„O pecunia totius mali regina, fraudis et doli amica...“ Peníze v kultuře středověku
ČlánekOtevřený přístuppeer-reviewedpublishedDatum publikování
2010
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Univerzita Pardubice
Abstrakt
Concepts such as money and wealth in general changed greatly in the Middle Ages.
On the one hand the medieval world was permeated with the simple ideas of the barbarians,
who plainly identified wealth with happiness and success. Yet on the other hand ideas
began to appear and spread which were drawn from the legacy of antiquity and which
judged money according to the positive and negative effect it had on society. Medieval
culture was multifaceted and varied greatly from territory to territory. In this culture money
could be seen on several levels. One of the most comprehensive looks at money in the
culture of the Middle Ages was given by Ryszard Kiersnowski, whose work became an
inspiration for later researchers.
Christianity had a positive relationship towards money, and the first Christians
accepted it as a normal part of life. Money at that time served as a kind of medium, the
images on which disseminated a substantial ideology in society, which succumbed to the
power of these images. Therefore, first of all we need to go into the iconography of
medieval coins, which can be divided up into two groups – the ecclesiastical and the
secular, which in many cases obviously overlap and supplement one another (F. Friedensburg).
The Church’s mission to spread harmony in the Middle Ages evidently created the
idea that money could become a means to allow the Christian to help the poor and powerless.
This tendency can also be seen in the pictures on the coins; the coin imagery, by
showing good deeds, was supposed to educate people to use the money to perform good
deeds themselves. This began with the establishment of pawn shops, which helped towndwellers
out of financial difficulties. The first municipal – i.e. public – pawn shop was
apparently set up in Perugia in 1462 (Monte dei Poveri). In Papal Rome, after approval had
been granted by the Pope in 1515, this led to the creation of an institution – Monte di Pieta,
which was a precursor to the people’s banking institutions that would come later. Some
pawn shops did not charge any interest, but most took the opportunity to do so. Clearly we
should also point out that these charitable institutions later became standard commercial
financial institutions.
In the Middle Ages money-lending with interest was widespread. Usury, however,
was officially prohibited and it was hard to get around this ban. Yet the effort to satisfy the
surviving kin of money-lenders was so powerful that it gave rise to teaching about
purgatory. The souls of money-lenders in purgatory could be helped if their surviving
family members devoted themselves to pious deeds. According to J. Le Goff, teaching
about purgatory could have been of great significance, as the fact that purgatory showed
mercy even to money-lenders was one factor in the rise of capitalism. Purgatory became
a form of hope for certain types of sinners who could not otherwise redeem themselves of
their sins, but also for following certain professions which formerly led to damnation.
Obviously teaching about purgatory was a somewhat uncertain course of action and when
theological speculations about how to weaken the ban on usury failed, people looked for
other ways to circumvent the prohibition. Sometimes a loan was disguised as a gift, to
which the debtor responded with a gift that was worth more than the sum originally loaned.
Other ways of getting round the ban involved a variety of sham purchases and sales. In the
15th century people thought it necessary to differentiate between illegitimate loans and
“legitimate” loans; cases were generally judged according to the amount of interest. Opinions evidently differed, and eventually diet decrees set the legal rate of interest. In
1484 the Bohemian diet (Landtag) set the maximum permissible interest rate at 10 percent,
which was later reduced to 6 percent. The church authorities protested against this, but with
no great success. It is interesting to observe opinions concerning money-lending changed in
the Unity of the Brethren. This began with the opinions of Petr Chelčický, which were in
line with his radically anti-usury view of society. Later, however, the Unity of the Brethren
took a less harsh stance on the issue.
Medieval man was accompanied by money from the cradle, as a christening gift, to
the grave, as the obol of the dead. From the first instance to the latter he used coins every
day of his life, often without noticing how the money was actually using him.
Rozsah stran
s. 179-190
ISSN
1802-2502
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Theatrum historiae. 6, 2010
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peníze, středověk, bohatství, ekonomický vývoj středověku