Relic of the Crown of Thorns

Relic of the Crown of Thorns

Given by Latin Emperor Baldwin II to King Louis IX of France, among others including the Image of Edessa, arrived in Paris in August 1239 for the sum of 135,000 livres. The Saint-Chapelle was built to house these (pawned) relics from Constantinople, and the Crown of Thorns was housed there until the French Revolution, when it was then moved to the Bibliothèque Nationale, and then in 1801 to Notre Dame. The relic itself is made up of a twisted circlet of Juncus balticus, a plant native to the north of Britain, the Baltics, and Scandinavia. Other relics purported to derive from the Crown of Thorns come from a different plant, Ziziphus spina-christi, which is native to Africa, and Southern and Western Asia. The current rock crystal reliquary is not original.

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