![]() By contrast, luckier or more industrious ones would be able to set aside a percentage for trade or sale in local fairs or distant markets, in which they often participated. Many peasants, unfortunately, could produce only enough for their own consumption. They thus were laying the groundwork for small cottage industries. Others finished and prepared their produce, such as butchers, millers, coopers, tanners, weavers and rope makers. ![]() Some were obliged to transport their goods to market, and even to manufacture the means of transportation, and so developed as wheelwrights, harness makers, carters and porters. As a general rule, farming peasants had additional skills beyond tilling the soil. In addition, fish came from the sea, rivers, lakes or ponds. But it also gave wood products and wild game from forests and scrublands, minerals from mines, and pasture for domestic animals bread for work, food, and their products such as hides, wool and horns (horses, cattle, swine, poultry, sheep). The land that the French peasants worked provided, in the first place, crops (for food and drink) from fields, meadows and orchards. Serfdom had been eliminated from France by Vincent’s day, although many unfortunates were effectively bound to the land through chronic indebtedness. Vincent’s family belonged to this class of landowning peasants. A surprising statistic is, however, that the ownership of land is estimated to have been nearly equally divided between the peasants and other landowners. Their labor supported the other three million above them, the clergy (the “first estate”) and the nobles (the “second estate”), the whole forming a theoretical pyramid with fixed membership and obligations, similar in some ways to the caste system in Hindu societies. This total 17 million people but 20 million, (designated the “third estate,” the roturiers) generally lived from the land. In addition, there were about two million artisans of various kinds, both rural and urban. Out of those, 15 million lived in the country. Historians of early 17th century France estimate the population at about 20 million, probably less. Although he worked to reform some structures, others were imposed on him, principally the following four.įirst, the French lived largely from agriculture. This implies that he lived within certain structures, religious, social, political, and, for our purposes, economic. Vincent, to be clear about it, was a male, born in France, in a particular time and place, who became a Catholic priest. One of the temptations in any study of Vincent de Paul as it is of Jesus and other great figures, it to mold him into the person we want him to be: Santa Claus, missionary, whatever. My interest here is to focus, however, on the topic of Vincent and money: his world, his practice, and his theory. Which gesture really depicts the genuine Vincent? We can make up our minds individually about this. The second is Vincent the preacher, generally with a crucifix in his upraised hand. The first is Vincent with the babies, a sort of Santa Claus figure, round, chubby, kindly, even safe. This gesture contrasts with many others that have become associated with Vincent. Even in the final month of his life, September 1660, finances were one of his concerns, as an examination of last letters will show. ![]() There he is, son of landowning peasants and lord ( sieur) of Saint Lazare, through whom millions of livres passed for the service of the needy, with none of it sticking to his hands. But I like to think of the Vincent’s gesture as having financial implications. Perhaps it is a gesture of welcome, Jesus welcoming the visitor to his house, to heaven. One example is above the entry of the cathedral of Autun, a sculpture of Jesus the Judge in the same attitude. This gesture is obscure and rare in religious art. We see him there life-sized, gazing on those who enter, with his arms down and his large hands open but empty. In the courtyard of the Vincentian motherhouse in Paris, standing above the main entry, is one of my favorite statues of Vincent de Paul. Third Asian Vincentian Institute (Mother House, Paris, September-December 2006)
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