TY  - BOOK
AU  - Schuurman,Anne
TI  - The theology of debt in late medieval English literature
T2  - Cambridge studies in medieval literature
SN  - 9781009385947 (ebook)
AV  - PR275.D44 S38 2024
U1  - 820.9/001 23/eng/20230706
PY  - 2024///
CY  - Cambridge ; New York, NY
PB  - Cambridge University Press
KW  - English literature
KW  - Middle English, 1100-1500
KW  - History and criticism
KW  - Debt in literature
KW  - Penance in literature
KW  - Theology in literature
KW  - Economics in literature
N1  - Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Jan 2024)
N2  - Exploring debt's permutations in Middle English texts, Anne Schuurman makes the bold claim that the capitalist spirit has its roots in Christian penitential theology. Her argument challenges the longstanding belief that faith and theological doctrine in the Middle Ages were inimical to the development of market economies, showing that the same idea of debt is in fact intrinsic to both. The double penitential-financial meaning of debt, and the spiritual paradoxes it creates, is a linchpin of scholastic and vernacular theology, and of the imaginative literature of late medieval England. Focusing on the doubleness of debt, this book traces the dynamic by which the Christian ascetic ideal, in its rejection of material profit and wealth acquisition, ends up producing precisely what it condemns. This title is part of the Flip it Open Programme and may also be available Open Access. Check our website Cambridge Core for details
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009385947
ER  -