ABSTRACT
Economists have a unique way of viewing the world, much of which can be taught in one or two semesters. Martin Luther comments on economic matters unfolded around the taking of interest and greed as a general economic predisposition. Luther also drew a very clear connection between hoarding and underconsumption, thus introducing a profoundly economic component into a model that prima facie looked like a fundamental theological reinterpretation. This economic model was linked to old discourses on hoarding and dis-saving that had been known in European theology since the early Middle Ages. A time-honoured interpretation in the history of ideas, developed in several articles by Quentin Skinner on the history of political theory, has it that no idea ever stays the same over time, and hardly ever is the same across space. The boom in Central German–Tyrolean silver production between the 1470s and 1490s was reflected in a fall in the silver price level.
