Hoarding is a practice akin to accumulating behaviours. In the world of legend and epic, it is often considered to be a feature of monsters and dragonsâsuch as Fafnir in the Nibelungenlied âliving an isolated and marginal life. In the Old English epic poem Beowulf , good leaders are regarded as those who distribute their wealth freely, while the dragon, the great opponent of Beowulf, amasses treasures for self-gratification. The allusion is obvious: hoarding is associated with greed, while wealth accumulation denotes loneliness and social contempt, as in the dragonâs case. 1 Although both Beowulf and the dragon collect riches, the first distributes a part of them, while the latter jealously holds on to everything. In certain ethnographic contexts, chiefs may have been subject to the obligation to redistribute part of their takings, suggesting that the degree of appropriation is not left unfettered by community. 2 It seems that the appropriation of vast wealth by âdragons,â this supreme expression of greed, opposes community interests and welfare. 3
Individuals in the past, according to the political and socio-economic context and their status, employed whichever method was handy at a given time to channel their surplus, whether this was storing it in the walls of their houses or storerooms, depositing it in financial institutions, lending at interest or financing entrepreneurial activities, and so on. In the urban centres of the late antique Mediterranean, people were aware of what we characterize as âproductive investmentâ or ârational use of financial resources.â Yet their choices were not always ârationalâ from a modern economics point of view, a fact that stresses the need to define what we really mean by using terms like these within an ancient or a medieval context. Some of the alternatives, having their own logic and aiming at social equity and cohesion rather than economic growth, were promoted by the Fathers of the Church.
This book is intended to provide an overview of Greek patristic responses to the problem of management of surplus income and savings in urban economic environments, where poverty, persistent inequality and disparity in the distribution of wealth were endemic. In this respect, we examine the work of Church Fathers who were active in the urban centres of the Eastern Mediterranean (e.g., Alexandria, Pelusium, Antioch, Constantinople) and whose literary output was in Greek. How did, for instance, Clement of Alexandria, John Chrysostom and Isidore of Pelusium face âhoarding dragonsâ within their societies? How did their views evolve through time, as the setting gradually became âByzantineâ? Are their positions just ethico-religious discourse or do they reflect the impact of contemporary socio-economic phenomena, such as the economic crisis of the third century or the economic expansion and social change from the fourth century onwards?
This critical investigation of patristic views, through the interrelated yet distinct lenses of history of ideas, economic history and history of economic thought, is mainly centred on income acquisition, maintenance of financial resources and their proper use. Thus, we attempt to determine the literal and, where appropriate, the metaphorical meaning of hoarding and saving in patristic thinking, as well as to bring to the existing literature an exploration of these concepts as specific practices embedded in their social and economic contexts. This effort allows for an in-depth evaluation of the respective contributions of Church Fathers to aspects of the economic problem per se (e.g., division of labour and work ethic, parsimonious behaviour, self-centred vs. other-centred economic attitudes, and so on).
For the better understanding and easiest contextualization of patristic views, our survey begins with the related ideas of New Testament authors. As for its end, we chose the late fifth century for several reasons: from a patristic point of view, the respective ideas present a relative cohesion until the fifth century, focusing mainly on the social impact of hoarding and saving conducted in urban milieus. It is notable that hagiography, from the fifth century onwards, presents new or alternative perceptions of these economic practices. The surplus material wealth, often stored miraculously in monasteries, is depicted in a positive way, in sharp contrast to the perception of hoarded wealth by the fourth- and many of the fifth-century Fathers. 4 From a fiscal and monetary point of view, the bronze currency reform in 498 by Anastasius I (491â518) facilitated everyday transactions and inaugurated a series of fiscal measures for the restoration of revenues and prosperity; as a result, his reign poses a turning point in this respect and a plausible limit. In any case, the following period, and particularly the reign of Justinian I (527â565), is such a watershed in Byzantine history that a partial examination could not have done justice to all important facets related to it.
The examination of hoarding and saving, as well as their interrelation and differences, has long been under scrutiny in various scientific fields. The respective approaches cannot be fully taken into consideration in this study, yet a glance at recent bibliography reveals their multiplicity. From an economic psychology perspective, hoarding is viewed as the corollary of corrupt patterns of consumption stemming from certain individual psychological aberrations. Hoarding behaviours are frequently analysed as implying an outright attachment to material possessions that reflects strong compulsive dispositions, 5 being highly harmful to psychic health and overall psychological well-being. 6 The disruptive effects of hoarding attitudes are significantly reinforced in the absence of deeper and genuine relationships with others, 7 and denote identity substitutes that suffocate experiences of sharing, 8 while entailing personality disorders subject to proper medical treatment. 9 In this respect, hoarding impulses are entrenched in abnormal psychological states inimical to healthy behaviours.
Furthermore, economic psychology conceptualizes hoarding as an avoidance behaviour linked with indecisiveness. The hoarder cannot make the required decision to throw something away and cope with emotional reactions that accompany parting with cherished possessions, because of an increased perception of control. Hoarding is defined as a multi-faceted problem stemming from information processing deficits, problems in forming emotional attachments, behavioural avoidance and erroneous beliefs concerning the nature of possessions. 10 Despite the fact that hoarders elaborate various rationales to justify their accumulation habits, attachment to possessions implies a stronger belief that items are integral to emotional well-being. 11 Reluctance to dispose of material possessions provides a sense of security to the owner, yet hoarding as the acquisition of a significant amount of possessions is related to substantial health impairment. 12
From an economic history point of view, hoarding has been conceptualized as a highly controversial, if not socially detrimental, process. Matthew J. M. Coomber, for instance, argues that long-held traditions and societal patterns, which underlay outdated economic strategies in eighth-century Judah, were challenged in an environment of rapid economic development. As a result, agrarian societies experienced an abandonment of subsistence practices, land consolidation and the ensuing hoarding of riches among the elites. 13 Exploring an entirely different environment and drawing on early Islamic sources, Ahmad Asad Ibrahim et al. investigate a variety of concepts of hoarding and focus on the challenge that such an economic practice poses the need for greater circulation of accumulated wealth. 14 Hoarding was highly suspected in the Islamic texts. The early Islamic legal schools introduced certain constraints on hoarding activities by commanding the hoarder to sell his commodities at a specified price. 15
Negative attitudes toward hoarding were not infrequent in medieval and early modern Europe. Surplus from hoarding practices had to be directed to markets to mitigate shortages in commoditiesâ supply. Buchanan Sharp demonstrated that Edward IIâs (1307â1327) response to the famine of 1315â1317 in England consisted in regulatory measures that involved not only prohibitions imposed on the export of grain dictated by high prices, but also efforts to persuade or even compel those hoarding grain to sell surplus that exceeded the level of self-sufficiency. 16 In a similar vein of reasoning, Randall Nielsen examined early modern English policies for the relief of grain dearth, such as the forced delivery of private stocks, as an effective response to speculative hoarding. 17 Beyond hoarding of commodities, monetary hoarding and luxury spending were two alternative responses to an abrupt augmentation of assets, which affected the circular flow of wealth in mid-fourteenth-century England. 1...