Chapter Lavoro, ozio e mendicità: la disputa duecentesca tra Ordini mendicanti e clero secolare

Abstract

The Middle Ages marked the definitive break with the ancient conception that opposed servile labour to the idleness of intellectual life and the exercise of the liberal arts. Within this paradigm shift, a central role was played by the 13th-century dispute between mendicant orders and secular clergy, involving scholastic masters such as Bonaventure of Bagnoregio and Thomas Aquinas. In their thinking emerges a new conception of work, which is placed within a more complex conceptual network made up of categories such as grace, toil, poverty, possession, alms, remuneration. A conception that on the one hand confers a new dignity on manual labour, and on the other allows for the elaboration of a precise notion of intellectual labour.