Confession and Bookkeeping: The Religious, Moral, and Rhetorical Roots of Modern Accounting

Notes

Preface 1. As a document of how “rational capital accounting” has been reconfigured by contemporary American sociologists into something other than bookkeeping, consider the following definition of the phrase by Randall Collins. Weber’s concept, he writes, refers to “technology which is reduced to calculation to the largest possible degree” (Collins, 1980: 928), that is, “rationalized technology” (931). While this broadened characterization of the concept does not contradict Weber—DEB (double-entry bookkeeping) is a calculative technology—it does allow Collins tactically to avoid having to address the subject of bookkeeping itself. After all, machines are also rationalized technologies. In a later reconstruction of Weber’s thesis, Collins in fact equates calculative technology with “mechanization” (Collins, 1986: 84, 86). 2. For an excellent critique of this proposition, see Thompson (1991). 3. As this book went to press, Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal (2004) published a special issue devoted to theological perspectives on accounting. It includes titles such as “Accounting, Love, and Justice,” “Accounting and Theology” (which the authors describe as “initiating a dialogue between immediacy and eternity”), and “Sacred Vestiges in Financial Reporting: Mythical Readings Guided by Mircea Eliade.” Chapter One 1. A notable exception is Lutz Kaelber (1998). Jere Cohen agrees that modern capitalism had medieval precursors. However, he goes on to claim “that the religious factor played little or no part in the early rise of rational capitalism” (Cohen, 1980: 1352, 1351). The present book, obviously, challenges Cohen’s position. 99 Notes 2. For a detailed, balanced analysis of Weber’s sociology of medieval Catholicism, which Kaelber admits to having been “unevenly developed,” see Kaelber (1998: 18–25, and Collins, 46–55). A readable, fair overview of Weber on Catholicism is also found in Collins (1986: 47– 89). 3. Sombart concedes Weber’s point, but notes that Alberti represents an “old style,” but nonetheless fully bourgeois life (Sombart, 1967: 154–59). Weber dismisses Alberti’s influence by describing him as “a renaissance litterateur addressing himself to the humanistic aristocracy ” (presumably unlike the yeoman Yankee, Benjamin Franklin) (Weber, 1958: 196, n. 12). Research shows on the contrary that Alberti’s Della Famiglia was one of the most widely read and plagiarized works in Renaissance Italy (Ravenscroft, 1974). Chapter Two 1. While agreeing with Watkins (1920) and McNeill (McNeill and Gamer, 1938) in other respects, Poschmann says, “it is wrong to exaggerate [the Celtic] connection and to regard monastic confession as the primary source of the entire later institution of penance”(Poschmann, 1964: 30). However, he concedes that confession was indeed understood by Church bishops to be radically different from the ancient canonical rite (131–32). Galtier (1937) explicitly denies that confessional penance originated in Ireland, but rather was derived directly from canonical penance. Poschmann vigorously disputes this (Poschmann, 1964: 133, n. 19; 133–34, n. 20; and 143, 145, 213). Tentler argues that while confession and canonical penance “openly clashed, they were fundamentally similar”(Tentler, 1977: 10). Nonetheless, he considers the enactment of compulsory confession in 1215 to have been a “momentous” event in Church history (22). 2. Examples of penitential literature in English: Cursor Mundi (Morris, 1961 [1847]), an encyclopedic poem composed ca. 1300–1325, part five of which contains a “Boke of Penance”; The Book of Vices and Virtues (Francis, 1968 [1942]), a translation of Lorens of Orleans, Somme le Roi (1279) (Lorens was confessor to King Philip the Fair. His summa was translated into six languages and published in eight English versions alone); the Ancren Riwle (Wilson, 1954), written ca. 1230 to three sisters who wished to be anchoresses; 100 Notes to Chapter 2 Lay Folks’ Catechism (Simmons and Nolloth, 1901); Myrrour of Synneres and Speculum Peccatoris (Page, 1976); and The English Register of Godstow Nunnery (Clark, 1905). 3. Unless otherwise specified, the following words and phrases are taken directly from decreta issued at the Fourth Lateran Council and at the Council of Trent (1551) (Denzinger, 1957: 173, secs. 437, 274–79, and 879–906). Chapter Three 1. Delumeau claims that there is no “inevitable coincidence” between the “obsession neurosis” of moral scrupulosity and the sacrament of confession. Yet, he adds, it is “impossible . . . to deny” a connection between the two. “By making the confession of sin a fundamental . . . of the message of liberation, Christianity exposes the individual to morbid guilt” (Delumeau, 1990: 297). 2. This fact is the basis of Kaelber’s (1998) attempt to emend Weber. 3. Weber claims that Catholic moral actuaries...