Religion and the Rise of Capitalism

classes brought them into collision with the monarchy, and only the most obvious sources of information are mentioned here. For patents and monopolies, including the hated soap monopoly, see G. Unwin, The Gilds and Companies of London, 1908, chap. XVII, and W. Hyde Price, The English Patents of Monopoly, 1906, chap. XI, and passim. For the control of exchange business, Cambium Regis, or the Office of His Majesties Exchange Royall, Declaring and Justifying His Majesties Right and the Convenience Thereof, 1628, and Ruding, Annals of the Coinage, 1819, vol. IV, pp. 201⁠–⁠10. For the punishment of speculation by the Star Chamber, and for projects of public granaries, Camden Society, N.S., vol. XXXIX, 1886, Reports of Cases in the Courts of Star Chamber and High Commission, ed. S. R. Gardiner, pp. 43 seqq., 82 seqq., and N. S. B. Gras, The Evolution of the English Corn Market, 1915, pp. 246⁠–⁠50. For the control of the textile industry and the reaction against it, H. Heaton, The Yorkshire Woollen and Worsted Industries, 1920, chaps. IV, VII; Kate E. Barford, “The West of England Cloth Industry: A seventeenth-century Experiment in State Control,” in the Wiltshire Archæological and Natural History Magazine, Dec., 1924, pp. 531⁠–⁠42; R. R. Reid, The King’s Council in the North, 1921, pt. IV, chap. II; Victoria County History, Suffolk, vol. II, pp. 263⁠–⁠8. For the intervention of the Privy Council to raise the wages of textile workers and to protect craftsmen, Tawney, “The Assessment of Wages in England by the Justices of the Peace,” in the Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirthschaftsgeschichte, Bd. XI, 1913, pp. 307⁠–⁠37, 533⁠–⁠64; Leonard, The Early History of English Poor Relief, pp. 160⁠–⁠3; Victoria County History, Suffolk, vol. II, pp. 268⁠–⁠9; and Unwin, Industrial Organization in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, 1904, pp. 142⁠–⁠7. For the Depopulation Commissions, Tawney, The Agrarian Problem in the Sixteenth Century, pp. 376, 391. For the squeezing of money from the East India Company and the infringement of its Charter, Shafa’at Ahmad Khan, The East India Trade in the XVIIth Century, 1923, pp. 69⁠–⁠73. For the colonial interests of Puritan members, A. P. Newton, The Colonising Activities of the English Puritans, 1914, and C. E. Wade, John Pym, 1912. ↩

E. Laspeyres, Geschichte der Volkswirthschaftlichen Anschauungen der Niederländer und ihrer Litteratur zur Zeit der Republik, 1863, pp. 256⁠–⁠70. An idea of the points at issue can be gathered from the exhaustive (and unreadable) work of Salmasius, De Modo Usurarum, 1639. ↩

John Quick, Synodicon in Gallia Reformata, 1692, vol. I, p. 99. ↩

For the change of sentiment in America, see Troeltsch, Protestantism and Progress, pp. 117⁠–⁠27; for Franklin, Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Benjamin Franklin, and Sombart, The Quintessence of Capitalism, 1915, pp. 116⁠–⁠21. ↩

Rev. Robert Woodrow (quoted by Sombart, The Quintessence of Capitalism, 1915, p. 149). ↩

John Cooke, Unum Necessarium or the Poore Man’s Case (1648), which contains a plea for the regulation of prices and the establishment of Monts de Piété. ↩

For the scandal caused to the Protestant religion by its alleged condonation of covetousness, see T. Watson, A Plea for Alms, 1658 (Thomason Tracts, E. 2125), pp. 21, 33⁠–⁠4: “The Church of Rome layes upon us this aspersion that we are against good workes.⁠ ⁠… I am sorry that any who go for honest men should be brought into the indightment; I mean that any professors should be impeached as guilty of this sinne of covetousnesse and unmercifulnesse.⁠ ⁠… I tell you these devout misers are the reproach of Christianity.⁠ ⁠… I may say of penurious votaries, they have the wings of profession by which they seem to fly to heaven, but the feet of beasts, walking on the earth and even licking the dust.⁠ ⁠… Oh, take heed, that, seeing your religion will not destroy your covetousnesse, at last your covetousnesse does not destroy your religion.” See also Sir Balthazar Gerbier, A New Year’s Result in Favour of the Poore, 1651 (Thomason Tracts, E. 651 [14]), p. 4: “If the Papists did rely as much on faith as the reformed professors of the Gospel (according to our English tenets) doe, or that the reformed professors did so much practice charity as the Papists doe?” ↩

S. Richardson, The Cause of the Poor Pleaded, 1653, Thomason Tracts, E. 703 (9), pp. 7⁠–⁠8, 10. ↩

The first person to emphasize the way in which the idea of a “calling” was used as an argument for the economic virtues was Weber (see note 32 above), to whose conclusions I am largely indebted for the following paragraphs. ↩

Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress. ↩

Richard Steele, The Tradesman’s Calling, Being a Discourse Concerning the Nature, Necessity, Choice, etc., of a Calling in General, 1684, pp. 1, 4. ↩

Richard Steele, The Tradesman’s Calling, Being a Discourse Concerning the Nature, Necessity, Choice, etc., of a Calling in General, 1684, pp. 21⁠–⁠2. ↩

Richard Steele, The Tradesman’s Calling, Being a Discourse Concerning the Nature, Necessity, Choice, etc., of a Calling in General, 1684, p. 35. ↩

Baxter, Christian Directory, 1678 ed., vol. I, p. 336b. ↩

Thomas Adams (quoted Max Weber, Die protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus, vol. I of his Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Religionssoziologie, 1920, p. 96 n.). ↩

Matthew Henry, The Worth of the Soul