Three things no. 2
Oct 05, 2024
As I’m grading a “letter home” writing assignment1 for my “The Way of Francis & Clare” course, I’m thinking about the apparent contradiction between Francis & his brothers’ refusal to handle money or coin of any kind & their practice of begging to meet their basic needs. Many students ask in their letters: if Francis prohibits his companions from handling money, why does he allow them to beg for alms? One of the reasons for begging Francis himself provides: it is an act of solidarity with the poor. But it can also be explained with reference to the injustice of the monetary system in medieval Italy.2 When Francis tells his brothers that they should regard coin as having “no more value than the dust at their feet,” he is not so much prohibiting handling money as he is prohibiting them from participating in the monetary system: that is, trading their labor for wages. If the friars come by some coin outside of the monetary system—by begging alongside the poor of the contado—then there’s no problem, as Francis’s primary object is to protest the injustice of the economic system in his day. Indeed, according to Francis begging is preferable to working for wages since begging reminds the wealthy that the money in their possession is not really theirs but is instead (as he puts it) “a legacy owed to the poor.”
Last night I saw Joker: Folie à Deux in theaters. Not good.
But I also got to see the trailer for Robert Egger’s Nosferatu. Very good. I can’t wait.
From the assignment instructions: “You are a young university student in thirteenth-century Paris, & you have just heard a group of men preaching. They wear patched, threadbare robes of brown & gray with a simple cord tied around their waists; they walk about barefoot, even in the cold of winter. They call themselves fratres minores. These men preach in the city square about their way of life—how they spend their time day-to-day & why they do so. They speak frequently & fondly of a man named Francis, who first began to live this way & who continues to inspire them to this day. You find yourself so interested in this life & this man that you ask the fratres if they had anything you could read to learn more about them: they hand you a portion (chapters 1, 7–9, & 14) of their Early Rule. Write a letter to your family in which you describe these fratres minores & their way of life. Your family lives in a remote region of northern Europe, so they are utterly unfamiliar with Francis & his fratres—in order for them to understand you, you will have to provide relevant details & explanations in your letter.” ↩︎
In short: the nobility periodically devalued the coin used to pay wages & to purchase every day items & services (pecunia piccola), whereas the coin circulating among the nobility (pecunia grossa) was never subject to these devaluations. These devaluations ensured that the poor would remain poor while the rich would get richer. Michael Cusato treats this economic context & its connection to the early Franciscan movement in his recent & excellent Francis of Assisi: His Life, Vision & Companions. ↩︎