ABSTRACT
The clergy’s position on trade was hardly unequivocal. The theological and moralizing texts often mention greed as a threat to the spiritual welfare of traders; negative images of trade dominate these texts. Not so in hagiographical texts, however, where trade transactions, markets and merchants are described without even a hint of disapproval. Exceptions are slave trade and the trading in grain at extortionate prices in times of famine. These are consistently condemned.
The ecclesiastical writers emphasize the religious function of episcopal cities in their city descriptions. Market towns are praised for their economic function. Cities are praised for their religious prestige, alongside economic prosperity, demonstrating that religion and commerce were often compatible in narrative sources – and thus through the eyes of their authors. Conversely, several descriptions depict cities as loci of robbery and molestation.
The fact that the majority of reports about trade and trade settlements in the narrative sources suggest that trade and the world of agriculture were intertwined, dovetails with recent research findings regarding the factual interaction between both sectors: the resolute production of agricultural surplus for the market, the significance of local markets, not just for the peasantry but also the aristocracy, who sold agricultural produce in exchange for coinage, used to purchase luxury goods.
The flourishing of trade and the growth of the urban population led to the self-organization of merchants and urban dwellers, which in turn might lead to heated clashes with local rulers, as for example in Cambrai. The Church strongly condemned urban self-organization, with all the incumbent negative stereotyping. However, members of these organizations, such as the merchants of Tiel, presumably entertained a positive view of their own group. The clerical writers did not, for that matter, reject trade, but instead took exception to new legal customs, cultural patterns and political forms of organization.
