### Protagonists of Production in Preindustrial European Literature (1700-1800)

# EUROPÄISCHE AUFKLÄRUNG IN LITERATUR UND SPRACHE

Herausgegeben von Siegfried Jüttner und Christian von Tschilschke

# VOLUME 28

*Zu Qualitätssicherung und Peer Review der vorliegenden Publikation*

Die Qualität der in dieser Reihe erscheinenden Arbeiten wird vor der Publikation durch einen Herausgeber der Reihe geprüft.

*Notes on the quality assurance and peer review of this publication*  Beatrice Schuchardt / Christian von Tschilschke (eds.)

Protagonists of Production in

Preindustrial European Literature

(1700-1800)

Male and Female Entrepreneurs, Craftspeople, and Workers

Prior to publication, the quality of the work published in this series is reviewed by one of the editors of the series. Beatrice Schuchardt / Christian von Tschilschke (eds.)

EUROPÄISCHE AUFKLÄRUNG IN

LITERATUR UND SPRACHE

Herausgegeben von Siegfried Jüttner und Christian von Tschilschke

VOLUME 28

*Notes on the quality assurance and peer*

Prior to publication, the quality of the work published in this series

is reviewed by one of the editors of the

*review of this publication*

series.

*Zu Qualitätssicherung und Peer Review*

*der vorliegenden Publikation*

Reihe geprüft.

Die Qualität der in dieser Reihe erscheinenden Arbeiten wird vor der Publikation durch einen Herausgeber der

# Protagonists of Production in Preindustrial European Literature (1700-1800)

Male and Female Entrepreneurs, Craftspeople, and Workers

#### **Bibliographic Information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek**

The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available in the internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de.

#### **Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data**

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Cover illustration: Loom for weaving stockings. The knittre's female assistant. Illustration. Encyclopedia. Edited by Denis Diderot and Jean Le Rond d'Alembert. Plates, vol. II. Published 1763. Engraving © Alamy Stockphotos

> ISSN 0935-5677 ISBN 978-3-631-88057-9 (Print) E-ISBN 978-3-631-88058-6 (E-PDF) E-ISBN 978-3-631-88059-3 (E-PUB) DOI 10.3726/b19778

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© Beatrice Schuchardt / Christian von Tschilschke (eds.), 2022

Peter Lang – Berlin · Bruxelles · Lausanne · New York · Oxford

This publication has been peer reviewed.

www.peterlang.com

#### Thomas Apolte

# **Prologue**

Economic agents do not have the best reputation, neither in a broader public nor in the arts. This is somewhat astonishing in light of the fact that we are all economic agents of sorts. It is even a truism among economists that any sort of decision we can conceive of is, *inter alia*, always and everywhere an economic decision. After all, making a decision implies that we have alternatives to choose from, and choosing among alternatives in a consistent manner is, by an economist's definition, an economic decision. Still, economic decisions are widely perceived as ethically objectionable in public.

Obviously, economists and most non-economists look at economic processes, economic decisions, and economic actors from a very different angle, and that traces back to the very definition of what an economic decision is all about. Starting from here, the different angles shape our particular perceptions about all sorts of real-world economic phenomena, and that works itself through our epistemic processes, all the way to the point where we reach those agents that instigate and promote industrial production processes. Typically, the modernday reservations against the protagonists of production are grounded in often exceptionally high incomes, if only of those that became publicly visible, which, at the same time, are those relatively few who turned out to be successful in their economic endeavors. It is quite common to perceive the thus generated wealth of successful entrepreneurs as unjust and rooted in ruthless exploitation of the poor, consistently pursued in a process of cold-hearted economic decisionmaking. Naturally, then, the world would be a better place if only we limited the scope of economic decisions, and here we come full circle.

Against this background, it is striking to learn that the image of the protagonists of production has not always looked like it looks today. Rather, it was subject to substantial changes over time, and this did indeed come as a surprise to me. In particular, the early industrial revolution and the labor movement that emerged in the course of the rapid and disruptive process of industrialization seem to have played a crucial role. On the one hand, this is not overly surprising. On the other hand, though, assigning a generally positive and negative image of the protagonists of production to the time before and after the first industrial revolution, respectively, would be far too simple-minded.

#### 10 Prologue

An intriguing way to reach a more colorful and informative picture of the evolution of the image of protagonists of production is to dig into the history of literary art and fiction around the industrial revolution, and this is precisely what the project "Protagonists of Production" did. The result was a wonderful conference held in November 2019 at the University of Münster, skillfully organized and hosted by Beatrice Schuchardt and Christian von Tschilschke of the Department of Romance Studies at the University of Münster. Beatrice contacted me earlier that year and asked me if I might consider letting our Center for Interdisciplinary Economics be a partner of the official hosts. It didn't take much persuasion to convince my colleagues at our Center to gladly accept. As a result, we can today take pride in having been part of a conference that was exceptional and inspiring in almost every respect.

It is of course far beyond the scope of expertise of an economist like me to evaluate the competence and authority of those many national and international participants that stem from philology. Still, from what I saw and heard in their contributions I can only say that I was impressed. On top of that, the organizers managed to win Deirdre McCloskey, the one scholar that must come first to the mind of economists and philologists alike for a conference like this, since she is famous for having contributed widely acknowledged and fascinating insights to both academic disciplines.

The organizers did a wonderful job in conceptualizing and organizing a conference that will remain with all of us as something exceptional. It would have been all the more pitiful if the results of the conference had not somehow been made available to the public. I am hence delighted that the protagonists of the production of this volume can now present the result of their stupendous work to a broad audience of those that participated in the conference and those that could not. The volume is the outcome of an outstanding piece of interdisciplinary scholarship, which is extraordinary not least since it bridges the expertise of academic disciplines that could hardly be more remote from each other in terms of the topics they cover, the methodology, and not least the respective academic traditions. We, the members of the Center of Interdisciplinary Economics, are proud to have been part of this truly remarkable project.

Beatrice Schuchardt and Christian von Tschilschke

# **Introduction: European Enlightenment as the Era of Both Male and Female Protagonists of Production (1700–1800)**

### **1. Why talk about "Protagonists of Production"?**

On the literary stage, business owners are primarily shown in a negative light. They seldom appear as protagonists but make particularly common antagonists. Recurrent topoi of this biased literary portrayal are the themes of entrepreneur "in a tight spot"1 and that of the "exploitative capitalist."2 From a historical perspective, the widespread belief "of the crookedness of bosses, industrialists and business owners"3 is primarily a consequence of the onset of the industrial revolution in the 19th century and of the political ideologies reacting to this development. But what form did the literary picture of business owners take before it became the subject of primarily negative assessments in the epoch of industrialization?

The present volume focuses on this question, which has, up to now, rarely been asked, by concentrating on systematic, diachronic, and comparative research into literary portrayals of business owners and other representatives of the production industry in the literature, press, and economic tracts of Spain, England, France, Italy, and Germany written in the 18th century. In this context, the term "entrepreneur," which at this time remained semantically unstable, is also to be examined and given greater conceptual clarity. Thus, the present volume intends to offer an interdisciplinary, both literary and economic perspective on pre- and early industrial conditions in 18th-century Europe.

As will be shown, in this heroic and experimental epoch of production, such portrayals of people involved in economic and production processes were not limited to the exploiter-exploited dichotomy but encompassed a much wider

1 Cf. von Matt 2009, 99: "Wo immer der Unternehmer in der Literatur auftaucht, muss er in die Klemme geraten" ("Wherever the entrepreneur appears in literature, he has to get into a tight spot." Our trans.).

2 Cf. Rust 2013, blurb: "der ausbeuterische Unternehmer-Kapitalist." Our trans.

3 Rust 2013, blurb: "der Verworfenheit der Bosse, der Unternehmer und der Fabrikanten." Our trans.

field, including not only industrialists and the workers they employed, but also craftspeople, the self-employed, farmers and agricultural workers. Before the "specter of capital"4 began to dominate in the literature of the 19th century and beyond, representatives of professions in the field of production became significant social role models during the epoch of the Enlightenment. Business owners, workers, craftspeople and farmers all turned into "economic heroes," characters who were designed to be looked up to, creating a situation unique in the history of literature. Furthermore, as the gender hierarchy started to change in the 18th century, attention was paid for the first time to female protagonists in their roles as professionals in the field of production.

The eighteen contributions collected in this volume go back to the interdisciplinary conference "Protagonists of Production. Staging male and female entrepreneurs, craftspeople and workers in preindustrial Spanish and European economic tracts, literature and press (1700–1800)," which took place from November 6–9, 2019, at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster (Germany) and brought together numerous literary scholars, economic historians and economists from Austria, France, Germany, Spain, and the USA, researchers who all share the research field of economics and literature. 5 Specifically, the conference set out to examine the following leading questions:

In order to tap the full inter- and transcultural potential of these questions, they were primarily intended to be examined from a European perspective,

4 Cf. Vogl 2014.

5 Thankfully, the conference was financially supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG).

with a focus on the literary and discursive exchange between Spain and France, England and Italy.

#### **2. Why Spain and Europe? A short note on existing research and the necessity to fill some gaps**

In the 1970s, literary portrayals of merchants, business owners, industrialists and workers from the 19th century onwards became the focus of literary analysis,6 most studies tying into Marxist perspectives. 7 However, from the mid-1980s, this perspective lost importance in literary studies. 8 Instead, an area of research developed that was oriented towards the theory of discourse and included economic history in its considerations. 9 At the same time, economic theory and economic history in turn undertook a re-evaluation of literary texts,10 sometimes by introducing a feminist perspective. 11

In its examination of working people and those active in production, recent research prioritizes anthropological aspects over social ones, shifting the focus away from the significance of belonging to a specific social class and towards typologies of people working and active in the field of production, which emerged in European literature from 1800 onwards. 12 In comparison to the 19th century, little attention has been paid to the representation of economic aspects in 18thcentury literature. A few exceptions do exist: for example, the long-overlooked Spanish Enlightenment and its sketches of working people in economic theory13 and literature14 have recently attracted greater interest within the individual disciplines of economic history, economic theory and literary studies. However, there is as yet no systematic, international and interdisciplinary investigation into the concepts of protagonists of production in economic theory and literature prior to industrialization. There are, for example, no studies focusing on the discursive interferences between economic tracts and works of literature, which

6 Cf., e.g., Nuth 1991; Bly 1992.

7 Cf., among others, Belda Planes 1976; McTague 1976; Rodríguez 1985.

8 Cf. Andioc 1987.

9 Cf. García Garrosa 1990, 1996; Volkmann 2003; Hontanilla 2008; Witthaus 2012; Pignol / Akdere 2016.

10 Cf. Rommel 2006; McCloskey 2007, 2016.

11 Cf. McCloskey 1993, 2001; Ferber 2003.

12 Cf. Díez Rodríguez 2015; Gies 2015, 2016; Bauer 2016.

13 Cf. Díez Rodriguez 2014; Ocampo Suárez-Valdés 2015.

14 Cf. Schuchardt 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019, 2022; Witthaus 2017.

cross from England over to France and towards Spain and the parts of Italy ruled by Spain. This is a research gap the present volume intends to fill by exploring the nature of these discursive interferences.

Another factor, that is of similar importance both for literary studies and for economic history, has also not been given adequate attention: around 1750, a change takes place in economic tracts, as well as in the literary forms of drama and the novel. For the first time, female characters begin to appear alongside male protagonists of production. The fields of activity of these women are no longer limited to the family housekeeping; they are actively involved in processes of production as agricultural workers and craftspeople. 15 Although the concept of the *femina oeconomica* has, over the last few years, increasingly become the focus of both economic16 and literary studies,17 on the one hand, no one has tried to define what differentiates her from her male counterpart. On the other hand, the working and producing woman, the *femina fabra*, still fails to be represented in academia. 18 Our conference volume sees this circumstance as an opportunity to discuss the striking gender reprogramming of economic behavior in the 18th century, taking into account the discursive interdependency between demands for economic reform in Spain, Italy, England and France as well as international gender concepts of the Enlightenment. 19

#### **3. Historical, political, and economic contexts and text-corpuses**

Prior to 1700, individuals involved in production processes seldom appear in tracts of economic theory and are only occasionally seen in literature and theatre, where they primarily take on the role of ridiculous figures such as the "simpleminded peasant." However, this changes in the course of the 18th century, reflecting the emergence of Political Economy as a discipline with its enlightened proposals for reform aiming to improve the respective national economy. Characters from the field of production, who had up until then rarely been given sufficient attention, gain in prominence. This increase in status migrates from

15 Cf. Gies 1996; Schuchardt 2015, 2022; Méndez Vázquez 2016.

16 Cf. Ferber / Nelson 1994, 2001; Fabel 2002.

17 Cf. Habermann 2008; Tschilschke 2014, 2018; Schößler 2017.

18 On this lack of definition of the *femina oeconomica*, cf. Schuchardt 2022, 222–231. For a definition of the *femina oeconomica* and *femina fabra* for the context of 18th-century Spain, cf. Schuchardt 2022, 569–578.

19 Cf. Gronemann 2013.

#### Introduction 15

economic tracts to media primarily popular with a proto-middle class audience: the press, theatre and novels. The impressive panorama of working people and professions shaped by both production and craftsmanship, which is particularly conspicuous in Spanish and French literature, certainly deserves to be given systematic attention due to its social and artistic significance.

Here, an important role is played by international processes of reception and discursive interferences between the European centers of economic development and their peripheries. Such processes can, firstly, be found in the influence of English (Hume; Mandeville; Smith), French (Quesnay; Say; Voltaire) and Italian (Genovesi; Struzzi) tract literature on the economic reform discourse on the Iberian Peninsula. 20 Secondly, these processes can be seen in the manifestations of an Enlightenment movement in the press with a reforming and middle class focus, found primarily in the journalistic form of the *Spectators*, which extends from England across the whole of Europe. 21 Thirdly, they are expressed in the English sentimental novel, which first influenced English theatre, then taking on form in the "sentimental comedy" that in turn spread from England to France and then Spain. 22

Political programs for increasing profits in trade and industry existed in Spain, England, France and Italy. They were not only found in royal decrees, in economic tracts and in the press, but also in the theatre, a medium with a particularly broad impact on society. Especially in Spain and Italy, it acted as the "school of the people"23 and as a vehicle of state-controlled economic discourses of reform. 24 For this reason, special attention should be paid to the theatre when aiming to investigate the discursive connections between economic theory and literature. The novel also proves to be a relevant literary form, and that not only because of its influence on sentimental theatre. As the example of Daniel Defoe shows, novelists interested in questions of economics (see *An Essay Upon Projects*, 1697) and journalists concerned with the industrial sector (see *The Weaver*, 1719 ff.) stand at the very beginning of a discursive exchange between economics and literature (see *Robinson Crusoe*, 1719; *Moll Flanders*, 1722). The same is true for one of the most prominent economists of Spanish Enlightenment, Gaspar

20 Cf. Gittermann 2008; Ocampo Suárez-Valdés 2010; Díez Rodríguez 2015.

21 Cf. Ertler / Hobisch 2014a / b; 2012: Tschilschke 2012.

22 Cf García Garrosa 1990; Fuentes 1999.

23 Álvarez Barrientos 2005, 189: "escuela del pueblo." Our trans.

24 Cf. Schuchardt 2015.

Melchor de Jovellanos, author of various economic tracts and of the sentimental drama *El delincuente honrado* (1774; "the honest criminal." Our trans.).

#### **4. A very productive field: Literature and economy**

A closer look on the relationship between literature and economy shows, however, that the difficulties already start with the notion of literature itself. As we all know, the word "literature" in a modern sense, which describes an aesthetically valued, mostly fictional kind of writing, is the result of the modern literary system that emerged in the 18th century as a relatively autonomous symbolic and social field. 25 Before that, the word "literature" was used to refer to any kind of knowledge fixed in a written form, whereas the realm of art was covered by the terms "theater," "poetry" and "prose." In Spain, for instance, the distinction between "literature" and "knowledge" only begins to appear at the very end of the 18th century. 26

With regard to the relationship between literature and economy, we can differentiate in a very general sense between two different fields we might call "literature of economy" and "economy of literature." The "literature of economy" embraces the representation of any aspect concerning the economic life: from matters of content – figures, themes, motifs and the economy as a reflexive or functional model for society – to the form and the very structure of literary works themselves. The "economy of literature" refers to the whole of the socioeconomic conditions that influence and determine literature in its production, reception and distribution.

Among the methodological approaches that help us to understand the field of the "literature of economy," traditional literary studies of influences, themes and motifs may still prevail. But this should not render the important impulses that came from the anthropology of literature, the systems theory or the theory of literature as an "interdiscourse" less visible. 27 Especially the systems theory and the theory of interdiscourse considerably contributed to increasing the awareness

25 Cf. Schmidt 1989.

26 There is, by the way, an interesting attempt to rewrite the history of the Spanish literature of the 18th century with a view to a more traditional, broader perspective: the *Historia literaria de España en el siglo XVIII* ("*Literary History of Spain in the 18th century.*" Our trans.), edited in 1996 by Francisco Aguilar Piñal, also includes articles about themes such as religion, economy or musicology.

27 Cf. Vogl 2002, 2014 and Plumpe / Werber 1995.The term "interdiscourse" follows Link 1988.

#### Introduction 17

that literature always picks up economic issues according to its own inherent laws, procedures, interests, traditions and conventions, instead of merely reflecting or propagating certain current discourses.

So, if we keep this in the back of our minds, when we take a glance at the trajectory of the present volume, we recognize that the panorama of themes and approaches it offers is quite complete: Literary texts in a broader sense like treatises and dictionaries are represented as well as literary texts in a narrower sense. Traditional genres like the theatre stand beside new genres like the novel or the press which first appeared in the 18th century. As to the literary examples, they come from various European countries: England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain.

#### **5. Interdisciplinarity taken seriously**

Nowadays, "interdisciplinarity" and "transdisciplinarity" are key concepts in the academic field. What some of us might have already experienced when we travel to conferences bearing the "interdisciplinarity quality stamp" is this: Everyone is talking about things from their own discipline's perspective, which is good. But, at the latest when we begin to talk about concepts, we find that we have difficulties making ourselves understood – and understanding each other. As Claire Pignol and Çinla Akdere have observed, when it comes to interdisciplinary collaboration, economists tend to cooperate with scholars of related disciplines such as mathematicians rather than with researchers of the field of literary studies. 28 A similar phenomenon can be observed in literary studies, where investigators turn to colleagues from cultural or media studies rather than to the empirical facts-based physicists, mathematicians, or economists. 29 Of course, this depiction is quite schematic, and things already have changed for the better, since there *are* economists who consider literature to be a source of economic knowledge,30

28 Cf. Pignol / Akdere 2016, 77.

29 As stated by Pignol / Akdere 2016, 77: "L'indifférence de nombreux littéraires à l'égard de l'économie résulte aussi de la volonté de scientificité des économistes, qui les a conduits à emprunter soit le langage mathématique, soit le langage d'expert, codifié et stéréotypé auquel précisément s'oppose la littérature" ("The indifference of many literary scholars towards economics also results from economists' will to scientificity, which led them to borrow either the mathematical language, or the codified and stereotyped language of experts which literature specifically resists." Our trans.).

30 The idea that literature contains economic knowledge was recently emphasized by Urban 2018.

and we do find researchers of literary studies cooperating with economists31 and neuroscientists.

The present volume – like the conference held in November 2019 at the University of Münster – is an attempt to take interdisciplinarity between economists, historians and researchers in literary studies seriously, shedding light on the representation of protagonists of production in economic tracts, press and literary texts by considering economic history, economic theory and their being adapted to and reflected by different genres. The keynote lecture on "The Bourgeois Revaluation and the Rise of Liberalism, 1648–1848" was held by Deirdre McCloskey. As gender issues form a central aspect in many of the studies gathered here, the concept of "conjective economics" developed by her is very apt to describe to how this volume conceives interdisciplinarity. Originally, "conjective economics" meant that the discipline of economics, which was simply understood as dominated by male scholars back in the 1990s (and sometimes still *is*), needed to take into account a feminine academic perspective, accepting it as an intrinsic and necessary part of a discipline on the verge of change. As McCloskey put it in 1993: "It is neither the circle nor the square, neither objective nor subjective. It is what we know together, by virtue of a common life and language. It is what men and women know together in their conversations, together or apart."32 What McCloskey once postulated for conjective economics is a fruitful approach to the way we see interdisciplinarity here, that is, as a *common knowledge* of researchers from different fields. It is in this sense that in the following pages, we as scholars of literary studies, economists and economic historians share *what we know together* about protagonists of production invented and represented by different enlightened media and genres that reflect on economic questions, searching for *a common language of interdisciplinarity*. For our volume, this leads to the fact that economists analyze novels, and that scholars of literature consider the influence of economic tracts, while both relate to the latest insights into the economic history of the European Enlightenment.

#### **6. The thematic spectrum of the contributions**

The contributions to the present volume are arranged into six different topics. The first section is devoted to the historical and theoretical foundations of the research field in question. In their opening contribution, "From *otium* to

31 Cf., e.g., the volume on *The Honorable Merchant* (2019) edited by business ethicist Christoph Lütge and Christoph Strosetzki from Romance Studies.

32 McCloskey 1993, 76.

#### Introduction 19

*nec-otium*: Vile Trades, Dishonorable Entrepreneurs. The Case of Spain," Joaquín Ocampo Suárez-Valdés and Patricia Suárez Cano analyze the so-called "cascade of contempt" which influenced the social and economic development particularly of the Mediterranean countries and, more specifically, Spain, discrediting manual labor for a long time. In his essay "Poverty Between Dignity and Criminalization in Early-Modern France and Spain: Attempts to Include and Exclude the Poor," Manfred Tietz approaches the question of (lack of) productivity from the other side of the social spectrum, looking at how the problem of poverty and mendicancy was dealt with from the late Baroque to the final stages of the Enlightenment. Andreas Gelz, for his part, examines "The Nation as Economic Agent in Eighteenth-Century Spanish Apologetic Texts," i.e. the collective dimension of entrepreneurship and the productivity of the nation, instead of addressing the topic "protagonists of production" from the perspective of the individual entrepreneurs, craftspeople and workers.

This is in turn the focus of the second section, "Male Protagonists of Trade and Industry: Of Businessmen and Entrepreneurs." Christoph Strosetzki opens this section with a study of the reception of French commercial law by a German philosopher and economist of the 18th century: "The *Dictionnaire universel de commerce* (1723) and Savary's Mercantilism in the Writings of Carl Günther Ludovici." Jan-Henrik Witthaus, on the other hand, in his contribution, "Doing Business in the Spanish *Antiguo Régimen*: The Case of Juan de Goyeneche y Gastón: Between Profit, Heroism and Political Commitment," reconstructs an early and little-known example of entrepreneurship in the context of the first Bourbon reforms in Spain. With María Jesús García Garrosa's reflections on "Business and Businessmen in Eighteenth-Century Spanish Drama," the focus shifts to examining the fictional representations of economic agents and their didactic instrumentalization by the reformist economic thinking of the Spanish government. However, the political use of literature also brings resistance into focus, for example, in Claire Pignol's discussion of "Goethe's *Wilhelm Meister*, Rousseau's *Emile*, Defoe's *Robinson Crusoe*: The Embarrassment of Choosing a Profession," which addresses the rejection of entrepreneurial calculation in a comparative European perspective. Christian von Tschilschke concludes this section in his article, "Between State-Managed Reforms and Private Utopia: The Entrepreneurial Projects of Pablo de Olavide." This contribution examines one of the most prominent figures of 18th-century Spain, whose reform activity and literary work is regarded as subject to a tension that is as fundamental as it is exemplary.

The third section opens the field of "Female Protagonists of Production." As David T. Gies shows in "Two Women, Two Ways: Economy and Theater in Enlightenment Spain," there are some, albeit very few, instances in 18th-century Spanish theater in which women are credited with positive economic behavior beyond the realm of domestic economy traditionally reserved for them. In contrast, in her paper, "Maja's Labors Lost in Ramón de la Cruz's *sainetes*," Ana Hontanilla analyzes the strategies for the prevailing devaluation of female labor inside and outside the home, as it is especially evident in popular Spanish theater. The spaces of economic action that are at the same time opened up to and reserved for women in the comedies of the Italian playwright Carlo Goldoni are the subject of Esther Schomacher's essay "Work It, Baby! Economics and Emotions on the Marriage Market in Goldoni's *La Locandiera* and *Trilogia della villeggiatura.*"

The fourth section consists of two contributions that deal explicitly with "Economic Protagonists of Both Sexes." Thus, in her study "From Civilian Heroes to Protagonists of Production," Beatrice Schuchardt identifies different male and female economic types staged by 18th-century Spanish theatre, stereotyped figures that relate to different economic theories of Spanish Enlightenment, e.g. the *femina fabra* representing Spanish industrialism and incarnating the Bourbon political-economic idea that integrating female producers increases the wealth of the nation. Klaus-Dieter Ertler's essay, "'Spectatorial' Entrepreneurs in the Moral Essays of the 18th Century," which examines the enormous influence of the new journalistic genre of the Spectator on economic discourse in Europe, also focuses on the topics of political economy in enlightened Europe, analyzing one British, one Danish, one French, and one Spanish example of the spectatorial press.

The central importance of Daniel Defoe's novel *Robinson Crusoe* (1719) and related texts is the subject of the fifth section, "Robinsonades." It includes three contributions, each of which demonstrates in its own way that the island idyll can be understood as an ideal-typical laboratory of economic activity. While Nils Goldschmidt and Hermann Rauchenschwandtner reconstruct "Robinson Crusoe's Economy" and trace its reverberations in economics up to the present with numerous examples, Urs Urban explores the German, Latin American and French pretexts of Robinson in "The Literary Genealogy of the Working Man: From Early Modern Castaways and Settlers to Robinson Crusoe." Natalie Roxburgh, however, centers on the novel itself. In her article, "Defoe, Economically Constructed Property, and Reputational Credit," she argues that while *Robinson Crusoe* echoes Locke's property theory of value, in some respects it goes beyond it, thus paving the way for early liberalism.

The sixth and last section is reserved for an economic sector that received special attention during the period of the Enlightenment in many countries: the "Protagonists of Agriculture and the Influence of Physiocracy." Susanne Schlünder thematizes "Nature as a Protagonist of Production in Jovellanos's *Informe sobre la Ley Agraria* and *Diario* – A 'Measurement of the Sublime' " and elaborates on how a contemplative and a utilitarian attitude towards nature overlap in the writings of the Spanish poet and statesman Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos. Another tensionfilled relationship to nature is discussed by Annika Nickenig, who, in her contribution, "Pastoral Economies. Natural vs. Human Productivity in Bernardin de Saint-Pierre's *Paul et Virginie*" distinguishes different, even opposite ways by which man makes use of nature. In her article, "An Idealistic, but Failing Protagonist of Production: Claude-François-Adrien de Lezay-Marnésia and His Physiocratic Project in the New World," Anna Isabell Wörsdörfer presents the case study of a French military officer, agriculturist and Encyclopedist, who emigrated to America, but had to experience the failure of his ambitious plans of reform.

The editors would like to thank all contributors but especially Deirdre McCloskey and Thomas Apolte for having consented not only to enrich the conference through their contributions, but to write the prologue and the epilogue to this collective work.

#### **Bibliography**

Farr, James R. *Artisans in Europe, 1300–1914*. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2000.

# **Section 1 Historical and Theoretical Groundings**

# Joaquín Ocampo Suárez-Valdés and Patricia Suárez Cano

# **From** *otium* **to** *nec-otium***: Vile Trades***,* **Dishonorable Entrepreneurs. The Case of Spain**

**Abstract** The present article seeks to analyze the genesis and evolution of the so-called "cascada del desprecio" ("cascade of contempt." Our trans.) and its weight in shaping collective "mentalities" (honor, pride, work, enterprise, usury, leisure, business), with profound impacts on the social and economic development of European countries, particularly Mediterranean countries and, more specifically, Spain. However, what does the expression refer to? In the words of a renowned modernist, Pere Molas, it could be summarized as follows: "Each social group sought to identify itself with the one above it, erasing the differences separating them, and at the same time trying to distance itself from the group below it, exaggerating the reasons for separation as much as possible"1 (our trans.). The "cascade of contempt" permeated the cultural and legal codes of Mediterranean societies. Let us attempt to clarify this hypothesis further. In preindustrial agrarian societies, social elites possessed a worldview (*Weltanschauung)* that legitimized their pre-eminence. With it, they sought to ensure the reproduction of the economic and social conditions on which their power was founded. Underpinned by heterogeneous doctrinal bases (moral, economic, political), they sought to escape the relativism of the future and present themselves "not as a product of a mutable reality but as a model by which to measure mutability"2 (our trans.). It is obvious that the topic studied here, as it unfolds over the "very long term" in a historical sense and involves a plurality of analytical variables (economic, cultural, political), necessarily requires the selection of documentary sources. For the same reason, there may always be thematic or information issues that are not addressed or are dealt with only partially. As a justification, it can only be argued that the ultimate aim of this work has been to bring order to the available investigations and to offer a state of the question that serves as a starting point for deepening the details here barely contemplated.

**Keywords:** *Otium*, *nec-otium*, company, society, State, Protestant Reformation, Enlightenment, Liberalism.

#### **1. Introduction**

The communication we presented to the conference *Protagonists of Production (1700–1800)*, held at the University of Münster in November 2019, seeks to

1 Molas 1985, 171. On the term "cascade de mépris" cf. Vincent 1981, 154.

2 Grossi 1992, 31–34.

analyze the genesis and evolution of the so-called "cascada de desprecio" ("cascade of contempt." Our trans.) and its weight in shaping collective mentalities (honor, pride, work, enterprise, usury, leisure, business), with profound impacts on the social and economic development of European countries, particularly Mediterranean countries and, more specifically, Spain.

Historically, the aspiration of social elites to reproduce the economic and political conditions on which their privileged position rested was directed towards a worldview that aspired to escape the relativism of the future and present itself "not as a product of a mutable reality but as a model by which to measure mutability"3 (our trans.). From the sacred texts to patristic literature, from Greek philosophy to medieval scholasticism, such a worldview would be displayed in different but complementary discourses: in a social theory of the three "orders" or "states," in a moral or normative economy of the market, in an ethics of economic conduct (honor, virtue, interest, work, leisure, luxury) and, last but not least, in a philosophy or political theory of power. Ultimately, nothing that could affect the articulation and stability of the social order was outside an orthodoxy that received its strength from the authority conferred upon it by tradition or religion.

However, from the realm of economic facts, this worldview would not fail to see cracks that would undermine its solidity and aspiration towards universality. The medieval "trade revolution" (De Roover), the commercial and social rise of the Italian and Dutch republics, modern urban and financial development, and the Protestant Reformation would widen the fissures until an alternative orthodoxy developed. This process would accelerate in the 18th century, when rationalist iusnaturalism, liberal constitutionalism, and political economy placed their entire doctrinal arsenal at the service of the transition from feudalism to capitalism, from the old regime to liberalism, ultimately in the service of the liberal revolution. The time would come, then, for private interest, for "perfect property," for the "invisible hand" of the market and for *nec-otium.* The new society, without orders or vassals, but rather with classes, would elevate work as a source of wealth and property and both as guarantors of access to citizenship. To use a military metaphor, it can be suggested that the battles against the dishonor of trades and companies, against the incompatibility of nobility and business, or against the segregation of the liberal and mechanical arts were part of the same war: that which freed the emerging class society from the constraint of the "three orders."

3 Grossi 1992, 31–34.

#### **2.** *Otium***,** *nec-otium* **and statements, a dual doctrinal affiliation**

*The ancient philosophers thought that money was unproductive and, therefore, that money lending interest was immoral. However, these authors taught this doctrine while Athens and Rome were full of bankers who ignored it and gave money to usury.4 (Our trans.)*

#### *Genovesi, 1765*

In the texts of the three "religions of the book," considerations of an economic nature – in addition to being ambivalent, if not contradictory, scattered and lacking systematicity – were subordinated to moral reflections on concrete facts (usury, hoarding, adulteration of weights and measures, taxes) that affected the precarious stability of agrarian societies. 5 Influenced by the classical legacy in scholastic and medieval social and political discourse, we emphasize two components of that legacy. 6 The first, the economic component, is exemplified by Aristotle's *Politics* and *Nicomachean Ethics*. This differentiates between *oikonomia* (domestic economy) and *chrematistike* (commercial economy). The former referred to the satisfaction of "natural needs" by bartering goods for their use value; the second concerned the satisfaction of non-natural needs and incorporated the use of money. For Aristotle, given that money was a mere instrument to measure value and a fungible good, its use as a deposit or reserve of value constituted an unnatural activity at the service of personal enrichment and was therefore destructive of social and moral balances. 7

The second component, present in works by authors such as Plato or Cicero, refers to the social order. In *The Republic*, there is an explicit hierarchy consisting of "three orders": rulers, guardians or warriors, and craftsmen or producers, associated, in turn, with the virtues of intelligence, courage, and laboriousness. Based on this hierarchy, the city of Rome was stratified into two states: the nobility and the plebs, the former associated with lineage/virtue/wealth and the latter with the vile trades. In a tradition dating back to Hesiod, Herodotus and Socrates, both the Greek *schole* and Roman *otium*, that is, liberation from physical work, constituted a prerequisite for access to wisdom, virtue and honor. 8 However,

4 *Lezioni*, 1765, 166.

5 Cf. Wilson 1997, 13–27.

6 Cf. Gómez Camacho 1998, 45–67; Sierra Bravo 1975, 33–37.

7 Cf. Perotta 2011; Polanyi 1976.

8 Cf. Hernández de la Fuente 2012, 7–100.

it would be in *De Officiis*, a treatise of practical ethics turned into a source of authority for medieval philosophy, that Cicero would systematize that thesis. In "Two types of gain, one honorable and one mechanical," on the one hand, he pointed out that in the case of "unbecoming and vulgar" trades (craftsmen and day laborers), "the very wage they receive is a pledge of their slavery," and on the other, he contrasted small-scale trade, reputed as "vulgar," to trade on a large scale, which "is not to be greatly disparaged"9 (our trans.). Finally, he compared the "liberal" arts, which are honorable and require a "higher degree of intelligence," with "mechanics" or "mercenaries," which are typical of plebs and dishonorable, except for agriculture, an occupation than which there is "none more profitable, none more delightful, none more becoming to a freeman." To this distinction, incorporated into Roman law, Campomanes attributed the "political error" committed by the Mediterranean countries in maintaining this segregation between studies and the arts. 10

The inheritance cited would maintain its vigor throughout the Middle Ages. The theory of the three "orders" or "states" – *oratores, bellatores, laboratores* – in addition to a literary presence, would also attain a legal and moral embodiment. 11 In the case of Spain, this theory would appear legally sanctioned both in the *Fuero Juzgo* and in the *Partidas*12 and morally, repeatedly, in spiritual guides for traders. 13 Meanwhile, the contrast between the liberal and mechanical arts, incorporated into the Catholic tradition in the 6th century by Saint Isidore and Cassiodorus, would crystallize in the 8th century into the *trivium* and *quadrivium* of monastic and cathedral schools. Finally, as far as scholastic philosophy is concerned, St. Thomas's *Summa Theologiae* summarized the principles inherited from patristic doctrine in relation to (a) monetary changes: "to take usury for money lent is unjust in itself "; (b) trade: "to use fraud to sell a thing above its just price is downright sin"; and (c) the arts: "whatever habits of

9 Cicero, Book I, Chapter XLII, 1.345.

10 Cf. Llombart 2009, 33–37.

11 Cf. the satirical poem by the Bishop of Laon, Adalberon, *Carmen ad Robertum regem francorum* (998). In Spain, the three orders are reiterated in Berceo, in the *Libro de Alexandre* or in the *Libro de los estados* of Infante Don Juan Manuel. Cf. Maravall 1966.

12 Part II, Tit. XXI, "Concerning knights and the things which it is proper for them to do" (our trans.) reads: "We also decree that a man should not be created a knight, who travels for the purpose of engaging in trade…" (our trans.). Cf. Sánchez-Arcilla 2004, 286–291; Álvarez Rubio 1999, 15–49.

13 Cf., for example, the *Modus iuste negotiandi in gratiam meratorum*, attributed to Raimundo de Peñafort.

the speculative reason are ordered to such works are by analogy called arts, but liberal arts, in order to show their difference from works directed to the body, which are, after a fashion, servile"14 (all our trans.).

However, moral doctrines were one thing and economic practices quite another. Since the 11th century, the urban and commercial renaissance and the development of international fairs are found at the origin of new financial and commercial instruments (bills of exchange, censuses, public debt, trading companies, double accounting, etc.) that would be the spearhead that opened the first cracks in the moral axiologies and social hierarchies consecrated by tradition. 15 Thus, in the Italian maritime republics, the moral treaties that secularized the ethical consideration of wealth and poverty proliferated from the 13th century. Like Salutati or Pontano, Alberti, in *Del governo della famiglia* (1433), associated "holy economicity" with the rational management of business. It was around this same time that the great Italian trader/bankers (Datini, Bardi, Medici) combined usury operations with generous donations to the Church, received noble titles and were buried in chapels or monasteries. 16 In *The Romance of the Rose*, attributed to J. de Meun, one reads: "Poverty is worse than death, for she torments and gnaws at soul and body and brings them not only to condemnation but also to larceny"17 (our trans.).

14 *Summa Theologiae*, (1265–1274), cit. in Vigo Gutiérrez 1977, 34–37; Naismith 2015, 127–151.

15 Cf. Roover 1942, 34–39.

16 Cf. Sombart 1977, 115–128; Maravall 1972, I, 105–122.

17 Wood 2002, 69–73.

#### **3. "A powerful gentleman is Sir Money": Modernity and the first ruptures (16th and 17th centuries)**

*Men earn an income and sustain themselves either from farming the field or contracting and hiring with other men. The first mode of income is innocent profit and holy gain because it is purely natural. The other, made by the merchants and architects of other trades, is unnatural gain. (Our trans.)*

*Fray Luis de León (1583).18*

#### **3.1. From facts to ideas: Mercantile capitalism, protestant reform and the rehabilitation of labour and trade**

Both processes drastically and substantially altered the medieval doctrinal legacy. The first would open the door to a model of growth in which trade would replace agriculture as a source of accumulation. Three pillars helped to consolidate the "mercantile system." Based on economic analysis, *Political Arithmetick* (Petty, 1672) assumed the consecration of positive economics over normative economics, while "self-interest" and the natural order were enshrined as marketarticulating principles. In ethical discourse, Cartesian scientific reason would be imposed on scholastic "right reasoning." Thus, in Hobbes (*Leviathan*, 1651) and Spinoza (*Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata*, 1675), passions, the individual pursuit of profit and utility, and developing oneself based on a hard-working life were considered compatible with virtue. Finally, the consolidation of national monarchies would be accompanied by a political philosophy – *The Prince* (Machiavelli, 1513), the *Six Books of the Commonwealth* (Bodin, 1576), *The Reason of State* (Botero, 1589) – that would replace the divine sanction of power with lay criteria of a realistic and pragmatic nature.

With the Protestant Reformation, the affirmation of the Puritan *ethos*, faced with the austere ideal of Catholic asceticism, was accompanied by the condemnation of leisure and the consideration of business as compatible with Christian morality. 19 For Richard Baxter (*Christian Directory*, 1676), "slothfulness and idleness are sins that naturally tend to want, and God hath caused them to be punished with poverty."20 If, in 1730, Richard Cantillon warned that "states that

18 León 1992, 35.

19 Ocampo 2018.

20 Baxter 1676, 2000, I, 1433.

embraced the Reformation and do not have monks or beggars have become the most powerful" (our trans.), Adolfo Blanqui corroborated it in 1839 by arguing that in Protestant nations "populations have contracted regular habits, more austere customs, greater propensity to work"21 (our trans.).

Since the 16th century, the legal and moral rehabilitation of merchants "*en gros*" (wholesale or market), suppliers, bankers, and industrialists would be as noticeable as the double current leading from aristocratic mercantilization – direct or shareholder participation by the nobility in trading companies or mining or metallurgical businesses – to bourgeois ennoblement. 22 Cultural and legal resistance to this double social mobility would be most pronounced in the Mediterranean countries most influenced by classical philosophical and legal heritage. The case of *dérogeance* in France is illustrative in this regard. Although the government of Louis XIII had issued different ordinances favorable to the compatibility between nobility and business, in 1610, Loyseau pointed out in *Traité des seigneuries* that "vile profit makes the nobility withdraw" (our trans.) and yet in 1678, La Roque – *Traité de la noblesse* – was scandalized that this withdrawal was not applied in England and the Netherlands. However, at the same time, there were already conflicting proposals: in *Le commerce honorable* (J. de Eon, 1646), *Le parfait négociant* (J. Savary, 1657) and *Remarques sur l'état des Provinces-Unies* (W. Temple, 1672), English and Dutch economic success was linked to the gap opened by the Protestant Reformation in the traditional consideration of work and business.

#### **3.2. The Spanish exception?**

Since the 16th century, the economic consolidation of a new class of businessmen linked to international trade, public contracts, war, and finance has run in parallel with their aspiration to nobility. 23 However, *Nueva Recopilación* (1567) would reiterate the legal and doctrinal prejudices sanctioned by the jurists who dealt with the subject, such as Arce de Otalora (*Summae Nobilitatis Hispanicae*, 1589). The same was true in the courts when they issued statements against merchants rising to municipal councillorships or *hidalguía* as long as they did not assert nobility and "purity of blood."

21 Cantillon 1730, 66; Blanqui 1839, 173.

22 Redlich 1955; Stone 1976, 34–45; Molas 1985, 56–67.

23 Pike 1978, 54–65; Figueroa Melgar 1979; Aranda Pérez 2003, 21–67; Marcos Martín 2007.

However, once again, the facts would contradict the prevailing opinion in the public sphere. The Spanish economic expansion in the 16th century was generated by the second scholasticism – more specifically by the economic treatises from the School of Salamanca – a deluge of "manuals for confessors" (our trans.) aimed at providing solutions to Catholic scruples to enrichment, moral reconciliation, and capitalism. 24 In 1571, Tomás de Mercado, noting that in Germany, Flanders, and France "usury has long reigned" and was the cause of the "acerbic punishment of God to take Catholic confession away from them," denounced the practice in Seville whereby "knights, out of greed or necessity, have stooped to relate to dealers" and, in the reverse, "merchants, with an appetite for nobility and *hidalguía*" (all our trans.) founded entailed estates and became ennobled. 25 No less representative of the new spiritual and economic climate was the debate on "aid to the poor," initiated by Luis Vives (*De subventione pauperum*, 1526), that would raise two issues of interest: on the one hand, how to reconcile the right to property with the right of the poor to survival through alms and, on the other hand, the need to address the risks to the social and political order entailed by the idle. In this context, we note the gradual entry onto the scene of a social policy that, as in Protestant countries, rejected social *laissez-faire* and advocated repressive measures against idleness. 26

Luis Ortiz's *Memorial* (1558), or "How to remove so much idleness from Spain and introduce work" (our trans.), serves as an inflection point between the 16th and 17th centuries of the Spanish economy. The time of *arbitrismo* and the economic literature of decadence had arrived. 27 In 1600, Gonzalez de Cellorigo published his *Memorial de política necesaria y útil restauración de la república de España*, a forerunner of *Gran Consulta* (1619) of Felipe III aimed at seeking solutions for a consumed and committed Spain. Upon examining the causes of decadence, he inevitably chose to address the idleness, unemployment, excessive poverty, legal dishonor of work, desire for *hidalguía* and ennoblement by wealthy entrepreneurs, and the comparison of Spain with European industrial nations.

Like economic literature, political literature would also reflect the change in values registered in Spanish society. It was a change that saw numerous cultural resistances. Thus, Diego de Mesa wrote:

The day laborers and mechanical officers are not only not fit to rule and command but, on the contrary, to obey and serve, for being people without virtue and without

24 Cf. García Sanz 1999.

25 Cf. Mercado 1571, 22–23; Mercado 1569, I, 94.

26 Cf. Gutiérrez de los Ríos 1600; Gómez Camacho 1998, 109–141.

27 Perdices de Blas 1996.

intelligence […]. Agriculture and all else that is received from the land are the natural acquisition and possession of property. Industry and greed engendered another genre more alien to nature, which is achievement or usury, the art of giving money for money, and which is intended not to sustain life but, rather, gain profit that is not natural but totally artificial or industrious. 28 (Our trans.)

In the work of Mariana, dissent emerges: "Neither nobility or wealth will suffice if other virtues and merits are missing for anyone to gain the honors of the republic" (our trans.). He also added: "We must prevent the Prince from taking great care not to allow some to agglomerate all riches themselves. He shall protect trade; he shall ensure that they are arts held in esteem"29 (our trans.).

Mariana's thesis was consistent with political efforts to break down such barriers. The Count-Duke of Olivares's aspiration to "reduce the Spaniards to merchants" would be gradually introduced in legislation. The awareness of backwardness vis-à-vis European colonial powers inspired Felipe IV's policy of *reformation*. From 1626, the Privileged Companies for Indian trade were promoted, to encourage the nobility to follow suit. In the 1620s, trade and industry were declared compatible with the status of nobility. During the reign of Carlos II, the *Pragmática* of 1682 recognized that "maintaining factories has not been, nor is contrary to the quality of nobility."30 Again, events would play out in favor of this policy: the financial needs of the Crown in the time of Carlos II and Felipe V led to a rare inflation of honors that translated into the sale of titles, magistratures, charges, and honors and the emergence of a nouveau-nobility of wealthy bankers, middlemen and traders. 31

#### **4.** *Luces* **against prejudices and privileges (18th century)**

*It seems that a new light has spread, and in a very short time it became known how absurd were the maxims we had adopted for many centuries, the chains in which they had imprisoned our interests. (Our trans.)*

*Sánchez, Memoria (1783).32*

The transition from a mercantile to an industrial society rearmed the doctrinal arsenal of the *Luces* in their battle against *L'Ancien Régime.* Luxury, *doux*

28 Cf. Mesa 1623–1625, 26–29.

29 Cf. Mariana 1599, 289 and 396.

30 Callahan 1966; Figueroa y Melgar 1979; Guillamón 1981.

31 Andujar Castillo 2004; Felices de la Fuente 2013.

32 Cf. Sánchez 1783, 59.

*commerce*, merchant nobility, "vile trades," guilds, leisure, and class privileges would be some of the "fronts" in the battle. However, the fluid current of *Luces* would find its best ally in the rushing river of events: in the industrial revolution and in the bourgeois liberal revolutions that marked the passage from feudalism to capitalism, from the society of the three estates to the class society, from *otium* to *nec-otium*.

In Spain, the economic policy of the Bourbon Reforms encouraged the use of the Consulates and Trade Boards to stimulate participation by businessmen with expectations of ennoblement. The *Real Cédula* ("Royal Decree." Our trans.) of March 18, 1783 sanctioned this trend: trade and industry, exercised for three generations, constituted a source of ennoblement. 33 With the generalization of double social mobility, the consubstantiality of "honor" with blood or lineage began to fade. Political recruitment for the high ranks of administration among provincial elites would tend to emphasize the merit and "virtue" associated with public service. 34

#### **4.1. "Sweet trade" and merchant nobility**

In his *Essai politique sur le commerce* (1734), Jean-François Melon contrasted the spirit of commerce with that of conquest, an idea developed by Montesquieu under the topic of *doux commerce* that would end up reopening the military nobility/ merchant nobility debate with the publication of Coyer's *La noblesse commerçante* (1756). 35 The roots of this debate can be traced to the previous century, when Hobbes and Spinoza proposed an ethical code in which passions, interests, and utility coexist harmoniously. The *doux commerce* ("sweet trade." Our trans.)*,* Montesquieu would state in *L'Esprit des lois* (1748), "heals destructive passions, softens customs, carries sobriety, economy, order…."36 During his stay in England, he had experienced first-hand the two traditions that polarized political philosophy: the values

33 Molas 1989, 47–52; Anes 1997.

34 Maravall 1979, 56–67; Morales Moya 1987.

35 This debate had been anticipated in England. In *The Conscious Lovers* (Richard Steele, 1721), one of the actors pointed out: "We traders are a kind of nobility that has sprung up in the last century. We are as honoured and useful as you, the landowners." In Spain, theatrical references came later – see among others Antonio Vila y Camps (1776): *El noble bien educado*.

36 Lib. XX, Chap. I, 219.

of civic republicanism – the sobriety and virtue of a society of "medium fortunes" – and those of the commercial society, dominated by finance and the concentration of wealth. 37

In Spain, the echoes of the controversy had been felt since 1732, when Zavala y Auñón lamented the desire for ennoblement among wealthy traders. 38 In 1750, Bernardo Ward advised the nobility, "raised without precise occupations," to dedicate themselves to "spreading the spirit of industry"39 (our trans.). Translations and editions of trade dictionaries as well as economic journalism anticipated the social rehabilitation of the entrepreneur. In 1755, Graef took up the subject in his *Discursos Mercuriales*: England, Italy, the Netherlands, and Prussia "favored nobles eager to enter trade or factories," while in Spain, "our noble inclination deprives this kingdom of all fortunes."40

The defense of commercial society would find its best ally in political economy. In 1769, Enrique Ramos, the disseminator of Montesquieu in Spain, associated *felicidad pública* ("public happiness." Our trans.) and trade. Given the Basque manufacturing and commercial trajectory, it should not be surprising that it was within the *Sociedad Bascongada de los Amigos del País* ("*Royal Basque Society of Friends of the Country*." Our trans.) that the debate on merchant nobility reached its greatest intensity, both in moral and political literature. 41 Before the Spanish translation of Coyer's work appeared in 1781,42 the Marquis of Narros (*Ensayo*, 1766), Heros (*Discursos sobre el comercio*, 1775), and Uría Nafarrondo (*Aumento del comercio con seguridad de conciencia*, 1785) had engaged with the issue extensively. Among the three authors cited, the defense of the merchant nobility was accomplished without questioning the society of the three estates.

The rupture arrived in 1778 from the hand of Foronda, in his *Disertación sobre lo honrosa que es la profesión del comercio* ("Dissertation on how honorable commerce is as a profession." Our trans.) a rupture in that, unlike Narros or Heros, his doctrinal source was not Coyer but Hume, whose analysis of the compatibility of nobility and trade questioned the political and economic legitimacy of the society of the three estates itself. In "Of Commerce" (*Political Discourses*, 1752), Hume maintained that the institutional order should be based on new

37 Manin 2001.

principles that provide secure rules to protect private interests and ensure a balanced distribution of wealth: "a too great disproportion of wealth among citizens weakens any State. It is requisite to govern men by other passions and animate them with a spirit of avarice and industry, art and luxury."43 Even so, neither political economy nor the laws could uproot a secular controversy that still prevailed in Spain in 1800:

It has been controversial for a long time whether the profession of merchant is a state of nobility. As far as the English and Dutch are concerned, this matter has already been decided for many centuries. In other nations, the dispute continues with ardor. 44 (Our trans.)

#### **4.2. The "aristocratic luxury" vs. "commercial luxury" debate**

Since the 16th century, "old luxury," a symbolic externalization of nobility, had come to rival the "new luxury" associated with market expansion and new consumption patterns. The basis for that change points in three directions: (a) from economic events to the improvement in levels of household income; (b) from economic analysis to mercantilism, which contrasted basic needs or the "needs of the body" with the unlimited "needs of the mind" that spurred trade and industry; and (c) from moral philosophy to the abundance of arguments reconciling self-love and individual passions with harmonious social relations. Thus, in the Netherlands, the De la Court brothers (*Political Discourses*, 1662) distinguished between the excessive and irrepressible "monarchic luxury" and the "Republican luxury" characteristic of the commercial society and compatible with a virtuous life and frugal consumption. 45 As early as the 18th century, the debate on luxury became internationalized and attracted the attention of moralists, economists, and philosophers, becoming polarized between the extremes represented by Mandeville – "Thus every part was full of vice, yet the whole mass a paradise" (*The Fable of the Bees*, 1714) – and the more nuanced theses of Montesquieu, Hume, and Adam Smith.

In Spain, from 1750 on, the study of luxury would follow three analytical streams. The first, formulated in economic terms, was written by Romá, among others, who in 1768 argued that "as long as men are satisfied with the necessary, their desires and, therefore, their industry will be very limited," and thus he favored "infusing an unlimited desire to enjoy all comforts" (all our trans.) as

43 Cf. Hume 1752: 2011, 249–251.

44 Cf. Lázaro Dou 1800, I, 35.

45 Lope 1992, 129–150; Berry 1994, 124–164.

a means of reviving industry. 46 Arriquíbar, Ramos, and Jovellanos would make similar assertions. A second line of thought emphasized moral arguments. If in 1775 Heros criticized the "uncontrolled luxury" of wealthy traders, in 1788, Sempere would associate luxury with "vanity and desire to distinguish oneself "47 (all our trans.). The same reproof appeared in the *Memorial* (1789) presented by Floridablanca to Carlos III: "The monster of luxury and disorder of the vices adopted by traders, as if they had the fixed incomes of great lords, has devoured and devours profits"48 (our trans.). A third analytical route, already fully liberal, became apparent in 1776 in the work of Manuel de Aguirre. In his *Discourse on luxury*, the object of a trial by the Inquisition, Aguirre reiterated the arguments used by Hume in *Of Refinement in the Arts* (1752) concerning the moral legitimacy of utilitarian behavior and the consideration of luxury as an expression of social evolution and a source of industry. 49 That same argument was promulgated in the six speeches on the subject that were published in those years in *El Censor*.

#### **4.3.** *From* **nobleza útil** *to the critique of privileges*

*In Spain, in the highest classes, all is numb. Satisfied with inherited honors and riches, the nobles live for pleasure alone. In England, the causes of our balanced distribution of wealth must surely be found in our government.*

*Townsend, 178750*

Townsend linked this contrast to the Protestant Reformation. Moreover, he commented that not only were "the convents emptied" and "numerous holidays abolished," but civil, religious, and commercial freedoms were also achieved that paved the way for the industrial revolution. In Spain's late Enlightenment (1789– 1808), the aspiration to *felicidad pública* as a reconciliation between economic growth and a balanced distribution of income would be linked to the need to eliminate the "legal hindrances" derived from the "historical constitution." In

46 Roma i Rosell 1768: 1989, 142–143.

47 Sempere y Guarinos 1788. On the same topic, see *El Censor*: "Discurso XCIIX" 1786, 434–437. That same year (1786) *Memorial Literario* published a "Political conversation on luxury, damage caused by the State, such that it has had to get involved and the means of containing it," by José I. Cavaza.

48 Floridablanca, *Memorial*, 1789: 1867, 35–37.

49 Elósegui 1991.

50 Cf. Townsend 1791: 1988, 251.

the words of León de Arroyal, "the public happiness of a kingdom is derived from its good or bad constitution"51 (our trans.). The link between institutions and the economy would be a common argument in these years. Nuances would come in establishing the routes, reforms or ruptures, to address those "hindrances." Jovellanos makes clear the difficulty of reconciling critiques of the society of the three estates with the "historic constitution." In his *Memoria sobre el establecimiento de un Montepío de hidalgos en la Corte* (1784) ("Memorandum on the establishment of a Fund for nobles in the court." Our trans.), after denying "any aversion to the nobility" and expressing his respect for any constitution protecting society from "the three orders," he admits that, examined in its "political meaning," nobility represented an "accidental quality" (our trans.). In addition, anticipating possible criticism, he adds: "I know that these ideas will suffer the anathema of philosophy, but I speak now as a politician"52 (our trans.). And indeed, Cabarrús would soon accuse him of a "regrettable condescension towards the powerful."53

Although iusnaturalism and liberal constitutionalism established the doctrinal bases on which to develop a legal-political alternative to the "historic constitution," its expression in Spain advanced slowly and unevenly. A first step was represented by the repeated defense, in the pages of *El Censor*, of a society of "medium-sized fortunes" (our trans.) as an alternative to the concentration of wealth inherent in traditional society; in the absence of the restrictions of the three estates, social *laissez-faire* would naturally lead to a society in which wealth differentials would be the exclusive fruit of property acquired by work. 54 If Foronda, invoking the "holy father Smith," claimed that "public happiness" required "abolishing exclusive privileges," Jovellanos appealed to the invisible hand of interest that "shakes men up and establishes a balance that the laws can never achieve" (all our trans.). 55 However, delegitimizing privileges and opening the door to a society of "medium-sized fortunes" left unresolved the political and moral problem of a "new" inequality that emerged as urban and industrial society and the market economy developed. While Cabarrús regarded the inviolability of "sacred property" as the articulating principle of liberal society, Ramon Campos, translator of Adam Smith, would go further:

51 Cf. Arroyal 1786–1795, 65.

52 Cf. Jovellanos 1784: 2008, 598–611.

53 Cf. Cabarrús 1792: 1973.

54 Cf. "Discursos" XXV and XXXIX.

55 Cited in Foronda 1789–1794, 127, and Jovellanos 1795: 2008, 703.

The distribution of wealth is absolutely essential in the plan of nature. From the savage man to the cultured man, from beggar to magnate, there is a progressive graduation of morality and rationality. The political distinctions corresponding to the natural differences of birth, assets, sex and profession are the machine that nature uses to cultivate and improve the species. 56 (Our trans.)

On the eve of industrial society and the political consecration of liberalism, property was on its way to being enthroned as a condition of access to citizenship and political participation. In Spain, with a markedly rural economy, initial criticisms of inequality were formulated more in moral terms than economic ones. 57 At times, the rejection of the disintegration of traditional society found refuge in the topic of "praise for the village and disdain for the court" (our trans.). 58 In the opposite sense and on the eve of the new century, the voices embracing the changes associated with incipient industrialization would become increasingly frequent. If for Foronda the city reflected the civilizing role of the industry, Ramón Campos said of the city and progress: "Languish in the damp valley if you wish, poets, but put the cultured man in large populations: Where is there a show more tireless than in the immense and opulent city?"59 (Our trans.)

#### **4.4.** *From the* **oficios viles** *to honoring the mechanical arts***60**

*The mechanical voice, misunderstood in Spain, should be erased from vocabularies and books and, if possible, banished from the mind itself. (Our trans.)*

*Juan E. de Graef, Discursos mercuriales (1755)*

Discrimination between the mechanical and liberal arts enjoyed moral, legal and social sanction. As noted, the "cascade of contempt" was reproduced within the different professions of each productive sector and their respective corporations (consulates, guilds, colleges, arts, trade boards, etc.). Since the end of the 16th century, *arbitrismo* had raised the flag against leisure and social stigma towards the vile trades: in *Memorial* (1558), Luis Ortiz, addressing Felipe II, called for

56 Cited in Cabarrús 1782, 2, and in Campos 1799, 100.

57 See, among other examples, *Discursos forenses* (1791) by Meléndez Valdés, *Conversación de Perico y María* (1786) by Mariano Ruiz, and *Epigramas* (1784) by Arroyal.

58 *Observatorio rústico* (1772), by Gregorio de Salas. On this issue see Passola 2001, I, 13–26.

59 Campos 1799, 103.

60 On this question: Domínguez Ortiz 1945; Callahan 1961; Anes 1970; Guillamón 1978; Maravall 1983; Díez 2001.

the repeal of the laws of the Kingdom by which manual trades are annihilated. In 1686, Álvarez Osorio wrote: "Some arrogant sages, following the false and common opinion, say that the arts and trade hinder the nobility by being mechanical"61 (our trans.). Hence, the offensive resumed in the 18th century was not novel; the difference would now lie in the will to address the problem of the honor of the trades in political terms. Although pronouncements favoring the suppression of legal dishonor proliferated, it was the editions of *Discurso sobre el fomento de la industria popular* ("*Discourse on promoting popular industry*," 1774. Our trans.) and *Discurso sobre la educación popular de los artesanos y su fomento* ("Discourse on public education of artisans and their development," 1775. Our trans.), that would mark a strategic change in the treatment of the problem. 62 With the 1775 edition of *Discurso,* there were two additional objectives: reforming trade privileges to establish freedom of industry and work and ending the distinction between "the arts." The reverberations of both editions of *Discursos* in political economy were immediate. 63 A first legal solution would come with the Royal Charter of March 18, 1783, which recognized that all "arts and trades are honest and honorable that do not debase the family or the person by whom they are exercised, nor do they disqualify one from obtaining the municipal posts of the Republic or the enjoyment and prerogatives of *hidalguía*" (our trans.).

61 Cf. Álvarez Osorio 1686: 2009, vol. 3, 33–37.

62 The 1774 edition of *Discurso* was generously financed by the Council of Castile, with a print run of 30,000 copies – an extraordinary number for an economic work in the 18th century and even from a contemporary perspective – that were sent to chancelleries, courts, chief magistrates, bishops, priests, economic societies, etc., accompanied by an order of the governor of the Council and a royal card urging its dissemination and the application of the principles established in the work. Cf. Llombart 1992, 235–277.

63 Among others: Francisco de Bruna y Ahumada (*Reflexiones sobre las artes mecánicas*, 1776); Antonio Arteta de Monteseguro (*Disertación sobre el aprecio y estimación que se debe hacer de las artes prácticas*, 1778); Antonio Pérez and López (*Discurso sobre la honra y deshonra legal*, 1781), etc. On the social and literary reverberations of the debate on guilds and honorification of trades, cf. *Los Menestrales* (1784) by Candido María Trigueros, *Adiciones a la historia del ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote*… (1786) by José María Delgado, *La industriosa madrileña y el fabricante de Olot o los efectos de la aplicación* (1791) by Francisco Durán, or *En alabanza de un carpintero* (1798) by Nicasio Álvarez Cienfuegos.

#### **5. Bourgeois society: From** *otium* **to** *nec-otium*

#### **5.1.** *From* **otium** *to freedom of work*

The decree of June 8, 1813 issued by the Courts of Cadiz – "On the free establishment of factories and the exercise of any industry" – instituted freedom to work without examination, title or incorporation into guilds. Shortly thereafter, decrees would be issued abolishing exclusive privileges and the feudal regime. Economic liberalization would steadily spread through society itself.

In the latter case, the aim was to remove the legal barriers that limited social mobility. Provisions would be made in a staggered manner for the dissolution of the feudal order or the "three states." In the face of this order, the liberal order emerged uncontested, with two necessary consequences: a) a class society in which work and property would replace lineage, blood and privileges as a source of differentiation and stratification of individuals; and b) in legal/political terms, the rights-bearing citizen was born in opposition to the subject. To fulfill that purpose, various provisions would be made, such as the removal of the need to prove nobility or *limpieza de sangre* ("purity of blood." Our trans.) to access schools, academies or the military, or the end of tax privileges and immunities and the equality of all citizens before the Treasury.

#### **5.2.** *Work, property,* **nec-otium**

Liberalism enthroned property as a condition of access to citizenship and political participation. The first Spanish electoral law *– Instrucción para la elección de Diputados de Cortes* (1810) ("*Instruction on the election of deputies of the courts*." Our trans.) *–* already included a veiled reference to the desirability of future deputies being landowners. Between 1808 and 1814, the political/constitutional debate would emphasize the link between property and suffrage. In 1820, from the pages of *El Censor* and *El Imparcial,* industrialization was attributed a role in moderating inequality. Finally, it should be recalled that constitutionalism was not alone in legitimizing the liberal order. It shared this task with the arguments provided by a political economy already stripped of the enlightened utopia of "public happiness," a new economy that considered property and inequality as a given and the market as a natural means of resolving social conflict.

#### **6. Conclusions**

The fact that the "cascade of contempt" had a more intense and lasting influence in modern Spain than in other European countries requires us to recall the uniqueness of the peninsula's historical trajectory, particularly its medieval history. The Reconquest, war and repopulation would consecrate the social, economic and political pre-eminence of the ecclesiastical and nobiliary estates, a pre-eminence that, sanctioned legally and institutionally, was superimposed upon a society with an agrarian foundation and with little urban, commercial and manufacturing development. 64 The weakness of the urban middle classes explains the absence of a critical social mass likely to lead resistance or drive changes that would alter the existing balance. This balance would be reinforced by the legitimization provided by an Aristotelian-Thomist philosophical tradition endorsed by Spanish militancy in the Catholic Counter-Reformation.

From a more concrete perspective, one might wonder about the true impact of the "cascade of contempt." As far as the economic impact is concerned, reference has already been made to the tendency among entrepreneurs as early as the second half of the 16th century to divest from manufacturing, large-scale trade or banking and direct their capital towards the acquisition of rustic assets, entailed estates and titles – what Braudel would call the "treason of the bourgeoisie." As for its impact on the political sphere, there is no doubt that lineage and blood, not merit, conditioned the recruitment of elites for centuries. Finally, from the arena of society and "mentalities," it has been emphasized that despite the legal and doctrinal offensive against codes of honor in trades, bourgeois values were slow to replace those of the society of the three estates, while manual labor would long remain a source of low social esteem. 65

#### **Bibliography**

#### **Primary sources**

64 Maruri 1998.

65 Callahan 1972.

*con una exhortación a la honra de la virtud y del trabajo contra los ociosos, y otras particulares para personas de todos los estados*. Madrid: Madrigal, 1600.

Heros Fernández, Juan A. de los. *Discursos sobre el comercio. Representaciones y dictámenes* [1775]*.* Ed. by José María Barrenechea. Vizcaya: BBV, 1989.

Hume, David. *Ensayos morales, políticos y literarios* [1752]. Madrid: Trotta, 2011.

Ward, Bernardo. *Obra Pía*. Madrid: Espinosa, 1750.

Zavala y Auñón, A.*Miscelánea económico-política* [1599]. Madrid: Espinosa, 1845.

#### **Secondary sources**

Álvarez Rubio, Julio. *Profesiones y nobleza en la España del Antiguo Régimen*. Madrid: C. G. Notariado, 1999.

### Manfred Tietz

# **Poverty Between Dignity and Criminalization in Early-Modern France and Spain: Attempts to Include and Exclude the Poor**

**Abstract** The antagonists and – at least in large part – the victims of the economic "protagonists of production" were the multifaceted class of the poor. With the immense economic boom of post-medieval Europe, philosophers, theologians, and policymakers noticed the increasingly massive and visible sociological phenomena of poverty and mendicancy, and their potential social dangers, which would give rise to a series of ideological debates on the phenomenon of poverty, its causes, and possible means of correcting this problem, whether through almsgiving, labor (forced or not), or by imprisoning individuals. This contribution will sketch the different proposals that were offered – from the late Baroque to the final stages of the Enlightenment – to solve a grave problem that European societies faced at the time. An illustration of the traditional (religious) approach will draw upon the sermon *De l'éminente dignité des pauvres* ("On the eminent dignity of the poor." My trans.), by the French Bishop Jacques Bénigne Bossuet (1627–1704). The lay-philanthropic approach of the "philosophers" will be analyzed with reference to texts by two illustrious representatives of the Spanish Enlightenment: *El Discurso de la situación y división interior de los hospicios con respecto a su salubridad* ("Discourse on the situation and internal division of hospices with regard to their salubrity." My trans.), by the jurist, politician, and literary author Gaspar Melchor Jovellanos (1744–1811), and the *Fragmentos de un discurso sobre la mendiguez* ("Fragments of a discourse on the beggar." My trans.), by the jurist and poet Juan Meléndez Valdés (1754–1817).

**Keywords:** poverty, public charity, almsgiving, mendicancy, beggars

### **1. Industrialization, nascent capitalism, and massive poverty: The two faces of the Early Modern economic boom between social fact and ideological reaction**

With industrialization and early capitalism – whose origins can be traced back to the 16th century – came not only the accumulation of immense private wealth and capital in the search for profitable investments, but also, in counterpoint to the glory of productivity and progress, the misery of heretofore unheard-of poverty and mendicancy among large swaths of the European population that, according to historian Bronisław Geremek (1932–2008), led to "una miseria sin precedentes en términos cualitativos y cuantitativos en todas las épocas anteriores"1 ("a misery unprecedented, qualitatively or quantitatively, in any prior era." My trans.).

One of the results of the recent studies of this immense and complex mendicancy – which for many years did not merit the attention of economic historiographers, who preferred to focus on the triumphs and material progress of the different national economies – has been the conclusion that the battle against mendicancy was not, as it had been in the Middle Ages, solely the preoccupation of the Church, with its strong appreciation and practice of charity and almsgiving, two dogmatically and historically well-founded systems. Quite the contrary: From the late Middle Ages and the beginning of the Early Modern period, secular institutions were very aware of this problem and sought appropriate remedies for it. They looked to the recently-established urban centers where this mendicancy manifested earlier and more intensely, as well as to political-monarchical institutions – in modern terms, the State. Nor was there a lack of lay authors to describe and analyze the phenomena of indigence at a purely intellectual level; it is enough to refer to Juan Luis Vives (1492–1540), or his contemporaries, Erasmus (1466–1536)2 and Thomas More (1478–1535),3 the latter dreaming of a utopia without poverty (or wealth) and thus with no need for begging.

This practical and theoretical preoccupation with the serious social phenomena of poverty and mendicancy was manifested in a multifaceted literature. From this abundance I will present here only three paradigmatic texts of the 17th and 18th centuries. One is by the French theologian (and, after 1681, Bishop) Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet (1627–1704), one of the most prominent conservative intellectuals of Louis XIV's court; the other two are by two Spanish jurists, high officials and poets, Gaspar Melchor Jovellanos (1744–1811) and Juan Meléndez Valdés (1754–1817), typical and very distinguished representatives of the Spanish Enlightenment. Together, these texts present a complex and contradictory collection of ethical and political options with which to resolve the

1 Geremek 1991, 145. This work has been translated into several European languages. For the Spanish-language edition see Geremek 1989. Among the numerous studies on poverty in Early Modern Europe, for a social and intellectual-historical perspective, see especially Mollat 1978 and, more recently, Lutz 2008 and Torres et al. 2016. For a markedly theological-juridical perspective see the multi-volume work by Schmidt et al. 2006 and Schneider's detailed study (2017); for Spain see the summary articles by Carasa Soto 1992 and 2010, and Wenzel's regional study (2012).

2 Bierlaire 2016, 23–33.

3 Bore 2016, 35–49.

urgent transnational or "European" problem of poverty and mendicancy from the Middle Ages until the end of the 18th century. Moreover, these are texts from very different literary genres. Bossuet's is a sermon preached in 1659. It is known by the programmatic and provocative title *L'éminente dignité des pauvres*, while the texts by Jovellanos (*El Discurso acerca de la situación y división interior de los hospicios con respecto a su salubridad* ["Discourse on the situation and internal division of hospices with regard to their salubrity." My trans.]) and Meléndez Valdés (*Fragmentos de un discurso sobre la mendiguez* ["Fragments of a discourse on the beggar." My trans.]) are legal-political reports by two senior officials, written on behalf of the Spanish Crown to address the urgent problem of mendicancy at the administrative level. 4 These are not antiquated or intellectually obsolete texts. Curiously, Bossuet's text was recently reissued and commented by the French legal scholar and sociologist Alain Supiot (\*1949), professor at the Sorbonne,5 and the well-known *nouveau philosophe* Pascal Bruckner (\*1948). 6 Both see in Bossuet's sermon a valuable proposal to rethink the problem of poverty and the injustices of ultra-liberalism in our time. As for the intellectual relevance of Jovellanos and Meléndez Valdés, their illustrious role in the Spanish Enlightenment speaks for itself.

#### **2. The sacralization of poverty and the poor: From the Bible to the late middle ages**

Bossuet delivered his sermon on "the eminent dignity of the poor" in a carefully chosen venue, before an audience no less elect. The time was February 1659, the place, the home of a Parisian charity known as *Filles de la Providence* ("Daughters of Providence." My trans.), founded by Marie Lumague (1599– 1657), the devoted widow of one of King Louis XIII's gentlemen, and dedicated to gathering, educating, and cultivating poor young women so that they would not risk falling into vice and sin. The founder herself was present at this solemn event, as was the Catholic Church's leading propagandist for public charity in

4 Juan Meléndez Valdés 1821, 273–310.

5 See Supiot's edition of the sermon (2015, 9–39) and his programmatic commentary "Les renversements de l'ordre du monde" ("The reversal of the World Order." My trans.), in which he postulates that economics and politics should focus on the social phenomenon of poverty and not on that of production and unequal distribution of wealth itself, Supiot 2015, 41–64.

6 See the chapter "De l'éminente dignité des pauvres?" ("On the eminent dignity of the poor?" My trans.) in: Bruckner 2016, 45–55.

France, well-known priest (and future saint) Vincent de Paul (1581–1660), and an audience of powerful potential donors – laymen, of course – from both the Court and the Parisian bourgeoisie, as it was an occasion for securing funds to guarantee the further financing of an institution that had already exhausted its founder's resources.

Under the circumstances, we can assume that the priest did not attempt an economic or sociological analysis of poverty – which was omnipresent in France at the time – but focused on presenting to the already convinced the most relevant, most noble, and most affecting points of Christian doctrine on the social phenomenon of poverty and its attendant mendicancy. In fact, Bossuet's sermon is a brief treatise – of very high rhetorical quality – on poverty and its dogmatic and moral scope that, in its basic lines, reflects the traditional doctrine of the Catholic Church, drawn from the biblical texts7 according to which Jesus himself was, in historical reality, "[L]e plus pauvre de tous les pauvres"8 ("the poorest of the poor." My trans.), and the real poor of his time were the first objects of the salvation work of the Son of God. This vision implies a radical rejection of wealth, as stated in the Gospels: "más fácil es a un camello pasar por el ojo de una aguja que a un rico entrar en el reino de los cielos"9 ("it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God"10). In Bossuet's view, the Church has always been a Church of the poor and not of the rich, who, with their pride and "economic self-sufficiency," believed they needed neither grace nor divine Providence. This opposition of "rich and poor" resulted in one of the most persistent convictions of medieval religious practice: the obligation – and in many cases also the will – on the part of the rich to help the poor in a sort of mutually meritorious exchange, wherein individual almsgiving was seen as the key to the gates of paradise for the wealthy – gates that, without it, would remain closed to them. But Bossuet carried this one step further, reminding his audience that divine Providence had founded the Church for the poor, who are – in their humility and acceptance of suffering and the Cross – the very image of Jesus Christ, so that "dans le royaume de Jésus-Christ

7 On the complex conception of the poor in both the Old and New Testament see Schneider's detailed analysis (2017, 23–44), which highlights the historical background of that perspective as well as the fact that those texts neither idealize poverty nor consider it a voluntary ascetic goal.

8 Bossuet 2015, 23.

9 Mc 10, 25, as well as the nearly identical texts Lc 18, 25 and Mt 19, 24. I cite the Bible in Spanish, following R.P. Serafín de Ausejo's 1991 edition.

10 For the Bible quotes, see the New Revised Standard Version of the Holy Bible.

la prééminence appartient aux pauvres"11 ("In the kingdom of Jesus Christ, the preeminence belongs to the poor." My trans.). This Church only admitted the rich on the condition that they were ready to serve the poor. 12 The Church is, thus, the Church of the poor, in which they distribute spiritual privileges and benefits, just as the rich dispense material privileges and benefits on Earth. So as not to condemn themselves to eternal fire, it was in their best interests to aid the poor with alms, respect them as the authentic image of God, and to serve them with the greatest respect. 13

For Bossuet, these reflections sufficed, in the grand medieval theological tradition, to explain and legitimize the existence of "la pobreza y la mendicidad como [elementos] estructurales y funcionales en la sociedad creada por Dios"14 ("poverty and begging as structural and functional [elements] of a society created by God." My trans.). He sensibly limits himself to qualifying as an "étrange inégalité"15 ("strange inequality." My trans.) the tremendous difference between rich and poor that existed in France at the time. This inequality does not seem scandalous or unjust to him, since the rich protect their own interests by

13 "Les portes, dit Jésus-Christ, vous seront ouvertes, pourvu que les pauvres vous introduisent. (…) Ainsi la grâce, la miséricorde, la rémission des péchés, le royaume même est entre leurs mains ; et les riches n'y peuvent entrer, si les pauvres ne les y reçoivent. Donc, o pauvres, que vous êtes riches! mais, o riches, que vous êtes pauvres." ("The doors, says Jesus Christ, will be open to you, but only if the poor bring you in. […] Thus grace, mercy, the remission of sins, the very kingdom is in their hands; and the rich may not enter unless the poor receive them. So, O poor, how rich you are! But, O rich, how poor you are." My trans.). Bossuet 2015, 31.

11 Bossuet 2015, 10.

12 "[L]es riches n'y sont admis (sc. à l'Église) qu'à condition de servir les pauvres." See also this forceful criticism of the rich: "[…] les riches qui s'imaginent que tout leur est dû, et qui foulent aux pieds les pauvres, ne sont dans l'Église que pour les servir; puisque les grâces du Nouveau Testament appartiennent de droit aux pauvres, et les riches ne les reçoivent que par leurs mains. Vérités certainement importantes et qui vous doivent apprendre, ô riches du siècle, ce que vous devez faire à l'égard des pauvres, c'est-à-dire honorer leur condition, soulager leurs nécessités, prendre part à leurs privilèges" ("the rich who imagine that everything is due to them, and who trample on the poor, are in the Church only to serve them; since the graces of the New Testament belong by right to the poor, and the rich receive them only by their hands. These are certainly important truths which should teach you, O rich of the world, what you should do with regard to the poor, that is to say, honor their condition, relieve their needs, share in their privileges." My trans.). Bossuet 2015, 10 and 11.

caring for the poor,16 though indeed, he insists on the dignity of the poor while knowing full well that it is not adequately respected in contemporary French society. 17 In any case, Bossuet's sermon contains no attempt to hold the poor responsible for their mendicant status, nor any proposal – at the secular state level – for a systematic solution to the problem posed by poverty in this earthly life. This solution is best postponed until the afterlife – whether in Heaven or Hell – where the "natural order" will be reversed and the poor will be first, in the words of the Bible, and the rich will be last, unless they have been saved by their works of mercy,18 a situation depicted in the *auto sacramental* (a literary genre related to sermons) *El Gran Teatro del Mundo* (1635) by Pedro Calderón

de la Barca, wherein the Pauper is saved and the Rich Man who refused to give alms is condemned without a second thought: "desciende adonde / te atormente tu ambiciosa / condición eternamente, / entre penas y congojas" ("descend to where / your ambitions torment you / eternal condition / between pain and sorrow." My trans.), vv. 1529–1532.

#### **3. The historical reality of poverty and attempts at a solution: "Alms of door and street" vs. urban social policy**

In his reflections on the role of poverty in the history of human salvation, Bossuet presents an outstanding theological dignification, or mystification and sacralization, of the poor. While these thoughts did indeed reflect the doctrinal ideal of the Church, they had little to do with the real problems posed, both for the Church and for secular authorities, by the immense and ubiquitous poverty in urban and rural life at the time. This massive poverty coexisted with persistent vagrancy and a lamentable corruption of customs arising from many factors, including epidemics of the plague, a series of subsistence crises, and technological advances in agricultural exploitation and the resultant urbanization. 19

To address the grave problem of endemic mendicancy, two very different approaches can be observed. One is the multisecular ecclesiastical doctrine that underpins Bossuet's reflections and requirements. This doctrine obliges all Christians, to the best of their ability, to give alms to every pauper or beggar, without problematizing or questioning the causes or authenticity of their poverty. 20 This type of almsgiving was practiced at the individual level on the one

19 According to Schäfer (3 2018, 325), there was an enormous rural exodus in the period between 1348 and 1520, which led to a dramatic rise in mass poverty in the cities of Europe.

20 We see for example the very high regard for almsgiving in the works of Fray Luis de Granada OSB (1504–1588), the most widely read religious author of the time. In one of the numerous reissues of his work, we find almsgiving among "las tres principales obras con que satisfaremos á Dios" ("the three main works with which we satisfy God." My trans.) (1804, 169–180), which are "ayunos, limosnas y oración" ("fasting, alms and prayer." My trans.) (Granada 1804, 169). He cites Saint Augustine to extol the theological value of almsgiving: "así como se apaga el fuego del infierno con el lavatorio del agua saludable del baptismo, así tambien se apaga la llama de los pecados con las limosnas y obras de justicia; de suerte que el perdon de los pecados se dió en el baptismo, nos lo da cada dia el exercicio de las limosnas, como otro segundo baptismo" ("just as we extinguish the fire of hell with the salubrious water of baptism, so we extinguish the flame of sin with alms and works of justice; as the forgiveness of sins was given in baptism, the exercise of alms is given to us every day, like a second baptism."

hand, in keeping with the New Testament commandment of love ("charity") of one's neighbor as a path to individual rewards in the afterlife, and at the systemic level on the other hand, organized by the Church (monasteries and parishes) and the State (as a general rule, urban institutions). The prestige of this practice was legitimized and propagated by the existence of an ideal voluntary poverty, as manifested in the foundation of mendicant orders such as the Franciscans and the Dominicans in the 13th century. 21 In this collective understanding of poverty, the pauper was generally considered a human being who owed his precarious state not to any moral defect or particular vices, but to the inscrutable and unalterable workings of divine Providence. Therefore, the pauper and beggar deserved the compassion and charity of any Christian, who in turn could accumulate good works for his own salvation. 22

On the other hand, urban authorities, mostly secular civilians, were confronted with the daily reality of an increasingly aggressive and frightening vagrant, inclined toward robbery and other crimes. They had to find funds to solve the problem of mendicancy in a society that no longer unconditionally shared the charitable Christian view of the poor, and that increasingly sought to differentiate between the "true poor," who deserved every kind of charitable assistance, and

My trans.). Indeed, he never tires of glorifying the merits and virtues of charity: "Ella alcanza gracia para quien quiere: suelta las ataduras de los pecados, hace huir las tinieblas, y apaga las llamas de nuestras pasiones. A ella estan abiertas las puertas del cielo, y así como á reyna ninguno de los porteros le osa preguntar quien sois, ni qué quereis, ántes la salen todos á recibir benignamente. Virgen es, y tiene alas de oro, y los vestidos de hermosura: su rostro es blanco y manso; y con las alas y la ligereza que tiene, siempre asiste ante la presencia de Dios" ("She grants grace to any who want it: she looses the bonds of sin, makes darkness flee, and quenches the flame of our passions. The gates of Heaven are open to her, and just like a queen no porter dares to ask who you may be or what you want before they graciously emerge to receive you. She is a virgin, with golden wings and vestments of beauty: her face is white and mild; and with her wings and her lightness she is always in the presence of God." My trans.) (Granada 1804, 175–176).

the – supposedly much more numerous – "false or feigned poor," who begged not out of necessity but out of laziness or moral depravity. Several measures were enacted to discourage these false beggars, who abused the Christian benevolence of individuals as well as institutions: prohibiting begging in the street without the express permission of authorities23; expulsion from cities, even extending to corporal punishments like flogging or being condemned to the galleys (which, in the long term, amounted to a death penalty); or confinement in those group houses reserved for other types of marginalized individuals – the old, the sick, poor widows, fallen women and abandoned children – the so-called *hospicios*, in which they hoped to improve the civil and religious morale of the poor and prepare them to practice any trade by forcing them to work for little or no pay, so as not to drive down the salaries of honest workers. All of these measures were enacted in combination with the prohibition of public begging in the cities.

The first author with a humanistic background24 to synthesize these efforts at systematically reforming public assistance to the poor,25 in order to mitigate mendicancy in the beginning of the Early Modern period, was Juan Luis Vives, whose book, *De subventione pauperum*, libri II,26 was seminal for the entire post-medieval debate on mendicancy. Reflecting the attitude of the humanist faction of the urban bourgeoisie at the time, "contra la endémica impotencia de las estructuras jurídico-políticas formales frente al pauperismo"27 ("opposing the endemic impotence of the formal juridical-political structures in the face of pauperism." My trans.), it was written for the city of Bruges, which was under Spanish rule at the time, and published in Lyon in 1526. 28 While Vives does not

23 People authorized to beg in public had to present written permission from the parish or magistrate, or wear a specific identifying mark on their clothing.

24 For the humanists' view of the poor see Bierlaire 2016, 23–33, Augustin Redondo 2016, 35–64, and Rabaey 2016, 65–87.

25 Santolaria Sierra 2016, 105–122. In Germany, the theologist Johannes Geiler von Kaysersberg (1445–1510) wrote sermons that were delivered in the Cathedral of Strasbourg and anticipated many of Vives's ideas on reform, see Voltmer 2006, 91–135. For this Catholic priest, the poor remain the symbol of Jesus Christ and should be given "ein Almosen des Herzens" ("an alms of the heart." My trans.). Voltmer 2006, 132.

26 Reliable evidence of contemporary interest in Vives's book are two 16th-century translations into vulgar languages: Vives 1533 and 2006. The author of the German translation, Kaspar Hedion (1494–1552), was a renowned Protestant theologian and preacher at the Cathedral of Strasbourg, in contact with the great reformers Luther, Zwingli, and Bucer, and preoccupied, like them, with the problem of mendicancy.

27 Susín Betrán 2000, 111.

28 See Zeller 2006.

question the magistrates' obligation to care for the (true) poor, he insists that the poor have an obligation as well, to do everything possible to secure their own subsistence through work. 29 This work may be required even of children and the sick, according to one of his basic principles, "que cada uno coma su pan adquirido por su trabajo"30 ("that each eats his bread acquired through his work." My trans.). With a vision of the pauper as a human being with a profound aversion to work, Vives "desmitifica la figura medieval del pobre que […] pretendía mostrarse como seguidor de Cristo"31 ("demystifies the medieval figure of the pauper who […] pretended to show himself as a follower of Christ." My trans.) and, with an "elaboración teórica del concepto de la falsa pobreza, considera la mendicidad como un auténtico problema de orden público"32 ("theoretical elaboration of the concept of false poverty, considers begging to be an actual problem of public order." My trans.). There is no doubt that Vives's proposals represent a paradigm shift in the perception of beggars and the social phenomenon of mendicancy. They constitute

toda una nueva reflexión sobre una nueva racionalización de la caridad que con la base de la estigmatización [i.e. criminalización] y represión de la mendicidad y la divinización del valor trabajo como elemento de integración-anulación, se va a […] determinar el futuro desarrollo del tratamiento de la pobreza, aunque sea al principio en plano fundamentalmente teórico. 33

("a whole new reflection on a new rationalization of charity based on stigma [i.e. criminalization] and the suppression of begging and sanctification of labor value as an element of integration-invalidation, and would determine the future development of the treatment of poverty, though initially on a fundamentally theoretical level." My trans.)

Thus, the problem of begging passes from the purview of the Church, with its traditional, generally positive concept of the pauper, to that of the public and secular-civil authorities, whose concept is much more negative, and consequently more severe and penalizing. This development – which some historians see as a "secularization" of poverty and mendicancy – led, in the 1570s, to "el amplio movimiento europeo del encierro o recogimiento de pobres"34 ("the

29 On this shift in perspective, see Keck's (2010) comparison of the theological concept of almsgiving in St. Thomas (*Summa theologiae*, II-II, quaestio XXXII) with Vives's more humanist philosophical stance.

30 Susín Betrán 2000, 114.

31 Tropé 2016, 315–333.

broad European movement to confine or incarcerate the poor." My trans.), to reduce the "visibilización de la miseria" ("visibility of misery." My trans.) and its "potencial peligro"35 ("potential threat." My trans.), greatly feared by the magistrates, which would set the stage for the politics of the 18th century to confront what, at the time, was called the problem of the "non-producing classes."36

Before moving on to the Enlightenment, it is worth recalling that throughout the 16th century the problem of poverty and mendicancy remained a matter of discussion, particularly among theologians; the controversy between the Dominican monk Domingo de Soto (1494–1560) and the Benedictine monk Juan de Robles (1492–1579)37 is a well-known example. In his *Deliberación de la causa de los pobres* ("*Deliberation on the cause of poverty*." My trans.) (Salamanca 1545, 49 p.) and his *De la orden que en algunos pueblos de España se ha puesto en la limosna, para remedio de los verdaderos pobres* ("On the order placed on alms for the remedy of the true poor in some Spanish towns." My trans.) (Salamanca 1545, 60 p.), de Soto, a famous theologian who represented Charles V at the Council of Trent, does not oppose a reform of mendicancy. However, arguing from a theoretical-charitable perspective and a "visión sacra de la pobreza"38 ("sacred vision of poverty." My trans.), he emphatically rejects any criminalization or social exclusion of the poor. He opposes bureaucratic investigations into their lives, morals and needs, and recognizes no distinction between true, false and foreign beggars. By the same token, he rejects incarcerating the poor, insisting on their individual rights, which also include "manual almsgiving," the prohibition of which he regards as legitimate only if urban authorities and the Church take on the full responsibility of meeting their basic needs. 39 We see a very different argument in the Benedictine's writings. Robles, a distinguished member of the Order of Saint Benedict, esteemed orator, author of a Spanish translation of the Four Gospels (unpublished in his lifetime), and active in the complex practice of caring for the urban poor in Zamora, writing from a more administrative perspective, "censura críticamente la vida de los mendigos y vagabundos y todos sus

38 Santolaria Sierra 2016, 123.

35 Susín Betrán 2000, 115.

36 Santolaria Sierra 2016, 105 and 116–118.

37 For a brief sketch of the two positions see the chapter "La controversia doctrinal sobre el remedio de pobres en la España del siglo XVI" in Santolaria Sierra 2016, 119–122.

39 Nor does de Soto shy away from social criticism, observing that for the examination of the life and religious practice of the poor, there is no corresponding scrutiny of the rich, and furthermore, "que a muchos pobres los ricos los hicieron pobres" ("that many of the poor were made poor by the rich." My trans.). Santolaria Sierra 2016, 120.

desmanes, mostrando que es un deber de buena gobernación de la república el poner orden en esta cuestión social"40 ("critically censures the lives of beggars and vagabonds with all their excesses, showing that it is a duty of good governance of the republic to bring order to this social question." My trans.), leading him to advocate for the civil authorities' strict intervention in the control of the poor, and to approve of the practice of confinement that was being implemented – in his eyes, with great success – within and outside of Spain. Despite their clash of principles, both of these author-theologians agree that mendicancy is "una cuestión que está adoptando formas sociales que exigen respuestas cada vez más organizadas"41 ("a question that is taking social forms that demand increasingly organized responses." My trans.). In this series of systematic reactions we find the writings and proposals of the cleric Miguel Giginta (1534?–1588?),42 and those of Cristóbal Pérez de Herrera (1558–1620),43 a former Protomedicus of the Galleys. Giginta is responsible for founding the so-called "Casas de Misericordia" ("Houses of Mercy," two in Madrid, in 1580 and 1581, and one in Barcelona in 1583), sometimes known as "conventos secularizados"44 ("secularized convents." My trans.), stern institutions "où tout est prévu que le coût soit le moins élevé possible" ("where everything is planned to keep costs as low as possible." My trans.),45 with the charitable intention of combining the moral improvement of the poor with making use of their capacity for work. Pérez de Herrera founded the "Albergue o Hospicio de Madrid" ("Hostel or Hospice of Madrid"), which welcomed both the poor and the sick, and reserved a special section for "fallen women." The attribute shared by both institutions was the already well-known but increasingly enforced "condena moral y religiosa del no-trabajo" ("moral and religious condemnation of unemployment." My trans.) and "la condena religiosa, moral y política de la ociosidad"46 ("the religious, moral, and political condemnation of idleness." My trans.), which, in Pérez de Herrera's case, "rompió de forma absoluta con la concepción y el tratamiento tradicional y sacralizado de la pobreza"47 ("broke completely with the traditional sacred conception and

40 Santolaria Sierra 2016, 121.

41 Santolaria Sierra 2016, 122.

42 *Tratado de remedios de pobres*, 1579. See the edition and introductory study by Felix Santolaria Sierra, 2000.

43 *Discurso del amparo de los legítimos pobres*, 1598. See the edition with introduction and notes by Cavillac 1975.

44 Susín Betrán 2000, 120.

45 Catherine Gaignard 2016, 131.

46 Santolaria Sierra 2016, 118.

47 Susín Betrán 2000, 124.

treatment of poverty." My trans.). In the words of Raúl Susín Betrán, we can already see here "un cierto interés mercantilista que podemos entender como avance del ideal ilustrado posterior" ("a certain mercantilist interest that we may see as a precedent of the later enlightened ideal." My trans.). 48 In fact, there were no new attempts to solve the problem of mendicancy from the death of Philip II in 1598 through the 17th century, although the phenomenon of poverty continued to worsen under the disastrous economic circumstances that marked the reigns of Philip III, Philip IV, and Charles II. 49 On a literary level, this increasingly critical vision of the poor and marginalized is evident in picaresque novels, where the world of the poor and unemployed is depicted, for example in the works of Mateo Alemán (*El Guzman de Alfarache*, 1599–1604) or Cervantes (*Rinconete y Cortadillo*, 1613), as an autonomous universe with an ethics of its own, as opposed to the nascent "mentalité bourgeoise"50 ("bourgeois mentality." My trans.) in Golden-Age Spain.

#### **4. Demystifying poverty and sacralizing work in the Enlightenment: From alms to (forced) labor**

The dire state of the Spanish economy in the second half of the 17th century carried over into the early 18th century, bringing with it exorbitant numbers of the poor. 51 It was not until the reigns of Ferdinand VI (1746–1759) and Charles III (1759–1788) that a new economic project came into being, developed by a range of economists and ministers such as José del Campillo (1693), Bernardo Ward (?–1776), Campomanes (1723–1802) and the Count of Floridablanca (1728–1808). The goal of this economic policy was "public felicity," assured by the prosperity of the State, accomplished by the labor of all citizens and "vassals" and guaranteed by the absolute ruler. In this era of nascent industrialization, the concept of "utility" was increasingly inculcated, together with a "divinización del

48 Susín Betrán 2000, 118.

49 Worth a separate mention is the *Monumento triunfal de la Piedad Católica. Erigido por la Imperial Civdad de Çaragoza* (Zaragoza 1672), by the jurist Pedro José Ordoñez, who nevertheless still advocates for the prohibition of begging, public intervention to succor the poor, and confining them in every type of hospice.

50 Cavillac 1983, 15.

51 According to Bernardo Ward's well-known calculations, Spain had seven million inhabitants in 1750, of whom two million were unemployed: Of those, 50,000 were paupers supported by public funds and 150,000 were vagabonds and the work-shy who, in lieu of working, relied on various types of alms. Susín Betrán 2000, 125–126.

trabajo"52 ("sanctification of work." My trans.), while the idea of "non-work" – or, to use the word of the age – "idleness" (of the poor, but also of the rich and the clergy) became a radically negative concept. In this Enlightenment ideology, "poverty" and "mendicancy," already conflated with idleness in some areas, acquired an even heavier stigma as "poor" gradually came to mean "lazy," refusing to contribute one's potential "human capital" to Spain's yearned-for industrialization. In this way, the poor definitively lost their sacred status and almsgiving became no longer the charitable duty of all Christians, but, from the perspective of Campomanes' new economic principles, "como premio […] considerable a la holgazanería" ("like a hefty prize for laziness." My trans.), or, in more modern terms, a nefarious and counterproductive "transferencia de renta permanente e institucionalizada de los individuos productivos a los improductivos"53 ("permanent and institutionalized transfer of income from productive to unproductive individuals." My trans.). The pauper represented the opposite of the new ideal, the "hombre útil"54 ("useful man." My trans.), and after the Esquilache Riots of 1766, a political threat as well. 55 In such a context, it is not surprising that "the father of the Spanish Enlightenment," the generally benevolent Benedictine monk Fray Benito Jerónimo (1676–1764), would resort to such terms as "peste," "holgazanes por impostores" and "zánganos inútiles" ("plague," "loafers and impostors," and "useless drones." My trans.) of contemporary society, without qualification or nuance to allow for invalids or the "true" poor. 56 For his part, Feijoo praises the traditional hospices, not as a charitable institution but for strict confinement and a system of severe punishments with the threefold function of converting mendicants into useful subjects ("regnícolas"): (1) accustoming all paupers to work ("pues muy raro hay [pobre] tan impedido, que no pueda emplearse en alguna ocupación mecánica"57 ["because very rare is a person so handicapped that he cannot be employed in some mechanical operation." My

52 Susín Betrán 2000, 111.

53 Sarasúa 2004, 175.

54 See Covarrubias V. 2005, 181–229, for a particularly attentive analysis of the positions of Feijoo, Campomanes and Jovellanos for 18th-century Spain.

55 Sarasúa 2004, 173–174.

56 Feijoo 1777, 255–259. *Cartas eruditas y curiosas*. T. 3, carta XXIII.

57 Recall Montesquieu's famous words in his *De l'esprit des lois* (1748, L. XXIII, cap. 29, titulado "Des hôpitaux"): "Un homme n'est pas pauvre parce qu'il n'a rien, mais parce qu'il ne travaille pas." ("A man is not poor because he does not own anything, but because he does not work." My trans.). For the ideological background of this statement (with which Feijoo seems to agree), see Larrère 2010, 24–43.

trans.]); (2) employing them without pay ("servirse de ellos sin salario alguno, ni otra pensión, que darles de comer" ["make use of them without salary or other pension than something to eat." My trans.]) to increase the common good in public works, agriculture, or the military and (3) offering them the chance – indeed, the obligation – to "vivir cristianamente" ("to live in a Christian way." My trans.), "especialmente en la frecuencia razonable de los Santos Sacramentos"58 ("especially in the reasonable frequency of the Holy Sacraments." My trans.). Feijoo himself does concede that "es fácil demostrar la utilidad de los Hospicios; pero es muy difícil su fundación, y mucho más su conservación, habiendo mostrado la experiencia varias dificultades, o tropiezos, que muchas veces han impedido lo primero, y muchas veces más imposibilitado los segundos" ("it is easy to demonstrate the utility of the Hospices, but very difficult to justify their foundation and, much more, their preservation, experience having shown various difficulties or setbacks which many times have impeded the former, and many more times defeated the latter." My trans.). However, he trusts the two responsible powers (the "Autoridad Regia," that is the secular State) and "la Pontificia" (the Church and the Ecclesiastics) to establish a hospice system that will end the problem of poverty and street alms that so annoys Spain's rising bourgeoisie. 59 Furthermore, Enlightenment thinkers were convinced that the "Estado moderno [was taking charge] de la parte más importante de la beneficencia"60 ("modern state […] of the most important part of charity." My trans.), which would ensure the improvement of a system that had been so degraded under its previous ecclesiastical guidance. This faith was unjustified, as is evident in the numerous proposals that Gaspar Melchor Jovellanos (1744–1811), jurist, politician and Enlightenment philosopher, presented nearly three decades later, in his *Discurso acerca de la situación y división interior de los hospicios con respecto a su salubridad* ("*Discourse on the situation and internal division of hospices with regard to their salubrity*." My trans.) (1778)61 for the improvement of the hospices' external conditions. 62 Nevertheless, this persistent criticism of the royal hospice

58 Sarasúa 2004, 175.

59 Feijoo 1777, 259–260.

60 Santana Pérez 1996, 344.

61 Jovellanos 1952, 431–435.

62 Jovellanos mentions three factors of crucial importance for a good hospice: "1. a su salubridad; 2. a , su economía [i.e. the organization of labor and maintenance costs of the inmates, their food and clothing]; 3. a su buen orden. La primera dice respecto á la conservación de la salud de los hospicianos, y abraza toda la policía interior respectiva á este punto. La segunda á la industria de los mismos, y abraza las reglas relativas á la división y clases de los trabajos, esto es, la policía económica del hospicio. La tercera

#### 72 Manfred Tietz

system's deficiencies will not prevent another jurist, also a high official of the monarchy (though unemployed when he wrote his text) and a personal friend of Jovellanos, from extolling the utility of hospices in solving the perennial problem of poverty 25 years later. 63 I am referring to the *Fragmentos de un discurso sobre la mendiguez* ("*Fragments of a discourse on the mendicancy*." My trans.), written by Juan Meléndez Valdés in 1802. His initial citation of a brief legal text of the time (Law 4, title 20, part VIII) has a programmatic character:

Tales como estos, a quien dicen en latín *validos mendicantes*, de que no viene ningún pro a la tierra, que non tan solamente fuesen echados de ella, mas aún que si seyendo

á las costumbres, y dice relación á la conducta de los hospicianos, comprendiendo cuanto es preciso para una buena educación, instrucción y corrección, esto es, toda la policía moral de los hospicios." ("1. its salubrity; 2. its economy […]; 3. its good order. The first addresses the preservation of the residents' health and contains all of the respective internal policy on this point. The second refers to their industry, and covers the rules relating to the division and class of work, that is, the economic policy of the hospice. The third addresses the customs and conduct of the residents, comprising what is needed for a good education, instruction and correction, that is, the moral policy of the hospice." My trans.) (1952, 431a). His observations imply a radical critique of the existing hospices and he loses no time in asserting "que el proyecto de un hospicio general" ("that the project of a general hospice." My trans.), i.e. situated outside of urban centers to reduce mendicancy and escape; separation of the sexes and classification (children, the elderly, the sick, real and pretend paupers, able to work or not, etc.) según lo que exige la salubridad, la buena economía y la buena moral, es una verdadera quimera. Sería preciso formar una casa tan grande como una poblacion entera, y entonces de su misma extension y separacion nacerian nuevos inconvenientes" ("according to the demands of salubrity, good economy and strong morals, is a true chimera. It would require a house as big as an entire population, and then from its extension and separation new inconveniences would arise." My trans.) (1952, 432a). Moreover, Jovellanos knew very well that for the proper functioning of the hospices – and the solution to the problem of mendicancy – a profound change in mentality was needed on the part of the poor who lived there, "quitando […] á la preocupacion general la ocasion de mirar con desafecto estos asilos de la humanidad, y de reputarlos como prisiones destinadas á encerrar la pobreza y la miseria" ("removing […] from the general concern the occasion to look with disfavor on these asylums of humanity, and consider them prisons designed to enclose poverty and misery." My trans.) (1952, 434b).

63 For other writings of the era with the same conclusion see the study and anthology of texts and the brief introductory study by Alejandro Mayordomo Pérez and Luis Miguel Lázaro Lorente 1988.

sano de sus miembros pidiesen por Dios [i.e. begging for alms on the street], que non les diesen limosna porque escarmentasen et tornasen a facer bien viviendo de su trabajo. 64 ("Such as these, who are known as *validos mendicantes* ['valid mendicants'] in Latin, and who are of no use to the regions [where they reside], should not merely be driven from these places, but moreover those who are healthy in their limbs and yet beg by appealing to God, should be given no alms, that they may think of something better and learn again to live from the work of their hands." My trans.).

Meléndez Valdés returns to the postulate that the solution to poverty is the work of the poor themselves, even if it amounts more or less to forced labor. To implement this, in the first section of his text65 he refers to the institution of hospices; not the inefficient (albeit sometimes very well endowed) hospices so despised by the public, but the "hospices of the future," reformed at the national level, with competent managers who invest their funds not in ineffective bureaucratic administration, but in promoting competition in the work of the poor themselves, using the clergy and their sermons as intermediaries to promote acceptance of the hospice system on the part of the poor. 66 Next, Meléndez Valdés sketches an extremely negative image of the poor in contemporary Spain67: brutalized human beings, ragged vagabonds, excessively annoying everywhere, of an "asqueroso desaseo" ("disgusting mess." My trans.), smelly, plagued by countless contagious illnesses, given to wine and to the "desórdenes más feos" ("ugliest of disorders." My trans.) and "todos los vicios" ("all of the vices." My trans.), thieves without morality or religion, dangers to public order, with children who "toman

64 *Fragmentos de un discurso sobre la mendiguez*, 273.

65 "Del estado de nuestros Hospicios" ("On the state of our hospices." My trans.). Meléndez Valdés 1821, 273–278.

66 "[…] que despierten [in the poor] al interés y la codicia dando una parte de la utilidad del trabajo al mismo que la gana para su establecimiento en la salida; […] interese en su favor al clero, y suenen con frecuencia en los púlpitos y el confesionario sus indecibles utilidades y cuán gratos son por ellas sus bienhechores al estado y a la religión, que tanto recomiendan la caridad y la beneficencia; sean casas verdaderamente de piedad y enseñanza, y no de rutina y tiranía; […]" ("that they awaken […] interest and greed, giving part of the profit of labor to him who earns it for its establishment at the outset; […] interest in its favor in the clergy, who frequently hold forth in the pulpits and the confessional on its unspeakable benefits and how grateful their benefactors are to the state and to religion, who recommend charity and beneficence so highly; that they truly be houses of piety and teaching, and not of routine and tyranny; […]." My trans.) Meléndez Valdés, 277.

67 Chapter: "Corrupción moral y embrutecimiento de los mendigos" ("Moral corruption and coarsening of beggars." My trans.). Meléndez Valdés, 278–280.