In his article “The Impact of Money on the Development of Fourteenth-century Scientific Thought,” Joel Kaye examines the social context of the rise of money in the fourteenth century and its subsequent impact on scientific thought. He argues that in this new monetized world, money’s use as a technological tool for measurement lead to the new science of calculationes whose practitioners devised intricate systems to measure qualities as well as the development of latitudo formarum as an instrument of relation and representation. In order to support his argument he evaluates medieval writings, particularly those of Nicolas Oresme whom he argues provides a direct link between the rise of money and the science of calculationes.
Kaye begins by establishing the fourteenth century as the pivotal time in the monetization of Europe. He argues that the unstable economic situations of war, plague, and famine forced people to have a heightened awareness of the shifting values of money and marketable goods. During the Hundred Years War, the kings of both French and England began to recognize the fiscal requirements for warfare and increasingly worked to secure money for wars. They frequently secured money by debasing the coinage of the realm which led to sharp fluctuations in values and prices. This obliged all people who wished to avoid being on the wrong side of rising prices to pay close attention to the changing values in the marketplace. The plague also had economic influences as many came into multiple inheritances and lead to an increase in per capita wealth. This encouraged the further development of money conscientiousness on all sectors of society. Even the Church was not excluded from monetization. Due to a rise of lavish displays and papal wars in the fourteenth century, the papacy became so concerned with financial matters that they established the Apostolic Camera to manage the Church’s money. Because the Church and the government were the most frequent career destinations for university graduates, the scientific elite could not be unaware of the market place.
After establishing the social context for the monetization of Europe, Kaye begins to relate the use of money to the higher process of intangible conceptual thought. In the middle of the fourteenth century, around the same time as the rise of money, many English natural philosophers began to apply quantitative rules to solve philosophical problems. Any quality capable of an increase or decrease was considered measurable. This included things such as love, joy, pain, friendship, heat, and a vast number of others. This idea of subjective concepts given an objective value was also applied to the use of money. Rather than value being subjective to barter, commodities took on a fixed value. Wages also took the subjective concept of the worth of time and labor and applied a monetary value to it. The Church, in its attempts to raise funds began to apply values to particular sins and years in purgatory. In its sale of indulgences, the Church was measuring intangibles, such as sins and forgiveness in terms of money.
Kaye then offers the medieval treatise De moneta by Nicolas Oresme as proof of the link between monetary and scientific thought as the proof for his thesis. In his work, Oresme argues that value of money is in its function as an instrument of measurement. He believed that it was a technological advance that allowed values to “become capable of the most easy comparison.”[1] Since all goods had a value in terms of their cost, or their position on a common scale, “every saleable item is at the same time a measured item.”[2] Oresme also argued against the manipulation of money which limited its function as an instrument to determine value. Thomas Aquinas and other medieval philosophers also believed that “the instrument of money was invented in order to give a numerical statement to human need.” Oresme also was very influential in developing a system of lines to measure a variety of qualities under a common standard of measurement. Kaye then ends his paper with the observation that though the model of measurement was very prevalent, very few philosophers actually ever measured anything. This is perhaps due to the fact that measurements could only find relationships between things, and never their absolute value. Be that as it may, Oresme represents one of several fourteenth century philosophers who devised conceptual systems to measure seemingly immeasurable qualities, and who recognized the power of money to quantify human need.
Kaye’s article is an interesting analysis of the phenomenon of the monetization of Europe and the simultaneous rise of calculationes to measure philosophical concepts and qualities. However his primary piece of evidence is that Oresme wrote both on money and on measurement of other qualities in separate papers. He definitely proves that there is a correlation in the fourteenth century between money and measurement, but does not offer compelling evidence that one caused the other. If he had offered some evidence of philosophers themselves linking monetization and the rise of measurement, his article would be stronger. As he says, his conclusions “require further textual testing and research.” [3]However, his paper was an excellent introduction to medieval monetization and the science of calculationes in the fourteenth century.
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