Introduction to the Medieval and Renaissance Period

This “Introduction” situates the chapters in the fourth part of Palgrave Handbook of Philosophy and Money on the Medieval and Renaissance period. It contains twelve contributions on the broad subject of “Philosophy and Money,” covering writings from Islamic, Jewish, and Christian intellectual cultures, dating from the early centuries of the Common Era to the sixteenth century. While each chapter centers on a specific religious and intellectual tradition, taken as a whole they reveal that major and highly meaningful developments occurred over this time-period with regard to the intellectual understanding of money’s role and place in their respective societies. These shifts in perception and thought, with their grounding in highly sophisticated observations and reasoning, often come as a surprise to those who associate the medieval period in general, and medieval intellectual culture in particular, with an unquestioning conservatism and resistance to change. Since this misapprehension seems to carry particular weight in the area of economic life (particularly with respect to the continued condemnation and prohibition of usury over the centuries), a close reading of the chapters that follow might well modify negative preconceptions. Contrary to its popular reputation as a period of unquestioning conservatism and dogmatic resistance to change, when it comes both to money and philosophy, the medieval and Renaissance period contains incisive and original developments in monetary practice and theory which in many cases foreshadow and in some cases overshadow their modern descendants.