International Medieval Society, Paris • Société Internationale des Médiévistes, Paris

Symposium 2010 - Traditio
Abstract

Symposium Programme

Crowning Paris: The Translation of the Crown of Thorns relic and the Decoration of the Sainte-Chapelle

Emily Guerry, Cambridge University

Comprised of extremely thin pilasters and radiant stained glass, the Sainte-Chapelle was constructed in what is now called Rayonnant style within the palatial walls of the Ile de la Cité of Paris from 1241-1248. It had replaced the antiquated Romanesque royal chapel once dedicated to St. Nicholas. However, the impetus for a new building was not architectural fashion; it was the acquisition of holy relics, the bits of bone and dust that once had belonged to Christ and his saints. Because of the doctrine of the Assumption, Christ had left behind no corporeal remains; only contact relics. And the most potent, and consequently, most expensive and significant of Christ's contact relics are the Instruments of his Passion, the surviving materials that caused his suffering and death.

On August 11, 1239, King Louis IX of France acquired the Crown of Thorns from the Byzantine imperial collection and paraded the relic in solemn celebration from Sens to Paris. The Crown reached Paris seven days later. According to Gauthier Cornut, the Archbishop of Sens, "Louis and all of his kingdom rejoiced because God, through his Crown, had chosen France for the more devout veneration of the triumph of His Passion." Cornut recounted the events of translation of the Crown of Thorns from Byzantium, through Venice to Paris in his Historia Susceptione Corone Spinee. I have completed the first full English translation of this authoritative thirteenth century Latin text composed in Paris. At the upcoming IMS symposium, I hope to explore the content of Cornut's account of the translatio. I will also illustrate how a number of symbolic tropes that occur in this translatio are manifest in the decorative program of the Sainte-Chapelle of Paris, the architectural structure and locus sanctus that was designed to envelope this relic.