The cult of St Thomas Becket

The story of the murder of Archbishop Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral on 29^th December 1170 is well known, as is the knowledge that the event gave rise to pilgrimages for centuries afterwards, the most famous being the fictional one that formed the basis of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales more than 200 years later. However, some of the details of how the murder led to the pilgrimages may not be as well known.

Thomas Becket had been a good friend of King Henry II and he had served as the king’s chancellor before being appointed Archbishop of Canterbury. It had been Henry’s intention to have a placeman as archbishop who would keep the troublesome monks and priests under control, but Thomas took his duties as a churchman much more seriously than Henry had expected. When it came to the issue of whether men in holy orders should be subject to civil courts or ecclesiastical ones, Becket took the side of the Church, and this was what caused the rift between the two men that would eventually lead to Becket’s death.

Proof that Becket was in no way the king’s man, but a true churchman, came after his murder when his body was stripped of his bloodied vestments. It was found that Becket had been wearing a rough hair shirt that would have caused him considerable discomfort, as would irritation from the lice and maggots that infested the shirt. It was also revealed that Becket subjected himself to whipping up to three times a day, not for any masochistic pleasure but as a form of monastic mortification that was designed to focus the mind on spiritual matters.

The monks immediately felt that they were in the presence of a saint, and they took the precaution of gathering up as much of his spilled blood as they could.

Although news of the murder spread far and wide, the cult of Thomas did not really get going until after King Henry had made his own way to Canterbury to do penance. This did not happen until 1174, more than three years after the murder. This suggests that Henry’s remorse was by no means immediate and was only sparked by his conviction that the revolt of his sons Henry, Geoffrey and Richard was God’s judgment on him for his angry words that inspired Becket’s murderers. 

Canterbury water

As part of his penance, Henry wore a hair shirt similar to that worn by Becket (though presumably without the maggots). He demanded that he be whipped by every bishop and monk who was present and he then rode back to London with a phial of water round his neck to which a drop of Becket’s blood had been added.

Thus was created “Canterbury water”. If the king could have his body and soul purged by a drop of the martyr’s blood, then why not ordinary people? Miraculous cures were claimed for Canterbury water, and everyone with a disability or ailment that confounded the doctors (which probably covered most things) believed that a journey to Canterbury to buy some of this holy relic would be a good investment of their time and money.

As might be supposed, the genuine article probably ran out of supply at a very early date, even supposing that any Canterbury water had been genuine in the first place. However, that did not stop the faithful from believing in the power of what they were given, and there were plenty of people around to sell them not only Canterbury water but all sorts of other trinkets that supposedly had a direct relationship to Thomas Becket.

One of the more colourful characters on Chaucer’s 14^th century pilgrimage was a pardoner, this being a man who made his living from selling pardons from sin (signed by the Pope of course) and “holy relics”. Chaucer’s character is fictional, but the author knew that his contemporary readers would recognise him as just the sort of person they were likely to come across as he made his way to Canterbury to do some good business by fleecing gullible pilgrims.

The Becket shrine

The Becket shrine at Canterbury Cathedral became one of the best attended in Europe. The Pope declared Becket to be a saint in double-quick time (even before King Henry did his penance) and it became fashionable to make a pilgrimage to Canterbury. King Henry’s three daughters were all married to European royalty and they helped to spread the word.

England now had a home-grown saint, with royal approval, and was determined to cash in. As a result the shrine brought huge amounts of money to Canterbury, not to mention many gifts of precious stones that adorned the chapel where the shrine was placed. The income from the pilgrims allowed the cathedral to undertake a series of building repairs and extensions over the coming centuries that would transform it into one of Europe’s best cathedrals, albeit somewhat mixed in style.

The end for Becket’s shrine came in 1538 as part of the Dissolution of the Monasteries under King Henry VIII. It needed 26 carts to carry away all the treasure that had been left there by pilgrims during the preceding three and a half centuries.

©  John Welford

Tulip mania in 17th century Europe

Human beings seem to have a penchant for throwing their money away by speculating on something that looks to be a “dead cert” to make them a fortune but turns out to be precisely the opposite. The world’s current economic ills (as of 2013) can be traced to speculation over house prices in the United States, just as the Wall Street Crash of 1929 was based on the mistaken belief that share prices would continue to rise for ever. Such “bubbles”, which burst with disastrous consequences, can be traced back to the early 17^th century, where the object that excited the mania was the humble tulip bulb.

Tulips were unknown in Europe before the 16^th century, when merchants and travellers began to bring bulbs back from central Asia. In the Netherlands, tulips became sought after not only for their attractiveness as Spring flowers but also because of their rarity. Having these exotic plants growing outside one’s house was clearly a status symbol that indicated not only good taste but considerable wealth. Anything that is rare and desirable is always going to be expensive, in any age.

It was soon discovered that the tulip was capable of being cross bred to produce a variety of colours, shapes and other characteristics. As early as the 1590s work was being done at the University of Leiden (by the botanist Charles l’Ecluse) to develop new varieties that would lead eventually to a major Dutch industry that continues to the present day. The most exotic varieties became even more highly prized than “ordinary” tulips and wealthy people became desperate to acquire tulips that their neighbours did not possess, even though individual tulips come into flower for a only a couple of weeks at most.

The next stage was for people to start investing money in advance so that they would be the first to own tulip varieties that had not yet been developed. Contracts were signed for the purchase of next year’s bulbs while they were still in the ground and not yet harvested. This was therefore the first example of a “futures” market that has been a staple ingredient of financial trading ever since.

Nothing could stop the growth of speculation in the tulip market, especially when money started coming in from foreign investors, and prices inevitably started to rise steeply. Before long the money changing hands as people gambled on the future value of tulip bulbs that did not yet exist was out of all proportion to what the bulbs were really worth.

As the bubble expanded in the early 1630s, more and more people, most of whom had absolutely no interest in owning tulips, put increasing sums of money into the market, buying and selling futures contracts in the expectation of always making a profit. Even people with relatively modest means sold possessions in order to have money to invest in tulips.

It paid the people who actually owned the tulip bulbs not to sell them, because they knew that they would be able to charge a much higher price for them at some future date. At the height of the market, in 1636, one bulb was traded for the equivalent of $35,000 dollars, a sum that the average Dutch worker would take more than 16 years to earn.

The bubble had to burst, and it did so in February 1637 when the price of tulips collapsed as nobody could afford to buy them. Some people who saw the end coming, and traded in their investments at the right time, made huge fortunes, but for most investors it was a disaster as they lost virtually all their money. Those people who had foolishly put more into tulip futures than they could afford to lose were the biggest losers and many became destitute as a result.

It would be encouraging to be able to say that this experience taught people across Europe and the world a salutary lesson in why one should never invest money in schemes that are not founded on real and substantial assets. However, human greed and the chance of making a quick buck for relatively little effort are factors that are guaranteed to lead people astray. Whether it is the South Sea Bubble and the Mississippi Land Bubble of the 1720s, or the dot-com bubble of the 1990s, people with more money than sense will always, it seems, find innovative ways of losing it. Unfortunately, as the more recent Subprime Mortgage Bubble has shown, the consequences of such disasters do not just affect those people who make the mistakes.

© John Welford

The South Sea Bubble: an 18th-century scam

There is nothing new about financial schemes that trap the unwary and unwise into investing money that they are destined to lose. One such notorious affair that led to the ruin of many and had huge political consequences occurred in early 18^th century Britain and has been known ever since as the “South Sea Bubble”.

A legitimate start

The South Sea Company began as a perfectly legitimate business concern in 1711, its aim being to secure trade monopolies with Spanish colonies in South America, in anticipation of a successful outcome to the War of the Spanish Succession which had been going on since 1701. It would therefore act in a similar way to the highly successful East India Company which dominated trade with India and China.

In practice, trading with Spain’s colonies proved difficult, especially as relations between Britain and Spain were never easy, even after peace was declared in 1714. However, the “asiento” (or “trading agreement”) signed in 1713 by the two countries did give Britain a monopoly of the trade in slaves, and this was to prove the most profitable of the South Sea Company’s enterprises. Despite this boost, however, the Company looked destined to prosper only very slowly.

However, the directors of the South Sea Company wanted it to be more than just a trading company. They also sought to provide an alternative investment opportunity to that provided by the Bank of England, which had been established in 1694. This was a time when political parties were starting to emerge, and the South Sea Company was seen as the Tory alternative to the Whig Bank of England, which had done well from the War and provided its investors with very good returns.

Things go awry

The real problems only arose a few years later, around 1719-20, when the Company directors sought to take over part of the National Debt and invited investment by the buying of company shares. In order to make this move, and in the hope of making quick profits, the Company needed to take steps that were both illegal and financially unsound. Bribes were offered to some of the highest people in the country, including the two mistresses of King George I. The bribes were paid for in South Sea Company shares.

In order to attract large investments, claims were made about the Company’s profitability that were simply untrue, and high dividends were promised that could never be justified.

The promises were believed, and South Sea shares suddenly became the hottest thing in town. As the share price rose, from around March 1720, and some investors were seen to be making substantial short-term profits, everybody wanted a piece of the action. People with money bought large numbers of shares, and people without money borrowed what they could in order not to be left behind. The frenzy affected the whole of society from top to bottom.

New share issues were made, promising even higher rewards, and supplying even more generous pay-offs to the politicians who smoothed the way for the Company’s directors. The share price doubled, then tripled, and shares eventually traded at 1000% of their original price.

Other schemes sprang up in the wake of the investment frenzy, many of them being entirely bogus. One company was even set up with the prospectus of “carrying on an undertaking of great advantage but nobody to know what it is”. Needless to say, many fools were permanently parted from their money.

Pop goes the Bubble

Bubbles have a tendency to burst, and of course this one did. Some wiser heads realised that the speculation was unsustainable and cashed in their shares, encouraging others to do the same. The price began to fall, leading those who had bought at the peak to suffer disastrous losses. Hundreds of thousands of people lost money, and many were ruined as they were unable to pay back the money they had borrowed to buy their shares. Bankruptcies soared and cases of suicide were reported. By September 1720 the Bubble had well and truly burst.

Towards the end of August, a Member of Parliament from Norfolk (and Paymaster General), Robert Walpole, wondered whether he should renew his portfolio of South Sea Company shares. He had already made a decent profit when the price reached 300% and he had sold his shares at that point, but now he decided to re-invest, in a big way, as the price was at 1000% and showed every sign of going higher. However, his application got lost in the post and so was never actioned.

But for that accident, Walpole would probably have been ruined. As it was, he now found himself being called upon to sort out the mess that everyone else had got themselves into. He passed legislation in Parliament that restricted the activities of joint-stock companies, pursued the wrongdoers, and turned a diplomatic blind eye to those in high places (such as the King himself) who had been party to shady dealings but whose support was worth cultivating.

Consequences of the scandal

The affair of the South Sea Bubble therefore discredited the Tories and boosted the reputation for prudence of Walpole, although the consequences of his personal greed were only avoided by the merest chance of a lost letter.

The Whigs, under Walpole, stayed in office for many years to come, with the Tories only reviving when George III became King in 1760. Walpole was now Britain’s first “Prime Minister”, although this title was unofficial, and his “reign” of 21 years was longer than that of any of his successors.

The lesson of the South Sea Bubble should have been clear to everyone, namely that if a thing looks too good to be true, it almost certainly is. However, the prospect of a “dead cert” quick profit is always tempting, and many people have been caught out in similar ventures ever since.

© John Welford