By 1303, if not earlier, the ceremonial procession carried the holy blood relic around the perimeter of the city walls, completed in 1297.

[1] The procession commemorates the deliverance of the city, by the national heroes Jan Breydel and Pieter de Coninck, from French tyranny in May of the previous year.

Residents of the area perform an historical reenactment of the phial's arrival together with similar dramatizations of Biblical events.

[2] Sixty to one hundred thousand spectators watch the procession, a parade of historical scenes and biblical stories.

The traditional account holds that Joseph of Arimathea wiped the blood-stained face of the dead Christ and carefully preserved the cloth, which was later, after the 12th century Second Crusade supposedly brought to the city by Thierry, Count of Flanders, who had received it from Baldwin III of Jerusalem in recognition of his bravery.