One of my very favourite phases in history is when the faith in miracles of the high middle ages met the commerce and industry of the late middle ages. Let me show you what I mean. This is the church of the Holy Blood in Bad Wilsnack, Germany... 1/ 
This church is only here because of something that happened in 1383. A knight with the nickname 'Big Head', Heinrich Von Buelow, decided he was going to burn the town of Wilsnack to the ground to piss off the local archbishop, who he was in a feud with... 2/
When the smoke clear, Wilsnack lay in ruins. However, in what was left of the church, three intact communion hosts, or wafers were found. Each appeared to have a spot of blood on them. The people of Wilsnack were gobsmacked - was this a miracle? 3/
The people of Wilsnack sure thought so - they built a shrine to the communion hosts and people began flocking from miles around, to venerate the relics and make prayers in front of them - donations resulted in a church being built to house them /4
Meanwhile, the local bishops were hemming and hawwing - they weren't so sure about whether these hosts were all that holy. Eventually they told the people of Wilsnack to cut it out. Did they listen? Fuck no! They went HARDER in drawing pilgrims! 5/
The people of Wilsnack started to cast pilgrim medallions out of cheap metals to sell to pilgrims, as a sign they'd gone and venerated the holy hosts. Digs in the area are continuously pulling these up, so there must have been a considerable industry devoted to it! /6
In fact, Wilsnack drew pilgrims from across Europe (including Britain) for over a century until the Reformation put paid to all that kind of stuff.
The other example I have of this kind of thing going on, I may love even more... /7
The other example I have of this kind of thing going on, I may love even more... /7
In 1424, Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund had part of his collection of 'holy relics' sent to Nuremberg, one of the places he moved the court to intermittently. The star piece was the 'Holy Lance' - you may know it as the 'Spear of Destiny'... /8
The 'Holy Lance' was supposedly the spear that pierced the side of Christ, and it was put on display in one of the city's largest churches. Again, people came from near and far to see it, and pilgrims had lots of gold to put in church coffers - but how to do it effectively? /9
In one of my favourite fixes in church history, enterprising Nurembergers printed out thousands of 'speerbilder' (spear pictures) featuring the heart of Jesus and pierced them with what they *said* was the 'Holy Lance' - cheeky buggers! /10
These are just two of thousands of examples of the commercializing and creation of industry surrounding so-called miracles throughout medieval Europe. It says about our base drives! I shouldn't, but I find these examples quite charming - today's fraudulence, not so much! /FIN
