Tuur Demeestr - Nostr Hypermedia

tuur 0 years ago

Leaving Flanders again - as much as it pains me to see it in decline, it still holds so much beauty.

tuur 1 year ago

Now here’s a book to the bitcoiner’s taste! “The Financing of Cathedral Building in the Middle Ages”—W.H. Vroom, 1981. Translation of the back cover: “In this book, for the first time, a general overview is provided of how money was raised in the Middle Ages to cover the construction costs of cathedrals. This systematic study reveals a financing system that turns out to be as monumental as the cathedral itself. It was already known that cathedral construction was not the result of a spontaneous popular movement and also not the product of collective genius. Instead, new misunderstandings could arise from viewing the financial funding of the construction purely as an act of devotion or a fervent willingness to sacrifice, based on the random filling of offering boxes. The complexity and organization of the financing process is hardly different from what is found in cathedral literature, other than the vague notion that, in the Middle Ages, the sound of coins ringing in the church could be endlessly heard. It is incredibly fascinating that the historian, centuries after the completion or halt of cathedral construction, can still hold a number of the builders accountable for their methods and goals, as if they could once again audit the accounts. In the factual, meticulous analyses, the reader learns between the lines about the mentality of the founders, from prelate to pilgrim—that mix of idealism, drudgery, cunning, ecclesiastical thinking, a sense of honor, and self-awareness based on tradition and the once-acquired privileges; the disputes between chapter and bishop; slipping through the cracks of the law; legally justified bargaining; but also the persistent influence of the widow’s penny and her motivations. The reader will often perceive more of a “human touch” than a “divine touch” in the practical course of affairs, but in the background, there still remains that pursuit of something immeasurable in time, money, and practical use, something carried out against the unwillingness or helplessness of many and against competition from other projects. A history of mentalities and a history of structures meet here. The author is the head of the Department of Dutch History at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.”