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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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The UK's most famous libel firm by some distance is Carter-Ruck, it is now being prosecuted before the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal for recklessly enabling a $4bn fraud.
Up to now in Britain we have cherished the principle of free speech but only until a letter from Carter Ruck arrives.
The case will get to the heart of an important matter, does Carter Ruck vet their clients' staements they act for, to check they are true?
Wiley would hope so.
The case dates to 2016 2017, libel firm Carter-Ruck acted for a business called OneCoin, and threatened defamation proceedings against people who alleged OneCoin was a Ponzi scheme and a fraud.
It turned out One Coin was a fraud.
OneCoin was founded in 2014. It presented itself as a legitimate cryptocurrency, akin to BitCoin, which was “mined†by computers, held on a blockchain, and traded on an exchange.
The presentation did not match the reality. There was no “miningâ€. There was no blockchain. The One Chain “exchange†presented fake prices, designed to make investors think the price of OneCoin was rising, there was in fact no price at all.
By 2017, all of One Coin's executives were either in jail or in hiding. Its founder, Ruja Ignatova, is one of the FBI’s ten most wanted fugitives.
Not Good.
Carter Ruck is refusing to comment citing legal privilege.
There are specific rules that a solicitor “can only make assertions or put forward statements, representations or submissions to the court or others which are properly arguableâ€.
It's going to be interesting to see Carter Ruck's due dilligence as they are going to need to show that they have not inadvertently profited from what is now known to be a criminal enterprise.
Wiley wishes them well.
https://taxpolicy.org.uk/2023/12/18/carter-ruck-acted-for-fraudster/#onecoin
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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We have all grown up with Carter-Ruck (can you guess what Private Eye calls them?). Their reputation is so fearsome newspapers reach for the chequebook without consulting their own in-house brief. I think it is largely their activities that have made London the go-to venue for libel suits.
In one respect that is a good thing. We regularly have Hollywood stars gracing us with their presence because they are suing Hollywood Confidential. 'Do we have jurisdiction?' asks the judge sniffily at the outset. 'Oh yes, m'lud, Hollywood Confidential is on sale at a bookstall on the Charing Cross Road.' 'Very well, proceed.'
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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There is a lot of discussion around the relationship between history and numismatics.
Whilst there is a bit of careful ignoral about ecclesiastical history and numistmastics.
Within ortho it's Offa, King of Mercia, who implemented crucial monetary reforms in the late 8th century by adopting and adapting the Carolingian monetary system that became foundational for the English monetary system for centuries to come. He also got involved in a monastic building programme.
https://www.buildinghistory.org/bath/saxon/offasabbey.shtml
This building programme (I think it's 11th century) could be funded by borrowing and then repayments achieved by the payment of St Peter's pence etc......
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| the payment of St Peter's pence |
That's a good point. Papal Christianity was a supranational entity (the first I can think of) so there had to be a supranational monetary system to pay for it. How does the Bishop of Rome compute what the Archbishop of York has to send him and how does the Archbish send it?
If it's not in species--and I don't see how it could be--it must be in coins. That's presumably how the Templars got big, by taking a letter of credit in York and telling their bank in Rome to pass the cash on to the Pope. Cheaper and safer.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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Rory Naismith returned to Cambridge after four years lecturing in the Department of History at King’s College London. Before that, he was an undergraduate and graduate student in Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic at Trinity College, Cambridge (2002-9), and subsequently pursued postdoctoral research in ASNC, History and at the Fitzwilliam Museum while based at Clare College (2009-15).
His research focuses on economic and social developments in Anglo-Saxon England. He is interested in the cross-fertilisation of material and written sources, and has worked particularly closely with coinage. At present he is preparing a major study of the social impact of monetisation in early medieval England and its neighbours, to be published by Princeton University Press. He has also recently written about the development of Anglo-Saxon London, early medieval guilds and the land market in Anglo-Saxon England. |
Looks like it might be covered in Rory's new book.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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It looks like a fair chunk of work to do thoroughly, what is clear that the organised transfer of funds England to Rome is indeed post 1066..... There are some coin hoardes 900-1000 thought to be Anglo Saxon 900-1000 (ortho chron) that have been found in Rome. Nothing before that. The texts are describing visists of famous A/S to Rome bearing gifts/alms before the Normans, eg King Alfred as a junior, but it's not regular organised transfers/taxes via St Peters Pence.
Ortho sort of traces the texts, sees the alms giving, and sees this as a sort of proto-St Peters Pence for what became established after the Conquest.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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Let's take a look.
Peter's Pence (or Denarii Sancti Petri and "Alms of St Peter") are donations or payments made directly to the Holy See of the Catholic Church.
The practice according to ortho began under the Saxons in England, evolving from gifts to more often tax, and this practice then spreads through Europe.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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Here is an example of the early gift giving to Rome.
Asser reports in his Life of Alfred, that Æthelwulf (father of Alfred) ordered an annual sum of money to be sent to Rome of which a major part was to be spent on lighting lamps at Easter.....
| He commanded also a large sum of money, namely, three hundred mancuses, to be carried to Rome for the good of his soul, to be distributed in the following manner: namely, a hundred mancuses in honour of St. Peter, specially to buy oil for the lights of the church of that apostle on Easter eve, and also at the cock-crow: a hundred mancuses in honour of St. Paul, for the same purpose of buying oil for the church of St. Paul the apostle, to light the lamps on Easter eve and at the cock-crow; and a hundred mancuses for the universal apostolic pontiff |
The origin of the gift is to provide light, ie illumination. St Peters is mentioned.
Here's another early example.
| After its first appearance in the 770s, use of the term mancus quickly spread across northern and central Italy, and leapfrogged over Gaul to reach England by the 780s. A letter written in 798 to King Coenwulf of the Mercians by Pope Leo III mentions a promise made in 786 by King Offa to send 365 mancuses to Rome every year. Use of the term mancus was at a peak between the 9th and 11th centuries, and was only restricted to very specific locations and contexts thereafter. |
| The origin of the word mancus has long been a cause of debate. It is now generally accepted that mancus derives from the Arabic word منقوش manqūsh (from the triliteral verbal root n-q-sh 'to sculpt, engrave, inscribe'), which was often employed in a numismatic context to mean 'struck'. Philip Grierson once linked it to the Latin adjective mancus, meaning 'defective', which was thought to be a reference to the poor quality of gold coinage circulating in 8th-century Italy.[4] |
It's a gold coin equivalent to 30 pence.
The most famous example is a copy of the dinars of the Abbasid Caliphate (774)!
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/C_1913-1213-1
Wiley sort of gets how ortho arrives there.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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We have had dealings with Rory Naismith, I think. Presumably with the usual results. The passages you quote are clearly designed to persuade the English that shifting vast sums out of the country is nothing new, 'Been done for centuries, folks.' A variant of AE's Old Hat Syndrome.
I hasten to add, like most taxes, the English were getting a service in return for their Petrine Pennies. It may not look like it from a modern perspective but belonging to the Church of Rome had manifold benefits.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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| Mick Harper wrote: | The passages you quote are clearly designed to persuade the English that shifting vast sums out of the country is nothing new, 'Been done for centuries, folks.' A variant of AE's Old Hat Syndrome.
I hasten to add, like most taxes, the English were getting a service in return for their Petrine Pennies. It may not look like it from a modern perspective but belonging to the Church of Rome had manifold benefits. |
It seems to Wiley it's presented as the other side of an imaginary coin, to "Danegeld" or gafol. The latter being the ineffective method of paying off invaders for peace.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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The "Offa" mancus looks like this to Wiley.
https://en.numista.com/122691
These are "crusader coins."
Alfonso VIII (11 November 1155[2] – 5 October 1214), called the Noble (El Noble) or the one of Las Navas (el de las Navas), was King of Castile from 1158 to his death and King of Toledo.[3][4] After having suffered a great defeat with his own army at Alarcos against the Almohads in 1195,[5] he led the coalition of Christian princes and foreign crusaders who broke the power of the Almohads in the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212, an event which marked the arrival of a tide of Christian supremacy on the Iberian Peninsula.[6]
His reign saw the domination of Castile over León and, by his alliance with Aragon, he drew those two spheres of Christian Iberia into close connection. | |
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| Wiley wrote: | | It's presented as the other side of an imaginary coin, to "Danegeld" or gafol. The latter being the ineffective method of paying off invaders for peace. |
I disagree. Danes could exact Danegeld only so long as they had the physical power to ensure it was paid... or else. It lasted decades. The Papistry had no such power and England, like all other western European states, withheld the dosh from time to time--and for varying lengths of time. Though the system continued for centuries.
It was not as if anyone needed the Pope for doctrinal reasons--they could hold ecumenical councils for that. But the Papacy (somehow) kept western Christendom together long enough to become masters of the world. I can't think of any other institution in world history that has managed to keep so many independent countries safe and sound (sort of) for any length of time.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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St Peters pence was paying peaceful Christians
Danegeld was the imaginary price of paying Heathens.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Ah, I see what you mean. There is a small difference however between the recorded actions of Danes and the other denizens of the 'Dark Ages'. Since they are a known country of the modern era there is a possibility, remote as it may be, that Danegeld was a reality.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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Willibrord tried to convert the Danes.
| About 710, Saint Willibrord visited the Danes whilst Ongendus was ruling and returned with 30 boys to instruct in missionary work. No further details are given about Ongendus, other than that he was "more savage than any beast and harder than stone" |
This is dimmissed by Ortho as as a failiure. They were do better to remember, Mao.
| "a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step" | |
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