Worthy Efforts: Attitudes to Work and Workers in Pre-Industrial Europe

Catharina Lis (1945) is Emeritus Professor of History at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, and currently Guest Professor at the University of Antwerp. She has authored and co-authored many books, and has recently co-edited The Idea of Work (Ashgate, 2009). Hugo Soly (1945) is Emeritus Professor of History at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, and currently Guest Professor at the University of Antwerp. He has authored and co-authored many books and articles on the social history of pre-industial Europe.

“Without a doubt [...] a seminal study and a milestone in the historiography of work and workers. Not only does it range impressively over a period of two and a half milennia, from ancient Greece to the onset of modern industrial societies around 1800, but the authors also convincingly bring together social and cultural historical approaches to ask how and why certain conceptions of and attitudes towards work and workers in pre-industrial Europe were developed and how these were altered under diverse historical constellations [...]. Lis and Soly’s book is an impressive scholarly achievement. It not only provides plentiful insights but also raises many questions and offers manifold inspirations for future research.” Philip Hoffmann-Rehnitz (University of Münster) in Economic History Review, vol. 68, 2015, no. 4, pp. 1464-6.“[...] a masterpiece that henceforth will have to be taken into consideration by anyone dealing with the history of work.”Josef Ehmer (University of Vienna) in International Review of Social History, vol. 59, 2014, no. 1, pp. 99-117 (on p. 117).“Perceptions of work and workers from antiquity to industrialization are the twin subjects of Lis and Soly’s monumental new study […] ranging extraordinarily widely across time, space and material to give a survey of several millenia of thinking on the value of work and the status and identity of workers. […] It is far more than a worthy effort.”Patrick Wallis (London School of Economics) in Social History, vol. 39, 2014, no. 1, pp. 111-12.“Worthy Efforts offers us a highly orginal and thought-provoking analysis of a research topic which is generally seen as one of the main focal points of economic history, but which is here approached through a combination of the history of ideas and social history, or, one might say, through a cultural history in its broadest sense. Even though one of the strenghts of Lis and Soly’s work resides in their longue durée-perspective, Worthy Efforts is certainly also a must-read for scholars focusing on distinct historical periods. This is particularly the case for medievalists, for many of whom this book is likely to become the standard work par excellence on this topic.”Jeroen Deploige (University of Ghent) in The Low Countries Journal of Social and Economic History, vol. 11, 2014, no. 1, pp. 89-104 (on p. 93).“This book is a masterpiece. Only once in several years a book is published on labour history that is so original, so new and so rich that one wishes to recommend it to everybody interested in this field. Worthy Efforts is such a book.”Jan Lucassen (Free University, Amsterdam, and International Institute of Social History) in The Low Countries Journal of Social and Economic History, vol. 11, 2014, no. 1, pp. 117-25 (on p. 117).“Worthy Efforts is a masterpiece. […] It will definitely become a classic in its field. But it is also extremely valuable for those who study the Great Divergence. […] It provides lots of relevant information for scholars who seriously doubt that the Great Divergence can be reduced to the rise of the market, free labour and inclusive institutions, and to the succession of one mode of production and exchange by another one.”Peer Vries (University of Vienna) in The Low Countries Journal of Social and Economic History, vol. 11, 2014, no. 1, pp. 127-40 (on pp. 127 and 136).

• General Editor’s PrefaceAcknowledgementsIntroductionPart I: Antiquity and Christianity: A Polyphonic Heritage1. Attitudes to Work and Workers in Ancient GreeceProductive VirtueSpecialization and PoliticsFreedom and IndependenceNon-agrarian Activities: Morality and MeaningCraftsmanship and HonourOccupation and IdentityCompeting Discourses2. The Roman Empire: Continuity and ChangeThe Economy and Elite ValuesFreedmen: Wealth and StatusCollegia: Occupation, Status, and PowerSkilled Labour as the Core of Social IdentityWork EthicA Provisional Balance3. Christian Ideologies of Work‘Great Are these Achievements, and Dinstinctively Human’‘If Anyone Will Not Work, Then Let Him Not Eat’Ora et LaboraNaked to Follow the Naked ChristSlaves of Christ, the Indigent, and SinnersWorkers at the Crossroads of Order and ChaosLabour in a ‘Calling’Part II: Workers in Medieval and Early Modern Europe: Images and Self-Images4. Imagined PeasantriesContrasting ImagesThe Place of the LaboratoresInterdependence and ReciprocityHierarchy and Inequality‘When Adam Delved and Eve Span’Town and CountryThe Patriarchical Household and Rural Work‘Improvement’ Rural Idyll5. Commerce: Useful and Honourable WorkThe Christian Church: Commerce as WorkHonour versus Profit?Humanists and the Pursuit of Private WealthUrban Middle Groups and Big BusinessSelf-Images and Self-RepresentationsBusinesswomenShort-Lived Communities of CommerceThe Ideal of a Commercial SocietyNew Dissonances6. Artisans: Practice and TheoryMechanical ArtsCraft GuildsUrban Corporatism: A World of DistinctionsThe ‘Backbone’ of the Corporative WorldIdealized Artisans and Imagined WorkshopsSelf-Conscious Master ArtisansMasters of Design and Original CreatorsTheoreticians and TechniciansFecit et Invenit‘Intellectual Artists’ and ‘Craftsmen-Artists’Women Artists: Amateurs or Professionals?Light Bearing Versus Fruit BearingTheory Does Not LabourThe Middling Sort and the Value of Human Labour7. The Many Faces of Wage-LabourLabour Laws‘Living at Their Own Hand’Undeserving, Masterless Men and Idle RoguesEmployment and the Active SocietyThe Labouring PoorWhat Freedom?Work and HappinessAutonomous, Independent, and Self-SufficientCollective ActionConcluding ReflectionsBibliographyIndex