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AUTHOR
Johannes Dillinger
showing 10 related works from this author
The Treasure in Law and Early Archaeology
2012
The problem of who should be the rightful owner of a discovered treasure, and its distribution between the finder, the owner of the land on which the treasure was found and the fisc, is as ancient as it is difficult. The parable of the treasure hidden in a field (Matthew 13:44) hinted at that problem: the man who had found the treasure in the field buried it again and bought the field. Evidently, the Bible assumed that only the owner of the land where the treasure was buried had any claim to it. Some historians of law suggested a rather simple pattern that focused on two huge legal traditions. The Roman legal tradition had ruled the ancient empire. After the end of the Middle Ages, many par…
Treasure Hunts in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
2012
The religious dimension of the treasure hunt declined as the nineteenth century progressed. The belief in ghosts lost ground or transformed into spiritualism and an interest in the more or less vulgarized forms of what would become known as ‘parapsychology’.1 Without the ghosts who needed to be redeemed, the religious overtones of treasure hunting disappeared. Even news about treasure in an ecclesiastical context was void of spiritual meaning.
Introduction: Treasures and Magic
2012
Treasures were magical. Until the nineteenth century, buried treasures were shrouded with intricate webs of narratives. Most of these narratives had magical elements. Vestiges of that treasure magic have survived. In the summer of 2009, while I worked on this book, the spectacular discovery of an Anglo-Saxon treasure in Staffordshire made headlines. Metal detector enthusiast Terry Herbert, who had searched for treasure troves in vain for years, unearthed about 1500 gold and silver objects dating back to the seventh century. In an interview, Herbert told the press: I have this phrase that I say sometimes — ‘spirits of yesteryear take me where the coins appear’ — but on that day I changed coi…
Treasure Hunters’ Magic
2012
In the preceding chapter, we dealt with the magical beings that a treasure hunter had to face, his enemies and unreliable helpers. In this chapter, we will take a look at the treasure hunter’s arsenal. What kinds of magic did he use?
The Magical Treasure and Its Guardians
2012
On 17 June 1499, John and Agnes Clerk from Great Ashfield as well as their young daughter Marion had to answer charges before the consistory court of Norwich. The ecclesiastical court had learned that the girl worked as a healer and a soothsayer, and that she claimed she could locate buried treasures. Marion admitted everything immediately, even with an air of self-importance. She said that she got her abilities from God, the Virgin Mary and from the fairies. The ecclesiastical judge seems to have amused himself asking the girl about the details. The fairies, Marion explained, were little people who gave her information whenever she needed it. They did not believe in Jesus and the Holy Spir…
The Significance of Treasure Hunting: Past and Present
2012
It is certainly insufficient to explain treasure hunting as a reaction to poverty or a form of greed and avarice.1 Avarice has been seen as a part of the human condition and thus as a non-historical, that is, a quasi-anthropological constant. Anthropological constants hardly ever help to explain the behaviour of historical people. In our case, an alleged human tendency to accumulate material wealth does not explain why some people engaged in treasure hunting whereas others did not. Why did people look for treasure? Why did they talk about treasure? Why were they willing to suffer the repeated failure of treasure hunts and continue to look for hidden riches?
The Social Background of Treasure Hunters
2012
We have already referred to the treasure hunt in Westminster Abbey. The organizer and initiator of this venture was Davey Ramsey, the clock- maker of King James I and his successor. Some of his works are now in the British Museum. Ramsey had some financial difficulties but he was well-connected at court. We mentioned in Chapter 6 that he managed to receive royal permits to search for treasure in 1628 and in 1635. Nothing seems to have come of these enterprises. In the winter of 1632/33, he received a permit from the Dean of Westminster to search for treasure in the cloister of the abbey. Ramsey did not undertake the hunt alone. He mustered the support of William Lilly, the renowned London a…
The Authorities’ Attitude Towards Treasure Hunting
2012
Shortly after the fall of the Bastille, a London newspaper was scandalized that people had been imprisoned there for mere trifles. Among the prisoners listed was a certain Girard, allegedly a treasure seeker.1 Was treasure seeking indeed merely a trifling offence? What had the courts and law enforcement agencies of premodern Britain and Europe to say about it? As we have seen in Chapter 1, treasure hunting as such was hardly ever illegal. It was, however, riddled with legal difficulties. What percentage of his find would the treasure hunter actually get? What would the fisc demand for the prince’s coffers? In addition to these juridical problems, an important part of pre-modern treasure hun…
Dowsing from the Late Middle Ages to the Twentieth Century: The Practices, Uses and Interpretations of an Element of European Magic
2012
Dowsing was an element of European folk magic. With the help of simple wooden rods persons with special magical abilities were supposed to be able to find hidden objects, from buried treasures to subterranean springs. The rise of dowsing can be traced to its use in the emerging mining centres of Central Europe around 1500. However, dowsers soon claimed nearly universal magical knowledge. Even though dowsing encountered strong scepticism, a number of early modern scholars and scientists tried to explain the alleged efficacy of the rod in a number of different ways, ranging from demonological arguments to the atom theory, and the idea of an all-encompassing world spirit. From the eighteenth …
Medieval Treasure Lore
2012
Treasure took a number of forms in the Middle Ages.1 We will first deal with treasure troves in mythical and epic sources. Then we will look at the political and theological significance of medieval treasures.