Medieval Thought

POVERTY WAS NO DISGRACE during the Middle Ages. Throughout the writings of John Chrysostom, Basil, Jerome, and Augustine of Hippo is a disdain for wealth with a view that man best pleases the Almighty by repudiating material possessions.

Christians had an obligation to help the poor. In Jesus Christ's own words from the Gospels, the faithful knew that “inasmuch as you have done it to the least of my brethren, you have done it to me.” Thus, during the early Middle Ages, the church administered a tithe on Europe's total annual production to help the poor. Many church leaders felt God had made the poor to give people the opportunity to gain merit through charity, so they were unselective in whom they assisted.

Poverty was an affliction but was viewed as a source of virtue, a form of earthly humiliation that rendered man more dependent on God, giving the faithful opportunities to earn God's approval through obedience to the Gospel admonitions to serve the poor. St. Eligius stated: “God could have made all men rich, but He wanted there to be poor people in His world, that the rich might be able to redeem their sins.”

St. Bernard of Clairvaux argued: “It is one thing to fill the belly of the hungry, and another to have a zeal for poverty. The one is the service of nature and the other the service of grace.”

The church embraced its role to protect widows, orphans, the blind, the lame and maimed, and those disabled by disease. The poor, viewed in the image of the suffering Christ, had a right to material assistance. In his writings, Jacques de Vitry seemed more concerned about dishonest alms collectors than about the possibility of unworthy or lazy paupers.

The Franciscan movement flourished in this environment, with friars in lepers’ rags preaching that being poor was a wonderful thing, since the poor were so much closer to God than the rich, and that Lady Poverty should be pursued like a lover. But, beggar friars were humbly taking on the role of beggars without any real possibility that they would actually starve. Furthermore, by wandering around taking odd jobs in exchange for a beggar's crust of bread, the Franciscans took jobs beggars might have been able to do, and devoured the crusts that the beggars actually needed.

As populations grew in the 11th to 13th centuries, so too did the number of the poor. During the 1100s, as the number of poor boomed, the church was no longer as capable to help those in need.

By about 1200, many concerned clerics and laity were calling on the church to give up all of its wealth to aid the paupers —a short-term solution at best. Their obligation to care for the poor and the impossibility of doing so were a serious problem, since scripture, particularly Jesus’ words in the 25th chapter of the Gospel according to Matthew, emphasized that charity was essential for obedience.

Attitudes shifted as the Vatican issued the Glossa Ordinaria to the Decretum, which among a great many other things stated that the church should not give aid [Page 704]to able-bodied but idle beggars, “for strong men, sure of their food without work, often do neglect justice.” The bishop of Ravenna differentiated between those who publicly accepted alms and those who had to be sought out at home to be helped. The neighborhood poor emerged as a distinct and separate group worthy of charity. The writings of Thomas Aquinas sound a similar note. Assistance to the poor became increasingly discriminate.

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