Monarchs and Mammon: The Conquest of Sovereignity

By Thomas Petri

Emerging from the suffocating existence of serfdom at a time when onlt titled nobility held a monopoly on economic opportunity, Monarchs and Mammon explores the rise of a few enterprising individuals that gained more wealth than all the monarchs of Europe. Once maneuvering a king into perpetual debt, they engineered a scheme to ensure for themse

• Language: English
• Publisher: URLink Print & Media, LLC
• Release date: Nov 20, 2019
• ISBN: 9781643676616

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Monarchs & Mammon

Copyright © 2019 by Thomas Petri. All rights reserved.

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01.08.19

Contents

Preface

Yee Olde Family Business

The Fourth Element

Lawmakers and Lawbreakers

Sir Mammon and the House of Stuart

The King is a What?

The Prototype

The True Value of Nothing

The Best laid Plans of Mice and Mammon

Overture to Upheaval

Revolution and Bloodsuckers

Who is in Charge of This War?

Bibliography

Notes

Preface

Most written histories of man’s advancement to the current era focus on notable persons, dates or events. Generally, most familiar names of our forebears loom largely as political note worthies, military leaders and other event makers perceived to have exerted some degree of measurable influence on events leading to the present. History, however, is also populated with less recognized figures, many of whom emerged from serfdom in medieval Europe to become merchants and craftsmen. Having observed the mistreatment of Jews, who were squeezed dry of their wealth, these emerging entrepreneurs opted to remain in the background to hide their affluence from greedy sovereigns in constant search of capital.

Early chapters in this work point out the many difficulties for men of non-noble bloodlines to gather wealth. Considering the stagnant opportunities for common citizens to participate in wealth building until just prior to the age of mercantilism, it is difficult to reconcile how an individual or groupings of individuals could accumulate enough wealth in this period to finance a king, or several kings. It is therefore inconceivable that a few men could have financed all the kings of Europe. Think about this for a few minutes. Was it possible for an individual in 1250 for example, to have more wealth than a king could gather in taxes, tariffs and plunder? If the answer is no, then where did kings find financiers? In truth, kings did require finance, and in truth, individuals did exist that commanded that much wealth, or did they?

It is difficult to fathom how persons newly liberated from chattel slavery accumulated enough wealth to finance kings. To be sure, people with the resources to provide those funds did exist.

Monarchs and Mammon investigates the past to discover who these individuals are, and their methods of achieving hegemony over royalty.

Yee Olde Family Business

Political, economic and social structures have from the advent of man, interacted with each other as prime movers for advancing civilization. Working in concert, these factors endow society with dynamics essential for cultural advancement. In an unaltered state, political and economic mediums serve society.

Initially, hominid clans emerged as hunter-gatherer-family groups that remained together for safety in numbers. In this backdrop, primitive families formed the foundation of social structure. With that tradition established, from pre-history to the present, families have always assumed the base unit of every culture that has populated the earth. Primitive politics were governed by wisdom and experience associated with age. Simple laws embraced by our ancestors followed nature-based observations centered on animal migration and growing seasons. Living in a natural state, necessities of life completely dominated Stone Age economies, as luxuries remained beyond the understanding of survival mentalities. Items that one cannot eat, or make into clothing, tools or weapons, had no value. Whatever individual was in need of a new garment for instance, received the next available animal hide, etc. Politics, economy, and society existed in harmony for the benefit of the clan, accordingly, furnishing the links that held it together. Depending on food availability however, the clan could not expand beyond accessible resources. Life was very hard but simple, and this system eventually became efficient enough to achieve the next stage of evolution.

As numerical membership of a given clan increased over the centuries, so did its social structure expand beyond the confines of a single-family unit. Having neighbors and friends promoted social interaction as well as improved security, but they all had the same occupation. Our primitive ancestors evolved into farmers who grew their own food, and herdsmen pioneering the domestication of livestock. Agricultural advancements negated a need to follow the herds and poke through the forest seeking berries and nuts, however, filling their stomachs continued as a fulltime struggle. Eventually, necessities of advancing lifestyles extended beyond food, weapons and clothing. Other items such as farm tools became as important as the heretofore-basic necessities. People no longer lived in caves and now gathered and fashioned building materials for living quarters, and animal enclosures to keep their food from walking off.

Some enterprising ancient figured out that if society became better organized, and its collective energy channeled, life could be better.

Upon reaching this stage, political and economic arrangements became a little more complicated. Efforts to establish order created socio-political hierarchies to promote the general wellbeing. Society created simple rules so members would respect each other’s property and provide venues for settling disputes. People who grew beans traded their produce with others who grew potatoes, establishing a broader economy to appease expanding lifestyles. Communal structures also expanded to accommodate additional rules to govern burgeoning political needs. Society however, remained the focus that political and economic drivers strove to improve. The latter two served the former, and the three key drivers continued to work in unison under the control of society to improve the human condition. In reality, politics and economy were born of necessity as tools to enhance life. The three prime drivers matured at an equal pace for a time.

It is not possible to know how the first king gained his throne. He may have been stronger or smarter, or, for all we know might have been elected. What we do know, is that evolving civilizations began moving forward at a faster pace driven by political aspiration. A king seated securely on his throne dictated his ideas without opposition to organize society the way he wanted. Some kings governed through fear while others developed and employed leadership skills. The bottom line is, society established stronger organizations beneficial for improved survivability. Organized societies tend to promote a more vigorous economic environment as fewer people are needed to provide food for the rest. As such, new occupations sprang up prompting people to seek better living conditions and social status. In this way, local economic activity and social structures expanded under the direction of political forces.

At this stage, a new class of citizen emerged to manage the nuances of political power. A king required people to administer his kingdom, thus creating officials, soldiers, advisors, administrators, and so on. This new breed of citizen while in direct service to the king, could not engage in commerce, but still had to eat, obtain other necessities, and live somewhere. To solve this problem, the king paid his entourage out of the treasury, and in order to afford a bureaucracy, the king taxed his subjects for their upkeep. In most parts of the world, aspirations of political power by the few, sought to dominate the population at large who aspired to nothing more than freedom and prosperity. It is at this point in history when the three key drivers started to separate, yet remain dependent on each other to achieve progress. Political forces took charge with economic and societal drivers assuming subservient roles.

As civilization progressed, kings, as the dominant components of political structure, began to consider themselves as a class apart from everyone else, and compelled society to serve him. He had an army and treasury, as well as the most intellectually gifted members of society in his employ to enforce his authority. It was therefore in the best interest of the king to convince, or coerce the people, to accept his protection. Once a king completely dominated the society that served his needs, he institutionalized his position by passing the scepter to his children, thus ensuring a privileged existence to his posterity. While it is true that a few monarchs in the mold of Solomon existed, who strove to improve the condition of his people, the overwhelming majority proved to be greedy, power hungry egotists, whose only thoughts centered on gaining more power and wealth.

In order to maintain a hold on power, kings, seeking to eliminate opposition, employed repressive tactics as a means to control the masses, which they now looked down upon as subjects.

An examination into the infrastructure of ancient Israel reveals divine construction of political, economic, and societal models governed by the law that God gave to Moses. In that law, we see the three prime elements of cultural growth working in unison for the benefit of his chosen people.

Politically, the Law of the eternal God is without question the constitution of Israel, providing striking insight into God’s plan of governance. Under its dictates, even the king had obligation to adhere to the law, and became God’s appointed champion to uphold and defend it. Additional directives that the population was not subject to also bound the kings of ancient Israel. For instance, God’s king was limited to the amount of riches he could accumulate. It appears the eternal One was not pleased to have wealth corrupt his anointed, nor did he desire a royal family driven by greed. At least, that was God’s plan.¹ The king’s designated purpose in life was to govern his people, not to engage in wealth building or indulge in luxurious living. God, it will come as no surprise, is well aware of the vices spawned by avarice. Under this system of governance, the citizens of Israel did not serve the king; rather, the king served God’s people as his anointed leader.

Moses became the first national leader of Israel, succeeded by Joshua. With the passing of Joshua, Israel existed more or less as a tribal alliance for the next few generations, bound together by a constitution with God Himself at the head of government with a judge as his spokesperson. This arrangement continued until Samuel anointed Saul as the first king. Israel’s government however, did not take form until David assumed the throne.

God so structured his government that the king of Israel was a limited rather than absolute monarch, in that he deferred to a judicial system for legal rulings. Therefore, God made provisions for a Great Sanhedrin comprised of seventy-one judges, performing in a comparable capacity as the Supreme Court of Israel. In this way, God’s government blessed the world with its first constitutional monarchy, and it served His chosen ones well. While living within the dictates of God’s constitution, ancient Israel became the first society to embrace the precept that less government is good government.²

Economically, equality and fairness can best summarize God’s design on commerce. As an example, in Mosaic Law, provisions are present for Sabbatical and Jubilee years, from which modern statutes of limitations emanate. Every seventh year (Sabbatical) was declared a year of rest for the land and a time of relaxing claims on debtors. Seven cycles of Sabbaticals (7x7=49) constituted a Jubilee year, which occurred at the end of the last Sabbatical (50th year) in the cycle.

This concept of a Sabbatical is not only a fascinating precept of justice, but also embodies brilliant economic principles that lent support to Israel’s social structure. Sabbaticals had a versatile function that afforded protection to debtors, helped the poor, and placed restraints on lenders by discouraging long-term debt, thus promoting a vigorous economy. A cursory study of the advantages offered in these statutes reveal an innovative law that leveled the playing field for everyone, and is unique among the ancients.

At the end of every seven-year period you shall have a relaxation of debts, which shall be observed as follows. Every creditor shall relax his claim on what he has loaned his neighbor; he must not press his neighbor, his kinsman, because a relaxation in honor of the Lord has been proclaimed. You may press a foreigner, but you shall relax the claim on your kinsman for what is yours.

Deuteronomy 15:1-3 (NAB)

If your kinsman, a Hebrew man or woman, sells himself to you, he is to serve you for six years, but in the seventh year you shall dismiss him from your service, a free man. When you do so, you shall not send him away empty-handed, but shall weight him down with gifts from your flock and threshing floor and wine press, in proportion to the blessing the Lord, your God, has bestowed on you.

Deuteronomy 15:12-14 (NAB)

This law also forbade Israelites from cultivating the fields in a Sabbatical year and prohibited the chosen ones from harvesting anything growing on cultivated soil. The poor, on the other hand, had an exemption, allowing the unfortunate to exploit the Sabbatical by collecting all they could glean from the fields, thus providing a degree of assistance for those in need.

Like Sabbaticals, a year of Jubilee also stipulated a cultivation interlude, allowing the soil a chance to recover from agricultural stress. The Jubilee year went into effect following the seventh Sabbatical in the cycle, ordaining the land remain uncultivated for two consecutive years.

For an example of commercial law, in Leviticus, God instructs his people concerning real estate transactions:

On the basis of the number of years from the last jubilee shall you purchase the land from him: and also on the basis of the number of years for crops, shall he sell it to you. When the years are many, the price shall be so much the more, when the years are few the price shall be so much the less. For it is really the number of crops that he sells you. Leviticus 25: 15-16 (NAB)

In essence, if a parcel of land sold soon after a year of Jubilee, the new owner would have benefit of more harvests before the next two-year hiatus than if purchased, let us say, five years before the year of Jubilee. The price of land declined as the year of Jubilee approached and increased again once the cycle was complete. In effect, it was, as interpreted by this author, a protection for the buyer to allow his income to catch up with his investment, thus giving the new owner a fighting chance for his investment to pay off.

Leviticus also contains another interesting law concerning real estate transactions:

The land shall not be sold in perpetuity; for the land is mine, and you are but aliens who have become my tenants. Leviticus 25:23 (NAB)

Here we see a prohibition against real estate transactions that extract payments from buyers for an excessive duration, thus lessening the likelihood that a buyer would default on his land purchase. If a buyer had limited time to satisfy his mortgage obligation, he would therefore not be able to purchase land at inflated prices in exchange for longer mortgage terms. Working in conjunction with sabbatical provisions of relaxed debt obligations, this law restricted debt to the short term by forcing buyers to live within their means and, in so doing, promoted stable land values. God, in his infinite wisdom, is not a big fan of credit.

When these laws are married with usury prohibition, one can begin to appreciate that no one had an opportunity to dominate commerce and influence God’s king, providing evidence that God knew well the nature of Mammon.

So well did God understand the disastrous effects of debt compounded by usury, that he forbade this unproductive practice, and, in doing so, severely restrained the expansion of debt. This is yet one more common sense precept to promote stable economic environments by discouraging credit.

Socially, the family, as is the case of every other culture, assumed its place as the basic unit of society. Families were components of clans or lineages, springing from one of the twelve tribes. After Joshua conquered the Promised Land, he allocated each tribe its own territory. In so doing, he imposed on them a responsibility for administering and managing the land of their inheritances. Tribal populaces owed their loyalty to the respective tribal chief who in turn bestowed his loyalty on the king. Does this sound a little like the concept of States Rights? Well, maybe not, but similar in principle.

Tribal leaders and elders exercised complete control over their land and maintained armies, which they place at the king’s disposal. We can therefore understand that the king of Israel did not have a standing army, thus negating the enormous expense of maintaining one. So long as Israel followed the dictates provided by law, it prospered. Solomon’s heirs however, departed from God’s government and sought to elevate their position to the level of absolute monarch, and Israel never again approached the prosperity bequeathed to his people as existed during his reign.

On the rise from the 5th century, feudalism materialized to dominate organizational and economic structures of every emerging nation state of Europe, surviving in some parts of the world through the middle of the 20th century.³

Under feudalism, societal and economic drivers continued serving political forces, even more rigidly than practiced by the ancients. By observing the early stages of feudalism, biblical versions of God’s plan of governess are clearly visible, but heavily weighted toward privilege. As his representative on earth, medieval popes obviously assumed God’s role of overseer.

Papal authority inserted itself into medieval politics through the premise of Divine Right, which affirmed a contrived doctrine that only God confers earthly power on kings. As his envoy on earth, likewise empowered by God Almighty, the pontiff, through official endorsement or direct coronation, provided confirmation of God’s choice for the seat of power. Along with papal confirmation, the king received authority to manage the entire lands of his realm in the manor he pleased. Although an individual king may or may not have bought into this system, and may or may not have any religious scruples, as many did not, he needed to remain in the pope’s good graces, at least in the early stages of feudalism.

Political realities of this arrangement dictated that the king embrace papal authority to avail himself of the many benefits of divine right. Once confirmed by the pope, precepts espoused in this doctrine freed a monarch from all earthly authority whatsoever, as he derives his own authority directly from God. As such, a king need not concern himself with the desires of his subjects or the nobility. Therefore, only God (the pope as his representative) can render judgment against an unjust, incompetent or otherwise unfit king. Under the aphorisms of divine authority, any attempt to assassinate, depose or otherwise limit the king’s privileges or powers is in opposition to God’s will, and subject to the penalties of sacrilege. On the downside, the pope theoretically wielded such power early on, as to impose extreme punitive measures up to the action of forfeiture of crown and or excommunication. Excommunication was a penalty most feared by those possessed of divine right, as it involved a papal edict absolving nobles of their allegiance to the king, making monarchs of such fate fair game.

Monarchs of that age had also to master political arrangements in dealing with his immediate subordinates in the chain of command. Feudalism, when reduced to the simplest description, is a grant of land by the king in exchange for a pledge of fealty (loyalty), military service, and income. In this way, every landholder became vassals of the king. An individual recipient of such grant held the title of Baron, or Lord, accepting responsibility for his estate as Tenant-in-Chief. Within a feudal barony, the Tenant-in-Chief subdivided his estate to several knights, who in return for a knight’s fee, or fief, provided conscripts for military actions, thus creating the basic feudal military unit. Knights paid rents to the baron, who in turn paid taxes to the king. Therefore, we can understand that feudalism served the function as an economic system as much as a political accord. As such, kings, as in the tradition of ancient Israel, did not have a standing army, and depended on the strength and fealty of the baronage to uphold his crown. Regrettably, there is a common misconception that early medieval kings were absolute monarchs. The reality however, is much different, in that a king’s sovereignty remained contingent on advantageous relations with powerful barons from below, as well as patronage from the pope on the other extreme.

Looking to God’s model of government, the role of barons corresponds similarly to arrangements the twelve tribes of Israel had with their ruler. It is therefore possible to visualize knights as a substitute for the Israelite clans, as they appear to fill the same function, but without bloodline ties.

Foremost of all fundamental departures from God’s plan of governance, a feudal king did not take authority from a constitution, nor did a Great Sanhedrin temper his justice. Lacking such cornerstone documents and legal protocol, laws from realm to realm were as different from each other as were the many languages spoken in different regions of Europe. For that matter, laws and statutes of dissimilar nature was not unusual from one fief to another with in the same realm.

As all wealth flowed from the bottom up, a land-based Ponzi scheme best describes the economic structure of feudalism. If compared to a pyramid, serfs, by far the most populated segment of society, occupy the anchor position at the bottom. In exchange for protection and parcel of land to work, a serf paid rent to the knight on whose fief he lived. Knights in turn, kept a portion of a serf’s produce and passed the difference on to his baron. A serf worked from dawn to dusk to produce enough food to sustain his family and satisfy rent obligations. If need arose, serfs were also bound by compulsory duties to work elsewhere on the fief, providing free labor for various projects, such as making repairs to his lord’s castle, build bridges or perform road maintenance. The church of course had to have its share, and required tithes equal to ten percent of the yielded crop value. Local clergy also compelled free labor on church land, thus taking serfs away from profitable work beneficial to his family. Since serfs lacked gold or silver to pay rents, his immediate lord employed the rents collected from the product of their labor for his own commerce. A serf was tied to his land, and without permission from his immediate lord, was forbidden to leave the fief for a better situation without paying a tax for the privilege. So here, we see societal segregation and land restrictions that do not even come close to the liberated Israelite model of society.

Not all men of non-noble bloodlines were serfs. Freemen normally dwelt in towns and cities removed from the fife, engaging in various mercantile professions. A freeman obtained his station through a variety of land-tenure contracts. The least expensive way to obtain freedom involved a military tenure, whereby a serf agreed to a field contract for a specific campaign or length of service, or performed castle guard duty for a specific portion of the year. Others gained freedom through sergeanty by acting as a servant to the king in a non-military capacity. Service of ceremonial nature was termed grand sergeanty while menial service earned the label of petty sergeanty Another method of gaining liberty was a simple cash or produce payment called socage. This of course required several years of a serf’s savings, assuming of course that he did not mind starving.

Many freemen sold their labor to manufacturing concerns that started coming into their own between the tenth and fourteenth centuries. They also became shopkeepers or merchants. Most opportunities for profit however, existed from the knight on up until the midway period of this age. Throughout the beginning and middle stages of feudalism, political forces completely dominated economic and societal drivers.

From studying an accepted concept of the feudal economic model, 93.5 percent of the population provided all the wealth possessed by the upper 3.5 percent. Even though land distribution was passed down, only the king and barons, accounting for .5 percent of the population, actually had permanent claim on the land. Everyone below that station in life existed merely as tenants. With that known, we can understand that political forces owned all the land, empowering the social elites to allow the rest of the population access to it. In this way, the wealthy minority graciously tolerated the majority to serve their needs.⁴ The above figures only represent 97 percent, and do not account for clergy, royal households, administrators, soldiers, etc. Nowhere in the system is the least effort in evidence to promote the general welfare. Also missing in this system are provisions to assist the poor and limit debt as found in Sabbatical and Jubilee concepts of economy and justice. To the contrary, feudalism depended on keeping the populace in debt so the elites could maintain their strangle hold on power and wealth.

Soon after William the Conqueror consolidated power in England, he directed his vassals to compile statistics with the aim of enhancing tax collection capabilities. The result of that survey, much resembling a census, was recorded in the Domesday Book,⁵ a document that provided an overview of who owned what land, number of fiefs each estate contained, and how many serfs worked each fief, etc. From that survey, we know that only 3 percent of the population had achieved the status of freemen, pointing out the extreme difficulties of escaping serfdom. Obtaining freedom from the fief however, did not exempt one from contributing to the wealth of privilege. One curiosity of the Domesday Book is, as meticulous as the calculations appear, it only accounts for 97% of land ownership.

The ensuing abbreviated chronicles tracing governmental maturity of two nations affirm the good lessons of kingly conduct taught by God, is lost in the same self-service as the kings of Israel embarked on by abandoning God’s blueprint for governance. Over the proceeding pages, we will witness how lust for power and wealth far surpassed a monarchs responsibilities for his people’s welfare. The depravity practiced by those so blessed with divine right is truly disgusting.

In the aftermath of the Western Roman Empire’s collapse in 476, our story begins at a time when national identities struggled to emerge from the ensuing chaos. The only social institution to survive the Roman world was the religion implanted by Christian missionaries in search of converts.

Emerging from the Stone Age, Gauls established a culture that spawned the original indigenous inhabitants of France. Ensuing disorder following the failure of Roman rule, created an opportunity for conquest by the Franks under Clovis (c. 466-511). Thus did the first bloodline of French monarchy take root under the brutal protocol of early feudalism. During the three-hundred year interval that followed, consolidated conquests culminated in Charlemagne’s (c.742-814) coronation in 800 as Holy Roman Emperor.

Upon Charlemagne’s death, his son Louis I (778-840), succeeded his father as Holy Roman emperor in an era marked by waves of marauding Norsemen. Louis’ death impeded further progress of achieving unity, as a succession of civil wars broke out among his three surviving sons, until concluding at the 843 Treaty of Verdun. To satisfy the insatiable thirst for power among his greedy heirs, that settlement ceded the crown of the Holy Roman Empire to Lothair, along with Italy and a strip of land running north to the Baltic Sea. Ludwig the German claimed lands east of the Rhine, while that territory encompassing most of what is now France went to the youngest son, Charles the Bald.

For a few years after the settlement, the brothers continued ruling their independent realms as a confraternal government, meeting every few years to discuss affairs of state. Upon the death of Lothair in 855 however, Louis the German, seizing on widespread disaffection with his younger brother Charles the Bald, convinced several of his brother’s barons to overthrow him. Charles’ unpopularity was such that he could not marshal an army and fled to Burgundy, where the bishops only rescued him by refusing to crown Louis. After recovering from the attempted coup, Charles, getting into the new spirit of every man for himself, unsuccessfully invaded the Kingdom of Provence ruled by his nephew of the same name. On the death of his brother’s heir, Holy Roman Emperor Lothair II, in 869, Charles tried to seize that dominion, but was compelled to share them with Louis the German by agreement in the 870 Treaty of Mersen. The royal grip on Frankish power however, was short lived as Aquitaine and Brittany secured their freedom through armed revolt. Over the next one-hundred years, all the baronies throughout the southwestern region of West Francia (France) obtained either outright, or semi-autonomy from the king.

Louis II (846-879), heir of Charles the Bald, eroded his father’s inheritance in 878 by giving away the counties of Barcelona, Girona, and Besalu to Wilfred the Hairy, which are now part of Spain. Upon Louis’ death, he further divided the Frankish realm by splitting his kingdom between his two sons, Carloman and Louis III.

For its first three-hundred sixty years, France did not exist as a unified country, but rather a coalition of duchies and independent counties sharing a common Frankish ethnicity. In that the area composed of Franks lacked the identity of a common regional name, the population of those environs endured as a people more readily than a nation. It was not until Hugh Capet (c.939-996) ascended the throne, that French kings secured a seat of power. First in the line of Capetian monarchs, he had, when assuming the crown, landed-possessions consisting of little more than four-hundred square miles between Orleans and Paris, and that is where his sovereign authority ended. In this manner, Paris emerged more as his personal fief than the capital city of a nation. This plot of land served as the Royal Domain for successive monarchs. Over the next two-hundred years, subsequent Capetian kings extended their power only by acquiring vassals loyal to the crown from among nobles occupying estates throughout northern France. The more heavily populated areas of southern and western France surfaced as sovereign duchies loosely aligned to the king. Those holding such autonomous realms included