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‘Lesyng of Tyme’: Perceptions of Idleness and Usury in Late Medieval England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Diana Wood
Diana Wood*
Affiliation:
Department for Continuing Education, University of Oxford
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Extract

      Then came Sloth, all be-slobbered, with two slimy eyes.
      ‘I must sit down to be shriven,’ quoth he, ‘or else I shall fall asleep.
      I can’t stand or prop myself up, or kneel without a hassock.
      If I were put to bed, no amount of bell-ringing would get me up
      until I was ready for dinner – well, not unless I had to relieve myself

This is Langland’s description of Sloth in Piers Plowman. Originally a monastic vice, meaning boredom with the cell, sloth, or accidia, came to be applied to spiritual duties generally. By the time Langland wrote, it had also come to mean physical laziness or idleness, that is ‘lesyng’ or misspending of time. This paper investigates some ideas about idleness and its consequences as they emerge from the spiritual and didactic literature of late medieval England. They are linked with ideas about the most detested idlers, the usurers, the money-lenders. Usurers violated time in a double sense, for not only did they misspend it, but they also made a profit from selling it. Equally vilified as idle were the clergy. The poet John Gower sourly observed that ‘Slouthe kepeth the librarie’ of the corrupt English clergy. They will feature here only incidentally, although it is perhaps worth pointing out that some ecclesiastics profited from lending money. In the late thirteenth century a council held at Exeter had to decree the suspension from both office and benefice of usurious clergy. In the mid-fourteenth century no less a person than Archbishop Melton of York profited from lending money.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 37: The Use and Abuse of Time in Christian History , 2002 , pp. 107 - 116
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2002

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References

1 Langland, William, The Vision of William Concerning Piers the Plowman, ed. Skeat, Walter W., 2 vols, new edn (Oxford, 1969)Google Scholar, C viii, 11.1-5 (1: 167). This and all future quotations have been modernized.

2 Ibid., B ix, I.98 (p. 272); Wenzel, Siegfried, The Sin of Sloth: ‘Acedia’ in Medieval Thought and Literature (Chapel Hill, NC, 1967 Google Scholar), esp. chs 3 and 4.

3 Gower, John, Confessio Amantis, in The English Works of John Gower, ed. Macaulay, G. C., 2 Google Scholar vols, EETS, e.s. 81–2 (1900-1), prologue, 1.321 (1: 13).

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19 C.14 q.3 C.3: CIC, 1, col. 735. For discussion see McLaughlin, T. P., ‘The teaching of the canonists on usury’, Mediaeval Studies, 1 (1939), pp. 81–147, at P. 95 Google Scholar.

20 Gower, Confessio amantis, bk 5, 11. 4408–9 (2: 67).

21 Thomas, of Chobham, , Summa confessorum, ed. Broomfield, F., Analecta mediaevalia Namurcensia, 25 (Louvain and Paris, 1968), p. 504 Google Scholar (q. 11, art. 7, dist. 6, c.4).

22 Ibid., p. 347 (q. 6a, art. 7, c.2).

23 Ibid., pp. 297, 296, respectively (q. 5a, art. 6, dist. 4).

24 Bromyard, Summa, U c.12 §8 (2, fol. 468ra).

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31 Bromyard, Summa, U c.12 §8 (2, fol. 468ra).

32 Piers Plouman, C vii, I.247 (1, p. 151).

33 On the Seven Deadly Sins, p. 154. (ch, 24).

34 The best discussions of the theory of usury are Bras, G. Le, ‘La Doctrine ecclésiastique de l’usure à l’époque classique (viie-xve siècle)’, Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, 15/ii (Paris, 1950), cols 2336–72; and Noonan, John T., The Scholastic Analysis of Usury (Cambridge, MA, 1957 Google Scholar). On what became known as ‘extrinsic titles’ to interest see cols 2336–72 and pp. 100–32, respectively, and for the attitude of the canonists, T. P. McLaughlin, The teaching of the canonists on usury’, Mediaeval Studies, 1 (1939), pp. 81–147; 2 (1940), PP. 1–22, esp. 1, pp. 125–47.

35 Wenzel, Fasciculus morum, p. 352, I.2 (IV, vii).

36 This was implied by William of Auxerre (1160-1229) who placed his discussion of usury under the heading of credit sales, and was taken up by Giles of Lessines (d. 1308) in his De usuris, the first specifically economic treatise: see Langholm, Odd, Economics in the Medieval Schools. Wealth, Exchange, Money ana Usury according to the Paris Theological Tradition, 1200–1350 (Leiden, New York, and Cologne, 1992), pp. 311–12, 314–15, 388–9 Google Scholar.

37 X 5.19.19: CIC, 2, col. 816.

38 Wenzel, Fasciculus morum, pp. 350–1, 11.78-83 (IV, vii).

39 Ibid., II.83-7.

40 Dives and Pauper, ed. Priscilla Heath Barnum, 2 vols, EETS, o.s. 275, 280 (1976-80), 2: 196 II.32-5 (commandment vii, ch. 24).

41 Ibid., 2: 200 11.62-5 (ch. 25).

42 Richard of Middleton, Super quatuor libros Sententiarum, 2 vols (Brescia, 1591), 2: 224b (bk 4, dist. XIV, art. 5, q. 6): ‘lucrum enim de pecunia proveniens non est fructus eius, sed humanae industriae et laboris: et quia homo dominus est sui laboris et industriae, lucrum quod iusta mercatione acquisivit de pecunia extorta per usuram non tenetur restituere.’

43 Scotus, John Duns, In librum quartum Sententiarum, in his Opera omnia, 24 vols (Paris, 1801–5, repr. Farnborough, 1969 Google Scholar), 18: 293a (IV, dist xv, q. 2): ‘Pecunia non habet ex natura sua aliquem fructum, sicut habent aliqua alia ex se germinantia, sed tantum provenit aliquis fructus ex industria alterius, scilicet utentis …. ergo ille volens recipere fructum de pecunia, vult habere fructum de industria aliena.’

44 John Duns Scotus, In librum quartum Sententiarum, in his Opera omnia, 18: 333a. Cf. Langholm, Economics in the Medieval Schools, pp. 417–18.

45 John Duns Scotus, Reportata Parisiensia, in his Opera omnia, 24: 239b (IV, dist. xv, § 22).

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47 See above, p. 108.