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London Is Still Paying Rent to the Queen on a Property Leased in 1211
- B1FF_PSUVM 10y agoConsidering that since then some three or four kings/dynasties have been rather unceremoniously disposed of ... looks like a bit of a formality, to rub it in. I mean, you execute/exile/etc the person you owe the debt to, and keep paying it to the one you pick to replace him in the job of president - er, I mean, king?
- rwmj 10y agoStratfield Saye House is rented from the Queen too, for the price of one silk flag per year. Although this has only been going on for a mere 200 years. http://royalcentral.co.uk/blogs/insight/annual-waterloo-ceremony-duke-of-wellington-pays-his-rent-2-32295 http://royalcentral.co.uk/blogs/insight/annual-waterloo-cere...
- osullivj 10y agoThe article refers to "London", but likely that means what is now the City of London, just one of 32 boroughs of Greater London. Few live in the City of London ("the City") these days, it's mostly business and finance.
- tgokh 10y agoLondon vs City of London: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqs5ohhass_QScZFYoQX-7376-Zp654mH https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqs5ohhass_QScZFYoQX-...
- mafribe 10y agoA really well-make explanation of the "City of London" I recommend CGP Grey's videos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrObZ_HZZUc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrObZ_HZZUc
- anexprogrammer 10y agoThe City is fascinating in the UK context, it really is more like a different country. It's strangely archaic being more of the 1200s than the 21st century. It can alter its own constitution, still permits business voting long abolished in the rest of the UK, and avoided much of the modernisation and reform elsewhere. There's now only about 10,000 residents - most of whom are in a single estate - the Barbican. Business votes now far exceed individuals. That doesn't touch on freemen, livery companies, and all the other archaic complexity. Secret City covers a lot of it, but the film is as much about the financial crisis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London
- fludlight 10y agoIn what elections do businesses vote? Local or national? Could one set up a thousand shell companies and get a thousand votes?
- vidarh 10y agoElections for the Common Council of the City of London Corporation. So local only. Votes are provided based on corporation size, so just setting up shell companies won't work.
- twic 10y agoIt's not quite that businesses get to vote. Businesses get to nominate some number of their employees as electors. I was an elector for a former company of mine. I could have voted however i liked, had i not quit the company before an election came along.
- osullivj 10y agoAll good points. Also, the City of London has it's own police force, quite separate from the Metropolitan Police (the Met) who cover the other 31 boroughs of London.
- kasey_junk 10y agoOne thing I wasn't sure of after reading the article, are the objects then given back to the city after the ceremony or do they need to provide more objects the next year. The former seems implied from the age of the items, but that doesn't seem like rent to me.
- howeyc 10y agoThat's what it sounds like to me too. Like the objects are brought out for the ceremony of "paying rent", but ownership of the items doesn't really change hands.
- eitally 10y agoIt'd be pretty interesting, though, to see & analyze history through an 800 year stretch of commodity products.
- pmyteh 10y agoThey are indeed returned after the ceremony. I suppose it helps keep the tradition without the tedium of trying to source another six oversized horseshoes every year. And the building of a pointless stock of blunt agricultural tools somewhere in Buckingham Palace too, I guess.
- khedoros1 10y agoI was wondering about it as I read, too. I pictured a long hallway lined with 800-odd sets of items, maybe with a plaque here and there to provide context of what was happening in the country at that time.
- gozur88 10y agoAh, only the Brits to turn a rental agreement into a photo op for tourists :)
- dasil003 10y agoPart of the ceremony should be sending some robbers in the night to steal them back, and if the guards catch them then have a public "flogging". Turtles all the way down you see.
- lets-tryagain 10y agoApparently the Royals can inherit from people they aren't related to? The Windsors are no more relatives of John than I am!
- unkeptbarista 10y agoThere is a urban fantasy novel by Mike Sheldon based on the two oldest quit rents mentioned in this article. http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6673065-sixty-one-nails http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6673065-sixty-one-nails
- pacaro 10y agoHa! This was my first thought too! An enjoyable read, the protagonist becomes progressively less sympathetic through the series
- smcl 10y agoAll these weird antiquated ceremonies and traditions remind me of Doug Stanhope's take on the UK still having a monarchy @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctOHo4RzZEc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctOHo4RzZEc - tiny quote: "for gods sake is this a country or a renaissance festival, what kind of Dungeons and Dragons bullshit is that?"
- UweSchmidt 10y agoThis is part of a massive misunderstanding. Monarchy is not gone at all, it's a functioning power system, waiting for the day when it's time for a comeback. Similarly the catholic church. They just swap out the pope for a pro-gay one and otherwise just wait. These systems think in centuries.
- mseebach 10y agoAnd yet, while we're getting ready to votes for the lesser evil of Kang and Kodos, the Queen is well into her seventh decade on the throne, still enjoying approval ratings that democratic politicians can only dream about. https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/09/08/monarchy-here-stay/ https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/09/08/monarchy-here-stay/
- vidarh 10y agoIt's rather easier to enjoy a high approval rating when what you need to do to maintain it is to not express any opinions and avoid taking any decisions and give sufficiently magnanimous answers to a few unimportant questions here and there, and not being caught doing anything offensive.
- trhway 10y agodelegation done right.
- lisper 10y ago"But each fall, usually in October, the city and the crown perform the same exchange, for no particular reason other than that they always have." It's tempting to laugh at this silliness, but 1000 years from now coders will still be putting the open curly brace in C code on a separate line for no particular reason other than that they always have.
- ythl 10y agoNew line curly brace master race checking in
- lostcolony 10y agoReminds me of that bit in The Last Continent - They'd never stopped, or even thought of stopping. You couldn't stop Tradition. You could only add to it. The three men reached the shadows by the main gate, almost blotted out in the whirling snow. The bledlow on duty was waiting for them. 'Halt! Who Goes There?' he shouted. McAbre saluted. 'The Archchancellor's Keys!' 'Pass, The Archchancellor's Keys!' The Head Bledlow took a step forward, extended both arms in front of him with his palms bent back towards him, and patted his chest at the place where some bledlow long buried had once had two breast pockets. Pat, pat. Then he extended his arms by his sides and stiffly patted the sides of his jacket. Pat, pat. 'Damn! Could Have Sworn I Had Them A Moment Ago!' he bellowed, enunciating each word with a sort of bulldog carefulness. The gatekeeper saluted. McAbre saluted. 'Have You Looked In All Your Pockets?' McAbre saluted. The gatekeeper saluted. A small pyramid of snow was building up on his bowler hat. 'I Think I Must Have Left Them On The Dresser. It's Always The Same, Isn't It?' 'You Should Remember Where You Put Them Down.!' 'Hang On, Perhaps They're In My Other Jacket!' The young bledlow who was this week's Keeper of the Other Jacket stepped forward. Each man saluted the other two. The youngest cleared his throat and managed to say: 'No, I Looked In . . . There This . . . Morning!' McAbre gave him a slight nod to acknowledge a difficult job done well, and patted his pockets again. 'Hold On, Stone The Crows, They Were In This Pocket After All! What A Muggins I Am!' 'Don't Worry, I Do The Same Myself!' 'Is My Face Red! Forget My Own Head Next!' Somewhere in the darkness a window creaked up. 'Er, excuse me, gentlemen—' 'Here's The Keys, Then!' said McAbre, raising his voice. 'Much Obliged!' 'I wonder if you could—' the querulous voice went on, apologizing for even thinking of complaining. 'All Safe And Secure!' shouted the gatekeeper, handing the keys back. '—perhaps keep it down a little—' 'Gods Bless All Present!' screamed McAbre, veins standing out on his thick crimson neck. 'Careful Where You Put Them This Time. Ha! Ha! Ha!' 'Ho! Ho! Ho!' yelled McAbre, beside himself with fury.
- caboteria 10y agoThis sort of thing happens in the US, too, at least in the Northeast corner of it. The land that my house sits on is owned by the Unitarian Universalist church down the street, and each year I owe them $4 or the equivalent in livestock or firewood. To date I've always found it easiest to mail them a check but someday if I'm feeling grumpy maybe I'll give them a duckling.
- pavel_lishin 10y agoHow did you come to own a house that's built on land you don't own? And aren't you worried about what may happen in the future?
- awqrre 10y agoNobody really owns the land their house is built on in the USA... stop paying your property taxes (rent) and you'll see who owns it.
- znpy 10y agoI was waiting for someone to point this out. Have my upvote.
- pklausler 10y agoIt's you, and you're in arrears on a tax obligation. Did I get it right?
- awqrre 10y agoI don't owe any taxes, but finding the ones that do is a good way to find cheap properties...
- GavinMcG 10y agoThis is such a tired claim. Every civilization ever has been built under the aegis of, if no one else, each other. Of course you own it. The question is what "ownership" means. Ownership of a property is best defined by delineating the specific rights that you can exercise with respect to it. You may bar people from entering it. You might not be able to bar the government from entering it or making certain uses of it. There's a good chance you can't keep people from being underneath your house and extracting valuable minerals, if they're far enough down. Your rights don't extend very far above the earth. But you knew all that when you made the purchase.
- pjc50 10y agoLikewise France's oldest debt: https://modeledbehavior.com/2010/01/31/the-worlds-oldest-existing-government-debt/ https://modeledbehavior.com/2010/01/31/the-worlds-oldest-exi... The UK has never been through a "year zero" forcible reconstitution, so its constitutional and administrative arrangements are full of little adhoc anomalies (the various islands like Sark and Man, the City, "County" Durham, chancel repair liability, and so on). Mostly these are a fine and picturesque addition to the texture of the nation. There's certainly no real appetite to "fix" things, although Scotland managed to abolish the feudal system (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolition_of_Feudal_Tenure_etc._(Scotland)_Act_2000 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolition_of_Feudal_Tenure_etc...) However, this means that the sort of internal tensions which in the US get nailed to the mast of the constitution instead float around, un-crystallized. Until now, when the "brexit" vote has triggered a cascade of constitutional crises: is parliamentary consent required to leave the EU? How does this affect the Good Friday Agreement? What about Scotland? What exactly is the constitutional status of the Human Rights Act and why do the conservatives keep trying to abolish it? And so on.
- Someone 10y agoThere also a bond from a Dutch water board (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_board_(Netherlands) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_board_(Netherlands)) issued in 1648 that still pays interest: http://news.yale.edu/2015/09/22/living-artifact-dutch-golden-age-yale-s-367-year-old-water-bond-still-pays-interest http://news.yale.edu/2015/09/22/living-artifact-dutch-golden...
- DannyB2 10y agoIsn't 1211 four hundred years before the King James bible?
- pizzapill 10y agoOdd thing to recognize but you are right King James Bible is from 1611.
- johan_larson 10y agoI'm just waiting for someone to make use of an obscure provision to settle a dispute through Trial by Combat.
- tzs 10y ago> a knife, an axe, six oversized horseshoes, and 61 nails It looks like, based on the photo, that the horseshoes take 10 nails each, so that could why they are accompanied by 60 nails. So why 61? A spare?
- awesomebob 10y ago"For want of a nail the shoe was lost..."
- ilikejam 10y ago21 spare nails, 2 spare shoes. Or 3 horses with a limp and a spare nail.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- dogma1138 10y agoThe US is still paying for Gitmo, they also might still be paying for Alaska :P
- veryhungryhobo 10y agoThis is why we should vote for Trump!
- sctb 10y agoWe've banned this account for posting this in several unrelated threads.
- toxican 10y agoI'm torn between finding these kinds of things completely ridiculous and appreciating keeping old traditions alive. There's just something neat about these kinds of things. Hilariously pointless, but neat.
- int_19h 10y agoIt's also symbolic, representing the abstract notion of a stable government in a real and tangible way. Such symbols can be useful.
- etqwzutewzu 10y agoMore impressive to me is the fact that Britain is still paying interest on a debt from 1720 (due to South Sea Bubble krach) http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/28/world/that-debt-from-1720-britains-payment-is-coming.html http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/28/world/that-debt-from-1720-...
- thiviost 10y agoIn Germany there is still payments going on which date back to the German mediatization because of compensations for exproriated property or liabilities on the propriety which switched the owner to some other princes and in turn now the state. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_mediatization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_mediatization
- premium-concern 10y agoThat's what "rent" means.