The Economy of the Host in the Monastic World: A Non-Economic Economy

Abstract

Although the host, the future body of Christ in the Catholic Eucharist, seems to lie completely outside of the economic system, it needs to be produced and sold. The majority of host producers are female monasteries for which the production process brings double tension: as an economic activity within a religious utopia (the monastery) and as the economization of something that is considered to be a religious good. This double tension provokes the question, how do the nuns legitimate this economic process in their monastery without desacralizing the symbolic good? Trying to answer this question, nuns typically deny the economic dimension of production and transaction, yet the sheer existence of this economy proves it is accepted. This chapter examines the relationship between economy and religion through an analysis of the ambivalence in the production and marketing process of altar bread.

Citation

Jonveaux, I. (2011), "The Economy of the Host in the Monastic World: A Non-Economic Economy", Obadia, L. and Wood, D.C. (Ed.) The Economics of Religion: Anthropological Approaches (Research in Economic Anthropology, Vol. 31), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 77-97. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0190-1281(2011)0000031007