What has ethics to do with economics? Today, corporations and entrepreneurs regard their role as profit-making, but in the medieval period such a consideration was meant to be governed by ethical principles such as the common good, and although economic inequality was accepted, individuals were instructed to moderate their greed and share some of their wealth. I have used the term “economic ethics” as they related to the medieval world in accordance with the definition used by Odd Langholm. Langholm explains that although the word economica was known to scholastic philosophers through the works of Aristotle, they did not, initially, have a sense that economics was “a set of separable social phenomena and relationships”.1 Yet theologians and scholastic philosophers were aware of the material needs of humankind and of the various temptations to which these could give rise, and therefore “the economic analysis of the scholastics was subjected to their economic ethics … If they studied economic phenomena and relationships, it was in order to advise about proper economic conduct”.2
Thus, Langholm uses “economic ethics” as a descriptive term for the moral principles applicable to economic practice. As the late Diana Wood has pointed out, the Church dominated medieval life, and therefore its morality governed economic relations. Economic ethics were embedded in commentaries on the Bible and the thought of Aristotle.3 According to Wood, from the biblical commentaries emerged the Church’s doctrine of avarice and expositions of the Commandment against theft, whereas from Aristotle came ideas about moderation, justice, equity and balance.4 His model of the “just price” was particularly important to medieval theologians and philosophers.5 Although avarice and theft represented selfish gain and harm to the community, the principles of economic ethics also contained positive ideals. As the work of Richard Newhauser shows, medieval theologians and philosophers promoted the virtues of charity and liberality as antidotes to avarice and theft.6 To those virtues can be added the ideal of the common good, which was appealed to frequently, and in a wide range of sources, regarding economic practice. It had an ethical as well as a political usage, as Matthew Kempshall’s study demonstrates.7 The common good tended to be applied, however, in the context of either a national or a city government rather than used to describe good or ideal relations between a landowner and his tenants. In the rural setting, the common good was replaced by the ideal of good lordship, which again had an ethical dimension.8
This book is a socio-cultural study, rather than a purely theoretical one, because I will be examining not only the ideas and beliefs of theologians and philosophers but how these influenced the attitudes, assumptions and preoccupations about material concerns in late medieval English society. Wood has already written an excellent study of medieval economic thought, and James Davis has used an extensive variety of sources to examine the ethics of urban trade and to evaluate their influence on regulation.9 I aim to complement both of these works by broadening the coverage of ethical thought to other sections of society.
Later medieval England provides a fruitful site of investigation for a number of reasons. Although it had seen growth in urban trade, it still possessed a mostly rural economy: it has been estimated that 80 % of economic activity at this time occurred in the rural sector.10 Society depended on the successful exploitation of land in order to provide its basic needs. Furthermore, in England, much of the wealth that derived from mercantile activity was invested in estates: as Maurice Keen declared, “Land was the most important source of wealth and power”.11 This notion, that land was used to gain not just wealth but also power, further underlines the question about ethical standards for landowners. Additionally, studies of economic thought have tended to discuss the thought of theologians who were prominent across western Christendom, whereas the writings of some English theologians have received less attention.
I have chosen the period 1300–1500 because it featured many criticisms of social and economic changes and of economic immorality, which can be found across a wide range of genres: pastoral manuals and sermons, literature, statutes, petitions and letters. Broadly, these sources can be divided into two kinds: those which were didactic and those which describe how people reacted. The pastoral manuals, sermons and literature allow me to investigate whether the ethical thought of earlier theologians and canonists was influential in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century England, and also the kinds of economic practices that were scrutinised in sources at that time. The statutes, petitions and letters permit an investigation of how government and individuals responded to moral issues arising from economic activity. Against the moralising language of petitions, I also examine a selection of manorial court records to see whether judgements reflected fair and reasonable behaviour on the part of landowners or whether court processes were being used purely as a revenue-raising exercise. Studies of records of land ownership are consulted as well because these provide a broader picture of the manorial system and its sources of revenue.
Late medieval England saw an increase in commerce. Historians quote different figures for the number of royal licences given for markets (J.L. Bolton quotes 2,800 between 1198 and 1483, whereas Keen uses a figure of over 3,000) but agree that most were granted in the thirteenth century.12 The growth in the number of markets, both within towns and in the countryside, raised concerns within the Church about unethical practices and prompted regulation by secular authorities. What I would like to highlight, however, is the fact that there was also a growth in bureaucracy: the numbers of royal officials associated with the Exchequer and Wardrobe and purveyors grew after the outbreak of war with Scotland in the 1290s.13 At the same time, there was an increase in crime and disorder, possibly due to the effects of the war, and this led to the appointment of more judges and keepers of the peace.14 So was there a rise in ethical concerns expressed about the economic roles of the greater numbers of shrieval officials, lawyers, tax collectors and purveyors, as well as the activities of merchants and traders?
In difficult times, there were criticisms of the king. In late medieval England, economic hardship was visited upon many subjects because of the high financial costs of the wars waged with Scotland and France. Not only was taxation heavier and more frequent, and purveying for those wars increased, but exactions continued afterwards in order to meet the burgeoning costs of the royal household. At various times, kings were criticised for over-spending, favouritism and economic mismanagement, and those criticisms are fruitful sources of ethical language. The heavier taxation and purveying, which had begun in the 1290s with Edward I’s wars in Scotland and Gascony, lasted until the reign of Edward II in 1314. In the 1330s, heavy taxation and purveying were again imposed to fund the Scottish campaigns by Edward III and the Hundred Years’ War beginning in 1337. Edward II was seen as profligate and was accused of being unduly influenced, firstly by Piers Gaveston and later by the Despensers. Edward III was accused of listening to poor advice and of wasting resources by the Good Parliament of 1376, and in the reign of Richard II, the attempt to collect a more extensive poll tax in 1381 brought rebellion and the breakdown of law and order.15
The reigns of Henry IV and VI saw more criticisms of government, much of them relating to economic mismanagement. Henry IV’s financial resources were very limited and he needed to bolster his support from various factions, but his usurpation of Richard II had been on the basis of the latter’s tyranny and dissipation of resources, which made his own need for financial aid an extremely sensitive issue. An example of this sensitivity can be seen in the remark made by Arnold Savage, the Speaker of the Commons, in 1404, when he accused Henry IV of making “outrageous” grants and described the advice of the king’s counsellors as “malicious”.16 In the reign of Henry VI, there were substantial royal deficits and over-spending in the 1430s and 1440s. Many of the complaints made by Parliament concerned the controlling influence of Henry VI’s counsellors and the behaviour of royal purveyors.17 These were the contexts for much criticism which either placed the blame on the king’s advisors or warned him directly of the consequences of his own actions. Clearly Edward IV was aware, not only of the political problems caused by the instability of the Wars of the Roses but also of the problems caused by a shortage of royal finances and poor household governance. He made concentrated efforts to address, and to be seen to address, these matters.
Criticisms of lords and gentry landowners featured less in the proceedings of Parliament owing to the nature of its membership, but the economic changes resulting from the population decline that had been caused by the Black Death brought significant changes for landowners and some suffered financially. While labourers were able to bargain for higher wages, many landowners suffered falling rents.18 Landowners needed to take measures to prevent their incomes from declining.19 This situation, a depression for many landowners, continued into the fifteenth century as recurrent visitations of the plag...