k, the cradle in which the
Saviour had lain, a tooth from his adolescent jaw, a
hair of his beard, a particle of the bread used in the
Last Supper, and a portion of the royal purple worn by
him before Pilate. Naturally clerical adventurers among
the occidental Crusaders, pending the sacking of the
Byzantine city, sought out most zealously these valuable
remnants of pristine glory, and in obtaining them were
by no means scrupulous with menaces and violence. When
scattered through Western Europe, in the monasteries and
other religious places, their curative properties
increased the pilgrimages thither of the sick and
diseased."[47]

He further gives us more in detail[48] an idea of the continual
accumulation of riches which were derived from the exposure of these
relics to the sick and infirm and the consequent growth in wealth of
the monasteries and cathedrals. The monastic system was probably most
responsible for the change from the simple adoration of the early
Christians to the use of relics as a miraculous means of healing.
Those which were transported with elaborate ceremonies, enclosed in a
magnificent stone sarcophagus, and covered by an edifice of imposing
proportions were almost sure to bring to their custodians great
wealth. It is said that when the body of St. Sebastian, which was
legitimately obtained from Rome, together with the purloined remains
of St. Gregory, reached the cloister of Soissons, so great was the
crowd of invalids who were cured, and so generous were they in their
donations, that the monks actually counted eighty measures of money
and one hundred pounds in coin. The great value of such objects may be
calculated when it is remembered that in the year 1056 securities
amounting to ten thousand solidi were pledged for the production of
the relics of St. Just and St. Pastor, consequent upon the legal
decision of ownership between Berenger, a French ruler, and a
Narbonnese archbishop. The Reichberg annals provide a further example.
They state that the emperor demanded certain hostages, or the holy arm
of St. George, as a suitable guarantee for the institution of a public
mart in Germany.

Venetian merchants were among the first to realize the commercial
value of relics, and enjoyed a lucrative traffic in this holy
merchandise. It was not until the eleventh century, however, that the
government of Venice founded public marts or fairs for the commercial
exchange of saintl