scruffy1
Veteran Member
- Time of past OR future Camino
- Holy Year from Pamplona 2010, SJPP 2011, Lisbon 2012, Le Puy 2013, Vezelay (partial watch this space!) 2014; 2015 Toulouse-Puenta la Reina (Arles)
True, while the city and it's bridge do have their attractions, I do however like the place very much primarily because of Serge and his gîte d'étape "Le Relais des Jacobins" located just across the modern bridge from the cathedral. Cahors was once not so popular, was in fact, even reviled. Dante mentions Cahors very disparagingly as the city appears alongside and equally with Sodom(!) in the Inferno Canto XI:1-66.
Cahors is the cathedral town of the Department of the Lot, in the South of France, and the birthplace of the poet Clement Marot and of the romance-writer Calprenede. In the Middle Ages it seems to have been a "nest" of usurers. Matthew Paris, in his Historia Major, usually dated to 1235, has a chapter entitled, 'Of the Usury of the Caursines' ( a general name for usurers usually Italian foreigners, but bearing the name of people from Cahors) which in the translation of Rev. J. A. Giles runs as follows:--
"In these days prevailed the horrible nuisance of the Caursines to such a degree that there was hardly any one in all England, especially among the bishops, who was not caught in their net. Even the king himself was held indebted to them in an uncalculable (sic) sum of money. For they circumvented the needy in their necessities, cloaking their usury under the show of trade, and pretending not to know that whatever is added to the principal is usury, under whatever name it may be called. For it is manifest that their loans lie not in the path of charity, inasmuch as they do not hold out a helping hand to the poor to relieve them, but to deceive them; not to aid others in their starvation, but to gratify their own covetousness; seeing that the motive stamps our every deed."
Bankers have not changed much since then but Cahors has changed and can offer an enjoyable stop. When Serge asks if you wish to take dinner with him the correct answer is YES!
Cahors is the cathedral town of the Department of the Lot, in the South of France, and the birthplace of the poet Clement Marot and of the romance-writer Calprenede. In the Middle Ages it seems to have been a "nest" of usurers. Matthew Paris, in his Historia Major, usually dated to 1235, has a chapter entitled, 'Of the Usury of the Caursines' ( a general name for usurers usually Italian foreigners, but bearing the name of people from Cahors) which in the translation of Rev. J. A. Giles runs as follows:--
"In these days prevailed the horrible nuisance of the Caursines to such a degree that there was hardly any one in all England, especially among the bishops, who was not caught in their net. Even the king himself was held indebted to them in an uncalculable (sic) sum of money. For they circumvented the needy in their necessities, cloaking their usury under the show of trade, and pretending not to know that whatever is added to the principal is usury, under whatever name it may be called. For it is manifest that their loans lie not in the path of charity, inasmuch as they do not hold out a helping hand to the poor to relieve them, but to deceive them; not to aid others in their starvation, but to gratify their own covetousness; seeing that the motive stamps our every deed."
Bankers have not changed much since then but Cahors has changed and can offer an enjoyable stop. When Serge asks if you wish to take dinner with him the correct answer is YES!
