Conviviality and charity in medieval and early modern England - response to Judith M. Bennett, Past and Present, no. 134, February 1992

Past & Present, Feb, 1997 by Maria Moisa

(32) M. Mauss, `Essai sur le don', in Sociologie et anthropologic, 4th edn (Paris, 1991), passim; Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, iv; for John Chrysostom's sermons, see St John Chrysostom, Commentary on St. John the Apostle, 2 vole., trans. T. A. Goggin (Washington, 1969); C. A. Gregory, `Gifts to Men and Gifts to God: Gift Exchange and Capital Accumulation in Contemporary Papua', Man, new ser., xv (1980-4), applies criteria similar to Aristotelian-patristic ones.

(33) `Charity' also referred to gifts to the clergy, who could, but would not, reciprocate in this world, except in exchanges of presents with kin or between prelates and the aristocracy.

(34) Bennett, `Conviviality and Charity', 33. `Communes potationes quos scotallas mutato nomine caritatis appellant'; `compotationes que ficto caritates vero nomine scot-ales dicuntur': the first is a text attributed to Stephen Langton, in Councils and Synods with Other Documents Relating to the English Church, A.D. 871-1313, ed. D. Whitelock et al., 2 vols. in 4 (Oxford, 1964-81), ii, 560 n. e.; the second is from the Statutes of Wells [1258?], ibid., 604-5.

(35) The word `charity', of course, can be translated as `love', and as such could be used to mean anything, like the Yorkshire `love' nowadays. The semantic muddle may have started with the Vulgate, which simplified the many nuances of the Greek version, but was made worse in the modern versions by further simplifications which mixed up charity as brotherly love (agape or philadelphia) with charity as sharing (kainonia) and charity as doing good (eupoiia).

(36) For instance, the entry for the offence committed by the most highly fined brewers states: `Next, it is presented at the said great inquisition that William of Bretton (3s. 4d.), Thomas Baker of Normanton (6s. 8d.), William of Methley (3s. 4d.) and Richard Caly (3s. 4d.) of the same, webster, brewed ales called help-ales against the statute, and that they put them for sale to the prejudice of the lord King's people. Therefore each of them is amerced' (`Item presentatum est per magnam inquisitionem supradictam quod Gillam de Bretton (3s. 4d.), Thomas Baker de Normanton (6s. 8d.), Willelmus de Methley (3s. 4d.) de eadem, Ricardus Caly (3s. 4d.) de eadem, webster, brasiaverunt servisias vocatas help-ales contra statutum et easdem posuerunt vendicionem in prejudicium populi domini Regis. Ideo quilibet illorum est in misericordia'): Yorks. Archaeol. Soc., MD 225/1/132/1, Wakefield tourn of Oct. 1406. In later years, entries mention `excess profits' and `lucre': see Yorks. Archaeol. Soc., MD 225/1/146/1, Wakefield tourn of Oct. 1420; MD 225/1/165/2, Halifax tourn of Apr. 1440.