In the year 1056 a French ruler pledged securities to the amount of ten thousand solidi for the production of the relics of St.Just and St.Pastor, pending a legal decision regarding the ownership between him and the Archbishop of Narbonne.

The Emperor of Germany on one occasion demanded, as a sufficient pledge for the establishment of a city market, the arm of St.
George.

The body of St.Sebastian brought enormous wealth to the Abbey of Soissons; Rome, Canterbury, Treves, Marburg, every great city, drew large revenues from similar sources, and the Venetian Republic ventured very considerable sums in the purchase of relics.
Naturally, then, corporations, whether lay or ecclesiastical, which drew large revenue from relics looked with little favour on a science which tended to discredit their investments.
Nowhere, perhaps, in Europe can the philosophy of this development of fetichism be better studied to-day than at Cologne.

At the cathedral, preserved in a magnificent shrine since about the twelfth century, are the skulls of the Three Kings, or Wise Men of the East, who, guided by the star of Bethlehem, brought gifts to the Saviour.

These relics were an enormous source of wealth to the cathedral chapter during many centuries.