Analyzing the medieval church through an economic lens

David d’Avray has written an interesting and important critique of the work of Ekelund and Tollison—and their coauthors on multiple projects, Robert Hébert, Gary Anderson, and Audrey Davison—on the medieval church. In this response piece, I argue that while d’Avray is correct to note particular issues of historical interpretation in the work of Ekelund and Tollison, he does not develop a fully compelling critique of the economic approach to religious organizations.

d’Avray’s discussion of Ekelund and Tollison ranges widely and I will not take up all of his criticisms here. Gill (2024), for instance, does a great job of explaining the role that the analogy of the firm plays in Ekelund and Tollison’s analysis. I direct readers to consult his insightful piece to get a sense of what the economic way of thinking contributes to the study of religious organizations. Salter (2024) provides a robust defense of the public choice approach and the rational actor model. I also will not address areas of d’Avray’s essay where I lack expertise or where I more or less agree with his comments. Like d’Avray, I also don’t find the link between primogeniture and the Reformation emphasized by Ekelund, Hébert, and Tollison (2002) to be persuasive. Rather, my response will focus on the overall approach taken by Ekelund and Tollison and other scholars in the economics of religion and on a specific issue—usury laws—as an illustration of the public choice approach.

This response article is structured as follows. First, I discuss issues of approach and method. To my mind, it is unclear whether d’Avray is criticizing Ekelund and Tollison’s facts or their framework. With respect to the former, it is perhaps unsurprising that Ekelund and Tollison got some historical facts wrong or if some of their interpretations do not stand the test of time. Economics and economic history are progressive research programs (see Koyama, 2024). Many subsequent scholars have found aspects of Ekelund and Tollison’s approach useful and have built on their work (myself included) even when disagreeing with their conclusions. I think d’Avray’s piece would have been more usefully framed as a critique of a literature rather than of works that are, in some cases, decades old.Footnote1 Here I defend the broad approach taken by Ekelund and Tollison and other scholars following in their footsteps.

Next I focus on a specific topic, the economics of the medieval church’s usury prohibition. Prior to Ekelund, Hébert, and Tollison (1989) and Ekelund, Hébert, Tollison, Anderson, and Davidson (1996), this was a subject that had largely been studied by economists as a topic in the history of economic thought. Ekelund et al. (1989) therefore broke new ground by studying the prohibition from the perspective of the rational actor framework: asking why might it be in the material interest of the church to prohibit lending at interest.Footnote2 This was an important breakthrough, even though subsequent scholarship has not necessarily supported Ekelund and Tollison’s conclusions. d’Avray’s brief critique of Ekelund and Tollison on usury laws appears unaware of this scholarship and defaults back to a view that usury laws only targeted loan sharks and were presumably in the public interest. My contention is that a rational actor model provides a compelling explanation of the waxing and waning of the medieval usury prohibition and one that should be of interest to medieval historians.

I conclude by noting that interdisciplinary dialogues can be contentious and that the intentions of d’Avray should be applauded. For, while there has long been extremely fruitful dialogue between ancient historians and economists, relations between economic historians and historians studying more recent topics such as the Industrial Revolution or slavery have often been hostile. I hope this (and the other) response essays can convince d’Avray and other historians that the rational actor model is a fruitful way to study history.

Find the full article here.