A
Anemone del Camino
Guest
Still enjoying Mille fois à Compostelle. Tonight I read a bit on the shells being sold in Sanitago. Loosely translated this is what the author says:
At the end of the 12th century the shell salesmen in Santiago had become so many that the archeveque Pedro Suarez de Deza decided, to avoid fraud, and tried to make the Cathedral the only place where pilgrims could buy their shell. (900 years later the story repeats itself... With the credencial!
Things went to court and a compromise was reached: the Church would own 28 of the 100 existing stores, and the others would pay a royalty, and 30 years later the Church would recoup all the stores. This deal was signed in 1200.
But the story does not end well since the Cathedral asked the Pope Innocent III 7 years later to forbid the manufactring of fake shells in Gascogne and the rest of Spain. Pope Gregory IX, in 1228, maintained this ruling.
At the end of the 12th century the shell salesmen in Santiago had become so many that the archeveque Pedro Suarez de Deza decided, to avoid fraud, and tried to make the Cathedral the only place where pilgrims could buy their shell. (900 years later the story repeats itself... With the credencial!
Things went to court and a compromise was reached: the Church would own 28 of the 100 existing stores, and the others would pay a royalty, and 30 years later the Church would recoup all the stores. This deal was signed in 1200.
But the story does not end well since the Cathedral asked the Pope Innocent III 7 years later to forbid the manufactring of fake shells in Gascogne and the rest of Spain. Pope Gregory IX, in 1228, maintained this ruling.