Christ’s Crucifixion: The Case of the Crown of Thorns ****************************************************************************************** * Christ’s Crucifixion: The Case of the Crown of Thorns ****************************************************************************************** As the Easter weekend passes here in Prague, the postcard photographs and paintings of Chr everywhere, seen available to buy at the markets and local stalls or plastered on street w the city. We are all familiar with the image – Christ, pinned to the wooden cross, limply position of suffering, head hung low with the prickly, painful Crown of Thorns piercing hi a haunting presentation of Christ’s sacrifice to humanity, the harrowing crown depicted as of monarchical rule of the Son of God. This image of the crowned Christ has endured through history, an emblem of affective piety itself serving as a painful reminder of his cause. But where did this image of Christ crow originate and how has it become one of the most enduring depictions of Jesus in visual his Davenport Guerry’s compelling lecture titled Passion Relics and Patrons between Paris and answer this question as the eighth lecture in the ‘Medieval Conceptual Conflicts and Contr Image’ series held in the Faculty of Arts on Wednesday 12th of April. Dr. Davenport Guerry lecturer in Medieval History at the University of Kent, as has taught at Oxford and York i a special interest in relic culture and Christian iconography.  Warmly welcomed by the host of the lecture series Professor Jan Čermák, Dr. Davenport Guer lecture with what sounded like the title of an Agatha Christie mystery novel, The Case of Thorns. Intrigued by this introductory title, the Crown of Thorns took on this sense of il audience members, a sense that was explored further in Dr. Davenport Guerry’s fascinating origin story of the visual relationship between the Crown of Thorns and Christ himself. Sh story, the narrative behind a collection of stained glass windows in the magnificent apse Chapelle, the holy royal chapel of the Kings of France situated in the heart of Paris. These stained glass windows illustrate the famous procession held in Paris by King Louis I proudly bought the Crown of Thorns relic in 1239 from the Latin Emperor Baldwin II of Cons Baldwin was in dire financial need. In exchange for 13,134 gold pieces, Dr. Davenport Guer Louis IX was able to acquire the relic of the Crown of Thorns, the emblem of physical king spiritual holiness, and his procession therefore venerated Paris as the new location of Ch In her own words, this ‘spectacle of civic triumph’ led Louis IX to consecrate the Sainte- (completed in 1248), to exclusively house the Crown of Thorns and other relics he had acqu a striking and lavish alter in which to display the devotional objects. The presence of th Crown of Thorns held in the hands of Louis IX and Archbishop Gauthier Cornut in the staine inside the very chapel which was built for the relic’s own housing, therefore, serves as t schema of the crown’s journey to Paris. This bright green crown, beautifully detailed with shapes puts the relic at both the centre of the viewer’s mind and the symbolic space of th surrounds it. This arrival of the Crown of Thorns in Paris during the 13th century is highly momentous, Guerry states, as there is no trace of any early Christian author or image which depicts C Crown of Thorns that would predate the arrival, suggesting the image is not rooted in scri in his passion, with the thorny crown atop his head is an image which simply does not exis century. The mystery surrounding the title of the topic seemed to gather once more at this notion p guest lecturer, as the source of this image of Christ was slowly being attributed in the a to King Louis IX himself. Any reference to the relic in the gospels merely states that Jes ‘twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on his head’ (as seen in Matthew 27, with s in Mark 15 and John 19), but it is very unclear if he continued to wear the crown of thorn subsequent events of the passion and his crucifixion as it is just not declared. The relic hardly mentioned after this reference in the Bible, and it is not until St. Paulinus of No much later in 409 AD that it is even considered a significant instrument of Christ’s passi after it is sold to Louis IX that it does gain the significant spiritual currency as a san object, as Dr. Davenport Guerry quotes the King’s biographer Geoffrey of Beaulieu and his relic: ‘Christ had crowned Paris, and the Sainte-Chapelle revealed the crown to all.’ Dr. Davenport Guerry had presented to the audience exciting concept; could Louis IX really for the most famous image of Christ in the collective Christian iconography? The mystery o Christ image was growing, and after the guest lecturer expertly discussed the restoration statues and objects of this image during the French revolution, the lecture reached its hi audience were finally shown proof of the Dr’s hypothesis. During her work in Sainte-Chapelle, Dr. Davenport Guerry had herself discovered a terribly recognisable painting, hidden behind the ancient, damp curtains of the Chapel’s alter. Thr and three meters wide, it was a fantastic and remarkable find, as the mural itself depicte known paintings of Christ’s crucifixion with him wearing the Crown of Thorns. The Sainte-Chapelle team were able to use high-tech scanning devices and X-rays to confirm of the mural as around 1248 (the same date as the completing of the chapel), and were able pigmentation of the oil painting as green, marine and vermillion. The green pigment, along scores in the wall insinuate that Christ, with his band of green thorns (just as in the st window depiction where Louis IX holds the crown), was indeed portrayed here in his crucifi with the crown on his head. The image was, as Dr. Davenport Guerry stated, a ‘site specifi innovation’, as this new form of iconography had originated in Sainte-Chapelle, from the a carrying the relic through Paris. There is no image of Christ with his crown at his crucif predates the painting, and the inception of the idea that Christ continued to wear his cro mockery only starts to appear after 1250, in statues and manuscripts which surround the ra Sainte-Chapelle in Paris. This new iconographic image of Christ became the most recognisable and enduring image seen what is truly fascinating about Dr. Davenport Guerry’s excellent lecture is how she drew a semantics of the crown. It did not simply serve as link between God and monarch for Louis itself came to signify a re-imagined idea of Christ, as one which goes beyond the crown as of the passion, but rather as a coronation item of his eternal suffering and sacrifice, wi centre. The role of the object significantly shifted, and changed the course of representa art ever since. Nicola Wheeler is a Erasmus student from the University of Kent in the United Kingdom, stu current affairs. Nicola believes that writing for the international iForum is a fantastic