Has anyone written an economic history of churches?

Question

Has anyone researched the economic factors related to church reformation and reforms, especially focusing on how money was raised and how the clergy was compensated? Or is there any work dealing with the economic and social standing of clergy throughout the centuries?

Answer 1

Church finance is one of those topics that is shrouded in mystery and also very open.

It depends which church you are talking about and what time period.

Here are some ground rules that apply to churches of any religion:

Religion is a public practice and also a means of control. Public funds keep the churches going but the church issues decrees on behavior and also, at some stages, paid people to go to church. The church has generally been responsible for education - literacy, numeracy etc.

Most money comes from the rich - kings, landowners, senior government officials, military etc.

More recently, in the western-styled democracies, churches invest in stock markets (ethical investment not being mentioned by most).

Roman Catholic funding has often been linked to the Mafia and thence directly to Italian and US politicians.

Muslim funding has recently been linked to terrorist groups.

One should remember that Christian churches have a centralist structure and Muslim Churches do not, for the later, funding is much more linked to local communities, so their economics are more open to scrutiny than the Christian model.

Cambridge History of X Religion, also specific periods of philosophy give you a guide to how the religions across Europe and the Middle East operated and how the communicated and managed international trade and finance. As a side point - the Jewish Diaspora meant that there was a Jewish community in every country and they were multi lingual (local and Hebrew at least), so were often used to broker deals. Making them at once indispensable and hated.

Answer 2

So what you're announcing is that you simply desire us too do your homework. Not handiest you desire to us to do your homework however you desire to plagiarize our reply as good. Aside from the typos, there are a few errors. Where did you get this paragraph? Also, medieval witch hunts had been as an alternative infrequent. So although a few had been accused of witchcraft within the medieval interval, the quantity of sufferers had been as an alternative minor in comparison to the early today's interval. The intent for witch hunt weren't the identical on account that each case had been somewhat distinct. Sometimes, the neighbours could fancy a farmers land, in order that they accuse him of witchcraft, different time one other form of jealousy could be the purpose.