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Relic Veneration and the Holy Land
From: The British Museum
| By:
James Robinson |
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION |
From the Byzantine Empire through Medieval Christian Europe, the appetite for Christian relics from the Holy Land resulted in an enormous market. This appetite was part and parcel of the zeal of the Crusades, and the desire to 'repatriate' the Holy Land, or Palestine, which was occupied by Muslims. James Robinson, curator at The British Museum, traces the history and symbolism of relic collecting from early to medieval Christian empires. |
 n the early fourth century, Empress Helena (250-330 C.E.) journeyed to the Holy Land, located the cross of Christ's crucifixion and established churches at some of the most important sites connected with the life of Christ. These foundations provided a tangible route for pilgrims who came in huge numbers, craving sacred souvenirs. Their desire was often satisfied simply by collecting rocks and stones which may once have had divine associations. More ambitious collectors could acquire high status objects from a seemingly limitless supply. The treasury of relics that had been amassed in the Byzantine Empire lacked no imagination in their detail. It was possible to find relics as obscure as the milk from the breast of the Virgin Mary or the teeth of St Christopher alongside the more conventional bodily remains of Saints Peter, Paul, John the Baptist and Stephen. The repertoire was amplified by a ready source of Old Testament relics, such as the trumpet blown by Joshua at Jericho and even the tablets of the Law given to Moses by God. |
The relic of the True Cross, discovered by Helena, was held in Jerusalem until its loss in 1187. This was an extremely highly prized relic because of its strong associations with Christ. Fragments of the cross ranging from splinters to quite sizeable pieces were widely circulated and contained in precious reliquaries. The front of an enamelled reliquary cross is preserved in the British Museum. Dating from about 1160-70 and produced in France or Belgium, the cross may once have formed the front of a reliquary designed to accommodate a piece of the True Cross. The reverse of the cross is in the Kunstgewerbe Museum in Berlin and its iconography supports this suggestion. |
The scenes on the front depict Jacob blessing his sons, Moses and Aaron with the brazen serpent, Elijah and the widow of Sarepta, a Passover scene, and spies bearing grapes from the Promised Land. The reverse of the cross contains five narrative scenes describing the discovery of the True Cross by Helena. According to legend she discovered the Cross through the agency of an old Jew named Judas who divulged the secret location to Helena under torture. |
With this iconographic scheme in mind, the scenes on the front of the cross appear to allude to the Crucifixion. Jacob forms a cross with his arms, the brazen serpent resembles Christ on the Cross, and the two sticks held by the widow of Sarepta form a cross. The slaughtered lamb of the Passover is a prefiguration of the sacrifice of Christ, while the grapes from the Promised Land allude to the blood of Christ. |
Too many pieces of the cross existed for all of them to have come from Jerusalem, and the trade in fakes was vigorous. Problems inevitably emerged when two shrines laid claim to the same relic. The nails used to crucify Christ had been retrieved by Helena. She had two of them re-worked--one into a bridle and the other into a diadem, and sent them both to her son, the Emperor Constantine. However, in time, nails appeared conspicuously as far afield as Aachen, Cracow, Florence, Naples, Paris and Vienna, while Venice alone had three! A theological solution was found with the explanation that sacred relics had the power to replicate themselves but this did not eliminate scepticism nor diminish the appreciation that faking was a widespread practice. The Fourth Lateran Council (1215) forbade the buying and selling of relics without Episcopal permission and proof of authenticity. |
The demand for relics relating to Christ was insatiable and presented particular difficulties when they were considered to be his physical remains. Christ's Ascension meant that only secondary relics--such as the relics of the Passion--could exist. However, a means of accounting for an abundance of relics of Christ was soon found: nail-parings, milk-teeth, whiskers, hair, tears and even an umbilical cord soon appeared under the enthusiasm of relic veneration. More problematic was the foreskin of Christ. No fewer than thirteen sacred foreskins were known to exist. The problem of replication could be quite easily addressed, but the issue of Christ being a circumcised Jew made many Christian commentators uncomfortable. |
Prompted by a plea from the Byzantine Emperor Alexius I Comnenus, the First Crusade was launched by Pope Urban II in 1095. It had the stated aim of ensuring safe passage for Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land. However, the revenues that might be reaped from shrines in Europe housing relics were so great that by the time of the Fourth Crusade (1202-4), pilfering sacred plunder was a major motivation. The sack of Constantinople in 1204 saw the foundation of the Eastern Latin Empire and an accelerated trade in relics. Pilgrimage was part of the mechanism of penitence. Pilgrims journeyed far and gave willingly at shrines of high repute. The reputations of kings too were established on the preciousness of their relic collections and the gifts of relics which they made. |
Louis IX of France and Henry III of England both demonstrate the importance of the crusading ideal and relic collecting. Louis gathered together an impressive range of relics of the Passion and constructed the Sainte Chapelle in Paris as a giant reliquary in which to contain them. Henry's endowments to Westminster Abbey included a number of items acquired in the Holy Land. The Knights Hospitaller produced relics for Henry between 1234-35 from the golden gate of Jerusalem, the Holy Sepulchre, Calvary, the altar of the Presentation and even a relic of the Burning Bush, among others. In 1249 Henry presented the monks of Westminster with a stone conveyed from the Holy Land by a group of Dominican Friars which had impressed upon it the footprint of Christ left from the Ascension. |
The most prestigious gift that Henry made to Westminster, however, was the relic of the Holy Blood. The blood shed by Christ during the Passion was among the most emotive and powerful of relics. Its arrival at Westminster in 1247 occurred as the result of desperate pleas to Henry from the Patriarch of Jerusalem to mount a Crusade. It came with letters emphasising its authenticity and praising Henry as the most Christian of monarchs. Henry's reputation, however, was second to that of his uncle, Richard I, whose memory was repeatedly invoked to persuade Henry to agree to a Crusade. |
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| The Chertsey Tiles. | |
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Henry's admiration of Richard may be gleaned from two large encaustic, mosaic tiles in the Museum's collections, which were produced in Chertsey around the time that Henry took the cross in 1250 and are likely to be the result of a royal commission. The scene they represent is a fiction based on the conflict of Richard I and Saladin during the Third Crusade (1189-92). The two opponents never met on the battlefield, but Richard is shown running Saladin through with his lance. The subject was a favourite of Henry, who had the same scene painted on the walls of the Antioch Chamber at Clarendon Palace. |
Richard's heroism was not limited to battle. He was reputed to have parted with the huge sum of £5,000 to pay the ransom on relics from Jerusalem. The capture of holy relics was a tactic employed by the Muslims to demoralise the Christians. The power of the True Cross was frequently summoned on the battlefield where it was physically borne aloft to inspire the Christian forces. For this reason, the capture of the cross may have been one of Saladin's objectives when he reconquered Jerusalem in 1187. In the conflict at Hattin the bishop of Acre carried the True Cross, but Saladin was victorious, the bishop was slain and the Cross was lost, never to be recovered. |
Henry's reception of the Holy Blood in 1247 may have been deliberately planned to upstage Louis IX's projected consecration of Sainte Chapelle as a home for his relics. Henry's competitive instincts were reflected in the writings of Robert Grosseteste, who, shortly after 1247, asserted that the relic had superiority over Louis IX's Passion relics, which had been sanctified only by association with the blood. |
Of Louis IX's relics, the Crown of Thorns was his most expensive and important purchase. He was able to acquire it through his cousin Baldwin II (1228-61), the Latin Emperor of Constantinople. Baldwin's financial problems prompted the sale, which he pledged to Louis in 1237. Louis arranged its collection the following year, only to discover that Baldwin had pawned it to the Venetians. The Crown of Thorns was finally received by the King in 1239 at the considerable cost of 135,000 livres. This sum was more than half the annual expenditure of the realm, while the Sainte Chapelle, with its extensive and expensive glazing scheme, cost a mere 40,000 livres. In 1241 Baldwin sold Louis a fragment of the True Cross, the Holy Lance, part of the sponge soaked in vinegar offered to Christ on the Cross, purple vestments from The Mocking of Christ and a sepulchral stone. |
The consecration of Sainte Chapelle was delayed until April 1248 to coincide with Louis' departure on Crusade. During his reign, Louis was able to demonstrate his piety by gifts from his valuable store of relics--sometimes splinters from the True Cross or spines from the Crown of Thorns. The tradition of breaking up the Crown of Thorns to make individual gifts seems to have persisted in the French royal household, and two thorns with French provenances in the British Museum probably originated from the relics held at Sainte Chapelle. |
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| A thorn from Christ's crown? | |
The first reliquary dates from about 1340. Made in Paris, it is relatively small and designed as a devotional pendant. The relic is concealed beneath an exterior of amethystine crystal. Three leaves open to reveal richly enamelled scenes from the Life of Christ--The Presentation in the Temple, The Flight into Egypt, The Crucifixion and The Deposition from the Cross. One leaf contains the donor portraits of a king and queen in supplication to the Virgin and Child. Given the date of the piece, the couple may represent Philip VI (reigned 1328-50) and his wife Jeanne de Bourgogne. One side of the central leaf contains a piece of vellum painted with The Nativity and The Annunciation to the Shepherds. Its purpose is to conceal the relic of the Holy Thorn. |
The second example dates from about 1400-1410. Again, made in Paris, it is a much more ostentatious piece. The thorn is highly visible, placed behind a crystal window in the centre of an elaborate scene of the Last Judgement. Made of gold, enamelled and decorated with pearls, rubies and sapphires, the craftsmanship reflects the preciousness of the relic. At the back, there is a shallow compartment probably made to contain a fragment of the cloth used by St Veronica to wipe the face of Christ. The reliquary belonged to Jean, Duc de Berry (1340-1416), brother of Charles V of France. An inventory of his possessions survives from the period 1401-3, which describes a grand, imperial crown set with four of the Holy Thorns. The crown was taken apart and three of the thorns were sent to the Sainte Chapelle of the Palace of Bourges, while the fourth was set into a 'large gold jewel', likely to be this reliquary. |
Louis IX's acquisition of the Passion relics was a source of longstanding national pride for the French and the cause of envy for the English. His final gift to his nation was his canonisation, which secured the French a dynastic saint, something the English were at pains to emulate until the very eve of the Reformation. |
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