Renaissance attachment to things: material culture in last wills and testaments

Over the past decade 'material culture' has become a sub-discipline of Italian Renaissance studies. This literature, however, has focused on the rich and their objects preserved in museums or reflected in paintings. In addition, the period 1300 to 1600 has been treated without attention to...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Economic history review 2012-08, Vol.65 (3), p.984-1004
Main Author: COHN, JR, SAMUEL
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Artisans
Bequests
Death
Economic history
Heirs
Ideology
Inheritance
Italy
Material culture
Medieval history
Merchants
Museums
Peasant class
Property inheritance
Renaissance
Renaissance art
Renaissance period
Sons
Studies
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Over the past decade 'material culture' has become a sub-discipline of Italian Renaissance studies. This literature, however, has focused on the rich and their objects preserved in museums or reflected in paintings. In addition, the period 1300 to 1600 has been treated without attention to changes in the relationship between people and possessions. The article turns to last wills and testaments, which survive in great numbers and sink deep roots through late medieval and Renaissance cities and their hinterlands. They reveal aspirations and anxieties about things from post-mortem repairs to farm houses to pillows of monk's wool. These aspirations changed fundamentally after the Black Death. Earlier, during the 'commercial revolution', ordinary merchants, artisans, and peasants on their deathbeds practised what the mendicants preached: stripping themselves of their possessions, they converted their estates to coin to be scattered among pious and non-pious beneficiaries. After the Black Death, testators began to reverse tack, devising ever more complex legal strategies to govern the future flow of their goods. This work of the dead had larger economic consequences. By encouraging the liquidation of estates, the earlier mendicant ideology quickened the velocity of exchange, while the early Renaissance attachment to things did the opposite.
ISSN:0013-0117
1468-0289
DOI:10.1111/j.1468-0289.2010.00593.x