Writing Economics in the Middle Ages

Research on the pragmatics of writing has transformed our view of medieval economies by integrating analysis of document production in the analysis of production, exchange and consumption. Documents preserve the activities of men and women producing, exchanging and consuming, by recording and conveying information organized according to structures pertinent to those who kept the records. The implications of this fact have been explored in the fields of political and administrative history by Michael Clanchy and Paolo Cammarosano, but less so for economic history. This condition of the written record makes it difficult to consider neutrally the figures recorded in documents and therefore, obviously, to analyse them statistically. Medieval records are discontinuous and heterogeneous: the only way to analyse the figures they contain is to understand the categories by which they were collected and organized. Recording economic information in accounts or inventories was considered an ancillary task during the Middle Ages and the documentation produced was often destroyed once used, or lost. But the complexification of economic life and the diversification of the tasks it involved necessitated more and more diverse tools of writing, in order to gauge the performance of an estate or a commercial enterprise and to control employees. Running a monastic estate or managing a workshop required the making of account books (libri rationis) which record all activity. From the 12th century onwards, the written word took on an increasing variety of functions, such as ensuring and consolidating the relationships between men and objects. For instance, notarized documents came to be used to measure the value of things, to complete and secure seignorial levies and, generally speaking, to record all kinds of activities. In this article I have considered the questions which arise around the use of writing in economic contexts. Their study reveals all sorts of aspects of social life through issues of production, exchange and levies.