To understand why the medieval Church became an administrative giant, we have to understand how the people of that time actually felt in their own skin.
In A Secular Age, Charles Taylor describes the pre-modern individual as a “Porous Self.”
For us, the “self” is a fortress—what Taylor calls the “Buffered Self.” We believe our thoughts, fears, and even our spiritual lives are contained safely within our own minds. The world outside is just “stuff”—matter, laws of physics, and economic data.
But for the 8th-century person, the boundary between the internal and the external was porous. The world was “enchanted.” Spirits, grace, and divine judgment weren’t just “beliefs”; they were forces that could literally leak into your life.
Why this mattered for the Ledger:
If you were a “Porous Self,” a gift to the poor wasn’t just a tax deduction or a kind gesture. It was a spiritual shield. Managing wealth was a way of managing your vulnerability to a world that was alive with sacred power.
The Church didn’t just step in to manage “budgets”; it stepped in to manage the Porousness of society. It provided the structures—the monasteries, the tithes, the saints’ cults—that helped people navigate a world where the spiritual and the material were one and the same.
As we look toward the Imperial Hinge on April 14th, we’ll see how this “Porous” world began to harden into the institutional structures we still live with today.
I am really learning from and enjoying your synthesis of history, action, and faith on a moral hinge.