123. Westminster Abbey Runs a Forgery Ring, Westminster, England 12th Century

In the medieval scriptoria, amongst all the holy books, and the hagiographies, and the books of philosophy, and the legal charters, not to mention the beautiful illuminated manuscripts, there were often, we are sorry to tell you, forgeries being created. Sometimes monasteries needed to codify some history that hadn't gotten written down when it happened, or to provide documentation of some land sale that hadn't gotten written down, or to provide evidence for things that didn't happen at all, so that they could have more power or money -- that sort of thing. Some of those scriptoria were so good at producing forgeries that they made them for other monasteries, running forgery rings. The scriptorium at Westminster Abbey, for instance, had several master forgers -- one of them being Osbert of Clare, who produced several of the fake charters at not only Westminster Abbey, but also other abbeys, such as that at Ramsey, which didn't have the wherewithal to produce these things themselves. Anne explains medieval forgery in general, of which there was a whole lot, and Michelle, though very sad that no popular works about Westminster are out there, was gratified to find some excellent scholars, along with a medieval method for providing two factor identification. Also, nobody dies.