, 1976), 7–11, Paris, “An Economic Look at the Old Testament,” 51, and H. Applebaum, The Concept of Work. Ancient, Medieval, and Modern (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1992), 180. 12 For early Christian antecedents, see especially the concluding remarks by Agrell, Work, Toil and Sustenance, 150. 13 Loycx, Encomium laboris, tract. 1, cap. 1, par. 2.2 and cap. 3, par. 9.1–9.2, 9.16– 9.17; cf. T. Aquinas, Summa theologiae, II.II, quaest. 187, art. 3, conclusion.

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alms-giving.14 Elsewhere, Loycx emphasizes that it is better to become rich by working than to be poor by not working. He even goes so far as to approve of people who have worked so hard that they can start living a quiet life by enjoying the fruit of other people’s work, a standpoint that does not seem to be entirely in line with his condemnation of noblemen who do not work but live a life of leisure and idleness.15 The notion that hard work is a road that leads to virtue and salvation does not imply that there is an automatic link between work and virtue. On the contrary, work can just as easily be directed towards a sinful life as it can towards a virtuous one. Loycx draws a clear distinction between “good” and “bad” work, devoting an entire chapter to “bad” or “misdirected” labour: work that is carried out by vicious people for vicious ends. His long catalogue comprises all the deadly sins (pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth). Thus, greedy people are said to be people who work excessively hard: they torture themselves in order to hoard as much wealth as possible. But far from being successful, Loycx insists, greedy people will only exhaust themselves and die, just as small children who compete with one another by running as fast as they can obtain no other result than extreme fatigue.16 What applies to the greedy is valid for other sinners: their work is tougher and more toilsome than that of a virtuous person dedicated to God, as they are more troubled by worries and concerns, but at the same time, their work is less fruitful, if not utterly vain. According to Loycx, this applies even to people prone to sloth (acediosi). Although they do not work in the strict sense of the word, they nonetheless labour under restlessness: they suffer from turbulent thoughts and senses.17

14 Loycx, Encomium laboris, tract. 1, cap. 3, par. 2.17. For early Christian and medieval antecedents of this viewpoint, see, e.g., Lis and Soly, Worthy Efforts, 140–3 and T. Noordman, Economie en filosofie in de Vroege Middeleeuwen, 750–1250 (Hilversum: Verloren, 1996), 224–26 and passim. The view ultimately goes back to Saint Paul (Act: 20:34). See further Applebaum, The Concept of Work, 184–85. 15 Loycx, Encomium laboris, tract. 1, cap. 6, par. 4.47 (with reference to Eccl. 10.30)

and cap. 8, par. 2.74. Loycx’s critical attitude towards the nobility will be discussed below. 16 Ibid., tract. 1, cap. 1, par. 7.8 and cap. 2, par. 3.11 (with a reference to Eccl. 5:13–14). 17 Ibid., tract. 1, cap. 2, par. 5.12. On the deadly sin of acedia, see the standard work by S. Wenzel, The Sin of Sloth: Acedia in Medieval Thought and Literature (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1967).

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Good workers, in contrast, distinguish themselves first and foremost by their noble intentions. Loycx stresses that work can only be fruitful if it is not aimed at sinful self-gratification but rather towards virtue, the glory of God, and the benefit of fellow men. Good deeds, including alms-giving, are of the utmost importance for those who want to prepare themselves for the final judgement.18 Though the ultimate reward for industrious and pious conduct is only to be expected in the afterlife, honest and diligent work nonetheless yields rich fruit in this world. It offers the body healthy exercise, dispels various kinds of temptations, prevents sin, and consequently guarantees a good conscience.19 Equally important for Loycx is the fact that it brings forth pleasure, a reward completely denied to sinful workers: “While hunger is the best spice for food, labour is the best seasoning for virtue and true pleasure.”20 Once again, we are confronted with the ambiguous nature of work in early modern Catholic moral thinking: original sin has condemned humankind to a life of toilsome labour for which we find compensation in never-ending joy in the afterlife, yet at the same time work is regarded as a joyful experience in and of itself, provided it is directed towards a virtuous and pious goal. Good work not only depends on good intentions, but also on intrinsic qualities such as fervour, “discernment,” and perseverance. Loycx devotes a separate chapter to each of those features. Closely linked to the Christian virtue of diligence or industry (industria), fervour is said to be the best remedy against vices such as negligence, tepidity, and idleness, which easily engender sadness and melancholy; as is well-known, in the medieval Catholic tradition melancholy was closely associated with the deadly sin of sloth (acedia).21 Loycx introduces the concept of “time management” as an argument in favour of fervid or passionate work. The time that has been meted 18 Encomium laboris, tract. 1, cap. 3, par. 2.17. Elsewhere Loycx succinctly defines work as a ladder leading to heaven (“labor scala coeli est”). See Encomium laboris, tract. 1, cap. 11, par. 2.103. 19 Ibid., tract. 1, cap. 3, par. 9.3–9.7, 9.18–9.22. 20 Ibid., tract. 1, cap. 3, par. 2.18: “Uti optimum cibi condimentum fames est, ita

optimum virtutis veraeque voluptatis obsonium labor.” 21 Ibid., tract. 1, cap. 8, 72–4. For the close connection between melancholy and sloth in medieval thought, see S. W. Jackson, “Acedia the Sin and its Relationship to Sorrow and Melancholia in Medieval Times,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 55.2 (1981), 172–85, and M. Theunissen, Vorentwürfe von Moderne. Antike Melancholie und die Acedia des Mittelalters (Berlin–New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1996).

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out to us is brief, he writes, so brief that it should not be squandered by negligence. And if we happen to have wasted precious time, we should mend the deplorable situation by showing fervour or passion: “Let us redeem time, and what we have lost so far by laziness or negligence should be recovered by means of fervour.”22 The examples that he adduces make it clear that he deems “time management” especially important in the context of actions aimed at winning eternal salvation (contemplation and good deeds), but he does not explicitly apply the concept to economic activities in the strict sense of the word. Rigorous time management implies a rationalization of work. In his chapter on discretio (“discernment” or, more literally, the power of distinguishing), Loycx enumerates the various steps one has to take in order to execute a task in a rational, methodical way. Strikingly enough, he focuses almost exclusively on the need to show moderation and arrive at a good balance between work and rest. As such, this chapter functions as an indispensable counterpart to the exposition about fervour or passion in the previous chapter: while lack of passion is strongly condemned, excessive fervour is also rejected as dangerous to one’s physical and mental health. Indiscriminate fervour ruins the body, which is a gift from God to be treated with respect, and it is likely to engender intolerable vices, such as pride and vainglory.23

A Static “Sociology” of Labour Loycx not only treats labour from a “formal” point of view, defining good and bad work in general terms and analysing its various components, but also spends much time on the specific forms of work and working habits of social classes. The four classes he distinguishes (the secular clergy, the regular clergy, the nobility, and “plebeians,” a group consisting of both craftsmen and farmers) can easily be reduced to the old trifunctional scheme of oratores, bellatores, and laboratores which prevailed 22 Loycx, Encomium laboris, tract. 1, cap. 8, par. 8.79: “Redimamus tempus, et quod socordia hactenus perdidit, fervor recuperet.” 23 Ibid., tract. 1, cap. 9, par. 4.91–92. It is interesting to note that in stressing the

need for rest, Loycx does not refer to the example of God who created the world in six days and took a break on the seventh day (Gen: 2.2). The omission can be explained by the fact that the image of God taking a rest runs counter to the previously expressed view that God constantly contemplates and loves his creation and, hence, never really ceases to work.

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during the early and high Middle Ages.24 Indeed, Loycx offers a strictly hierarchical division of humankind according to the type of work people perform (or should perform). The highest rank is accorded to the clergy, who do various important tasks for the spiritual welfare of the Catholic flock, a laborious form of work primarily done by parish priests like Loycx himself, albeit with the help and support of monks and nuns. In Loycx’s hierarchical scheme, noblemen occupy the second place. The nobility, however, is severely criticized for not doing what it ought to do (namely work), but this reproach does not imply any willingness on the part of the author to change the well-established, time-honoured class hierarchy. Whatever their shortcomings and sins, noblemen rank higher than the broad and heterogeneous class of “plebeians,” who devote themselves to manual labour and receive Loycx’s lavish praise for doing so. But no matter how praiseworthy they may be, Loycx emphasizes that ordinary workers occupy an inferior position in society, far below the superior ranks of the clergy and the nobility, and they should be satisfied with this humble position. The hierarchical division of labour and labourers that Loycx establishes in his treatise does not allow for any change, let alone a radical inversion.25 Loycx’s main concern in dealing with the secular clergy seems to be to prove how important and arduous the work performed by priests is. Their many duties are so burdensome, he writes, that even the shoulders of angels can hardly bear them.26 As priests have such a heavy responsibility and have to devote their time and energy to so many parishioners, some of whom need special attention, it is only natural and right that they are exempt from manual work (which they did carry out in a distant, undefined past) and are perfectly entitled to making a living from the 24 On this scheme, see the standard work by G. Duby, Les trois ordres ou l’imaginaire du féodalisme (Paris: Gallimard, 1978). Over the course of the twelfth century, a more nuanced scheme which took into account the wide variety of economic occupations and social ranks came into being. However, the old tripartite scheme remained powerful. See, e.g., B. van den Hoven, Work in Ancient and Medieval Thought. Ancient Philosophers, Medieval Monks and Theologians and their Concept of Work, Occupations and Technology (Amsterdam: J. C. Gieben, 1996), 214–16. 25 The rather rigid “sociological” scheme adopted by Loycx leaves no place for discussion of the work done by (lay) scholars. Their work is only briefly mentioned in Chapter 3, which is devoted to good, fruitful work. See Loycx, Encomium laboris, tract. 1, cap. 3, par. 2.18. 26 Ibid., tract. 1, cap. 4, par. 1.24.

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tithes imposed on the people under their spiritual care.27 But even with this exemption, the work performed by priests proves too tough, so they are forced to seek help and support from the regular clergy.28 In addition to providing care for the faithful by engaging in various kinds of timeconsuming activities (celebrating mass, teaching and preaching, consoling the poor, etc.), priests have to devote themselves to spiritual exercises, which throughout Loycx’s treatise are more often than not presented as a kind of labour rather than as a useful, leisurely activity.29 Indeed, spiritual exercises must be performed with diligence and perseverance if they are to become a deeply rooted habit. They are said to be vital to gain better self-knowledge, dispel bad thoughts, and be infused by the love and fear of God.30 In Loycx’s view, an active life and contemplation go hand in hand to such an extent that they become inextricably intertwined. The discussion of the regular clergy almost exclusively centres around the question, much debated during the Middle Ages, of whether or not monks and nuns should combine their spiritual work, which basically consisted of entering into a dialogue with God, with manual labour.31 No matter how traditional the question of how monks and nuns might serve God best was, it nonetheless remained topical, as the early modern period saw a significant proliferation of new religious orders.32 According to Loycx, a combination of spiritual and physical work is to be preferred. Through physical, preferably agricultural labour, monks and nuns avoid the dangers of idleness, manage to collect themselves, and cultivate various important virtues, such as taciturnity and humility. Furthermore, manual labour ensures that they are able to support themselves and give 27 Ibid., tract. 1, cap. 4, par. 1.25. 28 Ibid., tract. 1, cap. 4, par. 6.31. 29 An exception is to be found in Chapter 9, where manual workers are strongly

encouraged to regain their bodily strength by regularly sleeping and eating and to restore their souls by listening to the holy scripture being read in church (sacra lectio). See ibid., tract. 1, cap. 9, par. 2.89. 30 Ibid., tract. 1, cap. 4, par. 8.33. 31 On the medieval controversy, see, e.g., A. Firey, “‘For I was Hungry and You Fed

Me’: Social Justice and Economic Thought in the Latin Patristic and Medieval Christian Tradition,” in Ancient and Medieval Economic Ideas and Concepts of Social Justice, eds. S. T. Lowry and B. Gordon (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 333–70, at 364–65. Cf. Lis and Soly, Worthy Efforts, 114–20. 32 For a succinct overview of those new religious orders, see Po-Chia Hsia, The World of Catholic Renewal, 25–42.

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aid to those in need, such as visitors and the poor. By engaging in manual labour, monks and nuns avoid falling into Adam’s pitfall of preferring to eat and chew before having done any work in Paradise.33 In Chapter 6 of his treatise, Loycx adopts a rather ambiguous attitude towards the nobility. On the one hand, he fully acknowledges their right to exist; after all, there were already noblemen in Antiquity, and they are even attested to in the Bible.34 On the other hand, he seriously tones down the importance of nobility of the blood by insisting that everyone is noble, as every human being was created in the image of God. Furthermore, he stresses that true nobility is gained first and foremost by living a virtuous and pious life, which helps one win God’s favour and grace.35 If we are to believe Loycx, many of his contemporary noblemen simply failed to reach this high moral and spiritual standard, and the main reason for their failure is their failure to do work. They do not work, but rather live at the expense of honest labourers, whom they utterly detest. And since they do not work, they are prone to fall victim to the deadly sin of sloth (acedia), which in turn gives rise to other vices, such as luxury, lasciviousness, flattery, duplicity, and so forth.36 The remedy which Loycx proposes is very simple: noblemen must follow the example set by their illustrious forebears and resume working. The historical examples of aristocratic men and women who devoted themselves to hard but honest work illustrate clearly that Loycx earnestly expects the nobility of his own time to take upon itself humble agricultural or mechanical work.37 However, the long, if entertaining, catalogue of working aristocrats from ancient to early modern times only paves the way for his main point. 33 Loycx, Encomium laboris, tract. 1, cap. 5, par. 6.39–41. These arguments can also be found in the early Christian and medieval tradition; see Lis and Soly, Worthy Efforts, 114–20. 34 Among many other examples, Loycx refers to Moses, who appointed noblemen to govern his people. See Encomium laboris, tract. 1, cap. 6, par. 1.45, with a citation from Deut. 1:15: “Tulique de tribubus vestris viros sapientes et nobiles.” 35 Ibid., tract. 1, cap. 6, par. 7.50: “Magnus nobilis est qui Deum nobilitatis parentem sibi vendicare potest, licet forte coram mundo contemptus sit aut ignotus.” Loycx’s exposition of different kinds of nobility is based primarily on Gregory of Nazianzus’ oration 18, in Sancti Gregorii Nazianzeni opera omnia (Antwerp: I. Keerbergen, 1612), 178–83 and the Jesuit Joannes Busaeus’s De statibus hominum liber posthumus (Mainz: I. Albinus, 1613). 36 Loycx, Encomium laboris, tract. 1, cap. 6, par. 9–10.51–53. 37 Ibid., tract. 1, cap. 6, par. 5–6.48–49.

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Noblemen who do not engage in any kind of manual work can only be excused if they show all the more zest and zeal in their devotion to spiritual work, such as praying, attending mass, and, last but not least, giving alms to the poor. Loycx forewarns the nobility that the riches which God has given them will condemn them to hell unless they use their wealth to alleviate the lamentable condition of the poor and needy.38 “Plebeians” (plebei) is the collective term which Loycx uses to denote “all workmen who occupy themselves with a particular mechanical art that is licit and honest.”39 The list of professions he offers is impressively long, ranging from scribes, physicians, and visual artists to more humble craftsmen, such as bakers, butchers, weavers, and shoemakers. Though the brief definition quoted above strictly speaking excludes farmers, they are nonetheless taken into account.40 In fact, of all the manual workers discussed, they are given by far the most lavish praise. The dignity of agricultural work derives first and foremost from the fact that farming was instituted by God himself, as Loycx argues with a reference to Genesis 2:15 and 3:23. While Adam was still living in Paradise, God asked him to maintain and guard the blissful place. After the Fall, God banned Adam from Paradise and ordered him to “cultivate the earth from which he has been taken.”41 In his profuse praise of farming, Loycx refrains from stressing the toilsome nature of the agricultural labour which Adam is supposed to have done after having been banished from Paradise. In addition to the Bible, Loycx also adduces arguments derived from nature and society to prove the high value of farming. All other living beings have been created by God to serve humankind, in general, and, more particularly, to provide humankind with food. It is the farmer’s task to turn 38 Ibid., tract. 1, cap. 6, par. 10.53–9.4. 39 Ibid., tract. 1, cap. 7, par. 1.55: “Opifices qui in aliqua arte mechanica licita honesto

labori se tradunt.” 40 In so far as farmers also use various tools to cultivate land and raise cattle, they can of course be linked to craftsmen in the strict sense of the word. However, in seventeenth-century political and economic thought, farmers and craftsmen were usually neatly distinguished from one another, as can for instance be inferred from the treatise Institutionum oeconomicarum libri II , published by the Leuven professor Nicolaus Vernulaeus in 1626 and reissued many times afterwards. See Inst. oecon. (Leuven: J. Vryenborch, 1649), 83. 41 Loycx, Encomium laboris, tract. 1, cap. 7, par. 9.62: “Tulit Dominus Deus hominem, et posuit eum in paradiso voluptatis, ut operaretur et custodiret illum”; “Emisit eum Dominus Deus de paradiso voluptatis, ut operaretur terram de qua sumptus est.”

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the riches of nature into nourishment. As a consequence, any human society would unavoidably collapse if no one occupied himself or herself with farming. No wonder, then, that many illustrious persons have lauded and cultivated farming. The long catalogue, which includes well-known biblical figures such as Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, ends in a eulogy of contemporary farmers working in the Campine (Kempen) near Antwerp, who display both dexterity and tenacity in turning poor soil into fruitful earth.42 “Plebeians” have to work in the proper manner. This implies, among other things, that they need to work with good intentions: their goal should be to make a decent living for themselves and their families and to have the means to help people in need. Fraudulent practices are strictly forbidden. Workmen are not allowed to let themselves be carried away by avarice or jealousy. As a general rule, artisans and farmers should be satisfied with their present position in society, deriving a sense of utility from the work they are performing. And while they are exhorted to honour and love the clergy, dutifully pay tithes, and engage in spiritual exercises, they should not feel frustrated about the fact that priests, monks, and nuns have far more time available to come closer to God. In short, ordinary workmen should be pleased with their situation, knowing that God rewards everyone according to his or her abilities.43 Loycx makes a serious effort to legitimize manual labour and free ordinary workmen from negative prejudices. At least in Chapter 7 of his treatise, the traditional link between work and original sin and punishment seems to have almost entirely evaporated. If anything, Loycx seems to be eager to prove that all human beings, no matter how humble the work they carry out and the position they occupy in society may be, are able to lead good and virtuous lives. This does not mean, however, that he endorses the typically Lutheran view, according to which work is to be regarded as a vocation and a means to personal fulfilment and perfection. In Loycx’s view, manual work is a necessary but insufficient condition for salvation; it always has to be combined with devotional activities and so-called good works, especially alms-giving.44 42 Ibid., tract. 1, cap. 7, par. 9.63–64 (biblical farmers) and par. 10.65 (farmers in the Kempen). 43 Ibid., tract. 1, cap. 7, par. 11.65–71. 44 For a brief, non-Weberian summary of Luther’s views on labour, see, e.g.,

Applebaum, The Concept of Work, 322–24 and Lis and Soly, Worthy Efforts, 148–50.

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Surprisingly, Loycx completely ignores merchants and businessmen. This omission is all the more remarkable as he was living and working in the proximity of Antwerp, at the time still an important commercial and financial centre. Furthermore, he must have been aware of the fact that the moral and social value of merchants and bankers had been hotly discussed during the Middle Ages and that in early modern times, theologians such as the Flemish Jesuit Leonardus Lessius had gone to great lengths to legitimize their business activities.45 Loycx inserted three so-called cases of conscience into Chapter 7 of his treatise in which he tries to resolve moral problems that worried confessants or at least clergymen hearing confession. The first “case of conscience” tackles the question of whether or not a man who has gathered sufficient wealth to live a decent life is obliged to work. It is one of the few instances in which Loycx explicitly discusses wealth and its relationship to work. In Chapter 3, which focuses on good work, Loycx states that riches gained by hard work yield more pleasure than inherited or donated wealth, a statement which seems to imply that hard-working men are allowed to enjoy their riches.46 However, he considers wealthy people morally suspect, as they are prone to avarice: they sin by hoarding riches instead of using them to help the poor and needy.47 Furthermore, he is wary of noblemen who refuse to work even though they are impoverished.48 In this particular “case of conscience,” Loycx goes one step further, unambiguously stating that riches are not to be accumulated so that one can simply lead an easy and luxurious life.49 According to Loycx, one is only allowed to stop working if one aims to devote oneself more freely to serving God.50 As a matter of fact, in the latter case, the sufficiently rich man does not really cease to work but rather engages

45 See now especially W. Decock, Le marché du mérite. Penser le droit et l’économie avec Léonard Lessius (Bruxelles: Zones sensibles, 2019). 46 Encomium laboris, tract. 1, cap. 3, par. 2.18. 47 See above note 38. 48 Loycx, Encomium laboris, tract. 1, cap. 6, par. 3.47: “Praestat laborando abundare, quam otiando egere.” 49 This statement appears to be in contradiction with cap. 8, par. 2.74, where we read that diligent, energetic workers acquire riches which allow them to lead a quiet life by profiting from the work of others (vivere quiete ex aliorum labore). 50 Ibid., tract. 1, cap. 7, par. 2.65–66.

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in a different and altogether loftier kind of work: spiritual work replaces manual labour.

The Jesuits: Towards a More Radical Work Ethic In 1657, the Flemish Jesuit teacher and pedagogue Antonius van Torre (1615—1679) composed a hugely successful series of Dialogi familiares, which aimed to subject the lives of pupils, albeit in a pleasant and humorous way, to very strict order and discipline. Though some of the characters clearly do not live up to the high standards concerning work and diligence that were expected to prevail at school and at home,51 most others are unambiguously presented as role models to be imitated. By following the lead of these exemplary characters, youngsters learn, among many other things, to plan their days carefully, shun idleness, study hard, help their parents with household work, engage in prayer, examine their own conscience, and engage in other spiritual activities.52 While diligent work appears to be of the utmost importance, the booklet also stresses the need for relaxation by offering entertaining scenes of acceptable play and games, including various ball games, fishing and hunting, and skating.53 The basic assumption underlying Van Torre’s prescriptions is that time is of the utmost importance and must not be squandered if one does not want to endanger one’s spiritual welfare. Every day and, indeed, every single hour counts and should be used in a fruitful manner by devoting it to intellectual work (learning and studying), manual labour (helping one’s parents by doing chores), and spiritual activities (prayer and meditation). This idea was not entirely new. As early as the first half of the sixteenth century, humanists such as Erasmus had already stressed the great value of time and the need for careful “self-management” to avoid idleness and negligence. Taking the well-known dictum of the ancient Roman philosopher Seneca that “everything is alien to us, only time is truly ours” as

51 Thus, the third dialogue of part two of the collection features a boy named

Emmanuel who is reluctant to get up in time; in the following dialogue, an equally lazy boy, called Franciscus, is reprimanded by his brother Dionysius. 52 See especially Van Torre, Dialogi familiars (as in note 6), part 1, dial. 3, which deals with the division of daytime (“fuge otia” is the leitmotiv), and dial. 4 about the proper way to end the day. 53 Van Torre, Dialogi familiares, part 3.

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a point of departure,54 Erasmus stated that time is as valuable as—in fact even more valuable than—money. As nothing is as precious as time, human beings are morally obliged to prevent it from passing without bearing fruit. Wasted money can be recuperated, while wasted time is lost forever. According to the humanist, the moral duty to spend time as diligently and profitably as possible is based on the undeniable fact that time is not simply a gift from God, it is the most beautiful gift he has offered mankind. Thus, anyone who wastes his or her time will have to account for his or her misconduct to God.55 It is hardly surprising that the same idea was adopted by Jesuit spiritual authors such as Johannes David (1546—1613), who lived and worked in the southern Low Countries. In his popular emblem book Occasio arrepta, neglecta (“Occasion taken by the forelock, occasion neglected”) from 1605, he builds on Erasmus’s idea and puts it even more clearly in a spiritual, not to say eschatological, perspective. Like all other goods, David says, time has been given to us by God for us to administer it to the best of our abilities. Much as human beings are commanded to make appropriate (that is to say “Christian”) use of earthly goods, so they are also obliged to make appropriate (“Christian”) use of time. In both cases, they are to focus their attention on their spiritual welfare and execute their daily tasks with a keen eye to gaining eternal bliss in heaven.56 Van Torre’s dialogues, with their stress on diligent work and careful time management, perfectly illustrate how the Jesuits’ teaching plan was put into practice and experienced in daily school life in the southern Low Countries; the Ratio studiorum constitutes a fundamental framework for an understanding of Van Torre’s textbook and the goals he hoped to achieve as a teacher and pedagogue. The Ratio studiorum 54 Seneca, Epistulae, 1.3: “Omnia aliena sunt, tempus tantum nostrum est.” Cf. Seneca, De brevitate vitae, 8. 55 Erasmus, De copia verborum ac rerum, lib. 2, in Opera omnia, 1.6, ed. B. I. Knott (Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1978), 245–46. See further T. Van Houdt, “Tempus tantum nostrum est. Seneca en tijdverspilling,” Nexus 1 (1992), 53–69, at 60–61. On the humanist work ethic in general, see Lis and Soly, Worthy Efforts, 152–53 and 422–24, and various other contributions to this volume. It should be added that similar ideas on the preciousness of time were expressed in the Lutheran tradition. See H. Lehmann, “Lutheranism in the Seventeenth century,” in Reform and Expansion (as in note 2), 56–72, at 63. 56 J. David, Occasio arrepta, neglecta (Antwerp: J. Moretus, 1605), 15–16. Cf. Van Houdt, “Tempus tantum nostrum est,” 61–62.

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is replete with rules regarding the proper use of precious time in the classroom, in church, and at home.57 Diligent, assiduous study, carefully distributed in schoolyears, weeks, days, and even hours, is dubbed the proper work of schoolchildren.58 Great stress is put on the need for pupils to train themselves constantly by doing exercises, both at school and at home—an important pedagogical innovation.59 Schoolwork is to be combined with prayer and meditational activities so as to help pupils develop intellectual and devotional skills. Indeed, while it is stated that nothing is more pleasing to God than fervid study, hard work should not weaken “the love of solid virtues and religious life.”60 Nor should work be done at the expense of one’s physical and mental health. Hence the need for regular intervals of recreation, which are also made part of a rigidly organized schedule.61 The Ratio studiorum was promulgated in 1599. In the provincia Flandro-Belgica, it was supplemented with two more official documents from 1625 and 1647, which also devote considerable attention to the proper division of time (by year, month, week, day, and hour).62 Again, the main concern appears to be the determination to regulate the lives of schoolboys in such a detailed manner as to avoid any opportunity for squandering precious time. Assiduous intellectual work is

57 Ratio studiorum. Plan raisonné et institution des études dans la Compagnie de Jésus, trans. L. Albrieux and D. Pralon-Julia (Paris: Belin, 1997), 154, 165, 174, 180, 185, 189, and 194. 58 Ratio studiorum, 193: “illum studendi laborem.” 59 N. Dallabrida, “Molding the Plastic Soul of Youth: The ‘Ratio studiorum’ and the

Manufacture of Educated and Catholic Subjects,” Rivista di Storia dell’Educazione 8 (2021), 3–10, at 6–7. 60 Ratio studiorum, 193: “Utque cavendum sibi putent, ne fervor studiorum intepescat

solidarum virtutum ac religiosae vitae amor; ita sibi vicissim persuadeant, nihil gratius se Deo facturos in collegiis, quam si ea intentione, de qua dictum est, studiis se diligenter impendant.” 61 Ratio studiorum, 86–87, 194, and passim. 62 Ch. Van de Vorst, “Instructions pédagogiques de 1625 et 1647 pour les collèges de

la province flandro-belge,” Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu 19 (1950), 181–236.

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to be combined with prayer and meditation and also with regular intervals of recreation.63 Van Torre recommends that schoolchildren keep two maxims in the forefronts of their minds. The first is the motto of the Jesuit order: “Ad maiorem Dei gloriam” (“To the greater glory of God”). The second is taken from the Roman encyclopaedist Pliny the Elder, who attributes it to the ancient Greek artist Apelles: “Nulla dies sine linea” (“Not a day without a line drawn”).64 It is interesting to note that the second maxim, stressing the need for constant labour, was one of Jan Berchmans’s favourite maxims, as can be inferred from the hagiographical account of his life and deeds composed by Virgilius Cepari. In contrast to the characters featuring in Van Torre’s dialogues, Berchmans is invariably described as an extremely rare paragon of virtue and devotion. He is said to have been exceptionally gifted and hard-working as a student (no matter how kind and affable he was, he regularly tried to avoid contact with his fellow students in order to continue his studies or his spiritual exercises).65 Throughout his young life, he proved exceptionally virtuous (no matter how frequently he examined his own conscience and went to confession, not the slightest fault or sin could be detected) and exceptionally pious (he showed a strong predilection for Jesuit saints, such as St Aloysius Gonzaga, and the Holy Virgin Mary). In fact, his entire life and every single aspect of his daily conduct were so perfect that Cepari does not hesitate to call him truly angelic.66 The older Berchmans becomes, the more his many virtues come to fruition. This is certainly true as far as his industriousness is concerned. As a student of rhetoric at the Jesuit college of Malines, he even goes so far as to study deep into the night, systematically trying to reduce his need for sleep.67 When he becomes a member of the Marian sodality in Malines, he 63 On the rigid temporal organization of Jesuit education according to the Ratio studiorum, see now F. Pruneri, “Time Management at School from the Late Middle Ages to the Industrial Age. A Few Cases in Point,” in Material Histories of Time. Objects and Practices, 14th–19th Centuries, eds. G. Bernasconi and S. Thürigen (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2020), 157–72, at 162–66. Cf. Dallabrida, “Molding the Plastic Soul of Youth,” 7–8. 64 Van Torre, Dialogi familiares, 3, nr. 10. Cf. Plinius, Naturalis Historia, 35.10 (36) 84. See also Erasmus, Adagia, 1.4.12: “Nullam hodie lineam duxi.” 65 See Cepari, Vita Joannis Berchmanni (as in note 7), 4–5 and 8. 66 Ibid., 37. 67 Ibid., 12.

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spends his days studying, reading, and interpreting books; the few hours of spare time he has left he devotes to praying and meditating.68 As a novice, moreover, he combines his intellectual and spiritual pursuits with various menial chores meant to foster a sense of humility.69 Later still, he decides to draw up a strict schedule which allows him to spend his precious time as profitably as possible and to do his work, whether physical, intellectual, or spiritual, in the most efficient way; for Berchmans, sloth appears to be one of the worst sins imaginable, a most detestable vice which has to be combatted by an unremitting fervour for fruitful labour and rational planning.70 It should be stressed that Berchmans is not represented by Cepari as an icon of sainthood unattainable for other people, especially pupils and students. On the contrary, students are frequently encouraged to reflect on Berchmans’s virtuous and pious life and to do their very best to imitate his glorious example. Berchmans’s strict daily schedule is added to the eulogistic account of his life and deeds specifically to facilitate the process of meditation and imitation.71 The various maxims which the angelic young man wrote down and used as guiding principles are included for the very same reason. Some of them concern his highly developed work ethic. “There is nothing I need to avoid more,” he wrote, “than idleness and gloominess,” and similarly, “[w]hat I can do this hour, I will not postpone for another hour.” He also offered the incisively paradoxical maxim that, “[w]ho works more, works less,” and he urged himself to “[b]e

68 Ibid., 13. 69 Ibid., 22–3. 70 Ibid., 32. It is interesting to observe that notions concerning the importance of

“time management” and scheduling have much older religious roots. They can easily be traced back to Benedictine monasticism. See H. Treiber and H. Steinert, Die Fabrikation des zuverlässigen Menschen. Über die “Wahlverwandtschaft” von Kloster- und Fabrikdisziplin (München: H. Moos Verlag, 1980), 53–75 and E. Zerubavel, “The Benedictine Ethic and the Modern Spirit of Scheduling: On Schedules and Social Life,” Sociological Inquiry 50 (1980), 157–69. 71 Cepari, Vita Joannis Berchmanni, 28, 94–95, and 225ff. It is quite obvious that, according to his hagiographer, Berchmans’s example is to be followed by other youngsters despite the fact that his work ethic appears to have been quite excessive; it certainly did not meet the requirement of moderation as it was prescribed by Loycx in his Encomium laboris.

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patient and shun idleness.”72 In light of the immense popularity and wide diffusion of Berchmans’s biography, it is safe to assume that the work was also used by students at Jesuit schools and Marian sodalities as an instrument of meditation, self-reflection, and, ultimately, self-reformation. The maxims which Berchmans had used to improve himself were to be repeated time and again by young readers so that they might become more diligent and industrious students and, in the long run, dutiful and hard-working magistrates and officials.73 Jan Berchmans’s exceptional work ethic as described by Cepari may have been extreme, but it certainly was not unique. Over the course of the seventeenth century, Jesuit authors published many other books which were meant to stimulate boys to become hard-working men. A particularly interesting specimen of this vast literature is the biography of Michael by the German Jesuit Joannes Niess (1584–1634).74 Although the work was not published or reprinted in the Low Countries, the Jesuits’ international network may well have ensured its diffusion in their establishments and schools. Michael is the Christian name which Ayatus, a native boy from Bohol in the Philippines, was given when, at the age of seven, he was baptized

72 Cepari, Vita Joannis Berchmanni, 249, nr 1: “Nulla res mihi magis vitanda, quam otium et tristitia”; nr 10: “Illud quod possum facere hac horâ, non differam ad aliam horam”; nr 19: “Qui plus laborat, minus laborat”; 264, unnumbered: “Pati, otium fugere”. 73 This is perfectly in line with the regulation of the Ratio studiorum which stipulates that students have to be encouraged to read saints’ lives. Cf. Ratio studiorum, 153: “Lectionem spiritualem, praesertim de sanctorum vitis, vehementer commendet.” It should be added that Jan Berchmans was not a saint in the strict sense of the word; he was not canonized until 1888. On the importance of Marian sodalities as a breeding ground for a new Catholic (urban) elite in Counter-Reformation Europe, see, e.g., Po-Chia Hsia, The World of Catholic Renewal, 225–27. 74 J. Niess, Adolescens Europaeus ab Indo moribus Christianis informatus (Dilingen: C. Sutor, 1629). The biography was first attached as an appendix to Niess’s moralizing treatise Alphabetum Christi seu virtutes praecipuae, quae adolescentem Christianum ornant (Dilingen: U. Rem, 16245 ). Unsurprisingly, the abecedarium is replete with examples and admonishments about the virtues of discipline and hard, diligent work. No biographical details about Joannes Niess are to be found in Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, 1875–1912), Neue deutsche Biographie (Berlin: Duncker und Humblot, 1953 sq.), or Diccionario histórico de la Compañía de Jesús (Madrid: Un. Pont. Comillas, 2001). However, it can be inferred from his work that, at the time of writing, he was professor of rhetoric at the Jesuit college of Augsburg.

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by Jesuit missionaries.75 When he was 12 years old, he entered the Jesuit seminary at Bohol, and he soon was recognized as a paragon of virtuousness and pious devotion. Not unlike Berchmans, he proved to be a clever and talented boy who impressed his fellow pupils and his superiors with his astounding industriousness. As Niess time and again emphasizes in his hagiographical account, Michael was an indefatigable enemy of idleness and sloth, devoting himself entirely to study, prayer, and humble manual labour for others. In his efforts to spend his time as fruitfully as possible, Michael even went so far as to deprive himself of the sleep he needed.76 Though he died suddenly at a very young age (he was barely 16 years old), his pious if short life sufficed to give him a scent of sanctity. No wonder, then, that Niess adduces the converted Indian boy as a paragon of hard work, virtuousness, and piety to be imitated by European youngsters. The entire narrative, consisting of fairly short biographical accounts and lengthy exhortations to students living and working on the old continent, is built on a simple but effective rhetorical strategy: if a pagan boy from an exotic country who was christened and educated by Jesuit missionaries managed to turn himself into an icon of impressively hard work, then surely Christian youngsters growing up in Europe can be expected to attain, or at the very least to try to attain, the same high moral standards. In Niess’ treatise, the rhetoric of exemplarity reaches a paradoxical climax: an Indian youth has to show native European boys how to behave and become men firmly devoted to hard, diligent work and piety. If anything, Michael proves the perfect incarnation of the Counter-Reformation work ethic that was inculcated into the minds of countless pupils by Jesuit school teachers, pedagogues, and moralizing authors. And as is the case of Jan Berchmans, Michael’s life and deeds testify eloquently to the success of the Jesuits’ firm belief in the formative powers of carefully organized education and tireless meditation.77

75 The first Jesuits arrived in the Philippines in 1581. From 1595 onwards, residences and mission schools for native children were erected, for instance, in Bohol. See further N. P. Cushner, “Early Jesuit Missionary Methods in the Philippines,” The Americas 15,4 (1959), 361–79. 76 Niess, Adolescens Europaeus, 216–19. 77 On the former aspect, see, e.g., J. O’Malley, The First Jesuits (Cambridge, Ma:

Harvard University Press, 1993), 209–10; on the latter, see especially M. Sluhovsky, Becoming a New Self. Practices of Belief in Early Modern Catholicism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017).

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Conclusion The analysis of the cases above offers a blended picture of the work ethic as it was propounded by religious authors and inculcated in the faithful in the Catholic Low Countries in the seventeenth century. While the learned parish priest Loycx expressed for the most part rather traditional views on the value of good work and good workers in his lengthy homiletic treatise Encomium laboris, Acediae vituperium, Jesuit authors like Van Torre and Cepari wielded their pen to offer their readers (mainly pupils attending Jesuit schools and devout members of Marian sodalities) a more radical and altogether more “modern” conception of work and discipline. This point has been completely ignored by Catharina Lis and Hugo Soly in their otherwise admirable analysis of pre-modern views on work and workers. Many if not all the arguments and ideas put forward by Loycx can be traced back to patristic and medieval theological literature. The strong emphasis on the need for moderation (working too hard is almost as detrimental as working too little) and the static image of society (conceived of as a rigid hierarchy with the secular and regular clergy towering above the nobility and ordinary workmen) testify to a conservative approach and even seem to suggest that he was not entirely in touch with contemporary developments in economic and social life. It is revealing in this respect that Loycx does not pay any attention to the work done by merchants and bankers, nor does he have much to say about the activities of secular intellectuals. In contrast, he makes a serious effort to elevate the status of the manual labour done by craftsmen and farmers. His eulogistic account of farming seems to go further than the traditional topoi found in medieval theological literature.78 His harsh criticism of the lifestyle of the nobility, which was characterized by luxurious indolence, can partly be connected to humanist viewpoints79 but still bears distinctly personal overtones. Given the unfortunate lack of sufficiently detailed biographical information about Loycx, any attempt to explain his negative attitude towards the nobility is bound to remain purely speculative.

78 On the largely topical and inherently ambivalent nature of medieval ecclesiastical praises of farming and farmers, see Lis and Soly, Worthy Efforts, 159–63. 79 Lis and Soly, Worthy Efforts, 187–88; H. Yoran, Between Utopia and Dystopia. Erasmus, Thomas More, and the Humanist Republic of Letters (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2010), passim.

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In his treatise on good and bad work, Loycx sticks to the old-fashioned view that honest and diligent labour paves the way for a virtuous life devoted to God, whose favour can be gained if one performs so-called spiritual exercises and does good deeds, such as giving alms to the needy. It would not be difficult to detect a similar view in the educational Dialogi familiares, which was published by the Jesuit teacher Antonius van Torre, and the hagiographical account of the life and deeds of Jan Berchmans, written by the Italian Jesuit Virgilius Cepari and translated into Latin by the Flemish Jesuit Herman Hugo. It is altogether clear, however, that their works exude a quite different atmosphere and testify to a more severe work ethic, in which the need for sedulous labour, constant diligence, rational time management, and rigorous self-discipline are emphasized time and again. While this work ethic may be connected to the praise of work and self-discipline offered by many (Christian) humanists, it is more plausibly explained as at least in part a consequence of the ascetic spirituality of the Jesuit order in general and the imposition of strict time management in Jesuit schools in particular. In any case, the example of Jan Berchmans’s biography illustrates the value attributed by the Jesuits to assiduous work as a means of (spiritual) self-realization and success.80

80 I would like to thank Gábor Almási, Giorgio Lizzul, and Alessandro Arcangeli for their stimulating comments on previous versions of this article. I am grateful to Ingrid Sperber for having corrected my English.

CHAPTER 10

Labour as a Form of Charity and Almsgiving in Early Modern Poor Relief Lorenzo Coccoli

In March 2021, between the second and third waves of Covid-19, an article appeared on the BBC website with the title “Should you be grateful for a job?”1 The question was meant to express a growing feeling of anxiety among workers at a time of massive job losses and economic havoc, but the sentiment itself was said to predate the pandemic. In fact, employers had long been expecting their employees to show some degree of gratitude just for having given them an opportunity to work. As psychotherapist Sarah Greenberg recognised in the article, there is something odd in this pretension: “A job, after all, is essentially a service a person performs to help a company make money. I think the old school of thought is, ‘well, I’m giving you a pay check, so you owe me.’” 1 K. Morgan, “Should you be grateful for a job?,” BBC (31 March 2021), available at https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20210329-should-you-be-gratefulfor-a-job, accessed on 13 September 2021.

L. Coccoli (B) Università di Catania, Catania, Italy e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 G. Almási and G. Lizzul (eds.), Rethinking the Work Ethic in Premodern Europe, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38092-1_ 10

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A couple of points can be stressed here by way of introduction. The first one has to do with what, in Greenberg’s eyes, makes the employers’ claim for their employees’ gratefulness inherently odd. The fact is that, in the general understanding of the concept, labour has come to signify a purely abstract quantity, “a factor of production consisting of the effort and time of human beings engaged in the production of goods or services.”2 There are no further meanings attached, at least at a prima facie level, and any additional layer that appears to contradict this selfevident triviality can thus be perceived as bizarre. This, however, has not always been the case. Until the nineteenth and even twentieth century, the notions of labour and work were in fact dense semantic knots weaving together religious, moral, social, and political connotations. It suffices to consider any of the dictionaries published before the final consecration of political economy as a hegemonic discourse to get some sense of this complexity. This is how, for example, one of the most praised products of Enlightenment culture, Diderot and d’Alembert’s Encyclopédie, defines the word travail: “The daily occupation to which man is condemned by his need, and to which he owes at the same time his health, his subsistence, his serenity, his good sense, and perhaps his virtue.”3 Although not explicit, echoes of the biblical idea of work as a divine condemnation are audible here, coexisting alongside a much more positive and morally charged appreciation. It is this thicker notion of work that will hold centre stage in the following pages, a notion that ambivalently combined both positive and negative evaluations and thus made it possible to conceive of labour as, alternatively, a punishment or a gift. This leads us to the second point I wish to highlight. The BBC article pairs the semantics of labour with the semantics of gift, trying to elucidate the contemporary consequences of that combination. However, the idea that work is something one “gives” to another is of course a wellestablished one. The question is who gives to whom. Modern languages exhibit conflicting evidence on that: we say that workers supply their

2 Routledge Dictionary of Economics, ed. D. Rutherford (Abingdon: Routledge, 2013), 333. 3 “Occupation journaliere à laquelle l’homme est condamné par son besoin, et à laquelle il doit en même tems sa santé, sa subsistance, sa sérénité, son bon sens et sa vertu peutêtre.” Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, eds. D. Diderot and J. B. Le Rond d’Alembert, Vol. 16 (Neufchastel: chez Samuel Faulche & Compagnie et al., 1765), 567. All translations are my own unless otherwise stated.

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labour to the employers who demand it; but we also say that jobs are something that employers create and then offer to prospective employees. The relation seems to run in both directions, but this apparent transitivity is just the result of the historical juxtaposition of two different semantic strata. The idea of giving one’s labour relates to the more recent notion of labour as a commodity regulated through the law of supply and demand, while the idea of giving labour to someone emerges from a relatively older past in which labour relations—along with the distinctive work ethic underpinning them—were still (supposedly) embedded in a paternalistic moral economy which had more to do with the logic of gift. Within this framework, work could be conceived of as a part of a broader relationship in which labour was generously provided together with social protection, moral guidance, and religious instruction. In this chapter, I will consider a specific passage in this older strand of the complex and multifaceted history of the concept of work, focusing on a particular moral shade that, I think, has not been sufficiently highlighted. My main argument will rest on a series of discourses produced by a handful of prominent Italian thinkers and institutions between the end of the seventeenth century and the first half of the eighteenth, though some references will be made by way of comparison to the wider European context. My analysis of these texts confirms that, when placed within the framework of early modern poor relief systems, work could come to be seen as a charitable offer conveniently tying together the provision of a necessary source of income for the individual with the (even more necessary) moral pressure towards a disciplined, decorous, and orderly way of life. After a survey of the conceptualisation of the relationship between work and the poor in pre-seventeenth-century poor relief projects, I focus on the peculiar turn that relationship took in the works of later authors, and particularly in those of the Modenese priest and scholar Lodovico Antonio Muratori (1672–1750). I then show how this special configuration was already operational in contemporary poor relief institutions, choosing as a case study the Roman Ospizio Apostolico, one of the reference models for Muratori’s thoughts on the subject. Next, I move to the reactions elicited by these arrangements in the broader community of Roman merchants and traders. Finally, in the conclusion, I briefly stress the relevance that this development in the long theoretical and institutional history of work could have for the general debate on work ethics and the process of social disciplining.

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Putting the Poor to Work: Ancient Sources and New Meanings As is well known, work discipline was a central feature of most early modern poor relief programmes. In fact, within their efforts to reorganise and centralise traditional charity systems, the vast array of new welfare projects and institutions that spread from Middle-European cities throughout the continent at the beginning of the sixteenth century almost always provided for one way or another of putting their recipients to work.4 A clear-cut distinction was then made—theoretically, at least— between those who, unable to earn a living because of some disabling condition (old age, physical impairments, mental illness), were entitled to public assistance and those who, showing no visible handicap, were entirely to blame for their plight and were thus to be excluded from relief. Between these two categories, there seemed to be no middle ground, no third option: the poor were either unfortunate creatures deserving to be helped by others or lazy and vicious drones living off people’s charity. Either way, however, paupers were to be prevented from begging, and their fates were to be placed entirely in the hands of public authorities. For those who were identified as members of the second group, the consequences could include banishment from the city, flogging, branding as vagrants, or confinement for a spell of compulsory labour in an ad hoc foundation. Beginning at least as early as the late sixteenth century, institutions of confinement for disciplining purposes popped up in many places in Europe, resting on a recipe which almost invariably combined— though in highly variable proportions—some form of religious education with more or less stringent attempts to instil a work ethic in their inmates.5 Their occasional mercantilist colouring notwithstanding, these 4 See, among many others, J. P. Gutton, La société et les pauvres en Europe (XVIe – XVIIIe siècles) (Paris: PUF, 1974); M. Fatica, Il problema della mendicità nell’Europa

moderna (secoli XVI–XVIII) (Naples: Liguori, 1992); R. Jütte, Poverty and Deviance in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994); The Reformation of Charity: The Secular and the Religious in Early Modern Poor Relief , ed. Th. M. Safley (Boston: Brill, 2003); M. Garbellotti, Per carità: Poveri e politiche assistenziali nell’Italia moderna (Rome: Carocci, 2013); S. J. Woolf, The Poor in Western Europe in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries (London: Routledge, 2016); L. Coccoli, Il governo dei poveri all’inizio dell’età moderna: Riforma delle istituzioni assistenziali e dibattiti sulla povertà nell’Europa del Cinquecento (Milan: Jouvence, 2017). 5 See Institutions of Confinement: Hospitals, Asylums, and Prisons in Western Europe and North America, 1500–1950, eds. N. Finzsch and R. Jütte (Cambridge: Cambridge

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early projects did not seem to give economic concerns pride of place.6 For the most part, the alleged need for the forcible employment of the poor was based “on moral and religious grounds.”7 The rationale behind this was quite simple: idleness—the mother of all vices, as the proverb went and goes—being the disease, forced labour would be the cure. This also found in the Scriptures, which allegedly provided theological and ideological backing. In his influential De subventione pauperum (1526), one of the first systematic attempts to articulate the ideas that were animating contemporary poor relief reforms, Juan Luis Vives (1493–1540) framed the question in a somewhat traditional fashion: First of all, it must be made clear that the Lord imposed upon the human race as a penalty for its sin that everyone should eat the bread earned by his own labour. [...] So that there be none among the poor who are idle who in age and state of health are able to work, the Apostle Paul writes to the Thessalonians: ‘For when we were with you, we gave you this command: if someone does not wish to work, then let him not eat’ [2 Thessalonians 3:10]. […] Therefore, it must not be allowed that anyone live idly in the city, in which as in a well-ordered home, everyone has his own duty to perform. There is an old saying: ‘By doing nothing men learn to do evil.’8

University Press, 1996.); P. Spierenburg, The Prison Experience: Disciplinary Institutions and Their Inmates in Early Modern Europe (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 20072 ); J. Carré, La prison des pauvres: L’expérience des workhouses en Angleterre (Paris: Vendémiaire, 2016); A. Tomkins, “Poverty and the Workhouse,” in The Routledge History of Poverty, c.1450–1800, eds. D. Hitchcock and J. McClure (London: Routledge, 2020), 234–49. 6 This does not mean that work did not have any economic significance for early modern charitable institutions. For a dedicated focus on the increasing centrality of work and productivity in modern poor relief systems, see the special issue of Mediterranea. Ricerche Storiche 48 (2020), eds. A. Caracausi and C. Maitte. 7 See L. Martz, Poverty and Welfare in Habsburg Spain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 5. 8 J. L. Vives, De Subventione Pauperum sive De Humanis Necessitatibus, eds. C. Matheeussen and C. Fantazzi (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 99–101.

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This punitive approach to paupers considered to be rebellious to work discipline had clear medieval precedents.9 In fact, when Vives was writing, both the biblical reference to God’s punishment and the Pauline apothegm had long been common currency in discourses about labour and the poor. Though it was now placed in a completely different context, the idea that able-bodied have-nots should be obliged to work had surfaced in Western normative and theological texts since at least the middle of the fourteenth century, in the wake of the social and economic havoc brought about by the Black Death.10 The legal premises on which this idea rested were even more ancient. An imperial constitution issued in 382 by Gratian stated that all public beggars who, after a physical examination of their condition, were to be found to be “lazy” and “not to be pitied for any disability” could be perpetually indentured to the one who denounced them and obliged to work for him.11 Its later inclusion in the Code of Justinian and, consequently, in the very foundations of the European ius commune lent this text widespread authority, making it a source of legitimation for repressive policies against mendicants and vagrants well into the seventeenth century.12 This apparent continuity, however, should not mislead us into believing that nothing had changed. It is true that penitential and castigatory undertones were still strongly audible in the sixteenth century, as for example in Vives’s suggestion that “more irksome tasks and smaller rations” should be assigned to those who fell into poverty because of their dissolute living so that they “may repent of their former lives. In 9 S. Farmer, “From Personal Charity to Centralised Poor Relief: The Evolution of Responses to the Poor in Paris, c. 1250–1600,” in Experiences of Charity, 1250–1650, ed. A. M. Scott (London–New York: Routledge, 2016), 17–42, at 31. 10 See S. Cohn, “After the Black Death: Labour Legislation and Attitudes Towards Labour in Late-Medieval Western Europe,” The Economic History Review 60, 3 (2007), 457–85; A. L. Beier, “A New Serfdom: Labor Laws, Vagrancy Statutes, and Labor Discipline in England, 1350–1800,” in Cast Out: Vagrancy and Homelessness in Global and Historical Perspective, eds. A. L. Beier and P. Ocobock (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2008), 35–63; C. Lis and H. Soly, “Labor Laws in Western Europe, 13th–16th Centuries: Patterns of Political and Socio-economic Rationality,” in Working on Labor, eds. M. van der Linden and L. Lucassen (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 299–321. 11 The Codex of Justinian, ed. B. W. Frier, 3 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), book 11, title 26, 3: 2697. See C. Corbo, Paupertas: La legislazione tardoantica (IV–V sec. d.C.) (Naples: Satura, 2006), 197–200. 12 See A. Dani, Vagabondi, zingari e mendicanti: Leggi toscane sulla marginalità sociale tra XVI e XVIII secolo (Florence: Editpress, 2018), 72–7.

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this way, they will not easily fall back into the same vices, held in check through scarce nourishment and hard labour.”13 But proposals of this kind were now part of a different background. Once they were removed from their original penal framework and put instead within the context of a more or less consistent charitable project, they were also charged with new meanings. Compulsory labour was not anymore to be seen exclusively as a form of punishment for rogues and deviants—as it was, for example, in the 1351 English Statute of Labourers or the Castilian poor laws promulgated in 1387 by King Juan I14 —but also as a pedagogical tool with which to inculcate good work habits in the crowd of presumably lazy poor. This implied in turn a malleable anthropology, allowing some room for improvement: “As nothing is sweeter to them now than that slothful and torpid idleness,” Vives argued, “so when they have become used to doing something, nothing would be more burdensome or hateful than idleness, nothing more pleasant than work.”15 This is the reason why labour could increasingly be conceived of not so much as an imposition but as a resource, the provision of which had to be granted to the poor by those in power, on a par with other forms of relief: By public authority, a certain number of those who cannot find work by themselves would be assigned to individual employers. If anyone becomes sufficiently proficient in his trade, let him open his own workshop. Then to these men and also to those to whom the magistrate has assigned some apprentices, contracts should be awarded for completing various public works of the city. [...]16

The tendency to add job offering to the list of services that poor relief schemes needed to provide grew stronger during the seventeenth century and the beginning of the eighteenth, as “increasing numbers of philanthropists and merchant entrepreneurs proposed employment projects, presenting them as charitable efforts that would yield economic benefits

13 Vives, De Subventione Pauperum, 101. 14 See Martz, Poverty and Welfare, 19–20. 15 Vives, De Subventione Pauperum, 35. 16 Ibid., 103. On the prominent role work plays in Vives’ social thought, see P. Pérez

García, “El trabajo en la obra de Juan Luis Vives: de la humana menesterosidad al proyecto humanista,” in El trabajo en la historia, ed. A. Vaca Lorenzo (Salamanca: Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca, 1996), 129–74.

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as well.”17 However, even in the absence of any demonstrable financial profitability, the idea of fully employing all able-bodied paupers did not lose traction, and that was the case precisely because this idea was not framed in purely economic terms but, even more significantly, in terms of religious and moral aid. The reference to the semantics of charity was key here, even outside the Catholic world. Thus, for example, the English Puritan jurist Sir Matthew Hale (1609–76) could open his posthumous Discourse on poor relief by claiming that “although the relief of the Impotent Poor seems to be a Charity of more immediate Exigence yet the Imployment of the Poor is a Charity of greater Extent and of very great and important Consequence to the publique Wealth and Peace of the Kingdom as also to the Benefit and Advantage of the Poor.”18 As this passage shows, employing the poor could now be considered not only one form of almsgiving among others, but as the best and most useful type. Furthermore, this seems to hold true both in the case in which the employer was the public and when, as in early eighteenthcentury England’s “improvement culture,” that role was assumed instead by private entrepreneurs.19 Once the work-as-charity rhetoric had been developed, it could be transferred from collective to individual agents with no apparent effort. Musing about the recent purchase of a vast estate in the English countryside, The Spectator’s imaginary merchant Sir Andrew Freeport congratulated himself as follows: This will give me great Opportunity of being charitable in my way, that is, in setting my poor Neighbours to Work, and giving them a comfortable Subsistence out of their own Industry. My Gardens, my Fish-ponds, my Arable and Pasture Grounds shall be my several Hospitals, or rather Workhouses, in which I propose to maintain a great many indigent Persons, who are now starving in my Neighbourhood.20

17 Lis and Soly, Worthy Efforts: Attitudes to Work and Workers in Pre-Industrial Europe (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 472. 18 M. Hale, A Discourse Touching Provision for the Poor (London: For W. Shrowsbery, 1683), 3. 19 See P. Slack, From Reformation to Improvement (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999); K. Yamamoto, Taming Capitalism Before its Triumph (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018). 20 J. Addison, The Spectator (29 November 1712), 549.

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Different regional and denominational milieus obviously offered a range of variations on the theme, but some significant analogies can still be found among them. In the Italian peninsula, for example, where the promotion of poor relief projects and institutions was predominantly (although not exclusively) in the hands of organisations and individuals related to the Catholic Church, the main characters of work-as-charity narratives were not private landowners and merchants but charitable institutions, confraternities, ecclesiastics, saints, and other pious men. A couple examples suffice. The 1732 statutes of the Florentine Congregation of Saint John the Baptist, founded in 1701 by the Jesuit Giovanni Maria Baldigiani with the aim of regulating public mendicity and aiding the poor of the city, explicitly remarked that the Congregation’s way of assisting paupers did not consist mainly of “manual almsgiving” but of “letting the said paupers work so as to get them off beggary.”21 On similar lines, the eighteenth-century Vita of the secular priest Filippo Franci (1625–94), another hero of Counterreformation philanthropy, recounted how he “would always direct his thoughts to assist people in need by removing them from idleness and providing them with suitable jobs (opportuni lavori),” expounding then on the multiple occasions on which Franci, moved by his “charitable bowels,” had striven to create employment for the poor, with the staunch support of public authorities and local patrons. A quotation from one father Coccapani’s eulogy closed the account: “What a marvellous kind of almsgiving, to employ the (common) people (Mirum eleemosynae genus, populum occupare)!”22 However different in tone and purpose from their English counterparts, these texts produced a similar effect: they added the effort of employing the poor to the catalogue of recognised charitable pursuits. This was 21 Statuti della Congregazione di S. Gio: Batista della città di Firenze Sopra il soccorso de’ Poveri, e loro Lavoro (Florence: Nella Stamperia di S.A.R, 1732), 49. On the history and operations of the Congregation, see L. Cajani, “L’assistenza ai poveri nella Toscana settecentesca,” in Timore e carità: I poveri nell’Italia moderna, eds. G. Politi and M. Rosa (Cremona: Linograf, 1982), 185–210; and V. Nuvoli, La condizione giuridica del povero e del mendicante nella Firenze del Settecento e la Congregazione di San Giovanni Battista (Firenze: Giunti, 2008). 22 N. Bechi, Vita del venerabil servo di Dio Filippo Franci sacerdote fiorentino (Florence:

Nella Stamperia di Pietro Gaetano Viviani, 1741), 78–84. C. Maitte (“Donner du travail aux pauvres: les logiques laborieuses dans les institutions charitables florentines aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècle,” Mediterranea. Ricerche Storiche 48 (2020), 97–122) offers a useful overview of the birth, circulation, and implementation of those ideas in the Florentine context. Her conclusions are largely consistent with those advanced here.

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increasingly the case almost everywhere in Europe, as the work-as-charity discourse circulated across religious and national borders.23

“A Charitable Medicine:” Employing the Poor in Muratori’s Della Carita` Cristiana In most seventeenth-century and eighteenth-century texts, the depiction of employment projects for the poor as a variety—sometimes even the best variety—of almsgiving and charitable relief came in the form of hints, brief mentions, and casual asides. However, there is at least one case in which the topic was given special attention and more thorough consideration. In his 1723 Della carità cristiana (On Christian Charity), the leading Modenese antiquarian and influential Catholic reformer Lodovico Antonio Muratori (1672–1750) devoted an entire chapter to the discussion of the subject. Muratori’s title is already telling: “Giving work to the poor, an act of good charity, and a very useful one for every state.”24 It can be confidently looked at as a guide through the main fixtures and ambivalences of the issues at stake. When he was writing Della carità cristiana, Muratori was the chief librarian at Modena’s ducal library and provost of a local parish, Santa Maria della Pomposa.25 His treatise was dedicated to the Emperor Charles VI, and it was conceived as a comprehensive recapitulation of Catholic doctrine concerning the virtue of charity, but it also sought to offer a theoretical foundation and ideological justification for the new wave of poor relief institutions that had been emerging in Italy since the end of the previous century. In 1695, the Duke Rinaldo I d’Este, with decisive help from the aforementioned Giovanni Maria Baldigiani, had established 23 Whether that circulation was attributable to the widespread dissemination and influence of certain specific texts or resulted from analogous but independent inferences drawn from a broader intellectual paradigm is a question not touched upon here. 24 L. A. Muratori, Della carità cristiana, in quanto essa è amore del prossimo (Modena: Per Bartolomeo Soliani, 1723), ch. 33, 339–50. 25 On Muratori’s life and works, his archival endeavours, his pastoral and scholarly activities, and his large correspondence with many prominent European intellectuals of the time, see G. De Martino, Muratori filosofo: Ragione filosofica e coscienza storica in Lodovico Antonio Muratori (Naples: Liguori, 1996); C. Continisio, Il governo delle passioni: Prudenza, giustizia e carità nel pensiero politico di Lodovico Antonio Muratori (Florence: L. S. Olschki, 1999); Lodovico Antonio Muratori: Religione e politica nel Settecento, eds. M. Rosa and M. Al Kalak (Florence: L. S. Olschki, 2018).

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in Modena a public hospice—the Ospizio de’ poveri—aimed at reducing mendicancy by putting the city’s able-bodied paupers to work.26 As Muratori recalled in his book, this was only one of many similar projects that were being set up in Italy at the time, from Rome to Turin, from Genoa to Pisa.27 In 1721, Muratori himself had founded the Compagnia della carità, a pious confraternity devoted to rekindling charitable sentiments among Christians, providing relief for the poor, and revamping the hospice’s action after a period of stagnation. The tract on charity was thus intended to pursue the same goals by other means. Muratori’s prescription for the “government” of poverty and the control of mendicancy exhibited some elements of continuity with recipes from the past. As for sixteenth-century welfare reformers, the first point in his to-do list was to banish all foreign beggars in order to rid the city of unwanted extra mouths to feed and a dangerous source of disorder. Next, native paupers should be tested in order to ascertain which of them actually had a solid claim to public relief and which were only faking their plight in order to live at other people’s expense: “By such an expedient, it will be possible to keep false paupers out and to reduce the number of beggars to the truly destitute alone.”28 So far, there was nothing new in Muratori’s account: his proposition simply reiterated the conventional distinction between deserving and undeserving poor, which at the time was already several centuries old. Things changed, however, when work was put into the equation. Continuing his argument, Muratori seemed in fact to abandon binary oppositions—alien/native, worthy/unworthy, false/true—in favour of a more complex classification based on a twofold criterion: the ability to work and the willingness to work. The result was a taxonomy of the poor comprised of not two but three different groups. First, there were those who were perfectly able but resolutely averse to working, i.e. the ones whom Muratori had already excluded from any form of assistance and whom public authorities, he felt, had to prosecute with the strictest severity. Next came those who, for various reasons, were completely unable to work and who were therefore entitled to public help with 26 See M. Fatica, “La regolarizzazione dei mendicanti attraverso il lavoro: l’ospizio dei poveri di Modena tra fine Seicento e primo Settecento,” in idem, Il problema della mendicità, 217–49. 27 Muratori, Della carità cristiana, 333–4. 28 Ibid., 337.

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no further ado. Finally, there were those who were able and willing to work, but who could not find employment due to unfavourable economic circumstances and other episodic adversities: It should also be noted that, whenever public miseries or private misfortunes take away from the poor—however healthy, however sturdy they may be—the means of earning their bread by their own sweat, since they lack the employment offered by usual industries; then, neither more nor less than if they were invalid, blind, and lame, they must participate in the alms of the faithful, and live at public expense.29

That was something relatively new. In the sixteenth-century and early seventeenth-century literature on poor relief, the idea of what today would be called “involuntary unemployment” seems conspicuously absent. As noted above, the poor whom welfare institutions had to deal with were construed alternatively either as blameless unfortunate worthy of support or as wilful loafers to be strictly disciplined. It was only from the second half of the seventeenth century that nomenclatures slowly started to change, and labour entered the definition of poverty. Paupers gradually began to be seen—as a later French writer would have it—as “all those without property and fixed income, rents, or salaries, who live off wages when [these wages] suffice, who suffer when wages are too small, who starve when wages are lacking.”30 Allowing for the possibility of people who were poor because of lack of employment, Muratori was registering—while also contributing to—those transformations in meaning. However, new classifications required new instruments of intervention. The unemployed poor undoubtedly had a legitimate claim to be helped, 29 “Contuttociò si vuol’anche avvertire, che ogni qual volta o le pubbliche miserie, o le

private disavventure levano a i Poverelli anche sani, anche robusti, il mezzo di procacciarsi il pane co’ propri sudori, mancando loro l’impiego dell’arti solite: allora, né più né meno come se fossero infermi, ciechi, ed attratti, debbono participare delle limosine de’ fedeli, e vivere alle spese del comune.” Ibid., 340. 30 “Cette nombreuse classe renferme tous les hommes sans propriétés et sans revenues, sans rentes, ou sans gages; qui vivent avec des salaires, quand ils sont suffisans; qui souffrent quand ils sont trop foibles; qui meurent de faim quand ils cessent.” J.-B. Briatte, Offrande a l’humanité (Amsterdam: Changuyon, 1780), 72. For additional comment on these semantic changes, see L. Coccoli, “Defining Poverty,” in A Cultural History of Poverty in the Age of the Emerging Atlantic World (1650–1800), ed. L. Abreu (London: Bloomsbury, forthcoming).

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but how? Traditional forms of almsgiving in kind or money had been conceived for utterly helpless people, not for people who were able to help themselves but lacked the opportunity to do so. In this latter case, the logic of charity would dictate that such people be given the one thing they did not have: a job. This was exactly what Muratori recommended to “every city that aspires to the glory of pleasing God, and of regulating itself well.”31 The argument developed in both these registers, the divine and the mundane. At first glance, Muratori continued, it might appear that employing the poor was “just a wise precept of human Politics,” a useful means of promoting the material well-being of the community, but not to earn merit before the Lord. True, something similar had been proposed in the past on a purely secular basis. In his famous Della ragion di Stato (1589), for example, the Piedmontese Giovanni Botero (1544– 1617) had argued that a prince had to ensure that all the poor in his dominion were to undertake some activity “which will provide them with an income to support themselves” so that “they will acquire an interest” in the stability of his rule.32 For Botero, that was the safest way to pacify an otherwise dangerous class and to strengthen the unity of the body politic, but he had nothing to say about its possible transcendent implications. More than a century later, Muratori decidedly turned the argument around. Giving work to the needy was not only—and not primarily—a political or economic measure intended to promote “the public Good,” but was also “an act of very noble charity [un’atto di carità nobilissima].”33 That was because, first, it made the poor capable of meeting their corporal needs without being compelled to resort to mendicancy and provided them with a legitimate way of sustaining themselves and their families. Second, it also had the even greater merit of keeping them away from idleness and from all sins deriving from idleness, which “would result in a spiritual advantage for the souls [vantaggio spirituale dell’anime].”34 It was precisely this double dimension, both corporal and spiritual, that made it possible for these new employment projects to be subsumed

31 Muratori, Della carità cristiana, 340. 32 G. Botero, The Reason of State, ed. R. Bireley (Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 2017), 90. 33 Muratori, Della carità cristiana, 341. 34 Ibid.

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under the old category of charity. In fact, since before its scholastic codification, charity had long been a two-headed notion, as the love of one’s neighbour—which was in itself a manifestation of the love of God—could be directed both to the neighbour’s body and to her soul. The fourteen works of mercy, seven corporal and seven spiritual, further specified this dual aim, laying the doctrinal foundation for countless welfare institutions and iconographic programmes.35 Muratori was obviously well aware of this tradition, and he had already expounded on it early in the treatise, recalling that “the offices of charity [gli ufizj della carità] are divided into two classes. The first ones aim at benefitting the neighbour in what interests her soul [ne gl’interessi dell’anima sua], the other ones in her temporal needs [ne’ bisogni suoi temporali].”36 It was in that same vein that Muratori could rank the employment of the poor among the highest acts of charity, since it ensured their earthly survival and also increased their chances of eternal life. It combined in one single achievement both the corporal and the spiritual dimensions of charity, and it was therefore one of the most perfect forms of almsgiving. Thus, it comes as no surprise to read that “one of the main endeavours of the Compagnia della Carità will be to provide [paupers] with ways of earning their bread with their own arms, […] always with the intention of pleasing God, and practicing charity, and meeting the poor’s need in the most decent form.”37 Muratori’s reasoning was not free of ambiguities, however. The recasting of the old theme of compulsory work in terms of benevolent assistance did not erase its disciplinary connotations, it just changed the ways in which these connotations were fashioned. Even when employment schemes were represented as generous gifts from public or private benefactors, the line between help and punishment remained surprisingly

35 See F. Botana, The Works of Mercy in Italian Medieval Art (c. 1050–c. 1400) (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011); L’iconografia della solidarietà: La mediazione delle immagini (secoli XIII–XVIII), eds. M. Carboni and M. G. Muzzarelli (Venice: Marsilio, 2012). 36 Muratori, Della carità cristiana, 46. 37 “Una per conseguente delle principali applicazioni della Compagnia della Carità sarà

il procacciar loro le vie di guadagnarsi il pane colle lor braccia, […] sempre con intenzione di dar gusto a Dio, e di esercitare la Carità, e di provvedere nella più decente forma al bisogno de’ poverelli.” Ibid., 342.

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thin.38 That was particularly true in Muratori’s case. His discourse continuously oscillated between the language of gratuitous offer and that of forced obligation. This ambivalence, however, was not Muratori’s own; rather, it was somehow inherent in the very notion of charity. Being something exclusively aimed towards the neighbour’s good, an act of charity could reasonably be performed even against her will, all the more so when what was at stake was the destiny of her everlasting soul. In that respect, the medical relationship between a physician and his patient provided a suitable metaphor to understand how charity worked: I am certain that to those who are accustomed to the sweet freedom of begging it will appear as cruelty, and not as charity, to be compelled to work [...]. But that does not mean that it is not a charitable medicine the one that tends to heal the sick from her illness, even though she does not wish for it.39

When it came to eternal salvation, the difference between freedom and compulsion, gift and imposition, blurred and faded into the background. The description of employment programmes in terms of charitable provisions had another interesting consequence. It concerned the role Muratori assigned not only to public authorities but also to private individuals. Since the late sixteenth century, mercantilist thought advocated the full employment of all able-bodied subjects not on a privateentrepreneurship basis but through direct intervention by the state. Public funds were to be used to sustain domestic manufactures and implant new industries in order to enlarge the country’s population and increase national wealth. Beggars, vagrants, and other supposedly “idle” paupers were the favourite target of this kind of policy.40 It may seem at first that Muratori too fitted into the same picture, but in fact he departed 38 See Lis and Soly, Worthy Efforts, 476. The authors attribute this ambivalence to the fact that “nearly all commentators […] had difficulty accepting a phenomenon such as involuntary unemployment.” What the above shows is that, in Muratori’s case at least, it was exactly the other way around. 39 “Similmente metto per certo, che a chi è assuefatto alla dolce libertà del questuare, parrà crudeltà, non carità, l’astringerlo alle fatiche. […] Ma non lascia per questo d’essere medicina caritativa quella, che tende a guarir dal male un’infermo, benché l’infermo nol brami.” Muratori, Della carità cristiana, 341. 40 See L. Magnusson, “Were good times really that bad? Mercantilist views on poverty and employment,” in Poverty in the History of Economic Thought: From Mercantilism to

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from it in some important ways. Indeed, even for him the prince had a special duty to provide work for his subjects. But since that was not only a political task but also a precept of charity, every single Christian was called on to do the same—provided of course she possessed the suitable means. Especially in time of distress, the rich should employ their fortunes to create job opportunities for the poor, for example by undertaking the construction of some magnificent building or “other works of honest delight.” The “foolish world” might well object to this unconventional way of helping the needy, but there was no doubt that “this invention too will receive its prize from God, as it is hallowed by its good intention, since in such cases even to do so is an act of beautiful charity, and true almsgiving [bellissima carità, e vera limosina].”41 It is easy to recognise here the old link between the justification of riches, charity, and the common good. For a substantial number of late medieval and early modern Christian thinkers, what was condemnable was not so much wealth, but rather its unproductive uses, those that were not intended for the collective advantage of the whole community. And while greed was the mortal sin of those who would not—or could not—put their riches to use but for themselves, charity was the virtue of those economic actors who knew how to participate in the promotion of the common good and actively did so.42 By conflating job creation and poor relief, Muratori was offering his personal interpretation of that script. The full employment of all unemployed paupers, he conceded, might sound like an impossible feat. But that was only because “personal interest” and disregard for the public good held sway. Let charity “inflame and join into one the hearts of the individuals [i cuori de’ particolari],” and they will try everything in

Neoclassical Economics, eds. M. Lundahl, D. Rauhut, and N. Hatti (London: Routledge, 2020), 12–28. 41 Muratori, Della carità cristiana, 344. 42 See G. Todeschini, I mercanti e il tempio: La società cristiana e il circolo virtuoso

della ricchezza fra Medioevo ed età moderna (Bologna: il Mulino, 2002); idem, Ricchezza francescana (Bologna: il Mulino, 2004); S. Zamagni, Avarizia (Bologna: il Mulino, 2009); E. I. Mineo, “Cose in comune e bene comune: L’ideologia della comunità in Italia nel tardo medioevo,” in The Languages of Political Society: Western Europe, 14 th – 17 th Centuries, eds. A. Gamberini, J.-Ph. Genet, and A. Zorzi (Rome: Viella, 2011), 39–67.

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their power to start new economic activities to employ their less fortunate neighbours and contribute to the general well-being.43 Recently, but in the wake of an interpretive tradition already a few decades old, some scholars have proposed putting Muratori’s works under the label of “Catholic Enlightenment”44 or the slightly different label of “enlightened Catholicism.”45 The analysis of his joint treatment of work and charity helps to understand what that could possibly mean. Muratori remained faithful to a certain received tradition of Christian thought, but he did not limit himself to its slavish repetition; nor did his reformist commitment mean a radical departure from Catholicism. On the contrary, Muratori’s method consisted of exploiting the latent potential for new meanings in older theoretical frameworks so as to keep them abreast of eighteenth-century sensibilities.46 In his Della carità, he took advantage of the multiple conceptual possibilities of the notion of charity to make room for new welfare solutions, thus elaborating on—while also giving shape to—contemporary ideas about work and poverty that had been spreading throughout Europe since the turn of the century.

“Almost for Charity:” The Roman Ospizio Apostolico and Its Opponents Muratori believed that his employment plans could work “whether the crowd of the Poor was to be confined in hospices or left at home.” For him, however, the best course of action was definitely the former. Unfortunately, not every city had the facilities and financial resources to sustain the enormous expenditure involved in the foundation of a hospice. But

43 Muratori, Della carità cristiana, 343. 44 See U. L. Lehner, The Catholic Enlightenment (Oxford: Oxford University Press,

2016). For earlier proponents of the notion of a “Catholic Enlightenment,” of which Muratori was to be considered as one of the most prominent figures, see F. Valjavec, Geschichte der abendländischen Aufklärung (Vienna: Harold, 1961); Cattolicesimo e Lumi nel Settecento italiano, ed. M. Rosa (Rome: Herder, 1981); and M. Rosa, Settecento religioso: Politica della Ragione e religione del cuore (Venice: Marsilio, 1999). 45 See M. Rosa, “The Catholic Aufklärung in Italy,” in A Companion to the Catholic Enlightenment in Europe, eds. U. L. Lehner and M. Printy (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 215–50. 46 See C. Continisio, “Governing the passions: Sketches on Lodovico Antonio Muratori’s moral philosophy,” History of European Ideas 32 (2006), 367–84.

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whenever the necessary conditions were met, public authorities should not hesitate to go down that road. As mentioned above, Muratori’s argument was grounded in his observations of a conspicuous number of contemporary institutional experiences. The Modenese Ospizio de’ poveri was probably the one he knew best, but he was well aware that it was neither unique nor the first of its kind. Its model and direct precursor was located in papal Rome, the centre of world Catholicism and the capital of the Ecclesiastical State. In 1693, Pope Innocent XII had established the Apostolic Hospice for poor invalids (Ospizio Apostolico de’ Poveri Invalidi), joining together three pre-existing welfare institutions. The Ospizio was inspired in turn by Louis XIV’s national plan for the creation of hôpitaux généraux in France, the blueprint of which had been imported to Rome through the mediation of two French Jesuits, Honoré Chaurand and André Guévarre, and their Italian brother, the aforementioned (twice) Giovanni Maria Baldigiani.47 The Ospizio’s original intention was to eradicate mendicancy by forcefully imprisoning all the city’s beggars and putting them to work. But the initial plan soon proved unattainable, and the institution quickly abandoned the project of a “great confinement” of all Roman beggars in favour of a system of voluntary admissions, offering shelter and care to different groups of paupers. In 1696, just three years after its foundation, the governing body of the hospice had to acknowledge begrudgingly that the costs of the entire operation were exceeding all estimates and that “Roman people did not applaud it [Roma non l’applaudiva], since they did not want to get used to seeing the sbirro arresting those who begged.”48 The interpretation of the presumed needs of the poor changed as a consequence. Labour became something the institution did not impose upon but offered to the city’s poor families, both to sustain them and 47 On the groundwork, inception, and evolution of the Roman Ospizio, see A. Balzani, L’Ospizio Apostolico dei poveri invalidi detto “il San Michele” dal 1693 al 1718 (Rome: Istituto di Studi Romani, 1969); M. Fatica, “La reclusione dei mendicanti a Roma durante il pontificato di Innocenzo XII (1692–1700),” in idem, Il problema della mendicità, 161– 215; M. Piccialuti, La carità come metodo di governo: Istituzioni caritative a Roma dal pontificato di Innocenzo XII a quello di Benedetto XIV (Turin: Giappichelli, 1994); A. Groppi, Il welfare prima del welfare: Assistenza alla vecchiaia e solidarietà tra generazioni a Roma in età moderna (Rome: Viella, 2010). 48 Archivio di Stato di Roma (ASR), Ospizio Apostolico di San Michele (OASM), I parte, b. 234, Congregazione dell’azienda, 13 February 1696.

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to keep them from drifting down the wrong path. To this end, many factories and craft workshops were established in its premises over the years.49 Their effects as means of providing relief were intended to unfold in two directions: first, they functioned as vocational training schools for poor boys and girls, who were thus taken away from purported idleness and imbued with work discipline from an early age. Second, they were to create job opportunities for people without employment. In this regard, it was clear that the work-as-charity equation was not something to be found only in the writings of Muratori and other eighteenth-century reformers. However, in so far as it did not remain on paper, the idea of assisting the poor by employing them ran into trouble. When conceived of as a form of almsgiving, labour could not be seen as a mere economic quantity the use of which could be adjusted according to expected outputs. On the contrary, as long as its guiding logic was the religiously and morally charged one of charitable gift, cost–benefit assessments and financial concerns often had to give way to considerations of a different nature. What was imperative was not to minimise the amount of labour needed and maximise productivity, but to employ—that is, to assist— as many paupers as possible, no matter the quantity and quality of the final product. That obviously could have serious economic consequences, mostly in the form of overproduction and unmarketable low-quality merchandise. When this occurred, political intervention and non-market solutions were required to avert crises: the protectionist levying of tariffs on imports, the grant of exclusive rights to manufacture and sell specified goods, and the occasional imposition by papal authorities placed on local merchants to buy the hospice’s products. A symptomatic exchange that took place at the end of the seventeenth century captures the distinctive dynamics at work. In 1699, Innocent XII’s almoner, Monsignor Girolamo Berti, presented the congregation managing the hospice with the request to “provide work for all poor families in Rome that complain they cannot find it, and to pay them the same price that is paid by merchants [il prezzo medesimo che si paga da mercanti].” The board members decided to comply with the demand and to “contribute in every way to such a holy and pious endeavour, which they acknowledge to be of great avail to the service of God and 49 See P. Toscano, Roma produttiva tra Settecento e Ottocento: Il San Michele a Ripa Grande (Rome: Viella, 1996).

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the government,” but they also asked the almoner to commit on behalf of the pope to ensuring the clearance of surplus production, covering damages caused by bad workmanship and supplying the necessary initial capital.50 Monsignor Berti “gladly” agreed to the hospice’s terms.51 Although highly characteristic, the episode is a testament to ideas and issues that were not peculiar to Rome (or the Catholic world). In 1725, the Hamburg city council devised a new poor relief scheme that would function not through “the mere extension of alms”—which were nothing more than an incentive to idleness—but through the “assignment of work” to the truly poor, betting on the fact that “many people [will] be able to obtain a living through the orderly distribution of […] the wages which they draw in compensation for their labour.”52 But again, reality went contrary to the council’s wishes. In 1727, the council contracted with local manufacturers to employ the city’s poor, but the agreement soon foundered on the merchants’ complaints concerning problems with discipline and lack of necessary skills. Growing municipal subsidies were thus needed to keep the entire project from falling apart.53 Public interventions to help welfare institutions of this kind stay afloat in the market were hardly conclusive. They were often likely to elicit opposition from other market operators, whose complaints against statesponsored and charitably oriented economic activities increasingly merged with a growing hostility towards protectionism and mercantilist policies.54 A heated exchange between the Ospizio’s officials and the cloth merchants of the Ecclesiastical State offers as good an example of these conflicts

50 ASR, OASM, I parte, b. 235, Congregazione generale, 5 July 1699, 15–8. 51 Ibid., 2 August 1699, 19. For further comments, see V. V. Spagnuolo, “Il lanificio

di San Michele a Ripa Grande a Roma,” in L’impresa: Industria, commercio, banca. Secc. XIII–XVIII , ed. S. Cavaciocchi (Florence: Le Monnier, 1991), 1007–22; L. Coccoli, “Too Pious to Fail. The Case of the Ospizio Apostolico of Rome between Salvation and Profit (1692–c. 1750),” in Les marchés de la misère: Contrôle, exploitation et représentation des classes miséreuses du XVI e siècle à nos jours, eds. N. Coquery and A. Bonnet (Paris: Mare & Martin, 2022), 341–50. 52 Quoted in M. Lindemann, Patriots and Paupers: Hamburg, 1712–1830 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), 83–4. 53 Ibid., 86. 54 On eighteenth-century economic reformism within the Papal State, see L. Dal Pane,

Lo Stato pontificio e il movimento riformatore del Settecento (Milan: Giuffrè, 1959); N. La Marca, Liberalismo economico nello Stato pontificio (Rome: Bulzoni, 1984).

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as any that can be found in the institution’s archives. In 1721, countering those traders who were advocating lifting restrictions on textile imports (which were vital to the survival of the hospice’s fledgling wool industry), the Ospizio drafted an articulate defence of the benefits its action produced for the city’s poor. Its manufactories provided work for 3,000 poor women and 150 poor men outside its walls, not to mention the hundreds of young inmates who were being taught a trade with which to make a living as adults. Also, its extensive programme of restoration and public works had employed countless unskilled paupers, “and that one too had been a great almsgiving [una grand’Elemosina], since everyone admits that helping Poverty through building work is the most pleasing charity to His Divine Majesty [la carità più grata a Sua Divina Maestà] that can be done, for it keeps the people away from idleness and employs all sorts of people.”55 Whoever requested the abolition of trade bans and custom duties was in fact hindering such a godly undertaking. In their printed (and piqued) response, “the Roman merchants” retorted that the difficulties the hospice was experiencing were no one’s fault but its own. Since its aim was to employ as many of the poor as possible, the hospice had embarked in a disorderly manner on industries of every sort and, furthermore, it continued to do so without “measuring the amount of labour it used on the quantity of products it expected to sell.” Thus, it inevitably ended up producing “more than needed.” Overproduction was thus the predictable outcome of this mismanagement, and it forced the Ospizio to ask for public help at the expense of the other operators, thus “extorting out of piety and, we would say, almost for charity what they could obtain through market reputation [e così estorcere colla compassione e diremo quasi per elemosina quello potrebbe conseguirsi con riputazione di mercatura].”56 The hospice’s reply was not long in coming. The merchants, it argued, got it all wrong. The Ospizio was never intended to support the poor with the income from its manufactories alone; quite the contrary, it was those manufactories that had been created for the sole purpose of employing them and making them earn a living. The hospice could not be regarded “as a merchant, but as […] a dispenser of work to the poor of Rome who cannot find work

55 ASR, Commissariato generale della Camera apostolica, vol. 488, 431r –439v , at 433r . 56 ASR, OASM, I parte, b. 49, Risposta de Mercanti ad una Scrittura del detto Ospizio

([Rome]: Typis Zinghi et Monaldi, 1721), no page numbers.

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[un dispensatore del lavoro alli poveri di Roma, che non trovano da lavorare].” That being so, it was clearly not possible for it to meet its pious obligations by following “the rules of merchants and trading [le regole de mercanti, e della mercatura].”57 This exchange of arguments and accusations had the merit of calling things by their proper name: it would be hard to find a more accurate description of the rationale behind the work-as-charity discourse, together with the problems it posed when it collided with broader economic reality. If labour was “dispensed” as a special form of almsgiving (one that also had moral and religious connotations), it could not be treated as a mere “factor of production,” utterly detached from its social purposes. On the other hand, in so far as it was not intended as a completely gratuitous largesse, it could neither be entirely separated from the market. If the idea was to enable the poor to sustain themselves not through mendicancy but through their own work, that work had to have some recognisable, if unusual, economic significance. It was this “moral economy” that marked the perimeter within which the representation of employment as a form of charitable gift took place, while also determining its most severe contradictions.

Conclusion The history of ideas about work can also be seen as a history of the various layers of meaning that these ideas have alternately acquired or shed over time. This interpretation has the advantage of providing us with a plausible definition of the work ethic, one that can both justify its use in the plural—work ethics —and make it into an effective tool of historical investigation. In this sense, analysing a single “work ethic” or comparing various “work ethics” would mean focusing on the diverse and ever-changing values, norms, and traditions that accompany and surround the concept and practice of work in different contexts. This chapter can be read as an attempt to illustrate this point through the reconstruction of a specific—and yet relevant—passage in the conceptual and institutional trajectory of the changing relationship between work and poor relief. The idea of forcing the poor to work was already several centuries old when it was revived by sixteenth-century welfare reformers

57 ASR, Commissariato generale della Camera apostolica, vol. 488, 440r –444r , at 440r .

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as a way of bringing order to what they perceived as the chaotic world of poverty and mendicancy. Compulsory labour was clearly intended as a form of deterrence and punishment for able-bodied beggars who supposedly faked their indigence in order to take advantage of other people’s charity—since the possibility of involuntary unemployment was either rejected as a pretext for idleness or simply not contemplated. However, as part of an overall project of public assistance, compulsory labour could also take on more benevolent nuances and be couched in terms of charitable help bestowed on the sinful and unruly poor to make them get back on the right path. This tendency strengthened over the course of the following centuries, until the idea of aiding the needy not through mere almsgiving but by employing them became a distinct element of the European discourse about poverty and poor relief, an element which eventually found in Muratori a sensitive interpreter and one of its most complete and lengthy discussions. From around the middle of the eighteenth century onwards, welfare institutions such as the Roman Ospizio Apostolico were subjected to increasing criticism, which was fuelled by new cultural trends and economic ideals.58 The most common accusation was that by supplying the poor with a safety net that would ensure their survival no matter how they behaved, they did nothing but feed people’s idleness, discourage effort, and remove incentives for hard work. This growing resentment towards traditional poor relief systems, however, does not appear to have affected the work-as-charity narrative, at least in the short run. Turgot’s entry on “Foundation” in the Encyclopédie, which is usually mentioned as one of the fiercest attacks on ancien régime charitable institutions, still presented as a paragon of efficiency and good management the example of “the city of Bayeux, whose inhabitants have freely contributed to banish mendicancy entirely from their town, and have succeeded in this by providing work for all able-bodied beggars, and alms for all those unfit for work.”59 58 See Th. McStay Adams, Bureaucrats and Beggars: French Social Policy in the Age of the Enlightenment (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990); F. M. Di Sciullo, Gestire l’indigenza: I poveri nel pensiero politico inglese da Locke a Malthus (Rome: Aracne, 2012); Carré, La prison des pauvres. 59 “Je citerai en particulier la ville de Bayeux, dont les habitans se sont cottisés librement, pour bannir entierement de leur ville la mendicité; et y ont réussi, en fournissant du travail à tous les mendians valides, et des aumônes à ceux qui ne le sont pas.” Encyclopédie, vol. 7 (Paris: Briasson et al., 1757), 75.

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The later survival of the idea of providing labour as a charitable act exceeds the scope of this chapter, but there is enough evidence to assume that it passed somehow unscathed—though not unchanged—through the Revolutionary Era and beyond.60 Its resilience speaks volume about its relevance to the history of work, and it can also offer a novel take on the much-debated question of work ethics in early modern Europe. When studying the connection between work and poor relief in the early modern age, scholars usually tend to frame it in terms of compulsion, obligation, and social disciplining. Two hermeneutical models loom large in the background. One is Karl Marx’s account of “primitive accumulation” and the rise of capitalism in Part Eight of the first volume of Capital, where the imposition of work discipline upon the dispossessed poor through “grotesquely terroristic laws” is regarded as key to make them accept the new system of wage-labour and transform them into modern proletarians.61 The second one is Michel Foucault’s “Great Confinement,” which although increasingly contested in some details62 is still considered substantially sound in its broad outline. In Foucault’s analysis of seventeenth-century attempts at herding and secluding vagrants, paupers, and all sorts of outcasts, forced labour figures as one of the main ingredients of a project of normalisation and disciplinary regimentation of society.63 Somewhere in between the two, others have identified in compulsory work schemes by various institutions of confinement an

60 Nineteenth-century polemics on the “right to work” still bore its mark and can thus be seen as a late development of the work-as-charity narrative. See Maitte, “Donner du travail aux pauvres,” 121–2. 61 K. Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, trans. B. Fowkes, 3 vols. (London: Penguin, 1990), 1:873–940, at 899. For an original interpretation of Marx’s narrative and its relation to Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, see, recently, C. Ginzburg, “Latitude, Slaves, and the Bible: An Experiment in Microhistory,” Critical Inquiry 31 (2005), 665–83. 62 See A. Pastore, “Il problema dei poveri agli inizi dell’età moderna: Linee generali”, in Povertà e innovazioni istituzionali in Italia: Dal Medioevo ad oggi, ed. V. Zamagni (Bologna: il Mulino, 2000), 185–205, at 202–5. 63 Foucault first introduced the notion in Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason (1961), trans. R. Howard (New York: Vintage, 1988), 38–64.

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ancestor of the particular work regime heralded by the advent of the capitalist factory.64 In all these different accounts, violence evidently plays a major role. However, by tackling the issue from the angle of charity, this chapter has shown that violence was not the only means by which public authorities and individual actors attempted to set the poor to work. Labour was not only something poor relief institutions inflicted upon their inmates. Just as often, it was also understood and presented as a form of assistance and almsgiving, something that was generously provided to help those in need. By calling attention to this understanding of labour, my intention is not to downplay the element of coercion inherent in the process of social disciplining. Rather, I seek to further a more subtle grasp of the historical applications of this process. As Muratori and others knew well, when charity was involved, the line between compulsion and voluntary acceptance was inevitably blurred. That is the logic of the gift: giving is not an entirely gratuitous act; it is also a way to leave the beneficiary indebted in some way to the benefactor. The psychological intricacies that have haunted labour relations to this day may find here some degree of explanation.

64 The two most prominent representatives of this approach are G. Rusche and O. Kirchheimer, Punishment and Social Structure (New York: Columbia University Press, 1939); and D. Melossi and M. Pavarini, The Prison and the Factory: Origins of the Penitentiary System [1977] (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017).

CHAPTER 11

Enlightened Women at Work: The Case of Marie-Anne Paulze-Lavoisier (1770s–1790s) Francesca Antonelli

Virtually every study devoted to the collaboration between Marie-Anne Paulze-Lavoisier (1758–1836) and her husband, the French chemist Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier (1743–1794), includes a reference to a famous double-portrait by Jacques-Louis David known as the Portrait de Monsieur Lavoisier et de sa femme [Fig. 11.1]. This huge, beautiful painting, dating from 1788, remains the best-known representation of the couple. Painted on commission and, thus, under the careful supervision of both the Lavoisiers, it is rich in references to their collaborative work. On the right-hand side of the painting, we see Lavoisier sitting at a table covered with papers and holding a pen in his hand. He appears

F. Antonelli (B) Institut Universitari d’Estudis de les Dones, Universitat de València, Valencia, Spain e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 G. Almási and G. Lizzul (eds.), Rethinking the Work Ethic in Premodern Europe, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38092-1_ 11

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surrounded by chemistry instruments, which arguably function as references to what he thought to be his main scientific achievements. More specifically, as has been noted, this composition probably symbolized the theoretical reform of chemistry that he had been proposing since at least the 1780s and that he famously referred to in terms of a “revolution” in science. At the heart of this reform was the idea that chemistry had to break its long-standing ties with different “traditions,” such as natural history and alchemy, to become an “exact” science like physics and mathematics. Hence the presence, in David’s painting, of a set of chemistry instruments that—according to Lavoisier—were crucial in shaping such an approach to chemistry as a discipline.1 Standing at his side and holding his shoulder is Paulze-Lavoisier, elegantly dressed in white with a coiffure à l’anglaise. Behind her back, on the left side of the painting, we see a green portfolio containing some loose sheets: this was probably a reference to her work as an illustrator of Lavoisier’s texts. When this portrait was commissioned, in fact, Lavoisier was working on his Traité élémentaire de chimie (1789), which his wife would have illustrated with thirteen engraved plates representing the instruments described in the treatise. It is thus quite clear, as scholars have already noted, that David did not simply portray a couple who belonged to the French haute bourgeoisie, but also, and above all, two married collaborators.2 The changes made by the painter to an earlier version of the Portrait, brought to light by a recent study, seem to reinforce this reading. We see that all the references to Lavoisier’s work as a tax collector and public man, highly visible in the first version, have now been removed and replaced by the symbols of his reformist vision of chemistry. This important discovery suggests how crucial it was for Lavoisier to be represented first and foremost as a chemist, especially as the Revolution approached.3 1 M. Beretta, Imaging a Career in Science. The Iconography of Antoine Laurent Lavoisier (Canton, MA: Science History Publications, 2001), Chap. 2. 2 This point was first noticed in M. Vidal, “David Among the Moderns: Art, Science and the Lavoisiers,” Journal of the History of Ideas 56 (1995), 592–623 and then taken up by several scholars. See for instance Beretta, Imaging a Career in Science, Chap. 2 and M. Roberts, Sentimental Savants. Philosophical Families in Enlightenment France (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016), Chap. 2. 3 D. Pullins, D. Marathon and S. A. Centeno, “The Lavoisiers by David: Technical Findings on Portraiture on at the Brink of Revolution,” The Burlington Magazine (September 2021), 2–13.

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Fig. 11.1 Jacques-Louis David, Portrait de Monsieur Lavoisier et de sa femme (1788), oil on canvas, 259,7 × 194,6 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, no. inventory 1977.1 (public domain)

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What is most striking about this artwork, however, is perhaps the role the painter gave to Paulze-Lavoisier, whose body constitutes, as highlighted by Mary Vidal, “the real point of focus” of the whole painting, the spot where the viewer’s gaze naturally goes.4 This choice, which can already be found in the preliminary version of the Portrait, seems to add some mystery to the painting. It is difficult to justify Paulze-Lavoisier’s prominent position only on the basis of her published works. As a translator, she published only two texts, the Essai sur le Phlogistique, the French edition of An Essay on Phlogiston by the Irish chemist Richard Kirwan (1788), and an article titled “De la force des acides, et de la proportion des substances qui composent les sels neutres,” published shortly after in the Annales de chimie, a chemistry journal launched by Lavoisier and some of his collaborators in 1789. With regard to her work as an illustrator, the only compositions that came into print were the aforementioned plates for Lavoisier’s Traité. As for the assistance she provided in experimental practice, though she worked in her husband’s laboratory for over twenty years, her participation was never explicitly mentioned in any published mémoires. This sort of “absence” of Paulze-Lavoisier from printed documents has been stressed by historians who, since the mid1990s, have often taken her case to exemplify the gender inequalities of eighteenth-century scientific cultures. The historiography tends, indeed, to represent her as a sort of “assistant” par excellence, always working in the shadow of her famous husband, to such an extent that she became “invisible” to her contemporaries.5 While Paulze-Lavoisier’s approach to authorship is actually far more complex than usually thought,6 it is interesting to note that to a certain extent she herself seems to have

4 Vidal, “David Among the Moderns,” 620. 5 Among a quite rich literature, the role of “assistant” played by Paulze-Lavoisier is

stressed in the works by Keiko Kawashima and especially Émilie du Châtelet et Marie Anne Lavoisier. Science et genre au XVIII e siècle (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2013). On the problem of the in/visibility of historical actors in early modern scientific cultures, the article by S. Shapin, “The Invisible Technician,” American Scientist 77 (1989), 554–63 has been extremely influential; on women as “invisible assistants,” the main reference is probably still L. Schiebinger, The Mind Has No Sex? Women in the Origins of Modern Science (Cambridge/London: Harvard University Press, 1991). 6 On Paulze-Lavoisier’s approach to authorship, which includes some striking evidence of her desire to be represented as an author in her own right, see my Scrivere e sperimentare: Marie-Anne Paulze-Lavoisier, segretaria della “nuova chimica” 1771–1836), (Rome: Viella, 2022), Chap. 4.

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encouraged these recent interpretations. When we read the letters that she had been writing since at least 1775, we find the image of a modest and unpretentious woman whose only ambition seems to be a loving and caring wife.7 For example, when writing to her brother, who in 1777 was helping her study Latin, she justified her interest in the language—at that time still crucial to access scientific texts—as a way of “making herself worthy” of her husband and being able to speak with him: When will you come back? Latin needs you to be here; come and bore yourself by making me do declensions and conjugations in order to please me and make me worthy of my husband and your care; to speak to a [savant], you have to know Latin and [then] you start to get along.8

When discussing chemistry, she apparently preferred to emphasize the difficulties she encountered in understanding its principles rather than displaying the knowledge she had acquired through an intense apprenticeship carried out with her husband and his colleagues. In response to the Swiss geologist Horace Bénédict de Saussure, for instance, who had complimented her for the quality of her translation of Kirwan’s An Essay on Phlogiston, she adopted a modest demeanour and downplayed her role on her husband’s team, comparing it to that of a child. “The kind things that you said to me on this matter would have given me self-esteem,” she wrote, “had I not always had by my side somebody more capable than I am and next to whom I am just a little girl.”9 In another letter, addressed

7 This side of Paulze-Lavoisier’s persona has been examined in Roberts, Sentimental Savants, Chap. 2, as part of a broader research on the image of the married scholar in Enlightenment cultures. 8 “[…] quand reviens tu? Le latin a besoin que tu sois ici; [viens] t’ennuyer à me faire décliner et conjuguer pour me faire plaisir et me rendre digne de mon mary et de tes soins pour répondre à [un savant] il faut sçavoir le latin et on commence à s’entendre.” Paulze-Lavoisier to Balthazar Paulze, 20 August 1777, in Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier, Correspondence (hereafter LC ), 3, 605 (when not differently indicated, the translations are mine). On Latin as a problem for elite young girls, D. Goodman, “L’Ortographe des Dames: Gender and Language in the Old Regime,” in Women, Gender and Enlightenment, eds. B. Taylor and S. Knott (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 195–223. 9 “Les choses aimables que vous me dites à ce sujet seraient bien faites pour me donner de l’amour propre si je n’avais toujours à mes cotés plus habiles que moi et auprès de qui je suis bien petite fille.” Paulze-Lavoisier to Horace-Bénédict de Saussure, 2 January 1789, in LC, 6, 1–2.” It is worth noting that Paulze-Lavoisier was actually much younger than Lavoisier, whom she married—following her father’s decision—at the age of 14. This

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to the dramatist and poet Leblanc de Guillet, she went so far as to declare that the “principle” guiding her social conduct was a famous maxim of seventeenth-century and eighteenth-century manuals for women’s education, according to which “the best woman in the best-known world is the one you never hear about.” What had provoked her worried reaction was Leblanc de Guillet’s request that she pass on some of his verses to a common friend, the mathematician Dionis de Séjour. “You do me great honour, Sir, by having my name printed in full letters at the head of the letter [in which you send] the verses for our common friend,” she replied. “My name will run through the universe; my heart and my self-esteem are flattered. Who would not be proud to pass on to the successor to Newton and Clairaut the sentiments of a successor to Corneille and Racine?.” But, she continued: […] I remember this maxim of a man whose works I love very much and whose precepts I try to follow, that [says that] the best woman in the bestknown world is the one you never hear about. It is therefore necessary to give up for a moment, in this circumstance, this principle which is very dear to my heart. It takes all my sympathy for the object and all my esteem for the author of the Druids, Manco, Virginia, etc., to forget for a moment this great principle established in my soul.10

These claims are not surprising, considering the many tensions surrounding intellectual efforts and ambitions in Enlightenment cultures, especially when they came from women. As historians have shown, intellectual pursuits were profoundly influenced by representations of gender

biographical detail has been discussed in Kawashima, Émilie du Châtelet and Marie Anne Lavoisier, especially 251–53. 10 “Vous me faites beaucoup d’honneur, Monsieur, en faisant imprimer en toutes lettres mon nom à la tète de l’envoi de la pièce de[s] vers pour notre ami commun; mon nom va courir l’univers mon coeur et mon amour-propre sont flattés. Qui ne le serait pas de faire passer au successeur de Newton, de Clairaut les sentiments d’un successeur de Corneille et de Racine? Mais je me souviens de cette maxime d’un homme dont j’aime fort les ouvrages et cherche à suivre les préceptes que la meilleure femme du meilleur monde connu est celle dont on ne parle point. Il faut donc renoncer par cette circonstance, un moment, à l’explication de ce principe qui me tient fort au coeur. Il faut toute mon amitié pour l’objet et toute mon estime pour l’auteur des Druides, de Manco, de Virginie, etc., pour oublier un instant ce grand principe établi dans mon âme.” Paulze-Lavoisier to Leblanc de Guillet, 20 December 1781, in Annales de la Société d’agriculture, sciences, arts et commerce du Puy 25 (1862), 291–92. My emphasis.

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differences.11 Intensive study, for example, was regarded not only as disgraceful for women, but even as incompatible with their physical constitution, which was often considered too weak for such an effort. The fame that could result from intellectual aspirations was also censured and, especially for women, could easily lead to social stigma and isolation. The so-called femmes savantes (“learned ladies”) were in fact typically seen as “monstrous” and “ambiguous” beings, whose actions and ambitions dangerously subverted gender roles and, more broadly, the social order.12 Various strategies were thus adopted by women to avoid these risks: one of these was to project modesty and to justify their intellectual endeavours, whether writing and publishing texts of devoting themselves to intense study, as ways of pleasing and serving their loved ones, such as sons, brothers, or husbands.13 Therefore, we should not take PaulzeLavoisier’s claims about herself at face value, but rather we should ask ourselves what motives or strategies lay behind these statements.14 In this chapter, I go further in this direction, highlighting the multiple and often ambivalent ways in which Paulze-Lavoisier presented her role in her husband’s research to her contemporaries. In particular, I show that the modest posture she adopted while writing about herself did not exclude a series of public or semi-public displays of her work, especially 11 See especially A. La Vopa, The Labor of the Mind. Intellect and Gender in

Enlightenment Cultures (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017). A useful introduction to the topic can be found in J. C. Hayes, “Sex and Gender, Feeling and Thinking: Imaging Women as Intellectuals,” in The Cambridge Companion to the French Enlightenment, ed. D. Brewer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 90–104. As to scientific cultures, see the classic studies by Schiebinger, The Mind Has No Sex? and idem, Nature’s Body. Gender in the Making of Modern Science (New Brunswick: Routledge, 1993). 12 See especially the works by A. Vila, among others, her “Ambiguous Beings: Marginality, Melancholy, and the Femme Savante,” in Women, Gender and Enlightenment, eds. S. Knott and B. Taylor (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 53–69. 13 Roberts, Sentimental Savants. On modesty as a gender norm in scientific cultures, see M. Cavazza, “Between Modesty and Spectacle. Women and Science in EighteenthCentury Italy,” in Italy’s Eighteenth Century. Gender and Culture in the Age of the Grand Tour, eds. P. Findlen et al. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009), 275–302. It should be noted, however, that modesty was also considered a masculine value and an important feature of the “gentleman”: see for instance P. Carter, Men and the Emergence of Polite Society, Britain 1660–1800 (London: Routledge, 2014). 14 From a methodological point of view, crucial examples, also relevant to the present chapter, can be found in the works by Marta Cavazza (mostly focused on eighteenthcentury Italy) and especially in her “Between Modesty and Spectacle.”

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regarding laboratory assistance. Working in a chemistry laboratory was a complex task, involving not only intellectual labour, but also knowledge of a wide set of manual procedures, such as handling substances and making instruments work, which may fall within the realm of what French historiography calls savoir-faire.15 In Paulze-Lavoisier’s case, this work consisted mainly of taking notes during experiments. This was a particular type of writing the aim of which was not necessarily publication but rather the construction of a personal paper archive in which information could be stored and made available for further use.16 These writing practices, in which Paulze-Lavoisier engaged for a significant part of her adult life, can be taken as a point of departure to delve deeper into her ways of approaching her own persona as a female collaborator or, more broadly, as a woman at work. Before getting into the heart of the matter, however, it is important to stress that, when dealing with Paulze-Lavoisier, narrative sources are quite scant. Her correspondence is extremely fragmentary, and the laboratory notebooks she compiled mainly deal with chemistry matters and the practical and technical issues relating to the experiments. From this point of view, her case differs radically from that of other eighteenthcentury women, such as Émilie du Châtelet or Marie-Génévieve Thiroux d’Arconville, who wrote at length on scientific subjects as well as on more general matters.17 Thus, one struggles to find explicit reflections on the

15 See Lieux de savoir, ed. C. Jacob, 2: Les mains de l’intellecte (Paris: Albin Michel,

2011). On the use of this notion in the history of science and knowledge, see also the three volumes of Histoire des sciences et des savoirs, ed. D. Pestre (Paris: Seuil, 2015). 16 Among the rich literature on note-taking practices, I cite here only works that are particularly relevant to my approach to the topic: J. Beltrán, “Ciencia amanuense: cultura manuscrita e historia natural en la Francia moderna (c. 1660–1830.)” Asclepio 71, no. 1 (2019), available at https://doi.org/10.3989/asclepio.2019.09, accessed on 15 June 2022; A. M. Blair, Too Much to Know. Managing Scholarly Information before the Modern Age (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2010; Note-taking in Early Modern Europe, eds. A. M. Blair and R. Yeo, special issue of Intellectual History Journal 20 (2010), no. 3;http://asclepio.revistas.csic.es/index.php/asclepio/article/view/814 M. N. Bourguet, Le monde dans un carnet. Alexander von Humboldt en Italie (1805) (Paris: Éditions du Félin, 2017); Jacob, Les mains de l’intellecte. 17 On Emilie du Châtelet, see R. Hagengruber, ed. Émilie du Châtelet between Leibniz and Netwon (London and New York: Springer, 2012) and its bibliography. On Marie-Génévieve Thiroux d’Arconville, see P. Bret and B. van Tiggelen, eds. Madame d’Arconville. Une femme de lettres et de sciences au siècle des Lumières (Paris: Hermann, 2011). On women’s access to publishing in the eighteenth-century, see S. Knott and B.

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notions of “work” or the “work ethic” in the documents left by PaulzeLavoisier’s collaboration with Lavoisier. Nonetheless, we will see that by focusing on her work routine and by paying particular attention to the material and practical dimension of their collaborative work,18 we can highlight the tensions surrounding her role as a note-taker or, as she put it, as a secrétaire. Taken as a whole, these tensions may invite us to move beyond the image of the “invisible assistant,” which has often been associated with her case, and to consider a much more complex and ambivalent portrait.

Working and Playing Since the very first biography devoted to Lavoisier, published in 1888, the French chemist has been portrayed as a hard worker, simultaneously engaged as a savant and member of Parisian scientific institutions, especially the Académie des Sciences, and as a civil servant working for the French monarchy, notably for the Ferme générale, a company for farmed excise and customs tax collection on behalf of the crown.19 It is more than plausible that these two trajectories, which both began in 1768, imposed a tight schedule on him, not least because, as a fermier général, he had to travel around the country on a regular basis. The constant and active occupation of his days emerges clearly from his correspondence since the earliest phase of his career, when he was employed as a tourneur (a supervisor of the production and the sale of tobacco) in the French provinces for the Ferme’s monopoly. As he acquired more and more prominent positions within French institutions, other commitments were added to his already busy schedule: first, the administration of

Taylor, eds. Women, Gender, and Enlightenment, (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005) and its bibliography. On the French context, see E. C. Goldsmith and D. Goodman, eds. Going Public. Women and Publishing in Early Modern France (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995). 18 On the material and practical turn in the history of science and intellectual history (with a focus on Enlightenment), see among others A. Craciun and S. Schaffer, eds. The Material Cultures of Enlightenment (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). 19 É. Grimaux, Lavoisier: 1743–1794, d’après sa correspondance, ses manuscrits, ses papiers de famille et d’autres documents inédits (Paris: Alcan, 1888). Since then, many other biographies have been published, most of which have integrated this image: see for instance J.-P. Poirier, Lavoisier. Chemist, Biologist, Economist (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996).

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the Régie des Poudres et Salpetres, responsible for the production of saltpetre and gunpowder for the kingdom, of which he became co-director in 1775; then his direct involvement in complex problems of public policy, such as the reform of hospitals and prisons in the late 1780s.20 It should be noted, however, that the first to present Lavoisier’s posthumous image as a hard worker was probably his wife, Paulze-Lavoisier. The biographical account she wrote about 25 years after his death, around 1820, in which the French chemist is depicted as a man willing to sacrifice himself, even physically, for his many scientific and public commitments, has been extremely influential. Particularly famous is the description of a normal working day for Lavoisier during which, according to Paulze-Lavoisier, he divided his time between the “business” of the Ferme and the Régie des poudres on the one hand and his scientific research on the other, working until late into the night: Lavoisier sacrificed a few moments each day to the new business with which he was charged. The sciences always took a large part of his day. He got up at six in the morning, worked on the sciences until eight and in the evening from seven to ten—one whole day each week was devoted to experiments; it was, Lavoisier said, his day of happiness, a few enlightened friends, a few young people proud to be given the honour of cooperating in his experiments would gather in the laboratory in the morning; it was there that we had lunch, that we had discussions, that we worked, that we carried out experiments, that the beautiful theory that immortalized its author was born.21

At the time this account was written, Paulze-Lavoisier had been working for at least two decades to build the public’s memory of Lavoisier. Sentenced to death by the revolutionary authorities in 1794, he was celebrated shortly after by his widow as the “founding father” 20 Poirier, Lavoisier, especially Chap. 10. 21 “Lavoisier sacriffia tous les jours quelques momens aux nouvelles affaires dont il était

chargé. Les sciences eurent toujours une grand part de sa journée. [U]n jour tout entier dans chaque semaine était consacré aux expériences; c’était disait Lavoisier son jour de bonheur, quelques amis éclairés, quelques jeunes gens fiers d’être admis à l’honneur de coopérer à ses expériences se réunissaient dès le matin, dans le laboratoire; c’était là que l’on déjeunait, que l’on dissertait, que l’on travaillait, que l’on faisait des expériences, que naissait cette belle théorie qui a immortalisé son auteur.” Paulze-Lavoisier, cit. in C. C. Gillispie, “Notice biographique de Lavoisier par Madame Lavoisier,” Revue d’histoire des sciences et de leurs applications 9 (1956), 52–61, at 57.

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of “modern chemistry” and a “martyr” of the French Revolution. In this context, she used all the means at her disposal to make him look like a virtuous man who spent his whole life working for science and for the public good of his fellow citizens.22 Her nineteenth-century account of Lavoisier as a hard worker was part of this broader project, and it therefore has to be treated with some caution from the perspective of its reliability. However, there is something in this biographical sketch that sheds light on the couple’s collaborative endeavours: the representation of the laboratory as site for experimental practice and sociability. It was there, according to Paulze-Lavoisier, that people—including her—met, ate together, had discussions, and worked. As we will see, the role of sociability in the couple’s working routine was stressed in eighteenth-century sources as well. Sociability was both an ideal and a set of concrete practices in Enlightenment societies and cultures. Among Parisian élites, sociability found one of its main “institutions” in the salons, where men and women of high society could meet and spend time together on a regular basis.23 In this regard, the Lavoisiers were no exception, and shortly after their marriage in 1771, they began to open their houses to a very heterogeneous société that included fermiers généraux, academicians, and science amateurs. The first evidence of their social life dates back to the early 1770s, when the two lived in a relatively small apartment in the lively quarter of the Palais Royal, in central Paris. From 1776, we have ever more evidence of their social engagements, when Lavoisier’s election as co-director of the Régie des Poudres enabled the couple to move to a larger and more sumptuous residence at the Arsenal on the eastern outskirts of the French capital, where the headquarters and production of the Régie were located. Thanks to Lavoisier’s increased income and despite the peripheral position of the Arsenal, dinners, spectacles, and other social events were now organized at least twice a week. Music played an important part in this domestic routine, as highlighted by the presence of various musical instruments

22 I have explored Paulze-Lavoisier’s efforts to construct Lavoisier’s memory in Scrivere e sperimentare, Chap. 5. 23 Two fundamental studies on sociability in Parisian salons are A. Lilti, Le monde des salons. Sociabilité et mondanité à Paris au XVIIIe siècle (Paris: Fayard, 2005) and D. Goodman, The Republic of Letters. A Cultural History of the French Enlightenment (Cornell: Cornell University Press, 1994), although they differ on several crucial points.

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and sheet music among the couple’s belongings.24 Material traces of their ludic life can also be found in the parlour games that are today preserved as memorabilia in Lavoisier’s collections.25 Hospitality was a usual practice within the social milieu of the Ferme générale, which, as many eighteenth-century visual and textual representations show, were characterized by all kinds of mondanités.26 PaulzeLavoisier was also connected to this milieu, specifically through his father, Jacques Paulze, an influential fermier and direct superior of Lavoisier when the latter was a young tourneur. The couple’s connections with the Ferme générale influenced their collaborative work in many ways, including in all likelihood their note-taking practices. However, what is important to stress here is that in the Lavoisiers’ case, sociability could easily intertwine with scientific practice. It should in fact be kept in mind that, like many of their contemporaries, they worked mostly from home, where they had set up their laboratories by 1774 at the latest, about three years after their wedding.27 It was mainly within the walls of their Parisian residence that, for instance, Paulze-Lavoisier compiled her husband’s laboratory notebooks. It was mostly here, moreover, that she received her training in chemistry, studied foreign languages, and learned how to master the art of drawing and engraving. Working from home, however, also meant working collectively. Finding the right substances, using instruments, and taking notes concerning experimental procedures were tasks that could not be performed by a single individual, and not even by a couple, but required collaboration with larger groups of people. It is thus not surprising that the Lavoisiers’ guests were frequently invited to attend the experimental sessions and share materials, labour, and advice

24 This emerges clearly, for instance, in Paulze-Lavoisier’s inventaires après-décès, transcribed in full in the annex of my Scrittura, sociabilità e strategie di persuasione: MarieAnne Paulze-Lavoisier, secrétaire(1758–1836), PhD. diss., Università di Bologna/École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, 2021. 25 Kroch Library, Cornell University, Ithaca-NY, Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, #4712 Lavoisier Collection, Box 29e, “Two fortune telling games in wooden boxes.”. 26 See especially Y. Durand, Les fermiers généraux au XVIII e siècle (Paris: Presses Universaites de France, 1971). 27 On the Lavoisiers’ laboratories, see especially M. Beretta and P. Brenni, The Arsenal of Eighteenth-Century Chemistry. The Laboratories of Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier (Leiden: Brill, 2022).

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with them.28 Sociability and knowledge-production seem here to be so intertwined that it is often difficult to draw a clear line between them in the surviving sources. An evening spent conversing and eating together could, for instance, provide an opportunity to exchange information about the latest scientific debates and “discoveries.” The English natural philosopher Joseph Priestley famously wrote about a dinner organized for him by the Lavoisiers in 1774. On that occasion, he apparently revealed the details of his experiments on oxygen—at that time called “dephlogisticated air” or “vital air”—which Lavoisier integrated into his own research programme shortly after. “The case was this,” Priestley recalled, […] having made the discovery of dephlogisticated air some time before I was in Paris in 1774, I mentioned it at the table of M. Lavoisier, when most of the philosophical people of the city were present, saying that it was a kind of air in which a candle burned much better than in common air, but I had not given it a name. At this, everyone there, and M. and Madame Lavoisier as much as any, expressed great surprise.29

Similar descriptions can increasingly be found in the accounts left by the Lavoisiers’ guests during the 1780s, as well as in the husband’s and wife’s correspondences. At the same time, the Lavoisiers’ scientific practice could also offer moments for leisure. While the experimental sessions often began with a dinner, the experimental practice itself could offer the opportunity to socialize and spend some cheerful time together. A series of experiments on the combustion of precious stones, in which the Lavoisiers engaged for some months during the winter 1782–83, is particularly significant in this regard. This research recalled the famous public experiments on the combustion of diamonds which, about ten years earlier, had attracted the curiosity of le monde of Paris, including the two associates, who both had been at the forefront of those events.30 However, unlike the experiments on diamonds in the early 1770s that the couple had performed in

28 This point emerges clearly from the Lavoisiers’ correspondence but also, in different ways, from their laboratory notebooks. 29 J. Priestley, The Doctrine of Phlogiston Established and that of the Composition of Water Refuted (Northumberland: by Andrew Kennedy, 1803), 116. 30 On these experiments and their reception within the Parisian context, see C. Lehman, “What Is the True Nature of Diamond?” Nuncius 31 (2016), 361–407.

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a public garden next to the Louvre, the new experimental sessions were held at the Arsenal, in the Lavoisiers’ laboratory. These were short and yet spectacular experiments which consisted of exposing precious stones to the fire produced by a device fed with oxygen. Paulze-Lavoisier, who had prepared the written protocols in advance, took notes of the experimental procedures and results, while also measuring the time with a watch. Once the experiment was over, she wrapped and catalogued the specimens that had been tested so that they could be stored and, possibly, reused.31 Several witnesses were invited to the experimental sessions, which, as we learn from Paulze-Lavoisier’s notes, often took place on Mondays and Saturdays, when she also hosted their friends for dinner. Curiously, these notes are enriched with some paper slips, probably cut out from a poem or a libretto and then glued into the notebooks, containing some verses that echoed the couple’s experiments.32 The geologist and traveller Barthélémy Faujas de Saint-Fond writes at length in his travel diary about the social dimension of these experiments: I went to dine at the Lavoisiers of the French Academy; at dinner there were M. the Duke of La Rochefoucauld, several scholars and Madame Lavoisier who is pretty and very kind ( fort aimable); after dinner other scholars came to assist in the experiments that M. de Lavoisier had to undertake on dephlogisticated air which produces fire of an extraordinary force on a piece of coal.33

31 The wrapped specimens are today preserved in the Musée des Arts et Métiers, Paris, n. inventaire 20,185–0000. As to the written reports of the experiments, they can be found in Archives de l’Académie des Sciences, Paris, Fonds Lavoisier, Registre de laboratoire n. 6, ff. 151r –192r . 32 See for instance the slips glued to the paper in Registre de laboratoire n. 6, f. 176r: “Volez, tendres Zéphirs / Annoncez mes désirs” and ibid., f. R-06, f. 187r : “A vos tendres ardeurs / J’accorderai mon cœur.”. 33 “Je suis allé diner chès Lavoisier de l’Académie Française, il y avoit à diner M. le duc de La Rochefoucauld plusieurs savants et madame de Lavoisier qui est jolie et fort aimable, après le diné il est arrivé encore plusieurs savants pour assister à des expériences que M. de Lavoisier devait faire sur l’air déphlogistiqué qui produit sur un charbon un feu d’une force extraordinaire.” B. Faujas de Saint-Fond in G. Comparato, Barthélemy Faujas de Saint-Fond, parcours d’un homme de science mondain au tournant des Lumières (1741–1819), PhD Diss., Université Grenoble Alpes, 2018, 2, 206. My emphasis.

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He then gave details on Paulze-Lavoisier’s role in the experimental setting, stressing her contribution as a secrétaire, which seem to have left a particularly strong impression on him: Madame de Lavoisier served with the best grace in the world as secretary, writing down the results of these beautiful experiments, with a watch [in her hand] to count the seconds. […] [We] conducted a multitude of very curious experiments which lasted about five quarters of an hour; during this time they used about 30 livres of dephlogisticated air drawn from the red precipitate [produced by] the chemistry experiments, which presented several remarkable phenomena.34

Faujas de Saint-Fond’s appreciation of Paulze-Lavoisier’s work in the laboratory is interesting for several reasons. First, it shows that the experimental practice could be perceived as a sociable and agreeable activity, a sort of spectacle that was enjoyable to watch. Second, it suggests that Paulze-Lavoisier’s contribution to the experimental practice was itself part of the spectacle that guests were invited to enjoy. In other words, her work as a secrétaire, so crucial for the construction of Lavoisier’s experimental archive, could also appear as a performance that guests could see and admire. Something similar had probably happened in the early 1770s as well, when she participated in the experiments on diamonds, taking notes in front of an audience.35 Even her education in chemistry, provided by the apothecary Jean-Baptiste Bucquet at the Arsenal in 1777, reflected a similar work culture. Throughout the course, she kept taking notes while Bucquet was speaking and experimenting, and her note-taking skills could once again be observed by the people whom the Lavoisiers had invited for the occasion.36 Such public or semi-public displays of her 34 “Madame de Lavoisier à servi de la meilleur grâce du monde de secrétaire pour écrire les résultats de ces belles expériences, avec un montre à seconde à la main pour compter les secondes. […] [L]’on à fait une multitude d’expérience très curieuses qui ont duré environ cinq quarts d’heures pendant le quel tems on n’a usé pour environ 30# d’air déphlogistiqué tiré du précipité rouge après les expériences chimiques qui ont présenté plusieurs phénomènes remarquables.” Cit. in ibid. My emphasis. 35 On Paulze-Lavoisier’s role in these experiments, see my “Note-taking and Selfpromotion: Marie-Anne Paulze-Lavoisier as a secrétaire (1772–1792),” in Gendered Touch. Women, Men, and Knowledge Making in Early-Modern Europe, eds. F. Antonelli, A. Romano, and P. Savoia (Leiden: Brill, 2022), 220–44. 36 Bucquet’s course was in fact almost entirely recorded by Paulze-Lavoisier in the fifth volume of Lavoisier’s laboratory notebooks, which is titled “Produit d’un cours

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role increased in the second half of the 1780s, when the Lavoisiers united in what they called the “conversions,” a series of obscure rituals which is worth examining in some detail.

Amusing Chemistry The so-called “conversions” took place in a particular context that needs a brief introduction. As used by the Lavoisiers, the term first appeared in 1788 and was employed to describe a series of initiatives aimed at convincing Marsilio Landriani, an Italian industrial spy and amateur scientist, to side with Lavoisier in the debates concerning the composition of air. More precisely, the Lavoisiers expected Landriani to set aside his critiques and become a fervent supporter of the French chemist’s theories, especially regarding oxygen.37 Lavoisier’s search for public support became explicit in 1785, when he read his “Réflexions sur le Phlogistique” at the Académie des Sciences, a memoir in which he suddenly seemed to take a hostile tone towards his critics. At the heart of this text was “phlogiston,” a principle of chemistry the existence of which, never directly observed, had been theorized by the German chemist Georg Ernst Stahl in the late seventeenth century and had been vigorously discussed by European chemists ever since. Although there was no general agreement on its properties, phlogiston was generally understood as responsible for fundamental chemical phenomena involving air, especially combustion. In his “Réflexions,” Lavoisier harshly criticized the supporters of the phlogiston hypothesis, accusing them of believing in a fictitious entity with no experimental evidence, “a fatal error” and a “prejudice” that hindered the “progress” of chemistry. As an alternative, he proposed his own theories, based on oxygen, at this stage still referred to as “vital air.” At stake in these debates, however, was not only the opposition of two different principles of chemistry, but rather a more general approach to chemistry as a discipline. In Lavoisier’s view, rejecting phlogiston also meant inaugurating a “new” way of doing chemistry,

de M. Bucquet”: see Archives de l’Académie des Sciences, Paris, Registre de laboratoire n. 5. On the public invited by the Lavoisiers to attend this course, see my Scrivere e sperimentare, 132–139. 37 The first occurrence I have been able to find is in Archives de l’Académie des Sciences, Paris, Registre de laboratoire n. 13, f. 1r ; other references can be found in LC, 5.

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according to which knowledge and the practice of chemistry had to be guided by an ideal of precision and by the systematic use of measurements and sophisticated instruments. He presented those who were sceptical of his approach as naive and credulous, unable to commit themselves to the evidence of the “facts.”38 The “Réflexions” did not remain an isolated case but was followed by other texts, today considered part of the same “campaign of persuasion” aimed at convincing Lavoisier’s critics.39 Despite his prominent position within the Académie des Sciences, of which he became director in 1785, his views concerning the science of chemistry remained quite marginal until at least the early 1790s. Hence the need to build a solid base of supporters, within and outside the Académie, with the help of his collaborators. Paulze-Lavoisier played a key role in this context first and foremost as a translator. One of the most ambitious projects in this campaign was the aforementioned translation of Kirwan’s An Essay on Phlogiston, published in 1788, with notes by Lavoisier and some of his associates, including Paulze-Lavoisier herself. The main aim was to show that Kirwan’s interpretations of chemical phenomena, which rotated around the role of phlogiston, were misleading and could easily be replaced by Lavoisier’s theories. Paulze-Lavoisier, who participated anonymously in the project, also wrote a “Préface du traducteur” in which she presented her husband as the author of a “new theory” based on accurate observations and exact measurements.40 Shortly before, in 1787, Lavoisier and some collaborators had published another important text for the campaign titled Méthode de nomenclature chimique, in which they famously proposed to reform the whole language of chemistry in the light of a new nomenclature. Changing this language in order to avoid the

38 A.-L. Lavoisier, “Réflexions sur le phlogistique, pour servir de développement à la théorie de la combustion et de la calcination, publiée en 1777,” in Mémoires de l’Académie Royale des Sciences pour l’année 1785 (1786), 505–38. 39 I borrow the expression from C. E. Perrin, “The Triumph of the Antiphlogistians,” in The Analytic Spirit. Essays in the History of Science in Honor of Henry Guerlac, ed. H. Woolf (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1981), 40–63. 40 Essai sur le phlogistique, et sur la constitution des acides, traduit de l’anglois de M. Kirwan; avec des notes de M. M. De Morveau, Lavoisier, de la Place, Monge, Berthollet, et de Fourcroy (Paris: rue et Hôtel Serpente, 1788), v–xi. On this project, see K. Kawashima, “Madame Lavoisier et la traduction de l’Essay on Phlogiston de Kirwan,” Revue d’histoire des sciences 53 (2000), 235–63.

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ambiguities left by alchemy became one of the strengths of Lavoisier’s socalled “chemical revolution.” These views were finally summarized in his Traité élémentaire de chimie, a sort of manual which was published on the eve of the Revolution with thirteen plates engraved by Paulze-Lavoisier. The publication of texts, however, was only one side of the Lavoisiers’ efforts to promote what they called the “new chemistry.” Equally important was the need to create a network of supporters through domestic sociability and correspondence.41 During the second half of the 1780s, sociability, which had been an important part of the couple’s working routine since the beginning of their collaborative work, increasingly became a means of convincing the audience. A series of special events was organized at the Arsenal to obtain the trust of Lavoisier’s interlocutors. Alongside experts and academicians amateurs were also invited to these gatherings who, thanks to their contacts within European intellectual circles, could provide greater visibility to the Lavoisiers’ projects. Landriani, for instance, was considered a strategic target probably because of the good reputation he enjoyed in England and Scotland, where most of Lavoisier’s critics were based. Moreover, due to his travels across Europe on behalf of the Habsburg Monarchy, he could easily establish himself within a large and socially heterogeneous network.42 Women were also present. In the winter of 1786, for instance, the Lavoisiers invited Albertine Necker de Saussure, a young woman from the Swiss bourgeoisie who had recently married the nephew of the finance minister Jacques Necker, to spend some time with them at the Arsenal. Thanks to that visit, Paulze-Lavoisier started corresponding with Albertine’s father, Horace Bénédict de Saussure, who was soon to become another important target of her and her husband’s plans.43 The role of sociability in the Lavoisiers’ campaign must have been clear to their contemporaries. In October 1787, for example, Jean-Huet de Froberville, one of Lavoisier’s 41 This point has already been made especially in Perrin, “The Triumph of the Antiphlogistians” and B. Bensaude-Vincent, Lavoisier. Mémoires d’une révolution (Paris: Flammarion, 1993), Chap. 10. 42 For some biographical information about Landriani, see M. Roda, “Landriani, Marsilio,” in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani 63 (2004), 528–31. On Landriani’s travels as a spy, see S. Escobar, “I viaggi di informazione tecnico scientifica di Marsilio Landriani: un caso di spionaggio industriale,” in Economia, istituzioni, cultura, in Lombardia nell’età di Maria Teresa, eds. E. Rotelli et al., 2 vols. (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1982), 2, 533–42. 43 See the letters between Paulze-Lavoisier and de Saussure published in LC, 5.

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critics, lamented to his friend Jean Senebier, another influential supporter of the phlogiston theory, that the “dinners and patronage” were bringing Lavoisier “more proselytes than the strength of his reasoning.”44 A visit to the Arsenal’s laboratory was at the core of these invitations. Like many of his contemporaries, Lavoisier probably believed that in order to convince people of a scientific theory, one had to show them a successful experiment.45 The purpose of these visits, however, was broader than that. Lavoisier’s aim was also to impress the audience by showing the laboratory at work: guests were invited to admire his expensive and well-crafted instruments and to gain some grasp of and appreciation for the work done by his associates, especially by his wife. Several accounts describe Lavoisier in the act of guiding visitors through the laboratory, while Paulze-Lavoisier entertained them in conversation, displaying her knowledge of chemistry and talking about her own work. It is worth noting, for example, how Arthur Young, an English agronomist who stayed at the Lavoisiers’ home in 1787, recounted his visit in his travel diary. What seems to have caught his attention was not simply the laboratory, but the Arsenal as a whole. In his view, Paulze-Lavoisier’s involvement in her husband’s research—from her translations to her work as note-taker—was as remarkable as the rest of the apartment. As he wrote in his diary, seeing a “woman of understanding” who worked “in her husband’s laboratory” was the “best repast” he had: To Mons. Lavoisier, by appointment. Madame Lavoisier, a lively, sensible, scientific lady, had prepared a déjeuné Anglois of tea and coffee, but her conversation on Mr. Kirwan’s Essay on Phlogiston, which she is translating from the English, and on other subjects, which a woman of understanding, that works with her husband in his laboratory, knows how to adorn, was the best repast. That apartment, the operations of which have been rendered so interesting to the philosophical world, I had pleasure in viewing. In the apparatus for aerial experiments, nothing makes so great a figure as the machine for burning inflammable and vital air, to make, or deposit water; it is a splendid machine.46 44 Perrin, “The Triumph of Antiphlogistians,” 54. 45 Especially J. Golinski, “Precision Instruments and the Demonstrative Order of Proof

in Lavoisier’s Chemistry,” Osiris 9 (1994), 30–47. 46 A. Young, Travels During the Years 1787, 1788, and 1789: Undertaken More Particularly with a View of Ascertaining the Cultivation, Wealth, Resources, and National Prosperity of the Kingdom of France (London: Bury St. Edmonds, 1792), 64.

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A somewhat similar point was highlighted by other visitors, such as the Scottish geologist James Hall and the American politician Goveurner Morris who, during their stays at the Arsenal, appreciated PaulzeLavoisier’s role in her husband’s research.47 Occasionally, these initiatives even amused the audience. This is especially the case with “Landriani’s conversion,” arranged by the Lavoisiers in March 1788. Carefully organized through correspondence, the event saw the participation of several guests who were invited to assist, together with Landriani, in a series of experiments involving oxygen. The experimental session was explicitly devoted to the Italian spy who, at that time, was known as a supporter of the phlogiston hypothesis. Paulze-Lavoisier was once again in charge of taking notes, and while Lavoisier performed the experiments, she recorded the experimental procedures in the laboratory notebooks.48 Regardless of the results of the experiments, which ultimately failed to convince Landriani, these meetings were described as “pleasant” (agréables ) by the audience in part because of the events which followed. Various accounts refer to games and parties held at the Arsenal the same day. Apparently, a magic lantern, a popular device in eighteenth-century salons, was used to project images on the walls and, specifically, a show representing a sort of battle between various chemical agents, which seems to have entertained those who were present. A lottery was also organized, at the end of which Paulze-Lavoisier gave prizes and gifts to the guests as symbols of their upcoming conversion. Landriani himself would later recall these events with some fondness. In a letter to Paulze-Lavoisier written after a meeting with Priestley, who was still one of Lavoisier’s most renowned critics, he shared the following recollection:

47 E. Denton, Principes d’édition du journal de Sir James Hall, Ph.D. Diss., École Nationale de Chartes, 2003; G. Morris, A Diary of the French Revolution, ed. B. C. Davenport (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1939). 48 Archives de l’Académie des Sciences, Paris, Registres de laboratoire n. 13, ff. 1r –5r , “Expériences pour tenter la conversion du Chevalier Landriani.”.

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I recounted to Mr. Priestley the ingenious joke of the lottery, the magic lantern, and the battalions of sulphites and sulphates, carbones and carbonates. He laughed a lot at it, although he says that all your claims are as solid as the magic spectres with which you represented them.49

Until at least the summer of 1789, this kind of soirée must have been quite common at the Arsenal. Several anecdotes began to circulate through correspondence and printed texts shortly after the events organized for Landriani. For instance, the Chemische Annalen, an important German chemistry journal, published an article by an anonymous reader who claimed to have witnessed a strange ceremony at the Lavoisiers, and this account once again echoed the ongoing chemistry debates. On that occasion, the couple seems to have staged a sort of trial against phlogiston which ultimately ended with an auto-da-fé of the much-debated principle of chemistry. According to the account, while Lavoisier performed the death ritual, his wife acted as “the sacrificial priestess”: I have witnessed a most remarkable drama here [in Paris], one which to me as a German was very unexpected and quite shocking. I saw the famous M. Lavoisier holding a ceremonial auto-da-fé of phlogiston in the Arsenal. His wife, who has a great knowledge in chemistry, served as the sacrificial priestess, and Stahl appeared as the advocatus diaboli to defend phlogiston. In the end, poor phlogiston was burned on the accusation of oxygen.50

By organizing these social events, the Lavoisiers hoped to gain the sympathy of their interlocutors and, eventually, their support. The consensus they were looking for depended on a relationship of trust between Lavoisier and his audience, and this relationship could only benefit from the building of strong personal bonds with his critics through sociability.51 Lavoisier’s need for allies, however, also offered

49 “J’ai raconté à Mr Priestley l’ingenieuse plaisanterie de la loterie, de la lanterne magique et des bataillons de sulphites et des suphates, des carbones et des carbonates. Il en a beaucoup ri quoiqu’il pretend que toutes vos obligations soient aussi solides que les spectres magiques par lesquels vous les avez representées.” Landriani to Paulze-Lavoisier, 12 October 1788, pub. in LC, 5, 219–20. 50 Chemische Annalen 1 (1789), transl. in K. Hufbauer, The Formation of the German Chemical Community, 1720–1795 (Berkeley, Ca.: Univ. of California Press, 1982), 96. 51 On the importance of trust in scientific controversies, see the classics S. Shapin and S. Schaffer, Leviathan and the Air Pump. Hobbes, Boyle and the Experimental Life

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further opportunities to Paulze-Lavoisier to appear as a crucial actor in his research. While her correspondence visibly increased at this stage, her role as a secrétaire—now combined with her work as a translator, illustrator, and salonnière—was more and more discussed by Lavoisier’s colleagues. As the upheavals of the Revolution unfolded, the Lavoisiers’ social life became increasingly bleak, and even the “conversions” came to a halt. After an initial phase of enthusiasm for the ongoing political changes, the two collaborators became increasingly worried about their own safety. This emerges clearly, for instance, in the correspondence between PaulzeLavoisier and Landriani, in which she commented with great emotion on the battle of the Bastille, right next to the Arsenal. “From now on,” she wrote, “chemistry is left behind, only public affairs keep us busy. First out of necessity and to provide for one’s own safety, then because of the great interest they bring with them; we only talk about constitution, legislation, executive power, individual liberty, etc.”52 The decision to remove any reference to Lavoisier’s work as fermier général from David’s Portrait may also be read as an early reaction to this changing context.53 Despite Lavoisier’s efforts to collaborate with the revolutionary authorities, as both a fermier général and a savant, he would eventually be put on trial and sentenced to death in May 1794, together with other colleagues of the Ferme, including Paulze-Lavoisier’s father. Paulze-Lavoisier herself was incarcerated for a few weeks.54 For a few years, however, the couple’s efforts to “convert” their audience had proven quite effective. While Landriani always remained sceptical about Lavoisier’s theories, other guests were deeply convinced and contributed

(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985) and S. Shapin, A Social History of Truth (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994). 52 “Vous avez surement su les dangers que nous avons couru au siege de la Bastille, notre maison eut eté une des premieres renversée si le canon eut été tiré, heureusement nous en avons eté quittés pour la peur. Que seraitent devenus le laboratoire, et les experiences? Tout eut eté detruit […]. Depuis ce moment la chimie est abandonnée, les affaires publiques seules nous occupent, d’abord par necessité et pour pourvoir a sa propre sureté, ensuite par le grand interet quelle entrainent avec elles; on ne parle plus que de constitution, legislation, pouvoir executif, liberté individuelle, etc. etc.” Paulze-Lavoisier to Landriani, 1 October 1789, in LC, 6, 74. 53 Pullins et al.,“The Lavoisiers by David.”. 54 On this episode, see the biography J. -P. Poirier, La science et l’amour. Madame

Lavoisier (Paris: Pygmalion, 2004), Chap. 13.

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in various ways to promote the French chemist’s views within and outside France.

A Pleasant Revolution? At first glance, the constant display of Paulze-Lavoisier’s role in her husband’s research might seem at odds with her appeals to modesty as a female gender norm that I mentioned at the beginning of this chapter. We could in fact ask ourselves how these different depictions—the modest and unpretentious wife on the one hand and the secrétaire, a woman capable of taking centre stage in her husband’s work routine on the other—could coexist and also how Paulze-Lavoisier’s shows could be accepted, or even admired, by the audience. It should be noted, however, that the self-depictions produced by Paulze-Lavoisier, which may seem contradictory to us today, did not necessarily appear as such in the eyes of her contemporaries. On the one hand, in Enlightenment societies, scientific practice itself could be seen as a form of entertainment, especially for the Parisian le monde.55 Scientific performances of all kinds could be found in the amphitheatres, public gardens, and households of the French capital. Chemistry and physics courses, for example, were some of the divertissements that eighteenth-century Paris offered to members of high society, and they were particularly popular among women. It is therefore possible that Paulze-Lavoisier, when entertaining her guests with her performances, also drew on this culture. On the other hand, Paulze-Lavoisier’s performances should also be interpreted within the culture of honnêteté. As has been shown by Anthony La Vopa, at the heart of this culture was “a social aesthetic of play,” according to which the purpose of conversation and sociability in general was “to give and receive pleasure,” while never disrupting the

55 S. Van Damme, Paris, capitale philosophique. De la Fronde à la Revolution (Paris: Odile Jacob, 2005), especially part 2. On science and spectacle in the European context, see B. Bensaude-Vincent and C. Blondel, eds. Science and Spectacle in the European Enlightenment (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008).

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harmony between the interlocutors.56 Women were traditionally considered “the emblems and the guardians” of that harmony, which ideally rested on their ability to show a kind of intelligence that appeared gentle and effortless.57 Within this particular framework, which was interpreted in varying ways by historical actors, sociability could be understood as a pleasant play that women “naturally” mastered and was often opposed to the intense effort of men’s intellectual labour.58 There is a striking similarity between the reactions provoked in the audience by PaulzeLavoisier’s performances and the lexicon that had been used, since the sixteenth century, to describe the ideal of the honnête femme. In numerous accounts, her company, as well as her work as a secrétaire, is in fact depicted as pleasant (aimable) or full of grace (grâces ).59 Guyton de Morveau, for example, one of the closest associates of Lavoisier and a friend of Paulze-Lavoisier, described her work as a secrétaire as the perfect balance of amiability and intelligence. In the summer of 1788, writing to Lavoisier (who was travelling with his wife in the French provinces), he shared the following thought: I imagine that you have already returned a few days ago from the trip you were planning with Madame Lavoisier, and where you will not have failed to collect, as usual, good observations written on the spot by a secretary [who is] as amiable as [she] is intelligent.60

In some cases, the allure of Paulze-Lavoisier’s company and her work as a secrétaire seems to border on seduction. One finds a clue to that effect in Faujas de Saint-Fond’s account cited above, in which the pleasantness 56 La Vopa, The Labor of the Mind, 25. On the importance of sociability and manners in Enlightenment ideas of femininity, see also Knott and Taylor, Women, Gender and Enlightenment, especially the contributions by M. C. Moran, (“Between the Savage and the Civil: Dr John Gregory’s Natural History of Femininity,” 8–29) and S. Sebastiani (“Race, Women, and Progress in the Late Scottish Enlightenment,” 75–96). 57 Ibid., 21. 58 Ibid., especially Chap. 1 (21 for the quotation). 59 Ibid. 60 “J’imagine que vous êtes dejà depuis quelques jours de retour du voyage que vous projettiez avec Madame Lavoisier, et où vous n’aurez pas manqué de recueillir à votre ordinaire de bonnes observations redigées sur place par un secretaire aussi aimable qu’intelligent.” Guyton de Morveau to Lavoisier, 30 August 1788, in LC, 5, 206–207. My emphasis.

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of the experiments on precious stones is also due to Paulze-Lavoisier’s “graces.” This emerges even more clearly in the case of the conversions. According to De Saussure, her capacity to persuade the interlocutor lay precisely in her ability to combine perfectly “the strength of opinions” ( force des opinions ) and the “seduction of [her] charms” (seduction de [ses] charmes ).61 References to amiability and pleasure can also be found in the readers’ reactions to her translations. For example, after reading her translation of Kirwan’s An Essay on Phlogiston, De Saussure complimented her for the “grace” and “precision” with which she had rendered the original text.62 So did Claudine Picardet, a well-known translator and a laboratory assistant herself, who found in the “graces” the main contribution added by Paulze-Lavoisier to Kirwan’s original text.63 It should also be noted that in the last quarter of the eighteenth century, the opposition between intellectual effort, regarded as an essentially masculine activity, and the so-called aisance (“ease”) considered naturally feminine was increasingly questioned, and this led to new interpretations of what was considered feminine.64 It is, however, possible that, to a certain extent, Paulze-Lavoisier still embodied the ideal of the honnête femme, capable of bringing a sense of effortlessness and agreeableness to Lavoisier’s theoretical claims. In other words, there may have been a sort of resonance between her performances as a secrétaire and a set of ideas and norms that were still quite present in the imaginary 61 “[Landriani] n’aura pu résister ni à la force de vos opinions ni à la séduction de vos charmes […].” De Saussure to Paulze-Lavoisier, 28/29 February 1788, in LC, 5, 139– 41. My emphasis. On women and persuasion in the culture of honnêtété see La Vopa, The Labor of the Mind, esp. 147–48 and 189–90. 62 “Lorsque je compare la clarté et la noblesse de leurs argumens avec la confusion et la rage qui regnent dans les objections de M. K[irwan], je ne puis pas m’empecher de trouver que malgré la grâce et la précision avec lesquelles vous avés rendu son livre, l’honneur que vous lui avés fait, Madame, de le traduire est funeste à sa réputation en mettant au grand jour l’insigne foiblesse et même souvent la mauvaise fois de ses raisonnemens.” De Saussure to Paulze-Lavoisier, 7 November 1788, in LC, 5, 223. My emphasis. 63 “Je suis comblée de satisfation, que vous me le procuriez vous même aujourd’hui, recevez, Madame, ma sensible reconnaissance, et daignez faire agréer à Monsieur Lavoisier le sentiment d’estime profonde qu’il ne cesse de m’inspirer. Je serois très heureuse si ces Mms qui vous avez si bien aidé à enlever tout le phlogistique de Mr. Kirwan, trouvoient ici la part de reconnaissance qu’ils méritent, ils sont bien sures du succès de cette entreprise, parce que les graces accompagnent le sçavoir.” Claudine Picardet to Paulze-Lavoisier, s.d., Archives de l’Académie des Sciences, Paris, Fonds Lavoisier, Dossier 1243.1. My emphasis. 64 La Vopa, The Labor of the Mind.

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of the Parisian le monde at the time. This resonance may have made her work more palatable to her audience, protecting her from the social blame that was generally directed at the femmes savantes. But it may also have supported, in turn, Lavoisier’s purposes. As we have seen in the case of the conversions, Paulze-Lavoisier’s performances aimed at building stronger personal bonds between Lavoisier and his interlocutors. Her ability to please the audience through her performance also helped make her husband’s claims appear less divisive and shocking. As already mentioned, from the mid-1780s onwards, chemistry debates took a particularly fierce tone in European scientific circles, to the point that Lavoisier did not hesitate to question the intelligence of his adversaries; he himself was not spared harsh criticism. His self-confidence and unbridled ambition, which emerge quite clearly in his writings and correspondence, probably also caused tensions. This attitude is exemplified by his decision to define his own set of theories as “revolutionary.” The term, which first appeared in his laboratory notebooks in the early 1770s, was now increasingly used by Lavoisier to stress the novelty of his views.65 It can be found, for instance, in a famous letter that he wrote to Benjamin Franklin in February 1790. In describing the ongoing chemistry debates to his friend, who had been hosted at the Arsenal some time before, he went so far as to compare his scientific achievements to the outbreak of the French Revolution. After summarizing the contents of his Traité élémentaire de chimie and listing the new supporters he had gained, he invited Franklin to join his party: French scholars are divided at this moment between the old and the new doctrine. I have on my side M. de Morveau, M. Berthollet, M. de Fourcroy, M. de La Place, M. Monge, and in general the physicists of the Academy. The scholars of London and of England are also gradually dropping the doctrine of Stahl, but the German chemists still adhere to it strongly. This then is the revolution which has occurred in an important

65 Among the rich literature on this topic, see Marco Beretta, The Enlightenment of Matter. The Definition of Chemistry from Agricola to Lavoisier (Canton: Science History Publications, 1993), Chap. 5. For a critical discussion of the uses of the notion of the “scientific revolution,” see A. Romano, “Fabriquer l’histoire des sciences modernes. Réflexions sur une discipline à l’ère de la mondialisation,” Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales 70 (2015), 381–408 and idem, “Ce que l’histoire globale fait à la ‘révolution scientifique’, ou la fin d’un grand récit et ses multiples conséquences,” Rivista storica italiana 2 (2020), 542–48.

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branch of human knowledge since your departure from Europe; I look upon this revolution as well advanced, and it will be complete if you will stand with us. Now that you have been informed as to what has transpired in chemistry, it might be well to speak of our political revolution […].66

Such claims might have sounded slightly pretentious to his contemporaries and especially so to his critics. They seemed in fact to evoke a sudden break with the past, on which, at the time, there was still no agreement. They also dangerously evoked a political revolution which, at least from 1789, had begun to worry the Lavoisiers and some of their friends.67 By making Lavoisier’s chemistry appear more agreeable, Paulze-Lavoisier helped soften these conflicts, restoring, at least ideally, the harmony between interlocutors which, in French polite society, was considered a key element of sociability.68 In this sense, by making the “chemical revolution” appear gentle and pleasant (and not a radical theoretical shift), she may have facilitated Lavoisier’s public reception. Keeping this in mind, we can also look at David’s famous Portrait from a slightly different perspective. As noticed by Mary Vidal and later stressed by other historians, the most distinctive feature of this painting lies in the movement that David was able to create not only between Lavoisier and his wife, but also between the couple and the painter himself. This particular movement is established, above all, through Paulze-Lavoisier’s gaze: instead of looking into her husband’s eyes, as was typically the case in the classic model of the “Muse interrupting a scholar at work,” she looks straight ahead, towards David himself. According to Vidal’s interpretation, this movement made visible the set of views that the couple shared with the French painter regarding the relationships between the arts and the sciences. This powerful insight, which radically changed our approach to this painting, is supported by a range of evidence, not least the personal relationship that bound Paulze-Lavoisier and David, the latter being her

66 Lavoisier to Franklin, 2 February 1790, quoted in Beretta, The Enlightenment of

Matter, 251. My emphasis. 67 On the Lavoisiers’ complex relationship with the French Revolution, see M. Beretta, “Chemists in the Storm: Lavoisier, Priestley, and the French Revolution,” Nuncius 8 (1993), 75–104. 68 See especially La Vopa, The Labor of the Mind and, from another perspective, Goodman, The Republic of Letters.

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drawing and painting teacher.69 We can push Vidal’s reading further, however, and consider Paulze-Lavoisier’s gaze as directed not only at the painter but, more broadly, at anyone who paused in front of the painting. Understood in this way, this painting may also have highlighted, at least in the mind of its commissioners, the role played by PaulzeLavoisier as an intermediary between her husband and his public through her social skills. It was also through her social skills and manners that she contributed to Lavoisier’s projects. This does not undermine the idea that this artwork (especially in its final version) was intended above all as the visual crowning of the so-called “chemical revolution.” The Portrait does indeed appear as the visual celebration of the achievements of a collaborative couple who worked together on a project that they both considered “revolutionary.” In doing so, however, it also went a little further, representing the husband’s and wife’s respective contributions as different from each other and yet complementary.

Conclusions Behind Paulze-Lavoisier’s appeals to modesty, there was a more complex and ambiguous reality. To a certain extent, the visibility she gained during her collaborative work with her husband stemmed from the social dimension of scientific practice in Enlightenment societies. For men and women of the French élites, engaging in scientific work was also a way to socialize, to play together, and to perform. Paulze-Lavoisier admirably reappropriated this context, becoming herself part of the spectacle that people were invited to enjoy. Quite surprisingly, however, her active role in Lavoisier’s research never met with the social scorn so often directed at other learned women. On the contrary, as we have seen, she was often praised for being “graceful” and “agreeable.” This ability to please the audience probably helped further Lavoisier’s search for public support, and it also may have added, as I have argued, a sense of ease and carefreeness to her husband’s claims, which by the second half the 1780s had taken fierce or even hostile tones. This does not mean that her role was necessarily seen as naïve or frivolous. The work she had been doing in the laboratory since the early 1770s was indeed difficult, and this meant that she made serious 69 Vidal, “David Among the Moderns.” On Paulze-Lavoisier’s apprenticeship with David: M. Pinault Sørensen, “Madame Lavoisier, dessinatrice et peintre,” La Revue. Musée des Arts et Métiers 6 (1994), 23–25.

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intellectual efforts and has the necessary savoir-faire. But these efforts went hand in hand with performance of sociability and playfulness and, to some extent, they were disguised as effortless and pleasant indulgences. It is perhaps by keeping these two poles in a balance that she found her way to represent herself as a woman at work, without breaking gender norms, at least not in a conspicuous or potentially subversive way. Other women may have experienced something similar. It is interesting to note, for instance, that Claudine Picardet, mentioned above as one of PaulzeLavoisier’s friends, was praised in similar terms by Arthur Young in 1789. After meeting her in Dijon, where she worked as a laboratory assistant for Guyton de Morveau, the English agronomist noted in his diary, “Madame Picardet is as agreeable in conversation as she is learned in the closet; a very pleasing unaffected woman; she has translated Scheele from the German, and a part of Kirwan from the English; a treasure to M. de Morveau, for she is able and willing to converse with him on chemical subjects, and on any others that tend either to instruct or please.”70 The similarity between this characterization and Young’s description of PaulzeLavoisier’s role at the Arsenal in 1787 is quite striking and suggests how important it was for French learned women to counterbalance their intellectual pursuits with an effort to entertain and please their audiences with their manners. What is most interesting about Paulze-Lavoisier’s work as a secrétaire, however, is the tension it seems at times to introduce into the notion of work itself. By making her contribution to Lavoisier’s chemistry appear both serious and agreeable, she seems in fact to blur the boundaries between what, in Enlightenment scientific circles, was perceived as work and what was instead seen as leisure. This ambiguity, which has emerged for instance in the accounts left by those who witnessed Paulze-Lavoisier’s performances, may invite us to reconsider an overly rigid distinction between work and non-work in Enlightenment societies and cultures, especially when it came to scientific practice. From another point of view, her case also highlights the importance of non-verbalized representations of hard work and effort, even when coded to appear in tune with the gender norms of the time, and it encourages us to delve deeper into the trajectories of the historical actors who had limited access to publishing

70 Young, Travels in France, 195.

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and left very few narratives sources but who nonetheless contributed in multiple ways to the history of knowledge.71

71 I warmly thank Gábor Almási and Giorgio Lizzul for giving me the opportunity to push my research in new directions, for their careful and stimulating readings, and last but not least for the lovely days we spent together in Innsbruck after a year and a half of lockdown. I am also grateful to the other participants in the workshop and especially to Anthony La Vopa for his inspiring comments on earlier versions of this chapter. Finally, I wish to thank Ludovica Neri for her intelligent readings and friendly support while I was working on the first draft.

CHAPTER 12

Labor Ipse Voluptas: Virtues of Work in Nineteenth-Century Germany Herman Paul

Hardly had Leopold von Ranke died in May 1886 when one of his former assistants, Theodor Wiedemann, received a letter from a fellow historian inquiring about Ranke’s work habits. “Please give me a description of the method of work,” he wrote. “Did v. Ranke dictate all his work? How many hours a day could he work?”1 Wiedemann’s answer came in the form of a long series of articles—fifteen installments, published over the course of two years—which offered an intimate portrait of Ranke’s daily habits. They described the furniture in Ranke’s apartment, the housecoat he preferred to wear, the kinds of meat he liked best, the biscuits 1 Quoted in T. Wiedemann, “Sechzehn Jahre in der Werkstatt Leopold von Ranke’s: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte seiner letzten Lebensjahre [I],” Deutsche Revue 16, (1891), no. 4, 164–79, at 165 n. 1. As Wiedemann quoted this letter in English, the inquiry might have come from an American admirer of Ranke.

H. Paul (B) Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 G. Almási and G. Lizzul (eds.), Rethinking the Work Ethic in Premodern Europe, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38092-1_12

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he used to devour with his evening tea, and the brand of mineral water that his doctor had advised him to drink.2 With equal attention to detail, Wiedemann recounted how Ranke as a man in his eighties had usually structured his day. The fact that he was almost blind at the time made him dependent on assistants, to whom he dictated his letters and chapters and who even helped him carry out his research by reading aloud from books and collections of records.3 While the morning shift, from half past nine until two o’clock, was usually done by a recent graduate, Wiedemann himself did the evening shift, which could last until well after midnight (“occasionally until half past one in the morning”), only interrupted by a fifteen-minute tea break around ten o’clock. Clearly, this was the working schedule of a man blessed with an “extraordinary capacity for work.”4 Although Wiedemann’s articles were singularly detailed, compared to other tributes prompted by Ranke’s death (many dozens of lengthy articles, including personal memoirs and obituaries with first-hand recollections about Germany’s most illustrious historian), their focus on his work ethic was far from unique.5 If authors did not explicitly mention Ranke’s time management skills (“his time was scrupulously regulated”),6 they at least marveled at his “never-ceasing creative power” or “astonishing capacity for work,” both of which seemed miraculously unimpaired by his limited eyesight and other age-related problems.7 Sophie Weisse,

2 T. Wiedemann, “Sechzehn Jahre in der Werkstatt Leopold von Ranke’s: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte seiner letzten Lebensjahre [II],” Deutsche Revue 16 (1891), no. 4, 322–39, at 330. 3 On Ranke’s near-blindness, see H. Duchhardt, Blinde Historiker: Erfahrung und Bewältigung von Augenleiden im frühen 20. Jahrhundert (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 2021), 27–58. 4 Wiedemann, “Sechzehn Jahre [II],” 328 (“bisweilen gegen halb zwei Uhr morgens”), 330 (“außerordentliches Arbeitsvermögen”). Unless otherwise noted, all translations are my own. 5 See the list of obituaries (1886–1887) in G. J. Henz, Leopold von Ranke in Geschichtsdenken und Forschung, 2 (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2014), 2:647–52. 6 A. Stern, “Ranke: Ein Nachruf,” Die Nation 3 (1886), 510–13, at 513 (“seine Zeit war genau eingetheilt”). 7 G. Winter, “Ranke und die Entstehung seiner Weltgeschichte,” Die Gegenwart 35 (1889), 84–88, at 85 (“nie ermüdende Schaffenskraft”); H. Simonsfeld, “Leopold v. Ranke [II],” Beilage zur Allgemeinen Zeitung (27 March 1889), 1–4, at 3 (“welch ein staunenswerthe Arbeitskraft […]. Und dieß alles bei steigenden körperlichen Schmerzen!”).

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the daughter of a former student of Ranke’s who had visited the historian just weeks before his death, was one among many who noticed the striking contrast between Ranke’s almost emaciated body and his “apparently inexhaustible and indomitable intellect.” She recounted how the silver-haired scholar had laughed away her amazement at his appetite for work (“I no longer have anything else to do”). Lest her readers think that Ranke had been busy with small projects, Weisse added that this answer “came from the lips of a man of ninety, engaged with all his might on a gigantic task,” namely the writing of a multi-volume world history.8 No matter how diverse the chorus of voices commemorating Ranke was, almost everyone shared Wiedemann’s and Weisse’s fascination for what the otherwise critical Marxist historian Franz Mehring admiringly described as “a capacity and an appetite for work as are granted to only a few elected mortals.”9 While memoirs like Wiedemann’s have received some scholarly attention, most notably from Heinz Duchhardt, who recently devoted an entire book to Ranke’s amanuensis, historians have typically read these texts with an eye to what they say about Ranke and the manufacturing of his Weltgeschichte.10 This chapter, by contrast, will treat them more broadly as evidence of an obsession with hard work that was characteristic of but certainly not limited to German historians at the time. Drawing on personal, “anecdotal” memoirs, such as those written by Ranke’s former assistants and visitors from abroad, this chapter will consider why Ranke’s work ethic elicited so much comment and admiration.11 What 8 S. Weisse, “Leopold von Ranke: Reminiscences of Berlin, 1884–1885,” Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine 140 (1886), 251–258, at 251, 257. I discuss this article at greater length in H. Paul, “Bloemen voor Leopold von Ranke: naar een cultuurgeschiedenis van de geschiedwetenschap,” in Alles is cultuur: vensters op moderne cultuurgeschiedenis, eds. Remieg Aerts et al. (Hilversum: Verloren, 2018), 164–77. 9 [Franz Mehring], “Leopold Ranke,” Volks-Zeitung (25 May 1886) (“eine Arbeitskraft und eine Arbeitslust, wie sie nur auserwählten Sterblichen beschieden sind”). 10 H. Duchhardt, Rankes Sekretär: Theodor Wiedemann und die Bücher-Werkstatt des Altmeisters (Berlin: Vergangenheitsverlag, 2021); G. J. Henz, Leopold von Ranke in Geschichtsdenken und Forschung, 1 (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2014), 40–47. 11 Because of this focus on Ranke’s work ethic, this chapter will not discuss remi-

niscences like Herman Wichmann’s, which only dealt with Ranke’s social life. See H. Wichmann, “Meine Beziehungen zu Leopold v. Ranke,” in Wichmann, Gesammelte Aufsätze, vol. 2 (Berlin: Ries & Erler, 1887), 167–86 and “Leopold v. Ranke unter Freunden,” ibid., 187–206. Paula Quint (Nederlands Muziek Instituut) kindly provided me with a scanned version of these articles.

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does this reveal about the qualities that historians were supposed to possess and, more generally, notions concerning the virtues of work in nineteenth-century Germany (and beyond)?

Human Interest Stories It is worth noting that Wiedemann was not the first secretary who, after the death of his employer, offered the curious public a glimpse of the daily habits of a famous German scholar.12 Intentionally or not, Wiedemann followed the model of Reinhold Bernhard Jachmann and Ehregott Andreas Christoph Wasianski, two former assistants of Immanuel Kant, both of whom had published an intimate portrait of the Königsberg philosopher almost immediately after his death in 1804. With scrupulous attention to detail, their books described the dishes served on Kant’s table, the philosopher’s habit of smoking one pipe of tobacco a day, the open windows that Kant believed stimulated his health, and the blankets on his bed, in which the philosopher often wrapped himself, as if in a cocoon.13 Unsurprisingly, Kant’s strictly maintained time schedules received ample attention, too. Wasianski related how Kant’s old servant, Martin Lampe, always entered the bedroom precisely at five minutes before five o’clock to wake his master with a loud Es ist Zeit!, after which Kant’s day would unfold with almost military precision.14 Following this model, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s testamentary executor, Friedrich von Müller, did not believe his sketch of Goethe’s life and character to be complete without an account of his working rhythm. “Time was most precious to him; he knew better than anyone how to use, really to exploit it.”15 Not only did Goethe plan his day meticulously, while using every spare minute; he was also often lost in thought, even 12 I am indebted to my research assistant, Caroline Schep, for identifying some of the sources discussed in this section. 13 E. A. C. Wasianski, Immanuel Kant in seine letzten Lebensjahren: Ein Beytrag zur Kenntnis seines Charakters und häuslichen Lebens aus dem täglichen Umgange mit ihm (Königsberg: Friedrich Nicolovius, 1804), 20, 39, 29–30, and 32; R. B. Jachmann, Immanuel Kant geschildert in Briefen an einen Freund (Königsberg: Friedrich Nicolovius, 1804), 161–78. 14 Wasianski, Immanuel Kant , 38, 40. See also L. E. Borowski, Darstellung des Lebens und Charakters Immanuel Kant’s (Königsberg: Friedrich Nicolovius, 1804), 101–103. 15 F. von Müller, Goethe in seiner practischen Wirksamkeit: Eine Vorlesung in der Academie Gemeinnütziger Wissenschaften zu Erfurt am 12. September 1832 (Weimar:

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interrupting a conversation with a royal visitor to write down a sudden idea for his Faust (or so the story went).16 Alexander von Humboldt, likewise, was posthumously commemorated in a series of publications that paired anecdotes and gossip with recollections and fragments of letters. One such publication quoted Humboldt as saying that he used to work, even at an advanced age, until two or three o’clock in the morning, after which he slept no more than four hours. This nightly labor was unavoidable, or so the author claimed, given the amount of correspondence that Humboldt had to handle. With some 2,000 outgoing letters per year, Germany’s most celebrated scientist was said to spend a fortune of about 500 to 600 thaler annually on postage.17 Another source added that, shortly before his death, Humboldt had an announcement published in the Vossische Zeitung asking the public “not to use my house as an intelligence office,” as an endless stream of letters asking for advice distracted him too much from his studies.18 Although such human interest stories could in principle be written by anyone close to a scholar of some renown, Ranke was one of very few German historians who posthumously received such treatment. Apart from a small, local newspaper article on Heinrich von Sybel’s working and eating habits,19 the only comparable case is that of Theodor Mommsen, the great historian of antiquity, for whom several students published personal “reminiscences” after his death in 1903.20 Arguably, therefore,

Wilhelm Hoffmann, [1832]), 33 (“Die Zeit war ihm das kostbarste Element, er wusste sie wie Keiner zu nutzen, wahrhaft auszubeuten”). 16 Ibid. 17 [Friedrich Althaus], Briefwechsel und Gespräche Alexander von Humboldt’s mit einem

jungen Freunde: Aus dem Jahren 1848 bis 1856 (Berlin: Franz Duncker, 1861), 30, 135, and 137. 18 [Karl Müller], Blätter der Erinnerung an Alexander von Humboldt (Berlin: Hasselberg, 1860), 146 (“daß man […] mein Haus nicht als ein Adreß-Comptoir benutze”). 19 “Aus Heinrich von Sybel’s Heim,” Leipziger Tagesblatt (15 August 1895). 20 [Fritz Jonas], Erinnerungen an Theodor Mommsen zu seinem hundertjährigen

Geburts-tage (Berlin: Trowtisch & Sohn, [1917]); R. Schöne, Erinnerungen an Theodor Mommsen zum 30. November 1917 , ed. H. Schöne (Münster: Presidium der 54. Versammlung deutscher Philologen und Schulmänner, 1923). As Hans Kloft has noticed in “Die Nachrufe auf Theodor Mommsen,” in Theodor Mommsen: Wissenschaft und Politik im 19. Jahrhundert, eds. A. Demandt et al. (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2005), 282–317, at 286– 87, Mommsen’s work ethic was a major theme in the obituaries provoked by his death. In the memorable words of one obituary writer, Mommsen had had the “production output

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a first answer to the question as to why Ranke’s work habits received so much attention in the press is that he belonged, or was perceived as belonging, to a class of scholars whose fame was such that the general public could be excused for being interested in every detail of their personal lives. This explains not only why Wiedemann’s and Winter’s memoirs appeared in cultural monthlies, which were intended for broad middle-class audiences, but also why Wiedemann felt entitled to dwell on details: “When it comes to great men, one also likes to be instructed about the outward appearances of life, about food and drinks.”21

Time-Honored Repertoires This first answer—Ranke was a famous German professor—is a little too general, though, to account for historians’ specific interest in Ranke’s “methods of work” (Arbeitsmethode).22 Why did they want to know how many hours a day Ranke sat at his desk? Why were they so eager to circulate stories of the kind that Ranke only reluctantly granted his assistants an evening off on Christmas Eve, trying to persuade them year after year to spend that festive evening in his study instead of next to a Christmas tree?23 This anecdote points to a second explanatory variable. Anecdotes about excessively hard-working scholars have a history of their own. Throughout the ages, scholars have been remembered for prioritizing their work over their health, sacrificing sleep to prepare for their lectures, and neglecting family duties for the sake of finishing a book.24 Many of these tropes, moreover, were repeated across the centuries, especially in memoirs and obituaries. Even if there are no direct precedents to the story of Ranke being surprised that his assistants preferred not to work on Christmas Eve, the anecdote reminds one of cases like that of Guillaume Budé, the French humanist who reportedly managed to work

of an entire Academy institute” (ibid., 284: “ein Produktionsausstoß eines kompletten Akademieinstituts”). 21 Wiedemann, “Sechzehn Jahre [II],” 330 (“Bei großen Männern will man auch über die Äußerlichkeiten des Lebens, über Speise und Trank unterrichtet sein”). 22 Wiedemann, “Sechzehn Jahre [I],” 165. 23 G. Winter, “Erinnerungen an Leopold von Ranke,” Nord und Süd 38 (1886), 204–

25, at 217. 24 See Dirk van Miert’s contribution to this volume.

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even on his wedding day.25 Historians highlighting Ranke’s work habits thus followed a well-established template: they interpreted the historian’s life in terms of commonplaces that were often centuries old. Wiedemann’s fascination with Ranke’s time schedule is a case in point. In early modern Europe, such schedules were a standard ingredient of scholarly biographies. According to Melchior Adam’s Vitae Germanorum philosophorum (1615), Philip Melanchthon used to wake up shortly after midnight so that he could do a good deal of writing before breakfast. Martin Crusius, the German classicist, allowed himself to rise much later, at five o’clock, yet continued his studies until ten in the evening.26 A century later, the French érudit Sébastian le Nain de Tillemont was said to rise at half past four (or at four o’clock in the season of Lent) to study and pray until lunch, after which he went out for a walk, worked again until seven, and went to bed around half past nine.27 Although the reliability of such stories is difficult to assess, it is clear that they portrayed their protagonists as faithfully following advice of the sort issued by Heinrich Bullinger, among others. To ensure maximum efficient use of time, Bullinger had recommended “fixed hours” for prayer, study, and domestic duties, which were to be “observed strictly” so as not to lose precious time.28 Similarly, Italian humanists like Petrarch had drafted time schedules that allowed for six hours of sleep and two hours of non-work-related duties, thereby leaving sixteen hours per day for concentrated study.29 So when Wiedemann told his readers that Ranke’s days were structured around the working sessions with his assistants, he suggested that the historian fitted conventional images of scholarly life at least in one respect: his working rhythm was as unrelenting as it was demanding. 25 G. Almási, “The Work Ethic in Humanist Biographies: The Case of Willem Canter,” Hungarian Historical Review 8 (2019), no. 3, 594–619, at 614–15. 26 M. Adam, Vitae Germanorum superiori, et quod excurrit, seculo philosophicis et humanioribus literis clarorum, 1 (Frankfurt: s.n., 1615), 200 and 492. I would like to thank Dirk van Miert for bringing these passages to my attention. 27 [Michel Tronchay], Vie de M. Lenain de Tillemont avec des réflexions sur divers sujets de morale, et quelques lettres de pieté (Cologne: s.n., 1711), 24. 28 H. Bullinger, Studiorum ratio, ed. P. Stotz, vol. 1 (Zürich: Theologischer Verlag, 1987), 18 (“Imprimis vero curabit studiosus, ne horas constitutas negligat, quin districtim eas observet”). Cf. M. Engammare, L’ordre du temps: l’invention de la ponctualité au XVIe sieécle (Geneva: Droz, 2004), 86–89. 29 F. Petrarca, Letters on Familiar Matters, trans. A. S. Bernardo, vol. 3 (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985), 195 (Rerum familiarium libri, XXI.12).

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Clearly, Ranke’s admirers did not impose these commonplaces on Ranke’s biography as if the historian himself were not a factor involved. Ranke had lived out many a topos, especially in matters of work ethic. While away for research in Vienna in the 1820s, he had told a friend in detail about his daily schedule (he got up between six and seven, had breakfast with coffee, studied until the library opened at nine, read sources until noon, and so on).30 Likewise, the motto that Ranke had chosen on the occasion of his ennoblement, labor ipse voluptas (“labor itself is a pleasure”), drew on ancient models. Whether or not the saying echoed Livy’s labor voluptasque or Martial’s iuvat ipse labor,31 at least it showed that Ranke had been happy to align himself with early modern scholars such as Isaac Watts, who had suggested labor ipse voluptas as an appropriate motto for a life of learning.32 Ranke’s assistants were, therefore, not alone in situating their master in a venerable tradition: Ranke’s self-fashioning as a hard-working scholar had drawn on existing repertoires, too.

Nostalgia---Or Not? To what extent did such traditional motifs used in sepia-colored biographical articles convey a sense of Ranke belonging to an age that had come to an end? Is it true that Winter, Wiedemann, and their colleagues were not merely commemorating an old man, born in the eighteenth century,33 but also a type of scholarly life that was so old-fashioned as to evoke a sense of distance or nostalgia? By the late 1880s, German Geschichtswissenschaft had changed substantially compared to the 1820s, when Ranke had published his Geschichten der romanischen und germanischen Völker von 1494 bis 1514 and received his professorial chair at 30 Leopold Ranke to Heinrich Ritter, 28 October 1827, in Ranke, Das Briefwerk, ed. W. P. Fuchs (Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe, 1949), 119–23. See also F. Schnicke, Die männliche Disziplin: Zur Vergeschlechtlichung der deutschen Geschichtswissenschaft 1780– 1900 (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2015), 316–37. 31 A. D. Boldt, Leopold von Ranke: A Biography (London: Routledge, 2019), 175–76. 32 I. Watts, The Improvement of the Mind: or, a Supplement to the Art of Logick:

Containing a Variety of Remarks and Rules for the Attainment and Communication of Useful Knowledge, in Religion, in the Sciences, and in common Life (London: James Brackstone, 1741), 13–14. 33 So explicitly J. [sic] Jastrow, “Leopold von Ranke †,” Tägliche Rundschau (28 May 1886), 489–91, at 490.

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Berlin.34 Perhaps the most important development had been the creation of a research infrastructure consisting of journals like the Historische Zeitschrift, committees like the Historische Kommission at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences (founded at Ranke’s initiative), and source editing projects modeled on the Monumenta Germaniae Historica. Insofar as historians were not teaching or supervising students, research institutions like these kept them busy for years on end. While offering employment to a younger generation of scholars, not seldom under conditions that justified analogies between research and factory work, these institutions also made significant demands on senior historians, who had to serve as directors, supervisors, and editors of journals and projects. Given how often scholars in such contexts complained about a chronic lack of time or, more specifically, about their own writing projects suffering under the constant pressure of duties and deadlines,35 one wonders how they looked at Ranke’s quasi-solitary monographic work practice. To what extent were their perceptions of Ranke’s work ethic imbued with a sense of nostalgia for a time when historians could still write one monograph after another, unhindered by administrative or editorial duties? Following genre conventions, several obituaries declared that Ranke’s death marked the end of an era (a diagnosis that was lent additional credibility by the almost simultaneous death of Georg Waitz, one of Ranke’s most influential pupils). Insofar as this caused younger scholars to conceive of themselves as epigones working in the shadow of past masters (another classical literary topos ), there was a sense in which they looked back with nostalgia on Ranke’s generation. Moreover, there had 34 See the broad surveys of nineteenth-century German historiography in M. Middell, “Germany,” in Atlas of European Historiography: The Making of a Profession, eds. I. Porciani and L. Raphael (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 159–166; D. Fulda, “History Between Archival Research and Aspirations to Leadership in Society: 19th Century Germans as Practitioners in History,” in Doing Humanities in Nineteenth-Century Germany, ed. E. Podoksik (Leiden: Brill, 2020), 59–82; and H. Paul, “Historical Studies in Nineteenth-Century Germany: The Case of Hartwig Floto,” in The Palgrave Handbook of the History of Human Sciences, ed. D. McCallum (Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022), 207–26. 35 See, e.g., Ludwig Quidde to Ernst Bernheim, 29 September 1882 and 10 July 1883,

Ludwig Quidde Collected Papers, box 1, Swarthmore College Peace Collection; Ernst Bernheim to Karl Lamprecht, 2 January 1885, in “Über das eigentliche Arbeitsgebiet der Geschichte”: Der Briefwechsel zwischen Karl Lamprecht und Ernst Bernheim sowie zwischen Karl Lamprecht und Henri Pirenne 1878–1915, eds. L. Schorn-Schütte and M. Ogrin (Cologne: Böhlau, 2017), 66–67, at 67.

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been critics of the “professionalization” and “specialization” of German historical studies before Ranke’s death who presented Ranke’s seemingly harmonious integration of solid research, political acuteness, and eloquent writing as a historiographical ideal that had become unattainable for a generation that was socialized primarily into an ethos of painstaking historical criticism. Not unlike Heinrich von Treitschke, who ridiculed all “well-educated seminar plants,” Alfred Dove (one of Ranke’s posthumous editors) mocked “the narrow philological school of seminars à la Waitz.”36 Similarly, the Munich historian Karl Theodor von Heigel admired Ranke, among others, as a “whole man” (ganzer Mann), whose well-rounded character, broad historical interests, and accessible writing style he perceived as healthy antidotes to the modern ills of specialization and one-sided accentuation of source critical problems.37 Notably, however, such nostalgic feelings hardly surfaced in memoirs like Winter’s and Wiedemann’s. With regard to Ranke’s work ethic, none of the recollections consulted for this chapter depicted the historian’s work habits as characteristic of a bygone era.38 Not a single author suggested that Ranke’s generation had worked under different circumstances, that a work ethic like Ranke’s was no longer feasible, or

36 Heinrich von Treitschke to Alfred Dove, 1 September 1873, in Dove, Ausgewählte Briefe, ed. O. Dammann (Munich: F. Bruckmann, 1925), 38–39, at 39 (“wohlerzogener Seminarpflanzen”); Alfred Dove to Heinrich von Treitschke, 13 May 1873, ibid., 32–35, at 34 (“der engen Philologenschule der Seminarien à la Waitz”). I discuss these examples at greater length in H. Paul, “A Missing Link in the History of Historiography: Scholarly Personae in the World of Alfred Dove,” History of European Ideas 45 (2019), 1011–28. 37 H. Paul, “The Whole Man: A Masculine Persona in German Historical Studies,” in Gender, Embodiment, and the History of the Scholarly Persona: Incarnations and Contestations, eds. K. Niskanen and M. J. Barany (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021), 261–86. 38 Although Henry Simonsfeld, playing on the theme of Ranke’s blindness, compared him to “a seer and singer from prehistoric times” (“ein Seher und Sänger der Vorzeit”), the analogy allowed for a picturesque portrait more than that it expressed a sense of nostalgia: “With folded hands, sitting in an armchair, the contemplating, wrinkled head enfolded by thick silver curls, he seems to dictate a chapter of his world history, widely surveying the history of humankind and connecting the near and the far—very much as the rhapsodists of the Ancient world recited Homer’s songs!” (“Mit gefalteten Händen im Lehnstuhl sitzend, das sinnende durchfurchte Haupt von mächtigen Silbergelock umrahmt, scheint er eben, die Geschichte der Menschheit weit überschauend und Nahes und Fernes verbindend, ein Capitel seiner Weltgeschichte zu dictiren—wie etwa die Rhapsoden der alten Welt die Gesänge Homers vortrugen!”). Simonsfeld, “Leopold v. Ranke [II],” 4.

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that productivity like his presupposed a freedom to commit oneself to writing projects that had shrunk with the growth of professional duties. Instead, Ranke’s admirers almost without exception attributed the historian’s extraordinary productivity to extraordinary character traits. In a commemorative address to the Bavarian Academy, Wilhelm von Giesebrecht, one of Ranke’s oldest pupils, likely spoke for many when he said: Someone like him will not soon emerge again. How many and how different are the qualities united in a truly great historian: thoroughness in research, richness and readiness of knowledge, understanding of all the interests of humanity, a sharp gaze that can penetrate into the darkness of far-away centuries, abundance of phantasy and a most lively intuition, combined with a cultivated sense of literary form and inexhaustible appetite and capacity for work. All of this was so harmoniously combined in Ranke as happens only rarely in the course of history.39

Accordingly, for Giesebrecht and his colleagues, the most relevant variable in explaining Ranke’s capacity for work was not his time or the circumstances under which his career had developed, but a personality that they did not hesitate to describe as “genial.”

39 W. v[on] Giesebrecht, Gedächtnissrede auf Leopold von Ranke gehalten in der öffentlichen Sitzung der k. b. Akademie der Wissenschaften zu München zur Feier ihres einhundert und achtundzwanzigsten Stiftungstages am 28. März 1887 (Munich: Verlag der k. b. Akademie, 1887), 31–32 (“…wird doch seines Gleichen so bald nicht wieder erstehen. Wie viele und wie verschiedenartige Eigenschaften müssen sich in dem wahrhaft grossen Historiker vereinigt finden: Gründlichkeit der Forschung, Reichthum und Präsenz des Wissens, Verständniss für alle Interessen der Menschheit, ein das Dunkel ferner Jahrhunderte durchdringender Scharfblick, Fülle der Phantasie und lebendigste Intuition, dazu ausgebildeter Sinn für die literarische Kunstform und unerschöpfliche Arbeitslust und Arbeitskraft. Diess Alles war in Ranke so harmonisch verbunden, wie es im Laufe der Zeiten immer nur selten zur Erscheinung kommen wird”).

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A Man of Genius The nineteenth-century notion of genius played an important role in the assessments of Ranke’s oeuvre and his gifts as a historian, both in the obituaries and in personal recollections.40 These writings explicitly referred to “Ranke’s genius,”41 “his genius and his work,”42 and his “genial creations,”43 and they drew on notions of genius to account for his work ethic. They did so, however, in different ways. One of Ranke’s American admirers, Herbert Baxter Adams, invoked Francis Galton’s concept of “hereditary genius” in arguing that Ranke’s work ethic had been a matter of inherited traits.44 The opening sentence of his article—a piece full of personal anecdotes largely taken from other memoirs—set the tone by stating that “heredity is an important element in the making of great men.”45 Applying this premise to Ranke’s work habits, Adams urged his readers to see Ranke’s appetite for work not as an individual trait, but as characteristic of a family that had included several generations of studious pastors:

40 On notions of genius in Wilhelmine German culture, see J. B. Köhne, “The Cult of Genius in Germany and Austria at the Dawn of the Twentieth Century,” in Genealogies of Genius, eds. J. E. Chaplin and D. M. McMahon (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), 115–35. 41 G. Winter, “Leopold von Ranke’s Max-Vorlesungen,” Nord und Süd 48 (1889),

120–23, at 123 (“dem Genius Ranke’s”); Winter, “Ranke und die Entstehung seiner Weltgeschichte,” 87 (“des Ranke’schen Genius”). 42 Weisse, “Leopold von Ranke,” 258. 43 G. Winter, “Leopold von Ranke †,” Protestantische Kirchenzeitung für das evange-

lische Deutschland 33 (1886), 489–496, at 493 (“genialer Schöpfungen”). This article originally appeared in the Nationalzeitung (25 May 1886). 44 F. Galton, Hereditary Genius: An Inquiry into Its Laws and Consequences (London: Macmillan and Co., 1869). On the American reception of Ranke, see G. G. Iggers, “The Image of Ranke in American and German Historical Thought,” History and Theory 2,1 (1962), 17–40 and D. Ross, “On the Misunderstanding of Ranke and the Origins of the Historical Profession in America,” in Leopold von Ranke and the Shaping of the Historical Discipline, eds. G. G. Iggers and J. M. Powell (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1990), 154–69. 45 [Herbert Baxter Adams], “Leopold von Ranke,” Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 22 (1886), 542–58, at 542.

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Men have not yet ceased to marvel at the phenomenon of Leopold von Ranke beginning a history of the world in his eighty-fifth year and continuing the same with unabated mental vigor until past the age of ninety; but that phenomenon has a physical basis laid by generations of long-lived, earnest, intellectual men.46

Expanding his explanatory scope, Adams even saw national character traits which (in his assessment) had developed over centuries at work in Ranke’s Arbeitszimmer: Nothing is so wonderful in the life of Ranke as his persistent, indomitable activity, or what the Germans call “rastlose Thätigkeit”; and yet this tireless energy was but an intensified, highly specialized form of that systematic, almost religious devotion to work and duty which has characterized German pastors since the days of the Reformation.47

Interestingly, this emphasis on heredity and environment left little room for the idea that Ranke’s work habits could be imitated by others. Adams’ interest in Ranke’s time schedule (“He worked night and day, Sundays and holidays included”) did not stem from a desire to find a universally applicable key to scholarly productivity.48 It reflected, rather, a fascination with great men and the conditions enabling “a phenomenon of historical genius” like Ranke’s.49 Although Wiedemann and Winter, uninfluenced by Galton, approached Ranke’s genius from different angles, they too denied that his work habits could serve as a model for others. If “the manifestations of a genius’s innate capacity for productivity” emerged from “autonomous 46 Ibid., 543–44. 47 Ibid., 544. On the use of national stereotypes by Adams and other Johns Hopkins

University faculty members at the time, see H. Paul, “German Thoroughness in Baltimore: Epistemic Virtues and National Stereotypes,” History of Humanities 3 (2018), no. 2, 327–50. 48 [Adams], “Leopold von Ranke,” 555. 49 Ibid., 542. Adams’ emphasis on hereditary factors was typical of how he approached

“great men” in history. See, e.g., H. B. Adams, The Study of History in American Colleges and Universities (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1887), 61 and 126; idem, Thomas Jefferson and the University of Virginia (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1888), 15 and 37; idem, The Life and Writings of Jared Sparks: Comprising Selections from His Journals and Correspondence, vol. 1 (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, and Company, 1893), 1, 7, 32, and 374.

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freedom and self-determination,” as Wiedemann maintained in idealist terms, they could not be forced into “a static scheme” or reduced to a method.50 Ranke’s genius, in other words, transcended “the ordinary and quotidian,” to the point that even Wiedemann, after sixteen years of secretarial assistance, claimed not to grasp the secret of the historian’s greatness.51 His account of Ranke’s work habits should, therefore, not be read as an attempt to unveil that secret. On the contrary, by describing the minutiae of Ranke’s everyday life, Wiedemann highlighted the barriers that the aged historian had managed to overcome. Stories about assistants reading source transcriptions (not the most efficient way of doing research) and the chaos in Ranke’s personal library (which drove many an assistant to despair) helped create a picture of Ranke writing history even under the most unfavorable circumstances.52 Similarly, when Winter argued that “knowledge of Ranke’s working method in the last and most fruitful epoch of his life contributes to appreciating the greatness of his unique talent to its full extent,”53 he substantiated this claim by contrasting Ranke’s “rich mental activity” with the “extraordinary aggravating external circumstances” of near-blindness and dependency on assistants.54 The “great obstacles” that Ranke had managed to conquer thus only underscored his genius.55 All this points to a third explanation for the fascination that Ranke’s work habits elicited. The more difficult the circumstances were under which Ranke had to write, the more remarkable was his achievement of

50 T. Wiedemann, “Sechzehn Jahre in der Werkstatt Leopold von Ranke’s: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte seiner letzten Lebensjahre [III],” Deutsche Revue 17 (1892), no. 1, 95–102, at 100 (“daß die Manifestationen des ureigenen Produktionsvermögens des Genies, die aus autonomer Freiheit und Selbstbestimmung hervorgehen […] nicht in ein feststehendes Schema eingeordnet werden können”). 51 Ibid (“das Gewöhnliche und Alltägliche”). 52 Ibid. 53 Winter, “Erinnerungen,” 208 (“Diese Kenntnis der Arbeitsmethode Rankes in seiner letzten und fruchtbarsten Lebensepoche gehört in der That dazu, um die Größe seiner einzigartigen Begabung voll und ganz zu ermessen”). 54 Ibid. (“reiche Umstände”).

Geistesthätigkeit,”

55 Ibid., 223 (“großes Hemmnis”).

“außerordentlich

erschwerenden

äußeren

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annually bringing out a new tome of his Weltgeschichte.56 Many a memoir reinforced this message with emotional language, including verbs like staunen (to be astonished) and bewunderen (to admire),57 or with physiognomic descriptions that contrasted Ranke’s “feebly animated skeleton” with his “vigorous” mind.58 Indeed, it seems as if for Ranke’s admirers no anecdote was too trivial to strengthen the notion that Ranke’s genius deserved “astonished admiration” (staunende Bewunderung ).59

A Religion of Work Why, finally, was this genius associated more with quantitative output— long hours in the study, 54 volumes of collected works—than with Ranke’s qualitative contributions to historical source criticism or the historiography of Europe’s nation-states? To a certain degree, this focus may have been genre-specific, as technical accounts of how Ranke had furthered historical scholarship were arguably more at home in learned periodicals than in magazines targeted at non-academic readers. However, even in professional contexts, historians did not cease to marvel at Ranke’s devotion to work. Giesebrecht mentioned Ranke’s Genie and Arbeitskraft in one and the same breath, whereas Sybel, writing in the country’s leading historical journal, claimed that his teacher had died a “hero […] in the field of labor, in the field of honor.”60

56 Falko Schnicke identifies a similar pattern of reasoning in his “Kranke Historiker:

Körperwahrnehmungen und Wissenschaft im 19. Jahrhundert,” Historische Anthropologie 25 (2017), no. 1, 11–31. 57 Winter, “Erinnerungen,” 224; Wiedemann, “Sechzehn Jahre [III],” 100; Weisse,

“Leopold von Ranke,” 255 and 256. 58 F. A. Bancroft, “A Reminiscence of Ranke,” American Historical Association Papers 3,1 (1888), 121–24, at 122. Similarly: Weisse, “Leopold von Ranke,” 251 and P[aul] B[ailleu], “Leopold v. Ranke: Eine persönliche Erinnerung zum hundertsten Geburtstag (21. Dezember 1895),” Neue Preußische Zeitung (21 December 1895). On the masculine connotations of this mind–body dualism as applied to scholarly work, see Schnicke, Männliche Disziplin, esp. 185–99. 59 Winter, “Leopold von Ranke †,” 494. 60 Giesebrecht, Gedächtnissrede, 27; H. v[on] Sybel, “Gedächtnisrede auf Leopold v.

Ranke, gehalten in der kgl. preußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin am 1. Juli 1886,” Historische Zeitschrift 56 (1886), 463–81, at 481 (“starb […] dieser Held […] auf dem Felde der Arbeit, auf dem Felde der Ehre”).

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Did this obsession with work perhaps reflect a culture in which Wissenschaft was increasingly equated with Arbeit ? There are two reasons for raising this question. First, historical research in the course of the nineteenth century was becoming increasingly more labor-intensive, partly because of new sources that were being discovered on an almost a daily basis and partly because of heightened expectations with regard to source coverage and source assessment. Secondly, historians’ self-images adapted to these changing working conditions. The idea began to take hold that historians were engaged in what Johann Gustav Droysen called a work of endless proportions, in which the individual author appeared not as an omniscient author, but rather as a modest link in a centuries-long chain of laborers.61 Although Wolfgang Hardtwig and Falko Schnicke have shown how real these developments were,62 the sources featured in this chapter point in a different direction. While emphasizing Ranke’s “tireless activity,” the memoirs never distance themselves from notions of authorial genius. Although Giesebrecht, for instance, presented Ranke as a model of scholarly labor (“as he labored before our eyes, we ourselves were stimulated to work”),63 he was not prepared to reduce Ranke’s labor to mere industry or diligence. As we saw above, capacity for work was but one of the qualities that he deemed necessary for genial performance in matters historical. Ranke’s “inexhaustible appetite and capacity for work” were, therefore, not an alternative to geniality; they were interpreted as evidence of it. Perhaps more important, therefore, is a fourth and final explanatory variable: the great value that German middle-class society attached to virtues of work. As Michael Maurer and others have shown, Arbeit was a key value in the moral economy of Germany’s educated middle classes.64 For those fortunate enough to spend their days at a desk instead of in 61 J. G. Droysen, “Historik: Die Vorlesungen von 1857: Rekonstruktion der ersten vollständigen Fassung aus den Handschriften,” in Droysen, Historik, ed. P. Leyh, vol. 1 (Stuttgart–Bad Cannstatt: Fromann-Holzboog, 1977), 1–393, at 63. 62 W. Hardtwig, “Geschichtsreligion, Wissenschaft als Arbeit, Objektivität: Der Historismus in neuer Sicht,” Historische Zeitschrift 252 (1991), 1–32, at 26–27; Schnicke, Männliche Disziplin, 271–88. 63 Giesebrecht, Gedächtnissrede, 14 (“Indem er vor unseren Augen arbeitete, wurden wir selbst zur Arbeit hingerissen”). 64 On the broader German discourse on “work” in an age of industrialization, see J. Campbell, Joy in Work, German Work: The National Debate, 1800–1945 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989).

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a factory or on a farm, work was not merely a means of making money, but also a “vocation” (Beruf ).65 This implied not only that the demands of work were more sacrosanct than other demands, but also that the meaning or purpose of a man’s life (women’s lives were a different matter) could be realized through work. This was either because work was religiously interpreted as a divine command or because it was seen as a means to what idealist philosophers used to call “self-actualization.”66 Because of this high value placed on work, Maurer argues that work had an inextricably religious subtext, to the point of sometimes serving as a Religionsersatz (work taking the place formerly reserved for religion).67 Given this quasi-religious significance of work, not only among writers and scholars but also among teachers and civil servants, it should come as no surprise that several of the scholarly habits referred to in previous sections had equivalents outside of the academic realm. Time schedules, for instance, were not merely the prerogative of scholars: merchants and medical doctors also used them to maximize their time efficiency.68 Rising before dawn and working into the early hours, too, were habits known outside the circles of professors and students. There are stories about princes, lawyers, and civil servants who did not retire to bed before two in the morning.69 Similarly, there are anecdotes about pastors who tried to save time by skipping meals or who managed to prepare a sermon during their morning toilet.70 Also, there is no lack of biographical vignettes about civil servants who outperformed their peers in terms of the number of records they managed to process or about mayors who acquired a reputation for issuing huge numbers of legal verdicts.71 What these examples show is that virtues of work (industry, diligence, loyalty, perseverance) 65 On this notion, richly imbued with Lutheran theological connotations, see also A. J. La Vopa, “Vocations, Careers, and Talent: Lutheran Pietism and Sponsored Mobility in Eighteenth-Century Germany,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 28 (1986), no. 2, 255–86. 66 M. Maurer, Die Biographie des Bürgers: Lebensformen und Denkweisen in der formativen Phase des deutschen Bürgertums (1680–1815) (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996), 382–87. 67 Ibid., 433. 68 Ibid., 409–10. 69 Ibid., 406–7. 70 Ibid., 409–11. 71 Ibid., 390.

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were valued highly in and beyond German middle-class society, even to such an extent that Herbert Baxter Adams could interpret them as national character traits.72 In this context, the significance of Ranke’s devotion to work—“a kind of religious mission,” in Paul Bailleu’s apt phrasing—far exceeded the realm of historical research.73 Ranke’s productivity served a source of pride, even to people who would never buy a copy of the Geschichte der Päpste. As Ranke’s son Friduhelm, a high-ranking military officer, declared after his father’s death, “All Germany was proud of the man who in extreme old age produced such a work.”74 In his Bavarian address, Giesebrecht likewise observed that Ranke’s “name was on everyone’s lips; the nation was proud that the era’s most important historian was one of them.”75 What this shows is that Ranke was celebrated not primarily as a scholar who had excelled in his field of study, but as a German citizen who had demonstrated exemplarily what it meant to find joy in labor (labor ipse voluptas ) and to devote one’s talents, as his son wrote, to “that noblest ingredient of existence, work—absorbing, allengrossing work.”76 In turn, this explains why both Weisse and Adams could end their memoirs with paraphrased lines from Goethe’s poem, “Das Göttliche” (1783), according to which the “noble man” is “generous and good / tirelessly achieving / what is just and useful,” thereby providing a “model” for the rest of society.77 Insofar as Ranke was identified with this noble worker as hailed by Germany’s greatest poet, he

72 D. Hein, “Arbeit, Fleiß und Ordnung,” in Bürgerliche Werte um 1800: Entwurf, Vermittlung, Rezeption, eds. H.-W. Hahn and D. Hein (Cologne: Böhlau, 2005), 239– 51; R. Schenda, “Die Verfleißigung der Deutschen: Materialien zur Indoktrination eines Tugend-Bündels,” in Volkskultur in der Moderne: Probleme und Perspektiven empirischer Kulturforschung, eds. U. Jeggle et al. (Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1986), 88–108. 73 B[ailleu], “Leopold v. Ranke” (“eine Art religiöser Mission”). 74 F. von Ranke, “Reminiscences of Leopold von Ranke,” Temple Bar 1 (1906), no.

3, 193–215, at 214. 75 Giesebrecht, Gedächtnissrede, 28 (“Sein Name war in Aller Munde; die Nation

erfüllte des mit Stolz, dass der erste Geschichtsschreiber der Zeit ihr angehörte”). 76 F. von Ranke, “Reminiscences,” 193. 77 Weisse, “Leopold von Ranke,” 258; [Adams], “Leopold von Ranke,” 558; J. W. von

Goethe, “Das Göttliche,” in Goethe’s Schriften, vol. 8 (Leipzig: Georg Joachim Göschen, 1789), 215–18, at 218 (“Der edle Mensch / Sey hülfreich und gut! / Unermüdet schaff’ er / Das Nützliche, Rechte / Sey uns ein Vorbild / Jener geahndeten Wesen”).

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transcended the historical profession and became an almost superhuman embodiment of virtues valued in German society at large.78

Conclusion Clearly, then, there is more than one answer to the question as to why Ranke’s work ethic was such a central theme in memoirs written after his death. This chapter has identified four relevant explanatory variables: human interest in the daily habits of a famous professor; time-honored commonplaces about hard-working scholars that both Ranke and his admirers were eager to appropriate; nineteenth-century notions of genius that saw the historian’s greatness manifested in a heroic overcoming of physical limitations; and a general middle-class culture which attached extraordinary value to virtues of work. In addition, the chapter has argued that there is insufficient evidence to demonstrate convincingly that Wiedemann cum suis were nostalgic for a time in which historians enjoyed sufficient freedom to write books like Ranke’s, much as it is implausible to read their memoirs as reflecting a nineteenth-century understanding of Wissenschaft as Arbeit. These reminiscences of Ranke are better interpreted as reflecting broad cultural value systems than as mirroring dynamics specific to the discipline of history. From a longue durée historical perspective, finally, the sources featured in this chapter point to the persistence of early modern repertoires, specifically with regard to virtues of work and habits in which such virtues were believed to flourish. Although the standards of virtue that nineteenthcentury historians were committed to differ from those propagated at a time when treatises on academic conduct warned primarily against pride, vainglory, and futile quarreling (logomachia),79 admiration for hard work was something that Ranke’s contemporaries shared with men of learning in sixteenth-century and seventeenth-century Europe. Even if they justified this admiration on different grounds, practices like keeping time schedules and working until after midnight were no more common in the 78 On such larger-than-life features attributed to academic heroes, see V. N. Makrides, “Akademische Irrationalismen? Kulte um Personen in wissenschaftlich-akademischen Kreisen,” in Gelehrtenleben: Wissenschaftspraxis in der Neuzeit, eds. A. Lüdtke and R. Prass (Cologne: Böhlau, 2008), 261–78, at 271. 79 Sari Kivistö, The Vices of Learning: Morality and Knowledge at Early Modern Universities (Leiden: Brill, 2014).

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nineteenth century as they had been in earlier times. Likewise, a heroization of personal sacrifice, premised on the assumption that devotion to the life of the mind is evidenced by suppression of bodily needs or transcendence of physical limitations, can be found in nineteenth-century memoirs and obituaries just as frequently as in biographies of early modern men of learning. Apparently, even in an age that witnessed major transformations in academic research and teaching, not to mention great changes in society at large, early modern commonplaces regarding the virtue of work still resonated among academic and non-academic authors alike.80

80 This chapter emerges out of the research project “Scholarly Vices: A Longue Durée

History” based at Leiden University. I am indebted to Dirk van Miert for several conversations about the theme of this chapter, to the participants in the Innsbruck workshop (July 2021) for invaluable feedback, and to Falko Schnicke and the editors of this volume for helpful comments on a draft of the text. Funding was generously provided by the Dutch Research Council (NWO).

Index

A Abraham, 214, 219, 244 Adam, 13, 235, 242–244 Adam, Melchior, 317 Adams, Herbert Baxter, 322, 328 Alan of Lille, 78 Albertano da Brescia, 27, 45 Alberti, Leon Battista, 5, 7, 18, 39, 43–45, 58, 59, 61–69, 71, 112, 164 Aleandro, Girolamo, 183 Alembert, Jean Baptiste le Rond d’, 256 Alessandri, Alessandro di Ugo degli, 48, 119 Alexander Lombard, 48 Althusius, Johannes, 214, 227–229 Ambrose, Saint, 109, 123 Aquinas, Saint Thomas, 15, 16, 19, 33, 34, 48, 50, 110, 111, 236 Arendt, Hannah, 11, 12, 14, 15 Aretino, Pietro, 172, 174, 175, 177, 178, 180, 184

Aristotle, 14, 33, 34, 37, 63, 109, 110, 114, 115, 130, 214, 217, 219, 222 Arnisaeus, Henning, 227–229 Augustine, Saint, 13–16, 33, 46, 56, 107, 163, 214 Augustus, Gaius Octavius, 9, 56 B Baegert, Derick, 96 Bailleu, Paul, 328 Baldigiani, Giovanni Maria, 263, 264, 272 Barbaro, Francesco, 16, 19, 113, 114, 131 Barberino, Francesco da, 52, 53 Barnabeus Perusinus, Hieronymus, 197 Baron, Hans, 57, 102, 112 Baronio, Cesare, 24, 186, 187, 191, 197–204 Bartholinus, Caspar, 196 Basil of Caesarea, Saint, 192 Baxter, Richard, 22, 23

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 G. Almási and G. Lizzul (eds.), Rethinking the Work Ethic in Premodern Europe, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38092-1

331

332

INDEX

Belon, Pierre, 20 Benedict, Saint, 45, 136 Berchmans, Jan, 234, 249–252, 254 Bergerac, Cyrano de, 173 Bériou, Nicole, 74, 76, 79, 86, 87 Bernard of Clairvaux, Saint, 63 Berthold of Regensburg, 78, 79, 97 Berthollet, Claude Louis, 306 Berti, Girolamo, 273 Beverwijck, Johan van, 196 Beza, Theodore, 23, 134–143, 147 Bienvenu, Pierre, 151 Bisticci, Vespasiano da, 59, 60, 70, 118, 119, 160 Boccaccio, Giovanni, 54, 59, 112 Bodin, Jean, 36, 37 Boethius, 63 Bonaventure, Saint, 50 Bonvesin de la Riva, 105 Botero, Giovanni, 33, 36, 217, 230, 267 Bracciolini, Poggio, 112, 115 Brant, Sebastian, 82, 83 Bruni, Leonardo, 68, 70, 111–115, 121, 124, 131 Bruno, Giordano, 172, 176 Bucquet, Jean-Baptiste, 295 Budé, Guillaume, 316 Bullinger, Heinrich, 317 Burchiello, 172 Burke, Peter, 75 Busaeus, Joannes, 242 Busevet, Pierre, 151 Busti, Bernardino, 82

C Calvin, John, 23, 24, 133–154, 157 Cambiatori, Tommaso, 112, 114 Campin, Robert, 96 Canal, Martin da, 106 Canter, Willem, 9, 160, 187, 317

Caporali, Cesare, 181 Carafa, Diomede, 34, 35 Casaubon, Isaac, 24, 186, 187, 191–204 Castiglione, 181, 182 Cato the Elder, 107 Cavalcanti, Giovanni, 59, 63 Cecco d’Ascoli, 63 Cecrops, 167 Cepari, Virgilius, 234, 249–251, 253, 254 Charles VI (Holy Roman Emperor), 264 Chaurand, Honoré, 272 Cherubino da Spoleto, 82 Christus, Peter, 96 Cicero, Marcus Tullius, 14–16, 32, 62, 63, 70, 77, 102, 111, 114, 115, 119, 120, 123–128, 131, 132, 164–167, 170, 180 Clairaut, Alexis Claude, 286 Columella, Lucius Junius Moderatus, 44 Compagni, Dino, 106 Contzen, Adam, 13, 37, 39, 207, 208, 235, 242–244 Corneille, Pierre, 286 Cotrugli, Benedetto, 19, 115, 116 Crespin, Jean, 188 Crocius, Ludovicus, 186 Crusius, Martin, 317

D Damian, Peter, 78 Dante Alighieri, 52, 54, 59, 63 Dati, Goro (Gregorio), 53, 54 Dati, Leonardo, 63 Datini, Francesco, 17 David, Jacques-Louis, 247, 281, 282, 302, 307 David, Johannes, 247

INDEX

de Larivey, Pierre, 173 de Morveau, Louis-Bernard Guyton, 304, 309 de Saint-Thierry, Guillaume, 47 Diderot, Denis, 256 Dove, Alfred, 320 Droysen, Johann Gustav, 326 du Bellay, René, 20 Duchhardt, Heinz, 312, 313 Duns Scotus, John, 18, 19

E Eleonora d’Aragona” (Duchess of Ferrara), 34 Eiximenis, Francesc, 55 Epictetus, 63 Erasmus of Rotterdam, 164 Este, Rinaldo d’ (Duke), 264

F Faujas de Saint-Fond, Barthélémy, 294, 295, 304 Ficino, Marsilio, 63 Fischel, Georg, 179 Fortescue, John, 33, 37 Fourcroy, Antoine-François de, 306 Fox, John, 188 Franci, Filippo, 263 Franklin, Benjamin, 44, 306, 307 Frederick II (Holy Roman Emperor), 27 Froberville, Jean-Huet de, 298

G Galton, Francis, 322, 323 Garzoni, Tomaso, 181 Geiler, Johannes von Kaysersberg, 82, 83 Gerhoch of Reichersberg, 90 Ghosh, Peter, 2, 3, 5

333

Giesebrecht, Wilhelm von, 321, 325, 326, 328 Giles of Lessines, 48 Gilles of Rome, 34 Giotto, 121 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 314, 328 Gonzaga, Federico II, 184 Gonzaga, St Aloysius, 249 Gratian, 260 Greenberg, Sarah, 255, 256 Gregory of Nazianzus, 242 Gregory the Great, 77, 78 Grotius, Hugo, 193, 196 Guévarre, André, 272 Guibert de Tournai, 81, 85, 86, 88, 91, 92, 94 Guicciardini, Luigi, 119 Guyton de Morveau, Louis-Bernard, 304 H Hale, Matthew, 262 Hall, James, 300 Hardtwig, Wolfgang, 326 Heigel, Karl Theodor von, 320 Henri IV (King of France), 191, 201 Hercules, 29, 137 Herolt, Johannes, 23, 83–96, 98, 99 Honorius Augustodunensis, 78 Horstanus, 168 Hugh of Saint Victor, 52, 80, 91 Hugo, Herman, 234, 254 Humbert of Romans, 81, 86, 94 Humboldt, Alexander von, 315 Hutten, Ulrich von, 211 I Innocent XII (Pope), 272, 273 Innocent X (Pope), 198 Iphigenia, 167

334

INDEX

Isaac, 244

J Jachmann, Reinhold Bernhard, 314 Jacob, 244 Jacopo da Varagine, 107 Jacques de Vitry, 74, 81, 85, 88, 90–94 James I (King of England), 191 Janssonius van Almeloveen, Theodorus, 195, 197 Jerome, Saint, 13, 167, 189, 190, 203 Juan I of Castille, 261 Julian of Cuenca, 214 Julius II (Pope), 166

K Kant, Immanuel, 314 Keckermann, Bartholomäus, 227–229 Kirwan, Richard, 284, 285, 297, 299, 305, 309 Komlosy, Andrea, 11, 12 Kuchlinus, Johannes, 185

L Ladislas Posthumus (King of Hungary and Bohemia, Duke of Austria), 161 Landriani, Marsilio, 296, 298, 300–302 Laplace, Pierre Simon, 306 Latini, Brunetto, 108, 109, 131 Lavoisier, Antoine-Laurent, 30, 285, 292, 293 La Vopa, Anthony, v, 21, 32, 43, 56, 170, 287, 303–305, 307, 327 Leblanc de Guillet, Antoine, 286 Le Goff, Jacques, 46, 49, 50, 60, 74, 76, 109 Lessius, Leonardus, 245

Lis, Catharina, 11, 15, 210, 218, 219, 228, 231, 235, 237, 242, 244, 253, 260, 262, 269 Locke, John, 40 Loschi, Antonio, 113, 115 Louis XIV (King of France), 272 Loycx, Petrus, 24, 25, 233–245, 250, 253, 254 Lucian of Samosata, 63

M Manetti, Giannozzo, 58–61, 64, 70, 71, 160 Martial, 111, 318 Martines, Lauro, 57, 58, 117, 118 Martin, Alfred von, 53 Marx, Karl, 11, 278 Maurer, Michael, 326, 327 Maximilian I (Duke of Bavaria), 37 Maximilian I (Holy Roman Emperor), 208, 210 Mayerne, Theodore Turquet de, 193, 196 Mazzei, Lapo, 17 Medici, Cosimo de, 61, 112, 129 Medici (family), 30, 71, 72, 117–119 Mehring, Franz, 313 Melanchthon, Philip, 317 Menoeceus, 167 Molière, 173 Molinius, Franciscus, 183 Mommsen, Theodor, 315 Monge, Gaspard, 307 Montaigne, Michel de, 32, 164, 168–171, 183 Morelli, Giovanni di Pagolo, 53, 54, 69, 70, 72 More, Thomas, 25 Morris, Goveurner, 300 Moses, 242 Müller, Friedrich von, 314

INDEX

Muratori, Lodovico Antonio, 41, 257, 264–273, 277, 279

N Najemy, John, 54 Nebuchadnezzar, 211 Necker de Saussure, Albertine, 299 Necker, Jacques, 298 Nero (Emperor), 189 Newton, Isaac, 286 Niccoli, Niccolò, 160 Niess, Joannes, 251, 252 Noah, 244

O Oddi, Sforza, 172 Olivi, Pierre de Jean, 19, 50, 51, 110

P Palmieri, Matteo, 19, 35, 101–104, 117–132 Pandolfini, Agnolo, 119, 120 Paul, (the Apostle), 14, 45, 49, 145, 201, 213, 237, 259, 260 Paulze, Balthazar, 285 Paulze-Lavoisier, Marie-Anne, 30, 31, 281, 282, 284–292, 294, 295, 297–309 Pechod, Amblard, 152 Pedro Perez de Burgos, 82, 95 Perrin, Ami, 144, 299 Peter the Chanter, 48, 49 Petrarch, 9, 54–57, 59, 63, 107, 112, 163, 317 Petty, William, 38, 89 Picardet, Claudine, 305, 309 Piccolomini, Enea Silvio, 161, 179, 211 Pino, Bernardino, 172 Pio, Alberto, 183

335

Piron, Sylvain, 50–52, 108, 110 Plato, 14, 168, 170, 194 Pliny the Elder, 8, 9, 56, 123, 249 Porta, Giambattista della, 172 Priestley, Joseph, 293, 300, 301 Ptolemy of Lucca, 55, 108, 111

Q Quintus Curtius, 167

R Racine, Jean, 286 Ranke, Leopold von, 31, 32, 205, 311–313, 315–326, 328, 329 Raymond of Peyñafort, 93 Remigio dei Girolami, 55 Reneri, Henricus, 188 Robert of Courçon, 48, 49 Rucellai, Giovanni (di Paolo), 58, 61–64, 68, 69, 71, 115

S Sachetti, Franco, 119 Sallust, 16, 34, 63, 67, 107 Salutati, Coluccio, 55, 57, 112, 113, 162 Sambucus, Johannes, 29 Saussure, Horace Bénédict de, 285, 298, 305 Scala, Mastino della, 106 Schnicke, Falko, 318, 325, 326, 330 Schönborner, Georg, 227–229 Séjour, Dionis de, 286 Senebier, Jean, 299 Seneca, 28, 59, 62, 189, 246, 247 Shakespeare, 173 Simmel, Georg, 5 Simonsfeld, Henry, 312, 320 Skytte, Johan, 186 Socrates, 59, 167, 189, 194

336

INDEX

Soly, Hugo, 231 Sombart, Werner, 3, 5, 43, 44, 58, 65 Stahl, Georg Ernst, 296, 301, 306 Stäuble, Antonio, 172, 181 Suetonius, 9, 56 Susius, Jacobus, 234 Sybel, Heinrich von, 315, 325 T Taylor, William, 84 Temple, William, 10 Thiroux d’Arconville, Génévieve, 288 Thomas of Chobham, 87 Thorius, Raphael, 193–197, 199–201, 203 Tillemont, Sébastian le Nain de, 317 Todeschini, Giacomo, 46, 50, 76, 87, 93, 95, 108–110, 270 Traversari, Ambrogio, 118 Treitschke, Heinrich von, 320 Troeltsch, Ernst, 5 Torre, Antonius van, 234, 246, 247, 249, 253, 254 U Uberti, Fazio degli, 63 Urban VIII (Pope), 197 V Varchi, Benedetto, 29, 30 Varro, Marcus Terentius, 44

Venuti, Comedio, 172 Vergerio, Pier Paolo (the elder), 17, 70, 106, 107, 161 Vernulaeus, Nicolaus, 243 Villani, Giovanni, 55, 106 Vincent of Beauvais, 87 Virgil, 180 Visconti, Giangaleazzo (Duke of Milan), 57, 103, 161 Vives, Juan Luis, 40, 259–261 Vossius, Gerardus (Gerard), 162, 185, 186

W Waitz, Georg, 319, 320 Wasianski, Ehregott Andreas Christoph, 314 Watts, Isaac, 318 Weber, Max, 2–7, 9, 12, 19, 22, 23, 43, 44, 58, 134, 209, 228, 278 Weisse, Sophie, 312, 313, 322, 325, 328 Wiedemann, Theodor, 311–314, 316–318, 320, 323–325, 329 Winnoc, Saint, 214 Winter, Georg, 312, 316, 318, 320, 322–325 Wolzogen, Louis, 187

Y Young, Arthur, 299, 309