On February 22nd, 2024, Straus Center Resident Scholar Dr. Shaina Trapedo took her students to The Morgan Library & Museum for a guided tour of its exhibit, “Medieval Money, Merchants, and Morality.” The field trip was part of Dr. Trapedo’s new Straus Center course, “Epics and Ethics of the Middle Ages,” offered under the auspices of the Stern College English Department. The course focuses on great works of medieval literature, surveying texts such as Beowulf, The Divine Comedy, The Thousand and One Nights, and The Canterbury Tales.
The Morgan’s exhibit traces the material, historical, and ideological developments of money in the Middle Ages, displaying a rich collection of coins, rare literary works, art, and other artifacts. Dei Jackson, Assistant Curator of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts, led the guided tour, which began with a brief overview of the museum’s founding and Pierpont Morgan’s life as a banker and cultural benefactor. The exhibit, which features many valuable works from Morgan’s personal collection, highlights the complex emergence of the European economy beginning in the 13th century, which raised timeless and timely questions about the ethical implications of commerce amidst broader social and theological trends.
One of the central pieces of the exhibit is Death and the Miser by 16th-century Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch, which depicts a dying man’s deliberation over a sack of money offered by a demon and an angel’s urging of heavenly salvation. The curator guided the students through an art historical analysis of the painting, showing how it reflected contemporary tensions about the relationship between money and religious values.
The exhibit’s themes directly relate to the ideas and texts of the course, including antisemitic portrayals of Jews as usurers and Dante’s condemnation of financial corruption within the Church. More broadly, this learning experience encouraged students to consider how medieval thought influenced contemporary notions of power, social welfare, and civic responsibility.
