Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3: France and the Netherlands, Part 1
History
Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3: France and the Netherlands, Part 1
France -- Description and travel; Netherlands -- Description and travel
A cardinal's hat cost from 15 to 40 florins, and in 1348, 150 florins
were paid for one piece of scarlet for the pope, and 75 to 100 florins
for the garniture of a riding cloak. Clement VI. spent 1,278 florins in
the purchase of cloth of gold, woven by the Saracens of Damascus; one
payment to Jacopo Malabayla of Arti for summer and winter clothing for
the papal household amounted to 6,510 florins, and the same obviously
Hebrew merchant received 10,652 florins in 1341 for cloth and ermine
and beaver; in 1347 Clement's furrier received 1,080 ermine skins,
whereof 430 were used in one cloak, 310 for a mantle, 150 for two
hoods, and 88 for nine birettas; in 1351, 2,258 florins went to Tuscany
for silk, and 385 for brocade to Venice.
The richness of the papal utensils beggars description; jeweled cups,
flagons of gold, knife handles of jasper and ivory, forks of
mother-of-pearl and gold. A goldsmith in 1382 was paid 14 florins for
repairing two of the last-named implements. The flabelli, or
processional feather fans, cost 14 florins; Benedict XIII., paid 300
florins for an enameled silver bit; the Golden Roses cost from 100 to
300 florins. Presents of jewels were costly and frequent. Gregory XI.
gave 168 pearls, value 179 francs, to the citizens of Avellino; Clement
VII. presented the Duke of Burgundy with a ring of gold, worth 335
florins; an aguière of gold and pearls, valued at 1,000 florins, and
two tables each over 200 florins. Richer gifts were lavished on
sovereign princes. Reliquaries were of prodigious value; the gold cross
containing a piece of the true cross at the Célestins weighed fifteen
pounds. In 1375 a silver arm for the image of St. Andrew cost over
2,566 florins.
The cardinals were equally munificent. The most striking example of
lavish splendor is afforded by the State banquet given to Clement V.,
by the Cardinals Arnaud de Palegrue and Pierre Taillefer in May, 1308.
Clement, as he descended from his litter, was received by his hosts and
twenty chaplains, who conducted him to a chamber hung with richest
tapestries from floor to ceiling; he trod on velvet carpet of triple
pile; his state-bed was draped with fine crimson velvet, lined with
white ermine; the sheets of silk were embroidered with silver and gold.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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