Sighkey made a very interesting point about cathedrals, to wit: “One should remember that the price of those beautiful cathedrals were lives lost and also thousands of pounds of money which could have been better put to use helping those who were starving and/or dying of the numerous diseases that were floating around at the time. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/lj/churchlj/cathedral_08.shtml“
I have to admit that my initial reaction was, “It was worth it.”
Before you recoil in horror, consider the analogous case of the automobile.
Cars are a major killer in the U.S., way ahead of AIDS and terrorists and other bad things, but most of us would agree that their benefits outweigh their dangers.
But the cost/benefit ratio of cars can be calculated more easily than cathedrals. You can estimate the number of deaths and injuries and compare it to the number of people who were able to get medical care because they had a car or ambulance to hand. Admittedly, this is artificial, since it leaves out all environmental questions and also all non-medical quality-of-life questions, but it does give you an apples-to-apples comparison.
Cathedrals are harder.
For one thing, there isn’t a direct way to compare the harm of cathedrals — dangerous working conditions and opportunity cost — with the benefits, assuming those benefits to be things like increased joy.
Let’s try anyway. First, consider the economic issue: could the money spent on cathedrals be better spent on feeding the poor?
Actually, since a cathedral town was more economically stable than other towns and had tourist income, there might have been a net advantage. The cost of a cathedral also got spread around — it wasn’t like an obscene salary for a baseball player. The money would have gone to workers, people who prepared the raw materials, and so on.
There also is the question of how the money would otherwise have been used. When I read recently in the Wall Street Journal that khaki trousers could now be bought for $500 to $1000 a pair, I immediately thought of how many starving children could be fed for that amount of money. However, the kind of guy who plunks down $800 for his pants does not — if someone came up and said, “Hey, dude, you know how many orphans could be fed for that many ducats?” — turn around and donate the funds to the local soup kitchen instead. He’d just buy golf clubs. Equally, the people (and it seems to have been largely individual donations that funded cathedrals) who put up the money were not likely to have spent it for alms if they hadn’t given to the cathedral.
Nor, when it comes to diseases, would money have helped. It would have helped a lot if someone had thought, “Let’s use the money for the cathedral to build sanitary septic systems instead!” but that wasn’t going to happen. A lack of information would keep the lack of money from being an issue.
What about the lives lost? I don’t know whether cathedral work was particularly dangerous in the way that, say, mining has always been. But people in those days died routinely from sepsis, childbirth, food poisoning, random violence, etc. My plan is to die comfortably in my sleep at the end of a long and happy life, but if I had to choose between dying in the production of a cathedral or from random medieval violence, I’d go with the cathedral.
Still, there are the costs. What about the benefits? Cathedrals were the center of the towns, often providing education for children, rest for travelers, sanctuary for the endangered, food for the indigent, and legal services as well as all religious care. They were the place for christenings, weddings, and funerals. They were, as I have already mentioned, one of the very few places where ordinary people could experience the arts, or even spend time in a relatively comfortable place.
And of course we are doing an omniscient, omnipresent balance sheet. We make a total on the left side of the dangers and opportunity costs for the two hundred years of building a great cathedral. On the right, we stack up the benefits of that building: steady work for generations, the satisfaction of craftsmanship, the belief of the donors that their monetary gifts would help them to salvation (which presumably salved their consciences and reduced stress), the income for the town as pilgrims arrived, the important charitable work of monks housed there, the great works of art — including music — prepared for the cathedral, itself a work of art.
Then we have to total up the benefits since the building was completed. Continued work, of course, since upkeep is constant and the buildings are still in use, and continued works of art. The pleasure of all visitors since that time, the moments of calm in lives that may have been difficult for many reasons. Isn’t the right side of the balance sheet getting a taller stack than the left?
At the very least, I have greatly enjoyed thinking about this. Thanks, Sighkey!
Have you thought about becoming a teacher?
AND a very well though-out little essay you’ve shared with us. Thanks 🙂 A while back I saw a series (?) on PBS called Cathedral wherein much of the building or restoration of a specific cathedral was sort of recreated using actors in period costume, etc. Quite interesting.
Thanks for the ideas. I’ll pursue the higher- ranking jobs more aggressively than I have been.
I’ve been applying for everything I can find that I think there’s even a chance that I can do. We’ll see what happens.
There will be more info on my blog later, when I can use a computer.
Oh, I’m not updating software. I’ll be getting a computer. I’ve done almost all my posts from my phone.
You made some extremely good points. My favorite was the fact that even if the donors hadn’t spent their money on the cathedral – that doesn’t necessarily mean they would have spent it on the poor or “curing disease” (presumably by increased bloodletting and leech production?) – with the example of the khaki pants. Very good argument.
Oh the Vicster and I didn’t even end up doing dinner. We had coffee. And he had something to do at 7 so there was no issue.
However, I did end up having dinner at 9 o’ clock in the pm time with Mr Perfect. He gushed about his new job for hours. He’s got that same joie de vivre as #2 son.
Nicely argued 🙂 After all, all I said is that one should remember the cost. I don’t agree with you about the loss of lives because you and I were not the ones at risk of being killed by a stone block playing with gravity – it is easy to say that we would prefer being killed that way than by one of the slower deaths that were common in those days when we know that that is not a risk for us. The men were often drafted into the workgangs for the cathedrals – some of them might have preferred their daily pickpocketing jobs – or trying to make ends meet for their wives and children. The pyramids were also built by slave labour.
You are also assuming that many others feel the same way about cathedrals as you do. That depends a little on your religious persuasion. The protestant movement was at least partially started by those who believed that such excess as represented by the great cathedrals was pure idolatry and had no place in the religion based around Christ’s teachings. I like the ambience inside some of the cathedrals but much of that ambience comes from centuries (well not centuries over here admittedly, we haven’t been here that long) of people of faith sitting, and praying and thinking within. Small, old churches have the same feel to me without the distraction of fancy stained glass windows and intricate carving (as do small new churches with faithful congregations). I have no quibble with you monetary arguments. I would, however, like to point out that the majority of your argument was economic refutation – surely money is not important than lives? 🙂
Something you said reminded me of that quote from the Bible, when Judas yells at a woman about pouring expensive perfumes on Jesus when they could have been sold to give money to the poor, and Jesus responded, “Why are you bothering this woman? She has done a beautiful thing to me. The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me.” (Matt 26:10-12, NIV)
Granted, money and things are not more important than people. But let’s not forget either that the building of the Cathedrals was not necessarily a “Cathedrals = death for all involved” enterprise. And, the majority of the time, they were built by HIRED help and professional artisans – not “slaves”. So because the money could have been spent on other things – does that mean the Cathedrals should not have been built? We should undertake no beautiful works of art just because our time could be spent on other more productive things? Reminds me rather of the Puritan notion that everything that is fun and nice for humans to do is sinful.
I replied to the comment you just left me on your guestbook by mistake (I wasn’t paying attention to what I was doing) – so look for a reply there!
RYC: That’ the fun of discussion and debate, we can enjoy playing with the words and opinions knowing that nothing we say is going to have the slightest effect on these issues. (Can you tell that my work time is now somewhat less structured than it has been – I actually have the time to play a little now. Still, better get back to work now)