THE PROGRESSIVE MEDIEVAL ATTITUDE TOWARD POVERTY

Marcia L. Colish, Medieval Foundations of the Western Intellectual Tradition, 400-1400 (The Yale Intellectual History of the West) (New Haven & London: Yale U. Press, 1997) ("Theorists on poor law considered what attitude should be taken toward poverty and poor people and how the poor should be treated. A striking feature of medieval views of poverty is that, despite the positive revaluation of work found . . . in Benedictine monasticism, the work ethic did not entail the glorification of wealth or the idea that poverty is a sign of vice. Work, to be sure, was praised by monastic writers as a source of moral discipline, breeding humility in the individual and community spirit. A means of supporting the abbey and of serving its extramural neighbors with its surplus, work was also seen as an offering to God and a form of prayer. At the same time, throughout the Middle Ages, theologians and canonists agreed with monastic writers that poverty can have a positive moral value. What determines whether it has this value is whether poverty is embraced voluntarily. Voluntary poverty was one of the central vows taken by monks and nuns and the friars gave it still more emphasis as an aspect of the imitation of Christ. All agreed that the value of voluntary poverty is that it frees those embracing it from worldly cares, the better to serve God and neighbors. On the other hand, when poverty is involuntary, either because one is born into that state or because of economic reverses, poverty is neither a virtue not a vice but a misfortune. All medieval thinkers concurred that it is wrong to punish an involuntary poor person on either count. The appropriate moral response is to help the poor, making special provisions for them not extended to others." Id. at 326-327.).