Religious Philosophy
of the Urban Elite

Unlike the aristocracy in the European countryside who based their feudal economy on ownership of their vast estates, the townspeople survived by working for money. The ability to make money was therefore essential to them.

THE HIERARCHY OF LABOUR

There were various levels of labour. At the top were the merchants. The wealthier members of this group were usually those whose trade went outside the city walls, even to other states (e.g. Antonio in Shakespeare's "Merchant of Venice").

Then there were the Master Craftsmen, men who were professionals in crafting things with their hands. These included such people as carpenters, goldsmiths, silversmiths, architects, etc. They manufactured goods and sold them for money.

The Master Craftsmen all belonged to guilds (trade unions) which insisted that only genuine craftsmen could join, and only a member of the guild could claim to be a Master Craftsman. The guild was therefore really a closed shop which maintained certain standards and ensured that the interests of the Master Craftsmen were protected.

Those who were desirous of becoming Master Craftsmen had a long journey ahead of them. First, they had to become apprentices and learn the trade. After that, their journey to becoming Master Craftsmen was on its way and so they became known as Journeymen. It would still take a long time, usually a minimum of about 7 years but often a whole lifetime. In the meantime they would receive wages from the Master Craftsman, their master.

Those who could not be apprenticed and were unable to trade became labourers. This entailed long hours of usually very hard manual work from dawn to dusk, with only sufficient time to eat and sleep before the following day's labour began. Their only day of rest was on a Sunday and on Church Holidays, because the Church forbade servile work on those days.

LONG HOURS OF WORK

Work generally was tough and demanded long hours of graft, whether the person was a Master Craftsman, a Journeyman, an apprentice or a labourer. The Master Craftsmen and the Merchants worked hard to ensure that they produced not only enough money for themselves and their families, but also to pay the wages of those who relied on them.

Since there was no such thing as any form of state welfare (beyond charity), people were forced to work long hours to ensure they had enough money to carry them over periods when their luck was out. If they were struck down with illness, then they earned no money.

If they had the misfortune to lose an arm or a leg, they'd be out of employment altogether. If they had insufficient money to carry them over such a catastrophe, they would become poverty-stricken and could only resort to begging.

Working hard therefore also meant working the longest possible hours in a day. There was room only to eat, and to sleep at night. It meant too that they were desirous of working as many days in the week as possible and would possibly have worked a seven day week had the Church not prohibited it.

THE CHURCH AS AN ECONOMIC ENEMY

The Catholic Church, however, was in a sense their major enemy because it seriously interfered with the manner in which they could earn money. In the first place, the Church forbade the lending of money for interest (usury).

That meant that any Christian who lent another person money could claim back only the capital lent. Often this meant that business opportunities were missed and, if the borrower had a misfortune and lost the money, the lender would suffer as well.

Because of this, the Jewish community became well established as money-lenders (e.g. Shylock in "The Merchant of Venice"). Because the Jews were exempt from Christian law, they were able to lend at interest and therefore were the only people willing to be money- lenders.

This often backfired on the Jews because they were forced to charge high rates of interest and became unpopular as a result. Persecution of the Jews was a common occurrence as a result.

Another problem was the fact that the Catholic Church was structured very much along aristocratic and feudal lines. Country life and a country economy was a very sedentary thing. There were many holidays during which the country folk celebrated the various seasons.

These celebrations were usually carried over into the Church calendar as "Holy Days of Obligation", days on which all people had to attend mass and rested from work.

This was a serious imposition on the lives of the bourgeoisie (the elite townspeople) whose livelihood depended on working as hard and as long as possible. In all, there were over 100 days per year which the Church declared to be "Holy Days of Obligation". Almost one third of the year was therefore spent resting. The bourgeoisie were understandably resentful of this.

ECONOMIC NEEDS OF AN URBAN RELIGION

The wealthier and most influential townspeople had succeeded during the Middle Ages of breaking free of feudal law and had come to govern themselves by means of municipal and commercial law. By the 16th century, these influential townspeople were desirous also of breaking free of economic restrictions which were detrimental to their business requirements.

A major problem, however, was that business ethics of the time were dictated by the Catholic Church, based on its feudal traditions.

The wealthier townspeople were therefore desirous of religious and economic reform that would allow the following:

• Would accept the idea that lending money and charging interest thereon was not only acceptable but also necessary.



• Would slash Church holidays to the minimum.



• Would accept the principle of thrift as a positive goal of society.



• Would outlaw aristocratic forms of dress and morality, and would impose strict norms on personal conduct.



• Would recognise that the wealthy man was indeed a man blessed by God. (The Church tended to preach that it was almost impossible for a wealthy person to enter heaven.)



• Would allow such a wealthy man to have increased control over the lives of his wife and children, and especially over his labourers so as to make them work harder.

An economic revolution was therefore happening in the towns, led by the wealthier and more influential of the townspeople (the bourgeoisie). Because the revolution was indissolubly tied to accepted practices of religion, these bourgeoisie inherently desired a religious reformer who would set them free from the economic restrictions of the Catholic Church.

Martin Luther's reformation did little for them because his appeal was to the princes and aristocracy of Germany. The bourgeoisie therefore required their own economic saviour. Such a person they found in John Calvin.

CALVINISM: THE FIRST CLASS WAR

What does one make of Calvinism? What was it about Calvin's doctrines which made them particularly palatable to the townspeople of Europe?

A careful examination of the doctrines of Calvinism makes it clear that this revolutionary sect appealed not to all the townspeople, but only to the upper echelons of those people, the bourgeoisie. Indeed, it was at heart the very first recorded class war in the history of Europe.

In the first place, the bourgeoisie had need to control every facet of town life, including leisure pursuits. They themselves based their social conduct on the principle of thrift and maximum utilization of time. The apprentices, journeymen and labourers, however, did not. Since the bourgeoisie believed that laziness was a sin, they therefore saw the principle of hard work to be essentially tied up with religion.

Linked to this were such things as amusements, dancing, styles of dress and jewellery. Not only were these connected with flippancy and debauchery, but they were essentially the modes of activity of both the aristocracy and the labourers. Hence the bourgeoisie were able to put a stress on a puritanical life-style as part of a religious belief.

The essence of Calvinism was predestination which was also the essence of bourgeois belief. They believed that wealth acquired through hard work was a blessing but they were caught up in the Catholic Church's innate condemnation of wealth as such: it is more difficult for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven than for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle.

There was for them nevertheless a clear distinction between the wealth of the aristocracy (which they believed was acquired through idleness) and the wealth of the bourgeoisie (acquired through long hours of hard work and thrift).

Calvin's concept of Predestination preaches essentially that wealth or poverty is not a pre-requisite for salvation because God has already predestined those who are to be saved. On the other hand, those who are predestined for salvation will reveal this by their way of life. The principles whereby one will know that one is predestined for salvation are therefore:

• success in business attained through hard work and thrift;



• non-ostentatious mode of living and dress;



• obedience to civil authorities, etc.

Essential to bourgeois sentiment, however, was the ability to control all this within the life of the city. Calvinism therefore taught that the State must always be submissive to the Church. Hence they drew up their paradigm of God, then Church, then State, and finally the people.

In this way the Church as representative of the philosophy of the bourgeoisie would be able to control every mode of social life through imposition of its norms on the people at large, especially the labourers working within the city-state environment.