教廷财政的近代转型

The Transformation of Papal Fiscal in the Early Modern Period

学术界一般认为 ,天主教是一种保守而顽固的封建势力 ,阻碍了西方社会的近代转型。本文通过对近代早期教廷财政制度的考察 ,认为从 1 5世纪起 ,罗马教廷的经济生活方式发生了变化 ,从依赖其封建特权为生到运用现代金融手段度日。这一变化不仅改变了教廷传统的财政机制 ,也使教廷财政与近代金融市场融为一体 ,迫使教廷的经济生活纳入新的经济秩序与经济原则的运行中。教廷特权阶层已与商人、银行家等资产者家族结成同盟。这证明近代早期的罗马教廷并不比当时欧洲的任何世俗政府更为保守 ,其制度变迁并不是反常的逆流。

It is generally accepted that Catholic Church is a conservative and die-hard element in the transition of the Western society.By approaching the transformation of Papal Fiscal in the Early Modern Period,the author affirms that the economic life of the Papacy changed from living on Spiritualities and Temporalities to on the long-term and short-term credits which made the Papal life bound with what happened in the financial market in the 15th-17th centuries,and the traditional financial system was modified to fit with the capitalist economic system and order.At the meantime,the class of Italian merchants and Bankers,as the skilful financial oligarchies, were placing its members into the papal curial bureaucracy,and who gradually became fused with the Roman clerical class to form a sort of clerical plutocracy.Thus.there was institutional change in the papacy,and which was not eccentric,but closely comparable with what took place in other European governments.