At the risk of seeming cynical, you might also consider that for most people, theology follows circumstances. If you are a city dweller, behavior that is going to cause your cost of food to rise is going to be considered wrong. It isn't going to be considered wrong based on texts or arguments, but because it is inconvenient to you. That prejudice will then find a theological justification later.
Wow, thanks for all the replies and the food for thought! This really helps me to get a grasp on the medieval concept of saving.
I have one question: how does the economy function, if you throw everything on the market at once? I.e., come harvest, everyone throws the grain on the market, the baker then buys the grain and sells all his bread... How can you buy bread one (two, three) months after harvest? Won't you need to store food to have enough over the year?
EDIT: And how can I buy more expensive stuff (like a house, or an ox for farming) if I can't save money to be able to buy the ox?
Well, there are some basic answers:
- you are allowed to store food and goods for your personal consumption, and the consumption of your household.
- you are required to store seed grain.
- you are allowed to have some (how big varies by place and time) of the raw material you use in your craft in storage.
- all the grain doesn't get sold all at once because the bakers need to make bread to make money to buy grain: they simply don't have enough money to just buy a year's worth when its cheap after harvest, in most cases.
- the market gets strongly seasonal. The price of wheat bread, in some areas, is really low at one point, and rises to "so expsensive only nobles eat it" at a later point, before plummeting again. This is leavened by substitutions, so although wheat may be at the dear part of its cycle, oats are still at the midpoint of theirs, and so on.
- the church is allowed, indeed required, to stockpile to prevent famine.
- different crops come in at different times across Europe, and much of Europe's trade is about shipping wheat around. This smooths out the spikes a little.
- people sin like this all the time, and this smooths the market out.
You buy more expensive stuff using credit, or, in the case of the house, say, by having it built in stages. You pay the carpenter now, to do the work in bits, raqther than having him starve for five years while you get the cash together.
Thats why granaries exist for one thing.
And the simple answer is because nobody normally "throw everything on the market at once".
You can normally purchase grain around the year, but it will cost you far more in spring(when food is hardest to find) than just after harvest.
I was pretty sure that some kind of leeway must exist, just wanted to make sure. Thanks, again!
And don't forget that we probably are not talking about farmers and millers, but about the Noble (or Church rep) that owns the fields and the mill, since only they can afford such (or afford to own grain storage). The Nobles collect the grain, leaving the farmer their minor share for their work, and then either store that grain or have some of it ground, allowing the miller to keep their minor share as payment. And they'd also allow the farmer/miller to store their portion - for another fraction, most likely.
Also, since most areas are not a money economy, but barter, no farmer (or noble) is going to want tons of flour if flour is harder to store long term vs. grain (depends on climate, mostly). Same for farmers on a lesser scale.
Sigh.... This pretty much sounds like the state of the US right now.
Maybe the medieval Church was onto something....
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