FIRST GLIMPSE OF NORWICH CATHEDRAL

 

 

Nothing of self here,

all is uprise and outreach;

no glandular dark, these side chapels

not reticules of aliment.

 

The windows are mast lights, fore and aft:

the cathedral a ship of adventure,

a covered deck against the weather,

its rowers benches.

It is course-plotted

by the unfolding of light that filters

between death’s finality

and the earth’s indifference.

 

To enter is to journey out,

to become dependent upon

earth’s mud-water, grain’s dry bread.

The mast is rooted in the fact

that earth can break,

and the truth that bodies are broken.

 

An immediacy of stone

and a sustaining hunger, time’s onward,

in turn feeding the imagination:

the fact and paradox that facet

an attempted history

 

a companioned adventure.

 

LES INCROYABLES AND MERVEILLEUSES

 

I’d like to take you back to Paris, the 1790s. The Terror has just ended, Robespierre’s own head has flown off with his pigeon flock – and the guillotines are being taken down.

You are part of the demi-monde, the target group for the Terror. You have seen your colleagues, family, contemporaries arrested, carted off, seen them tremblingly ascend the red and soaking scaffold. The smell in the air, of fear, blood, bodily fluids.

Then to wake and see the unbelievable once again: the guillotines gone; to see life settling once more around you.

But it can never settle. How do you react?

And so we have the Incroyables, the sons of the nobles and wealthy spared the Terror. How did they survive? They adapted to the situation, sold guns and arms, became money-lenders. Many made fortunes like this, many became the nouveau riche.

They dress absurdly, swathe around their delicate necks yards of material. There was a splurge of public balls, called bals des victims: it is said the dancers dressed in mourning black, or wore black armbands; they greeted each other with sudden jerked bow of the head, neck, mimicking decapitation.

The Incroyables styles were all over-the-top: large earrings, green jackets, wide trousers, huge neckties, thick glasses, and hats topped by “dog ears”, their hair falling on their ears.

Exaggeration and parody were their responses, whether behaving as effete young men, or care-free and spendthrift. There was always the darker side, and the acknowledged counterpart of the care-free. One source states:A ball held at the Hôtel Thellusson on the rue de Provence in the 9th arrondissement of Paris restricted its guest-list to the grown children of the guillotined.

The Incroyables had their counterparts in the Merveilleuses, the daughters and young wives of the nobles.

The response was all in attitude, and dress was the focus of that. The Incroyables were all for exaggerated effects. They also carried cudgels when on the streets. They had no love for Revolutionaries.

So much so the termed themselves Incoyables, and Meveilleuses – anything without the R for Revolution. Almost Oulipo in its time.

 

The dress of the Merveilleuses was based on Greek and Roman models, the chiton, the flowing robe. Underneath, however, frequently nothing or the least was worn. The light material caught the contours of the body, the neckline was low. Along with this was a semi-Greek styling of hair, loose coils for the women, the Roman statuary style for the men. Wigs took off in a big way, and the more outlandishly coloured the better: blond was popular because the Paris Commune had outlawed blond wigs; but also blue and green were to be seen. Collars became large, the two-horned hat, with tassels, popular. Styles frequently emphasised the guillotine: wigs were short at the back, exposing the neck: ‘a la victime’.

 

 

From this use of translucent and semi-transparent materials came the ‘naked from a distance’ look. It also became popular amongst the men. It consisted of flesh-coloured and close-fitting under-garments. These styles took off in England and can be seen in late-Georgian fashions.

Talleyrand commented: “Il n’est pas possible de s’exposer plus somptueusement!” (“It is not possible to exhibit oneself more sumptuously!”).

Famous merveilleuses were Madame Récamier, Madame Hamelin, Joséphine de Beauharnais, and Madame Tallien.

Those few years could not last; everything carries the seeds of its own demise. One source states: The leading Incroyable, Paul François Jean Nicolas, vicomte de Barras, was one of the five Directors who ran the Republic of France and gave the period its name. He hosted luxurious feasts attended by royalists, repentant Jacobins, ladies, and courtesans. Since divorce was now legal, sexuality was looser than in the past. However, de Barras’ reputation for immorality may have been a factor in his later overthrow, a coup that brought the French Consulate to power and paved the way for Napoleon Bonaparte.

 

It should come as no surprise the styles of this short period became the source for modern fashions and styles. In 1984 John Galliano brought out a collection based on the styles of Les Incroyables.

MEDICI MONEY

 

In 2005 English writer Tim Parks, long resident in Italy, published MEDICI MONEY (Profile Books, 2005).

It is another take on Renaissance Italy, Florence, the Medicis, and the complexities of the period. It was also very prescient – in three years’ time major Western banks would go bust, much as the Medici, and before them the Bardi and Peruzzi banks had gone bust.

1

The Medicis’ added little if anything to the practice of banking. All innovations had already occurred by their time: double-entry book-keeping, bill of exchange (cheque), letter of credit, deposit account. In the Medici long-game of power-acquisition, marriage was arranged between Cosimo and the available daughter of the long-established Bardi banking family. Nothing, it would seem, was beyond them in the build-up and establishment of the family name, wealth and prestige.

But banking was always a risk business; the bank cannot predict how their customers will behave in uncertain situations. Means can be developed to ensure that customers/clients are only of repute, and liquidity. But neither kings nor cardinals were beyond unscrupulous, unwise acts and projects.

Tim Parks traces the English contribution to the cause of an earlier bank collapse. He writes: The Bardi and Peruzzi banks (… ) both collapsed in the 1340s, when Edward III of England reneged on huge debts.

In the 1470s we find the Medici bank in the same straits, through a similar source, this time King Edward IV of England. At this point in time it seems the London branch of the Medici bank was already owing huge amounts to the Rome branch. Agnolo Tani, ex-banker was brought in to clear up the mess. As he made his way from the London branch to Rome, the War of the Roses broke out in its second phase. Of course, Edward was financed by the Medici banks, and when he lost the throne, the chances of repayment also fell. He re-grouped, fought back and regained the throne.

There was also the little matter of who financed his opponents – the Medici bank, of course. They were, after all, nobles, titled men from established families.

A no-win situation, because whoever won power was at the expense of their opponents; the bank lost either way. To regroup and regain Edward needed money – once more he borrowed heavily from the bank.

2

The English main produce was finished wool cloth. There was a hair-raising interlude when Florence branch general director Francesco Sassetti refused to advance monies for cloth, until, he asserted, the cloth had been sold. Merchants and bankers could not be relied on to be in synch; the whole history of banking relates the discordant harmonies of these two.

Previous to finished wool cloth the main English export had been bulk wool. The key to wool use is in the treating. This is a science in itself – how to get the course, wiry, lanolin-rich wool into usable state. The Scots Gaelic Waulking Songs all came out of this home industry. They used the livers of dogfish.

Working in bulk, though – the importers had to discover the best and easiest means of treatment. It was found to be alum.

As much as there was a fortune to be made from wool, the ownership of the source of alum became a key factor. And this is what we find in the book. At a later stage in the Medici bank history we see Lorenzo currying favour with a Cardinal by granting him an alum mine.

3

One of the main sticking points in early banking was how to make a profit on what was entrusted to them.

Clearly, charging interest was out – Jesus expelling the money-lenders from the temple ruined that one. St Luke wrote: Give, without hope for gain. The Lateran Church Council of 1179 denied Christian burial to usurers; the General Church Council of Lyon, 1274, confirmed the ruling.

The way round this was intriguing. And Cardinals, even a Pope, benefitted from it. It was to use the exchange rates of different  States, countries. This meant that quantities of money in various forms, that is, acceptable to the source banks, had to be conveyed around Europe, from banking centre to banking centre. Each destination was chosen for its productive rate of exchange. This proved a workable system.

4

Another interesting insight to come out of this is how unsteady the economy proves to be.
In diaries from the last thirty to forty years I notice approximately ten-yearly cycles of recession. How easily we forget once employment is the norm once again.

Consider:

Most people imagine that if they borrow from a bank, they are borrowing other people’s money.  In fact, when banks and building societies make any loan, they create new money.  Money loaned by a bank is not a loan of pre-existent money; money loaned by a bank is additional money created.” Michael Rowbotham, Grip of Death (1998)

“Where did the money come from? It came – and this is the most important single thing to know about modern banking – it came out of thin air.  Commercial banks – that is, fractional reserve banks – create money out of thin air.” Murray Rothbard, The Mystery of Banking (2008)

“… by far the largest role in creating money is played by the banking sector… When banks make loans they create additional deposits for those that have borrowed the money.” Paul Tucker

And the payoff to this, to use a phrase that shows how of deeply ingrained financial methods have become to us, consider the following:

 With respect that the above implications have with respect to our national debt, it should now be obvious that any attempt to pay off our national debt will ultimately be deleterious, as paying of debt is tantamount to extinguishing it from circulation which will  collapse the supply of money available.  This is how depressions arise due to there being a shrinkage of the money supply due to banks failing to lend.

What is the likelihood of anyone now paying off their National Debt? Western nations in their most positive and humane incarnations cancelled 3rd World Debts. That is possibly the only way the situation can be dealt with.

Do we now have to consider a life flipped where red is black, in accounting terms?
Have we perhaps been living there for longer than we imagine, going off the above quotes?