Your Money or Your Life: Economy and Religion in the Middle Ages

by Jacques Le Goff, Patricia Ranum (Translator)

Overview

In this book, one of the most esteemed contemporary historians of the Middle Ages presents a concise examination of the problem that usury posed for the medieval Church, which had long denounced the lending of money for interest. Jacques Le Goff describes how, as the structure of economic life inevitably began to include financial loans, the Church refashioned its ideology in order to condemn the usurer not to hell but merely to purgatory. Le Goff is in the forefront of a history that studies “the deeply rooted and the slowly changing.” As one keenly aware of the inertia of older societies, he is all the more able to delineate for us the disruptive forces of change.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780942299151
Publisher:	Zone Books
Publication date:	11/04/1990
Series:	Zone Books
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	120
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

acques Le Goff is director of the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Science Sociales, Paris, and codirector of the Annales - Economies, Sociétés, Civilisations. He is the author of The Birth of Purgatory and Time, Work, and Culture.

What People are Saying About This

The New York Times Book Review - Eric Gelman

...lucid and surprisingly engaging.

Endorsement

...lucid and surprisingly engaging.—Eric Gelman, The New York Times Book Review

From the Publisher

"...lucid and surprisingly engaging." Eric Gelman , The New York Times Book Review

Editorial Reviews

"Le Goff’s provocative essay … is much more than an explanation of Church views on usury; it aims at dissecting the nature of economic thought in an age that condemned a crucial [economic] function as immoral and unnatural. The exposition is evocative and fun to read…. It offers a guide to understanding how economics and social values interacted."

Journal of Economic History

Le Goff's provocative essay […] is much more than an explanation of Church views on usury; it aims at dissecting the nature of economic thought in an age that condemned a crucial [economic] function as immoral and unnatural. The exposition is evocative and fun to read…. It offers a guide to understanding how economics and social values interacted.

—Journal of Economic History

From the Publisher

Le Goff's provocative essay […] is much more than an explanation of Church views on usury; it aims at dissecting the nature of economic thought in an age that condemned a crucial [economic] function as immoral and unnatural. The exposition is evocative and fun to read…. It offers a guide to understanding how economics and social values interacted.

—Journal of Economic History

Reviews