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Why did they build expensive medieval churches?
Bryan Caplan asks (the rest of the post is interesting on other matters):
Seeing a bunch of French cathedrals makes me even more skeptical of the claim (made by Larry Iannaccone and others) that people weren't more religious in earlier centuries. If people weren't far more religious in the Middle Ages, why did they pour such a high fraction of their surplus wealth into century-long religious architectural projects? You could say "It was primarily rulers, not donors, who allocated the funds," but that just pushes the question back a step. Were rulers vastly more religious than the masses? That's hard to believe. Were rulers trying to impress the masses by building churches? Well, why would churches impress the masses unless they were highly religious?
His answer:
Religious architecture and art were to medieval feudalism what advertising and commercialism are to modern capitalism: A rather effective way to build support for the status quo using aesthetics instead of argument. My claim, in short, is that Notre Dame played the same role during the Middle Ages that fashion magazines play today. Notre Dame was not an argument for feudalism, and Elle is not an argument for capitalism. But both are powerful ways to make regular people buy into the system.
I would add that churches were a form of fiscal policy and the associated spending was a way to hand out goodies to political allies. (This is especially important if the finished project takes decades or centuries to materialize.) In a time of political decentralization it wasn't easy to construct or maintain a long distance road. So you had to put a lot of expense in one easy-to-guard place and in a politically correct way. Churches were the obvious choice. Churches may have been an efficient means to store wealth for other reasons as well. If someone is going to plunder you on the run, they can wreck a church but they can't dissemble and carry away its value very easily.
Robin Hanson might argue that beautiful churches also signaled the status of the elites who built them.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on May 31, 2008 at 12:22 PM in History | Permalink
Comments
Why do businesses build huge "cathedrals" for their main headquarters? They could just as easily and more efficiently operate out of plain vanilla office space. The church certainly wielded much more power than it does now. Probably more akin to the reverence that we hold corporations today. Religion does not always need to be about God. Someday scholars will study Federal Reserve pronouncements with that sort of academic detachment that we now view ancient papal decrees. Yes. At the time, they meant something but in hindsight they seem to be more arrogant gibberish.
Posted by: GeorgeNYC at May 31, 2008 1:17:24 PM
I don't understand how churches helped rulers "hand out goodies to political allies".
Posted by: kerimcan at May 31, 2008 1:21:36 PM
This is a rather remarkable question, particularly with respect to the the regional social structures of France during the periods examined.
Regional social structures predominated. The most consistent form of commonality for social cohesion was the Roman Catholic Church (with the Albigensian [Cathar - Later Huguenot as well]exception, which was temporarily eliminated by force of arms).
This preceded any form of "National identity," or, indeed, the submergence of regional dialects. Regions were centered around market centers, and the building of cathedrals reinforced the regional cohesion, which was often in some form of competition with other regions. Some of this effect lingers (terrior?). Religion and the symbolism of the cathedral had a unifying effect, noted by the ruling elites and the developing bourgoisie, not to mention the hierarchy of the Church.
What was to become and be incorporated into France was not then "France."
Posted by: R Richard Schweitzer at May 31, 2008 1:22:38 PM
Well, they can probably dissemble pretty easily, but that doesn't help them take a church apart.
Posted by: Aaron Brown at May 31, 2008 1:26:16 PM
It has become very noticeable in England that by far the most stylish, opulent and distinctive buildings completed over the past 25 years are the HQ buildings the local councils build for themselves.
In many cases the universities are not far behind, but the Council buildings are more shocking because they are often in the middle of the mundane and cheaper structures in which competitive businesses operate successfully (and are all the Council planners will let them build).
I've always thought the goal is to convince the individual that he or she is small and ineffectual versus the power of their rulers. The message is 'You have no chance against people who can mobilize the resources needed to build this with your taxes'. It seems to work. Most British people are totally apathetic about their local Councils, don't vote in their elections and don't know who their elected Councillors are.
Posted by: ZFR at May 31, 2008 1:58:12 PM
I don't think I understand how churches are a store of wealth. I see how it's hard for others to plunder quickly, but that seems to work for the person who built them too. It doesn't seem like you to can reconvert a church back into consumption, say. (Also, if they're literally stores of wealth, that cuts against the signaling argument, doesn't it?)
Posted by: ryan at May 31, 2008 2:00:57 PM
Cathedral-building may well have served all those ends, but the claim that medieval people weren't more religious than modern people is still ridiculous. Markets were certainly extant and important in medieval times, so if they were just like us, why didn't they pour those resources into building beautiful malls? And was all that medieval writing, art, and music, not to mention church attendence, pure signalling without any authentic content? And if no one was religious, then signalling to whom?
Most likely, this claim depends on a purposeful distortion of what it means to "be religious." For example, if you were to equate religiousity with the rate at which people sinned, you could probably claim that medieval people were no more, and perhaps even less, religious than modern people. But that isn't what we really mean by religiosity -- we mean a particular way of looking at the world.
Posted by: David Wright at May 31, 2008 2:44:41 PM
Sounds like rail transit projects.
Posted by: Daniel Klein at May 31, 2008 3:00:42 PM
Why were some gargoyles placed so high upon the roof's as to be out of sight? As Charles Murray says: 'they carved for the eye of god.'
Posted by: Sebastian Flyte at May 31, 2008 3:15:29 PM
I asked myself the same question about the Pyramids and the Luxor Temple when I visited Egypt a few years ago. I assume religiosity is pretty nuch constant over time, so I like the costly signalling hypothesis best
Posted by: enrique at May 31, 2008 3:24:32 PM
Entry-Deterence is the answer.
there's a paper arguing that Cathedral Building was a like over-investing in capacity in order to avoid competition from protestantism. Sounds possible.
I can't find the paper, but it was in Kyklos.
Posted by: alex at May 31, 2008 3:31:36 PM
Alex:
Notre Dame begun: 1163. Luther's 95 thesis: 1517.
Doesn't sound very plausible to me.
Posted by: David Wright at May 31, 2008 3:34:38 PM
The size of buildings though out history have told us who was in powder. The early feudal lords has their castles, then the church had it's cathedrals, then government building dominated the urban landscape, now corporations overwhelm the skyline.
Those that have the gold, make the rules; or in this case the bigger buildings
Posted by: Organic George at May 31, 2008 3:43:22 PM
kerimcan --
The answer to your question is "through earmarks and no-bid contracts."
Posted by: Eric at May 31, 2008 4:11:15 PM
It's easier to evaluate religiosity if we step back from such a sharp distinction between church and state as Bryan (and perhaps Tyler) are trying to draw. Church and state were partners in the business of controlling the masses. While one doesn't have be so cynical as to believe that impressive church structures, like impressive monuments of later times, were built mainly in the interests of that controlling enterprise, that was certainly one of the effects. in both cases, the edifices help the masses identify with something bigger than themselves, a form of worship that happens to be of great use to the political elite, whether religious or secular.
Posted by: M. Hodak at May 31, 2008 4:22:14 PM
Isn't the first question to be asked, "Who paid for the cathedrals?" The church? The king? Until we know who picked up the tab it's hard to theorize intelligently about their reasons.
I also agree with Ryan about the store of wealth idea. What could be more illiquid than a cathedral?
Posted by: Bernard Yomtov at May 31, 2008 4:51:12 PM
If you want to build a lasting monument, a beautiful place of worship is probably your best bet. It doesn't have to mean you are particularly devout. It does mean that you think enough people are, that they will take care of it when you're long since dead.
Posted by: Cyrus at May 31, 2008 4:59:31 PM
BY, you're missing or ignoring my point; the church could not have gotten the funds to build the church without the support of the manor lord, and manor lords needed the legitimacy conferred by the church to maintain their iron grip over their subjects. This controlling enterprise was necessarily a joint venture. When it broke down, e.g., in the rare case where the church felt it had to buck the manor's authority, any major building project was certainly doomed to delayed.
Posted by: M. Hodak at May 31, 2008 5:04:07 PM
Iannaconne is a smart and capable guy, but how he can defend this idea of some constant
degree of religiosity over time is simply bizarre. To enrique: why do you presume a constant
degree of religiosity over time?
We know that within the last century in various parts of Europe we have seen large changes in
degrees of belief (and church attendance) in some countries. Are these observed and reported
changes all fake?
In most places, cathedrals are ultimately paid for by the locals, although often they were the
local elites and business guilds. So at Chartres Cathedral one can see particular stained glass
windows being sponsored by particular guilds or particular aristocrats, with an occasional big
window or piece being paid for by a king or a queen. Yes, advertising certainly got in there, and
around any major religious monument you are likely to see business people hawking all sorts of
things from statues to relics to other effluvia. Does this mean they, or more precisely their
customers, are not actually religious?
Posted by: Barkley Rosser at May 31, 2008 5:06:16 PM
Aw someone said to public choice scholars tath ask why people vote. For the same reason they stand up to the Star Splanged Banner. It not every thing about money. Religious feeling is a legitimate one like any other
Posted by: karl at May 31, 2008 5:11:27 PM
Hodak is on point. The Church didn't have competition.
The Catholic Church (if you include the various monastic orders) owned more real estate than anybody in Europe. In an agrarian society, that means power. Wars were financed as well as cathedrals built.
Asking why they built Cathedrals frames the question in modern Christian terms and is irrelevant and silly.
Posted by: Bob Calder at May 31, 2008 5:12:53 PM
M. Hodak,
My understanding is that church and state were sometimes allies, sometimes rivals. The church was not dependent on the lord for funds. It had its own lands and revenues as well. So the nature of the financing is not so clear, at least to me. That might be my own limited knowledge of medieval history, of course.
Posted by: Bernard Yomtov at May 31, 2008 5:16:54 PM
This is another of those articles where Mr. Caplan and Cowen's analyses fail due to a skeptical bias that seems to have crossed into cynicism. Analysis might actually be a generous description given the errors
Consider this:"churches were a form of fiscal policy and the associated spending was a way to hand out goodies to political allies". Hundreds of years ago, the devotion of substantial amounts of labor and resouces meant diversion from the necessities of the day, agriculture and armies. If it was "policy", it wasn't very enlightened.
As for this assertion: "Churches may have been an efficient means to store wealth for other reasons as well. A church was neither efficient or effective at storing wealth-its construction was costly, it wasn't parcelable or portable and had no other uses than as a house of worship.
This is so badly written it makes readily defeasible assertion that advertising is a "rather effective way to build support for the status quo using aesthetics instead of argument". While advertising can support the "status quo" it is also a powerful method for upending the status quo.
I live in an area where the primary occupation was mining. The earnings were meager and due to a lack of education and religious and ethnic discrimination they had no opportunity for economic betterment.
The local church obtained gold for fixtures during its construction through the donation of jewelry. Such a donation represented a significant sacrifice for people who often had little or no other wealth, not even homes or land. Their motivation was strictly an expression of relgious faith. There was no rational economic motivation other than to erect a house of worship.
Posted by: Superheater at May 31, 2008 5:34:24 PM
Most medieval churches were not grand. Bryan is asking about cathedrals. Cathedrals were not merely big churches - they were communities for monks and clergy (dormitories, refractories), hospitality centers (hotels), and yes, power centers for the local archbishop.
Also - they usually did not start out as some great project. First there would be a small church that was gradually expanded over centuries. You have to look at the whole process, not just the end product.
Posted by: PJ at May 31, 2008 5:37:35 PM
I would argue that prior to sustained per capita economic growth, fascistic symbols of community greatness such as grand churches may have actually been welfare-improving. Although, interparish competition may have made this close to a zero sum game.
Posted by: josh at May 31, 2008 8:36:02 PM
