The Vatican and An Economic Model of the Medieval Church

Today on our final day in Italy, we finally explored Vatican City and all the million sights it offers us. When we first arrived at the Vatican museum we were completely lost and had no idea where to go. We ended up just starting to generally follow the crowds and found our way into exhibits of ancient hieroglyphs, mummies, statues, rugs, maps, artwork, and more statues. There were more artifacts there than I could even imagine or comprehend how so many different parts of history were represented in the museum.

This entire quest of exhibits we walked through were entirely based on us following the signs to find the Sistine Chapel, and finally after hours of walking (not an exaggeration) we finally found it! The chapel was truly something different and there were so many rules when you enter such as no talking and no use of phones. The moment we walk in there are roughly five security guards all watching and yelling at people on their phones. Then I was astonished when we walked in a little further that there are hundreds of people crammed into this chapel. It truly showed the significance of this chapel and our lost journey was a success. Also shhh, I snuck a quick photo in the chapel.

We capped off our journey with finding the exit (harder than you might think) and then making our way over to St. Peter's Basilica and the square out in front of it. The church was absolutely massive and the square was full of tourists and really quite the site. (also a picture featuring Jake and Mitch)

Now a question you have to ask when looking at all the priceless artifacts that are present in this area and the massive amounts of wealth on display is, how did they come into so much money? The answer to this question was discussed in our article reading and earlier in the day during our discussions. Our article looked at the medieval church sole as an economic organizations instead of as a religious church, although that did factor into the discussion. Essentially, when looking at the church as an economic organization, it is truly a monopoly over the "soul" industry. An industry in which the religion is basically forced upon everyone, and all these followers must following the strict commands of the church in order to reach salvation. With such an importance and belief, the church designed ways in which each level of the hierarchy would pass money along to the next until it finally came to the top level, the Vatican. This explains why so many priceless artifacts are found here and why the city is grand. The plan and goal of the highest in power of the church were able to succeed in charging every monetary and religious organization to be a part of the only real church, mainly through lump-sum taxes, and created the lavish city that is Vatican City.

Fiscus and Patrimonium

During our travel day to Amalfi, our class had the chance to stop by a local sheep farm, as well as an ancient Roman land where transhumance and grazing was a common economic and agricultural practice.

As Connor and I learned in our article Ficus and Patrimonium, the practice of transhumance in early Rome was a very unknown but important part of the economy at the time. The main reasons as why this practice has gone relatively unnoticed throughout history has to do with the illiterate type of workers and smaller areas where this went on in the Empire, making it near impossible to transcribe this practice.

As we visited these ancient places, it was very interesting to see not only the areas where these people had to bring sheep to and from, but the very mountainous and rigid topography that the area provided them. I felt that this must have had a lot to do with some of the laws and regulations set in place for these workers. Some of these requirements i'd like to point out are how there were many checkpoints in different villages where grazers were forced to pay their way through the towns or else they weren't allowed to pass with their animals. This in my mind was able to happen largely due to the fact that the mountains forced them through one area, as it probably would've been too risky to take their livestock up through these dangerous hills and cliffs, and it could have been more profitable to just pay the tax a specific area might require. Another point I found interesting in this article is that people at the time did not fully understand who was forcing this workers to pay for the practice of transhumance, whether it was the empire itself, or a mixture of smaller local areas as well as the larger government of Rome. Again, I see this going back to the difficulty of transcription on how all of these practices were working at this time, and some of the information that may have been lost in history.

Taking a step back and looking at the bigger picture of this article, I find it fascinating how factors like illiteracy can prevent major historical economic practices to be somewhat lost in time, as well as how other factors like geographical location can have a large impact on how these economic activities are practiced, and what types of regulations and barriers are put as a burden for these workers.

Slow Food

Initially, the slow food movement started as a sort of counter culture movement to fast food in a globalized world. Slow food is described as ‘good, clean, and fair food’. Think organic and locally sourced food. But it expands a little past that with an emphasis on local culture. Similar to this movement is the wine culture in Italy (vineyards vs industrial wine sector). The heart of this movement stems from a desire for good tasting food and an appreciation for the culture behind the food. One of the factors that helped the spread of slow food was the desire for many budding gourmands and individuals to get in touch with their cultural heritage. In Italy where the production of these goods existed in their backyard, the movement was able to spread through schools and wine tastings. One of the first slow food restaurants to open was the Osteria del Boccondivino – which would later grow into the headquarters for the revolution. Some of the core values promoted by the movement were region, tradition, simplicity, hospitality and reasonable prices. 

We visited a slow food market that embodied the spirit of the movement – the food wasn’t too complex, but the identity was clear and there was a clear love for the food by the staff. It’s a grassroots movement that’s been kept alive largely from some of the less privileged members of society like farmers. The movement has been criticized by both left-wing and conservative parties – some calling it hedonistic and (according to the article) the social elite didn’t like it because it would break down their monopoly on gastronomic practice and social status. This aspect is a repeated social phenomenon because middle and lower classes attempt to imitate upper class – I like this example because in the case of slow food, Italians have been able to create affordable alternatives to many food hobbies originally only available to social elites.

Internationally, slow food started to expand in the late 90’s thanks to the intrinsic competition between French and Italian cuisine. Universities and slow food fairs began to spread the movement even further. Slow food has a small sponsorship movement but that's where the movement gets complicated. Sponsorship is difficult in the slow food movement because of the desire to keep the ‘soul’ of the movement intact. There’s a concern that slow food becomes a buzz word like organic or sustainable. As a result, businesses can’t advertise the logo. Businesses that do follow the requirements to be a part of the movement can sponsor single events or recurring advertisements in slow food approved magazines. Wine and cheese producers are given a bit of leeway in sponsorship and have grown to be some of the largest sponsors after 30 years of practice.

The slow food organization no longer directly trades foodstuffs between producers and restaurants because of the required connection with private entrepreneurs. Additionally, sales within a non-profit organization can undermine the integrity of the organization (concern for profit margins etc.)

Largely, the slow food movement has came to be in regions where industrialization has brought prosperity and economic decline – inspiring young individuals to find alternative, affordable food production models. This has created a culture that loves food and challenges global trends of fast food.

Some photos of the market and the festival of St Anthony celebrated in Fontecchio

Tribes Chiefs and Transhumance

Today was our last morning in Fontecchio and we are now on our way to Amalfi. We stopped at a sheep farm in the mountains where we learned a little bit about what it takes to operate a sheep farm. This allowed us to compare how animal farming has changed throughout the years when we compare it to what we learned yesterday. Here is a picture of some of the sheep we saw.

We stopped yesterday at two churches and hiked up to a castle where we had an incredible view of the valley. Alessio told us about transhumance and how the little villages were all set up along the transhumance path. We learned about how this path affected the Abruzzo region and how villages were able to collect taxes from the shepherds that came through. Below is a picture from the castle.

The article I read today was called Tribes Chiefs and Transhumance. It discussed how transhumance works in different societies, tribes with chiefs, tribes without and areas without tribes or chiefs. The article specifically looked at examples from arid and semi-arid regions and one of the main points made was that areas where there is high risk, especially related to weather conditions, tend to have chiefs to help reduce uncertainty.

Markets for Land, Labor, and Capital

The first thing we did on 1/25/20 was go to see an archeological excavation site underneath someone’s house in Orvieto. We stepped inside and saw the ancient Etruscan caves, which date back to about 450 BC, and most of them in this site were used as garbage disposal areas. The holes were absolutely huge. After walking around a bit there we went into another room that had all of the artifacts that they had found in that site. Most of it was pottery, but there were also several animal bones.

Later that day we went on a tour of the more expansive part of the Etruscan cave system. We went in two separate caves, which were all man-made by the Etruscans, and there is evidence of them being used by people up until the mid-19th century. The first cave had a machine and different rocks that were used for crushing olives and making olive oil, while the second cave was mostly used for housing pigeons, which were a main source of food for the people of that time. It is evident that the Etruscans were very innovative people, as they found ways to avoid the toxic air that is present deep underground, which I thought was super intriguing.

Olive crushing machine in one of the caves

Our article is titled “Markets for Land, Labor, and Capital” and it was basically an economic history of those three things during the Middle Ages in North-central Italy and in the Low Countries. There have been land exchanges as early as the 8th century. Civil courts became important in regulating land transactions and keeping them all in a register. Leasing became a big part of the land market, as did sharecropping in some areas. Credit markets in the Low Countries and Italy became prominent before other regions in Europe. Some places in Europe sold land in exchange for labor. The wealthy people in both regions held the majority of the wealth, which I thought was interesting because for the most part it is still the same now.

Rural farmland outside of Orvieto

The role of Arabs in the introduction of paper into Europe

On this day in Amalfi we explored many interesting things, the first place we went was a paper mill where we learned how paper used to be made in Amalfi before the "high-tech" era of paper making.  It was very interesting to see how they took cloths and crushed them into little pieces, bleached them, soaked them, and finally combined them together to create a sheet of paper.  This relates to what our article was primarily based around, the introduction of paper into Europe.

Throughout history there has been many many different ways that things have been recorded, from clay tablets created by the Sumerians in southern Mesopotamia.  To paintings and carvings into rocks that can be found all over the world.  China invented what we see as real paper today, they would use plant fibers, rags, tree bark, or fish nets to do it. 

So how did this spread to Europe?  There are many different hypothesis about how it made its way to Europe, a lot of people believe that it arrived somewhere around 710 A.D. through trade routes but the main hypothesis in the article has a much more interesting story.  Chinese and Arabs had arguments over land and had a battle called, "Atlakh near Talas" where in 751 A.D. Arab soldiers captured Chinese soldiers making them POW's (Prisoner of War).  The POW's happened to be paper makers and were forced to teach the Arabs the way.  From here they gained a monopoly on the paper making art and began trading with northern Africa and Spain then eventually the craft traveled all over Europe.

Pretty soon the production of paper was all over the middle east, and all over Europe.  My favorite quote from the text was that, "The question "Where was paper made?" was not as good of a question as "Where was paper not made?""

Economy and society of Pompeii

Visiting Pompeii was an amazing experience. We had the opportunity to take a guided tour and learn about all about the ancient city’s history and economy. (I was surprised by some of the aspects the town had before the Mt. Vesuvius eruption – for instance, they had their own version of fast food!) Our visit to Pompeii related to an article we read about the city’s economy and one of its main industries: agriculture.

The geography and landscape of Pompeii was important for this. Aside from its most major feature, Mt. Vesuvius, there were tree groves in the north and gardening plots in the south. Another area there is a large plain called Strabo, and the fertile soils there allowed them to produce grains and cereal products to sufficiently feed its own population (between 8,000 and 12,000 people).

There are a large number of villas in Pompeii, and they produced a lot of wine in the area. However, the wine they grew there wasn’t of a high quality, and they ended up importing wine from Sorrento as an alternative. Trade in Pompeii was important – it’s estimated that their economic territory was about twice as much as their political territory.

However, there are still new things being discovered (and disputed) about Pompeii. One topic that was up to debate in the article we read was the true number of villas in the ancient city. In some cases, alleged villa sites weren’t really villas. Some that were listed as such weren’t luxurious like typical villas during the time, and others were too badly damaged to tell. However, surveys are still being done in the area and more information will come to light.

Visiting Pompeii was a great experience, and I’m looking forward to our next stops on the trip: Orvieto and Rome!