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My work concerns the economic development that followed  
Franciscan conversion efforts among Indians in late 18th c.  
California.  Recently, I have been rereading Max Weber, and he  
points to medieval Christian asceticism as the precursor of the  
Protestant Ethic.  I can certainly see that the Franciscans'  
asceticism lead them to save, and that they believed that it was  
God's will for them to manage an economy to the extent that this  
economy would enable them to spread God's word through  
conversions.  They almost seem like Weber's worldy ascetics  
since their actions took place outside the monastaries in  
politicized environments, although in an isolated, extreme  
backwater (the Northern frontier of Mexico) where profit  
opportunities were less likely to tempt.   
 
Where can I read on how the Franciscans made the transition from  
ascetics who shunned property to the type of worldly ascetics who  
would manage economies for the sake of disseminating  
Christianity in the world?  How do we get to the role of Franciscans  
in Spanish colonialism, and in particular in the Spanish frontier  
economy?   I am familiar with John Leddy Phelan, but he deals  
with an inspirational moment in the 16th century, when it looked as  
if the millenium was at hand.  This is quite different from the day to  
day economic decision-making of the late 18th c. Franciscans.   
 
One last thought: Odd Langholm mentions that an entire book  
could be written on the economics of household (estate)  
management, and the moral issues involved, but his 1992 book in  
fact concerns the interaction with the business world.  My subject  
is Franciscans managing household estates (missions of 1000  
Indians), but at times interacting with the market economy.  Thus  
the moral issue of allocating goods inside the household is  
connected to the moral issue of exchanging some of those goods  
on the market.  So anything particularly on Franciscan household  
economics would also be appreciated.   
 
My thanks in advance for suggestions/comments. 
 
Marie Duggan, Ph.D. Candidate 
New School for Social Research    
 
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