Massacre of the Directors of the Mint
Most of us have heard about the story of the Citadel Massacre, in which the governor Muhammad Ali Pasha got rid of the Mamluks because he saw them as a threat to his dreams of developing Egypt. But do you know, my dear, that there was a similar massacre that took place in ancient times for the officials of the mint?
Our story did not take place in Egypt, but rather in England, in the Middle Ages, specifically during the reign of King Henry I. The kingdom's financial situation was very bad, as the people no longer trusted the government, and the reason was the weakness of the official currency.
At that time there was not one official mint, but several mints scattered throughout the kingdom.
Despite the existence of strict laws and supposedly strong oversight of the minting process, in reality most of the heads and officials of the mints were a group of thieves, as they instructed the workers under their command to mint coins with a lower weight or a lower standard than agreed upon, while they kept the difference for themselves.
However, they forgot that every coin minted bore the seal of the Master of the Mint, implicitly guaranteeing its quality. And not everyone paid any attention to King Henry, assuming him to be like the others, either indulging in pleasures or preoccupied with foreign wars! Therefore, none of them were surprised when they received the invitation from the palace to spend Christmas with the king himself in 1124.
Everyone took care to wear their finest clothes to meet the king and gathered in the grand hall, hoping for the royal gifts that would increase their wealth even more, but no one noticed the heavily armed guards who controlled all the palace entrances and secretly closed all the hall doors.
Finally, the king appeared with a servant carrying a collection of coins. The king began to examine them one by one, asking each mintmaster about the reason for the poor quality of their production. Those present were terrified, realizing that this Christmas party was nothing but a trial for all their previous crimes! Decisive orders were issued, and they were truly harsh even by the standards of that time, and they were carried out in front of everyone – the assistants had one or both of their hands cut off or their noses were mutilated, each according to his crime, while the heads of the mints had their right hand cut off and their left testicle gouged out!
The punishment seemed truly terrible and news of it spread throughout the kingdom, but to be fair, since then until now England has not issued a single coin that is less than the required weight or standard!
Moheb Rizkalla
