4 ms·
The clergy in the 14th century were absolutely unmoored. Everything was for sale. You could pre-pay for absolution for future sins. They sold relics of everythi
by encoderer 2y ago
The clergy in the 14th century were absolutely unmoored. Everything was for sale. You could pre-pay for absolution for future sins. They sold relics of everything - Jesus hair, even parts of the “burning bush” from the Old Testament. The first crusade brought back real treasures and relics that made the perfect pretense for a century of grifters.
That was all pretty much stopped later that century though by a few bad things like the mini ice age, papal schism, 100 years war, and the Black Death.
- InDubioProRubio 2y agoClergy back then basically was a hacker culture- as in you get the suckers to buy some relic or immortality paperwork and have a nice life extracting resources and giving nothing in return.
- encoderer 2y agoThey sold NFTs and shitcoins basically.
- BlueTemplar 2y agoSeems pretty accurate, with the exception that relics seem to have worked as a much more official currency, in a context where the whole continent was severely lacking in coinage.
- Maken 2y agoNo, those were the restrained ones. They at least put some effort in making their relics credible. The clergy in the 16th century literally wrote "Get out of Hell" cards and sell them for money. What made them stop was Protestantism calling them on their bullshit.