An enduring disjunction

The conception of work in the early Middle Ages is rooted in a threefold cultural background deriving from the classical tradition, the biblical teachings and the mentality of the Germanic populations. 

Classical culture harboured a profound contempt for any manual activity: work was conceived as a functional occupation to respond to the lowest needs of man, as opposed to otium, a necessary condition to carry out the best intellectual activities and pursue political commitment. 

With the development and flourishing of urban centres, a most rapid transformation in the conception of work took place. Predictably the contempt towards the work of servants and farmworkers remained, but the artisan work acquired value, becoming an emancipating activity that could grant freedom and wealth.

The church played a pivotal role both in the disjunction between worthy and unworthy working activities - substantiated by religious comparison to God - and in the legitimation of some categories of artisanal work as proper, which eventually resulted in the shaping of a new social organization.

Image by Jenny Kroik.