Exploring ideas about work and workers in pre-industrial Europe and other parts of the world. A reply from the authors of Worthy Effforts

In the reviews of Worthy Eff orts , the book is seen in relation to some of the major debates in historiography. How should ancient European society be characterized? Classical Antiquity and the medieval West: continuity or change? How important was the interaction between religious and secular worlds in medieval society? What was the role of labour in the Great Divergence? In what respects did pre-industrial Europe diff er from other parts of the world? The reviewers note gaps in our present knowledge, warn against overly structured points of view, and question some of our statements and hypotheses. They also make clear that still other views were expressed about work in medieval and early modern Europe, and that global comparisons are absolutely necessary. We feel deeply honoured that we have elicited such inspiring comments from so many experts, and we take to heart their invitations to elaborate on certain problems, the more so since all authors emphasize the need for additional research, especially comparative research, and the main objective of Worthy Effforts is ‘to encourage placing research on historical perceptions and representations of work and workers higher on the agenda’. 1 The papers cover a great many topics, and although it is tempting to address every objection and suggestion in detail we prefer to focus on general themes. We have always regretted that historical research has become so compartmentalized. The organization of academia increasingly compels historians to become entrenched in a single period, a carefully circumscribed region, and a specifij ic problem area. Specialization leads to great depth, which often yields new insights but which hinders comparisons across time and space. We are convinced that it is refreshing to explore diffferent horizons at the risk of appearing heretics in the congregation. In Worthy Effforts we have only partially fulfij illed our ambition to bridge space and time. While we have kept the long term in mind, we have ultimately TSEG2014.1.indd 153 25-03-14 10:24 154 TIJDSCHRIFT VOOR SOCIALE EN ECONOMISCHE GESCHIEDENIS VOL. 11, NO. 1, 2014, ‘WORTHY EFFORTS’ curtailed the geographic scope in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period to the areas west of the river Elbe. The approach is therefore Eurocentric, with only sporadic coverage of Russia and none at all of the Balkans. In the ‘concluding reflections’, we present some elements for comparison with China and Japan, 2 but these are no more than suggestions intended to elicit reactions. The papers by several reviewers demonstrate that global comparisons are indeed necessary. Closing the gap between ancient and medieval history Classical Antiquity and the Middle Ages have long been separate worlds in historical research. Classical historians themselves are partially responsible for this. Over the course of the previous century, most of them fell under the spell of the German Historical School, Max Weber, Karl Polanyi, and especially Moses Finley: they emphasized the ‘specifij icity’ of the Greco-Roman world and considered comparisons with other and later pre-industrial societies to be irrelevant. Medievalists and Early Modernists therefore were licensed to leave Antiquity out of the picture. After all, they risked wandering around a foreign country, where they were unfamiliar with the signposts and lacked the instruments to decipher them. We ventured into that foreign country shortly before 2000 CE, when the demolition of the dominant structure was accelerating: new sources were coming into use, new methods were being tested, and old paradigms were being questioned. The extensive and richly documented review by Koen Verboven fortunately reveals that the pieces we picked up could be fij itted into the newly developing structure. The economic and social history of the ancient world, especially that of classical Rome, is rapidly being revised, but Verboven notes that many research questions remain unanswered, and that debates about important matters are ongoing. The traditional vision of a bipolar society characterized by the eliteplebeian contrast and based on a slave economy has made way for a far more complex perspective: an empire in which members of the select few were engaged in trade and fijinance, where social middle groups were rising, where freedmen played an important economic role, and where wage workers were fairly numerous in both the cities and the countryside. Rather than legal status, economic position often lay behind social contrasts. There was a wide variety of labour relations: chattel slavery, serf tenancy, debt-bondage, forced labour, casual work, subcontracting... 3 The ancient world of work was therefore far more variegated than has long been assumed. 4 How did this TSEG2014.1.indd 154 25-03-14 10:24 155 EXPLORING IDEAS ABOUT WORK AND WORKERS LIS & SOLY manifest itself in the images and self-perceptions of various categories of economically active groups? Verboven rightly sees problems arising when he observes that ‘among the multiple slave identities those of skilled workers and ambitious managers were as “natural” as those of the faithful or treacherous servant. There was no single slave-identity that could have imposed itself on free workers’. He refers on the one hand to the older view that slaves and freedmen together embodied a ‘popular culture’ or a ‘worker culture’, on the other hand to Paul Veyne, who credits the plebs media – the ‘middling sort of people’ 5 – with their own culture distinct from that of a ‘class of freedmen’. He also brings to our attention the most recent view, which holds that both freeborn and freedmen participated in an urban ‘middle class culture’. All these interpretations assume – sometimes explicitly but often implicitly – that the groups concerned had tremendous respect for work, thereby distinguishing themselves from the elite. We are inclined to place our accents diffferently. For centuries a strong work ethic permeated Greco-Roman society. Making worthy effforts was regarded as a duty and a necessity, not only because the gods demanded effforts from everybody, but also and especially because it entailed a generally recognized social value. The nature of the efffort might vary greatly, but social groups at all levels in the hierarchy took it to heart. 6 Large and small tombstones depicting economic pursuits reveal what people with very diffferent occupations considered worthy of commemoration, as well as how closely work, virtue, and honour were intertwined. The impressive grave monuments erected by Trier merchants between the start of the second century and the fij irst quarter of the third century reflect the pride of a new local elite aiming to demonstrate that the family’s commercial pursuits had served the common good, and consequently that they had earned their wealth through legitimate means. What wealthy merchants wished to commemorate was valued in equal measure by craftsmen, as the mentions of skilled labour on tombstones indicate. These also sought to recall to public memory that they had done their duty, i.e. had worked hard, and that they had served the common good by providing good-quality products. Visual images on such tombstones served to show professional skills and, if possible, technical knowledge. 7 We believe that such tombstones were not variations on a style of ‘freedman art’, 8 and that they cannot be regarded as a ‘worker-subculture’ either. Nor do we agree with the researchers who regard them as an expression of an urban ‘middle class culture’, i.e. ‘an attempt to take issue with agrarian-aristocratic values’, as Emanuel Mayer has recently argued. 9 Funerary culture in our view derived from a largely shared value system, in which economically TSEG2014.1.indd 155 25-03-14 10:24 156 TIJDSCHRIFT VOOR SOCIALE EN ECONOMISCHE GESCHIEDENIS VOL. 11, NO. 1, 2014, ‘WORTHY EFFORTS’ active freedmen and freeborn stated: ‘We have made worthy effforts in our own way’. When we examine grave monuments of the social elite, we notice similarities not only in the conceptual and stylistic features but also in the tenor of the message. In fact, the visual strategies of Eurysaces’ tomb were not fundamentally diffferent from those used by prominent Roman citizens: the wealthy baker presented himself as a ‘public servant’ who had served society just as well as a high-ranking soldier or civil servant. Precisely because there was a broad social consensus that everybody had to make worthy effforts, tombs and epitaphs from top to bottom conveyed messages resonant with a highly comparable message. Consensus about the need for worthy effforts did not exclude debates and controversies, however. Time and again the question was asked: ‘Who performs his duty and who does not’? This could just as easily lead to a discourse on parasitism as to the condemnation of certain activities regarded as valueless and/or as non-work. Established elites moreover gave specifij ic answers to the question: ‘Which groups have to perform which tasks’? Cicero’s well-known statements about trade and manual labour are to be seen in this context. Rather than interpreting them as signs of contempt for merchants and craftsmen, we view them as warnings against transgressions: members of the established elite were reminded that their social status was closely linked to the nature of their effforts. Last but not least, the crucial question is: ‘Which criteria did diffferent groups apply in attributing value to their own effforts and in discrediting those of others’? There were always various voices sounding offf at the same time. We have examined this polyphony by asking heuristically: who said what, where, when and how, in what circumstances, to whom and why? In Classical Antiquity work was valued on the basis of criteria that have resurfaced continually in later periods, and that have deeply influenced defijinitions and representations of craftsmanship and professional skills, c