Medieval Economics 2: If you can't modify Aristotle go ahead and fake him

So, more of a gap between this and last post than I wanted, but that's parenthood for you. In this post I'm going to plot out the rest of my base approach to medieval economics - involving the Oeconomica and Joel Kaye's look at Aristotelian scholasticism in addition to a brief discussion of Oresme's De Moneta. Later today (ideally) I'll put together a brief discussion of how I'm starting to look at marriage with an eye on economics.

As I discussed in my previous post, much of how medieval thinkers considered economics is based on Aristotle's work, predominantly from the Nichomachean Ethics. Moving forward, the large concern is how to determine just exchange and/or fair market value in exchange. As I previously mentioned, Aristotle suggests  both an arithmetical dynamic (where factors outside the value of the commodity do not affect the justness of exchange) and a geometrical one (where context and outside factors do matter). As Joel Kaye plots out in Economy and Nature in the Fourteenth Century, the thirteenth and fourteenth century scholastics took Aristotle's economic models and modified them. Aristotle's approach as lined out in the Ethics was often interpreted as merely finding the proper point of just price and then determining where an exchange falls in relation to that point, an arithmetical approach to exchange. This approach is of course limiting as it does not take into consideration the dynamics of the market or the respective positions of the buyer and seller in exchange. The same seller could offer two entirely different prices for a commodity at different times depending on the scarcity of the commodity; for Aristotle, this would be an unjust approach as the commodity should only have one value.

As Kaye indicates, medieval scholars such as Jean Buridan and Walter Brumley modified Aristotle's models, depicting fair market value less as a fixed point for a commodity and more like a range within which just price could be achieved. In this, the need of the buyer and seller are what fuel value. Each participant of exchange brings with them their own respective need/desire for that exchange, and that need drives how they perceive fair market value. Shortly after harvest, a seller of fruit may expect a moderately high price in exchange for his goods due to their freshness and quality. A few weeks later, however, that seller, noting the impending expiration of his produce, may be willing to sell that fruit at a lower price as his need to recoup some profit from it affects his selling position. Likewise, a well fed person has an entirely different estimation of value for a piece of fruit than one who is starving. While it may not seem significant at first glance, the acknowledgment that factors outside the quality of the commodity itself can affect fair market value demonstrate a marked shift on how medieval thinkers perceived economic exchange.  

Taking a step back then, it's important to also consider the historical context of how trade and mercantilism is received in late medieval England. There isn't a quick, easy answer to this question, but I find two books go a long way to helping: Roger Ladd's Antimercantilsm in Late Medieval English Literature and Diana Wood's Medieval Economic Thought. Bracing these two against one another nets the following: mercantilism was a source of great concern and distrust in late medieval England, primarily from the 12th century on, with a number of texts railing against he societal ills that could result in societal breakdown where cupidity overrides caritas; however, there is also a trend, notably from the thirteenth through early fifteenth centuries, of amelioration for trade and mercantilism, with other texts demonstrating beneficial exchange and even casting merchants as heroes. Wood, who takes the latter track, suggests that this stems from the greater role that mercantilism plays in the everyday life of urban London in addition to the growing political and social power from a mercantile class. In sum, it seems that trade and mercantilism had a tenuous reception in late medieval England, where it may both be a socially disruptive force and one that allows new individuals to participate in social avenues previously denied them. Some key texts to mention here are Wynnere and Wastoure  and Sir Amadace, both of which provide a mixed presentation of mercantilism. All of this brings me to the pseudo-Aristotelian Oeconomica and where my project has focused: marriage and economics. 

I put the above gif here (with the very problematic relationship it suggests) to demonstrate how, in some ways, medieval marriage was seen as its antithesis as can be demonstrated with the Oeconomica. The Oeconomica, or Le livre de Yconomique d‘Aristote in Oresme's translation of it, is a text mistakenly attributed to Aristotle that advises on the ideal method for establishing and running a household. This of course goes back to the Greek origins of the term economics: the oikos in Greek is the household, the Greek household operating as its own unit of taking in and producing commodities that could be traded for other goods. At its root, Economics is thus the study of the household. The Oeconomica thus has extensive suggestions for how to operate trade in the household for best sustainability. The text also, however, has a large section instructing how to best choose a wife to run one's household, lining out the virtues of an ideal wife along these lines. While this does treat the wife as something of a commodity that one needs to purchase for his business' success, as well as potential children with said wife as future investments, the text at large presents an interesting connection between economics and marriage.

As my project has proceeded, I've become more and more interested in this connection, especially as I've seen it lining up in Middle English texts. In my next post, I'll start talking about medieval marriage and how I've become oriented on this topic more specifically. 

True story: I keep waiting for the right time to drop this reference in a conference paper. Soon...

Medieval Economics: A little bit of Aristotle goes a long way

Before going much further, I should set up some of my methodology, both as an exercise for myself and to explain where I'm coming from with my research. A few years ago I had a nice chat with a friend, Kate, at Kzoo about my work. Interested in better understanding economic theory, she asked me who my go to economic theorists. My answer was...well...lacking.

It's not that I hadn't read economic theorists. I'd read Marx, Benjamin, and Jameson to name a few, but ultimately I wouldn't really call any of them my go to theorist or even really work with their approaches directly (although my methodology has certainly been impacted by them). As with all great responses to questions you can't effectively answer on the spot, I have a better answer now that I've had a couple of years to ruminate on it: my go to "theorists" are more akin to Aristotle, Oresme, and Jean Buridan; I'm less interested in modern economic theory than I am in the "economic" theories held and considered by medieval thinkers. In fact, I'm outright concerned with being anachronistic with economic concepts when discussing medieval texts; I do employ some modern economic terms to describe aspects of a text, but I try to temper them firmly with appropriately contextual concepts. It's much more important for me to understand how medieval thinkers conceived of economics and how that applies to literature than to shoe horn modern concepts into medieval packaging. To do the latter doesn't really help us understand the text in question better and only really uses economics as ornamentation rather than an evaluative tool.

So, trying to focus on medieval economic thought, I've looked primarily at Aristotelian Scholasticism, how Aristotle's discussion of economics was understood and applied. Well, at least what he was interpreted as saying about economics. 

I won't wax on poetically about Aristotle as I've already had a blog post about the Ethics, but I'll quickly recap a few things here. First, the Nichomachean Ethics is where most of what Aristotle has to say on economics is located, primarily under the sections on the Golden Mean and Justice. For the former, the Golden Mean's geometrical concept of the best approach is that which is "equidistant from scarcity and excess" was interpreted in diatribes against avarice, that both having too little and having too much could leave to sinful behavior. The geometrical aspect of this is interesting to me, but I'll get to that later. 

For the section on Justice, the issue at hand is determining what is and is not a just exchange, better enabling judges to rule properly on disputes. Here, the Ethics suggest that there is a nearly platonic determination of fair market value, that the price of a commodity at market is relatively fixed and one nearly has to parse out where the actual value lies and then can make a proper judgement. The assumption of fixed fair market value, of course, ignores aspects such as need for the commodity, supply/demand, and even labor and transport costs. This, of course, runs against the geometrical aspect of the Golden Mean, in which the Ethics emphasize that the balance point of the Golden Mean should vary depending on the needs of the individual, scarcity/excess of food looking very different for a runner than a wrestler. It's worthwhile to note that potential inconsistencies such as the incongruent relationship between arithmetical and geometrical concepts could be due to the nature of how the Ethics were put together, namely a collection of student notes from some of Aristotle's students. I'd really hate to try and reconstruct my research based on what my students have to say about it; it'd probably be some mix of "The Boondocks is hilarious," "DTFW," and "blah blah Medieval blah blah economic blah blah Chaucer."

Still with me? Okay, a few more points before we cut this post off and move to the next one.

The only other thing we really have from Aristotle on economic matters is a discussion on money as a medium of exchange rather than a measure (again, somewhat incongruous with other parts of the section on Justice, but see above). What's interesting here is that the only value currency functionally has is the value we attribute it, and that ultimately its purpose is to facilitate exchange between commodities and trade goods that are otherwise difficult to equate. If one is a fisherman, for example, exactly how many fish does it take to buy a chair? How many loaves of bread to a head of cattle? The introduction of currency helps alleviate this issue by giving the  buyer and seller in exchange a medium to measure their own goods against and then more easily purchase goods from others accordingly.

What's strange looking over these points is how little there seems to be on the matter of economics from Aristotle, especially when he is the go to source and foundation for so much of what constitutes discussion of trade and exchange in the middle ages. For the next post I'll talk more about how his influence moves forward and how that impacts my own method for looking at economics in medieval literature.

Back in the saddle

It's been quite a while since my last post on this blog, which in large part is due to two main factors. The first factor is that I accomplished this blog's initial purpose: I passed my candidacy exams. It was rough and the oral portion definitely nerve wracking, but the important part is I passed. I must place a large part of the credit for my passing on this blog, which kept me honest in my progress and provided a good place for me to hash out ideas and connections. I've generally found that I'm the type of learner that best succeeds in an environment of discussion, which is part of why I miss not being in coursework any more. Posting my ideas here was a good way to simulate some of this process.

Unfortunately, the past year has found my productivity not meeting its previous levels, in large part due to the other main event that's happened in my life: on June 20 of last year, my wife gave birth to our daughter. The time since then has been crazy and wonderful, but I've also been the primary stay at home caregiver due to a more flexible schedule. That has been fantastic, but it also means that my previous work methodology of holing away in a room for hours on end doesn't quite work (and admittedly said method also involved more time staring at a screen/facebook/reddit trying to motivate myself than it should've). I've been slowly improving and finding ways to squeeze time and productivity out of areas I hadn't been exploiting, but I need to do more to stay on track.

In light of the above, I'm coming back to this blog as a way to keep my work output consistent, my thoughts down somewhere that I can consult from anywhere, and once again take on the completely fabricated idea that if I'm not posting enough I'm shaming myself in front of a faceless and judgmental readership. The last in particular almost sounds like academia in general, sans the facelessness.

In this light, I'm going back to handling this blog in a similar fashion to when I was doing exams, albeit with a more reasonable schedule. By the time I was actually able to start reading for my exams I was already at the point where I had to cover an average of more than one text per day. With some Middle English poems this was no big deal, but when we're talking academic monographs the challenge was pretty intense. My goal going to forward is to average around 5 entries per week, which seems enough to both be feasible and make me feel great when I can surpass it. This will include both posts reflecting on what I'm reading and general comments about where aspects of my research are going. In some ways this will be a bit easier with monographs as I'm less under pressure to read them cover to cover and can focus on what's relevant to my interests (unlike reading for my exams because OMG WHAT IF THEY ASK ME ABOUT THAT THING IN ONE FOOTNOTE). Before launching into this, I should briefly describe where my project  is going now for better context of what's coming.

My thesis focused predominantly on sexual commodification and Aristotelian economics in Chaucer's Wife of Bath's Prologue and the Lady Mede section of The Vision of Piers the Plowman. Since then, my research interests have become more refined and (I think) less obvious. I'm still employing Aristotelian economics, following from Joel Kaye's Economy and Nature in the Fourteenth Century, and am very much interested in how economic language and metaphor applies to gender issues. But my project has focused more specifically on how economic metaphor plays out in discussions and depictions of marriage in Middle English poetry. My thesis project, while rather obvious in retrospect, was starting to touch on this trend, a tendency for Middle English poets to employ economic language and metaphor when touching on matters of marriage. Clearly this is at work with the Wife of Bath, who blatantly discusses taking her "Bele Chose" to market, and Lady Mede, who is the allegorical personification of money (or at least the exchange of reward, usually monetary, in exchange for goods or service), but this same trend is at play in Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, Capgrave's Life of St. Katherine, Hoccleve's Regiment of Princes, Sir Amadace, King Horn, and Gower's Confessio Amantis to name a few. 

The latter in particular was the focus of the paper I gave at the John Gower Society Congress last week, a great conference with fantastic scholars and wonderful collegiality. My paper was sadly scheduled against a very popular panel with very big names (or perhaps luckily due to my nervousness), but it seemed to be well received and I got some good comments and questions about the paper. In fact, it is this conference that has pushed me to restart this blog and get to work; interacting with many excellent scholars made me realize where my own work could be, and it's past time I saw that happen.