Preaching About Manual/Artisanal Labour: A New Focus and Ambivalent Messages (1200–1500)

This essay investigates how late medieval preachers discussed manual/artisan labour and its ethics. Many sermons show that the preachers were very attentive to the current dynamics of their society. Not only were they keen observers, they also considered it their duty to reform their audience’s behaviour. After discussing the emergence of a new understanding of work as a status in the thirteenth century, the essay analyses the sermons addressed to or written about “craftsmen” (artifices mechanici) by some of the most relevant late medieval preachers. In their sermons, they considered manual/artisan work as having first and foremost a positive penitential value and also possibly serving as a path to salvation. In these sermons, manual work is linked to charity (e.g. making alms or paying tithes) and protects from idleness. Some preachers even compared it to a form of martyrdom. Yet, manual work was not without ambivalence according to preachers, who often pointed out its perils. According to their sermons, some trades would inherently lead to sins such as fraud, trickery, and unfaithfulness, and workers were seen as susceptible to sinful temptations of gambling games and the debauchery rampant in taverns. The most pessimistic preachers saw work merely as a distraction from spiritual matters. While differences in tone may derive from the ways in which different preachers understood both work and their own pastoral mission, overall, in their words, the value of work depended on the integrity and intention of the workers while performing their duties.