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From: Tom Cadmus
T1: cadmust
Date: 3/17/98
Time: 1:22:05 PM
Remote Name: 130.68.51.76
Eco represents the poverty battle as a thinly veiled fundamental argument about the status of the church as a worldly power. The church was certainly a moral, political, financial, and even military force in the fourteen hundreds populated by ambitious and "devout" men. Individuals could utilize the church as a vessel for their own climbs to positions of influence regardless of royal blood (though nepotism was not infrequent). It would seem necessary for the church and Pope to maintain the hierarchy of order that seemed to rule all things in the middle ages that the church would have to maintain a healthy fortune. Wealth is a large component of power. How the argument extends and follows from Christ's ownership of a few personal items to the vast holdings of the church is a bit laughable though. The church's vision seems skewed by some of its member's ravenous consumption. The Minorites are fully aware of the corruptive forces involved with the power the church possesses although they are of course making use of their claims to Christ's poverty for their own (and the emperor's) ends. Neither opponent involved in the debate seems to want to lessen the moral and ethical force (which would seem to wane if the resources were fewer) the church retains just to weaken the opponents grasp on that force