From Feudalism to Modernity, Part 2: The Revolution in Ideas, AD 450 to 1750

Abstract

This chapter explores the ideas and intellectual ethos that both advanced and retarded managerial innovation and endeavor between AD 450 and 1750. Many of the factors that advanced managerial ideas and practices during this period owed their origins to the medieval monasteries. Prominent among these were a love of learning and new institutions for study in the form of universities. The medieval monasteries also placed a high value on the dignity of work, fostering a “Calvinist” work ethic long before the Protestant Reformation. It was also the case that work and study were seen as intertwined rather than separate in the medieval monastery. If, however, an emphasis on learning and work advanced both management and society as a whole, it was also the case that some of the institutions responsible for progress also acted as retardants. Prior to the Reformation, the Catholic Church’s claim to the only legitimate source of knowledge acted as a brake on new forms of inquiry. The late medieval enthusiasm for Aristotelian philosophy and science was another obstacle; not only did Aristotle draw a sharp distinction between “theoretical” and “empirical” thought, he also believed “theology” to be “the most divine science.” Only with the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century were new secular forms of research and inquiry legitimated.