Holy Lance
As with other instruments of the Passion, the lance is only briefly mentioned in the Christian Bible, but later became the subject of extrabiblical traditions (Apocrypha) in the medieval church.
By the Late Middle Ages, relics identified as the spearhead of the Holy Lance (or fragments thereof) had been described throughout Europe.
The gospel states that the Romans planned to break Jesus' legs, a practice known as crurifragium, which was a method of hastening death during a crucifixion.
[15]: 156 The Chronicon Paschale says that the Holy Lance was among the relics captured, but one of Shahrbaraz's associates gave it to Nicetas who brought it to the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople later that year.
421–423 [16]: 58 [20]: 35 The relic was likely viewed by some of the soldiers and clergy participating in the First Crusade, adding to the confusion surrounding the emergence of another Holy Lance at Antioch in 1098.
[21]: 200 During the Siege of Tripoli, Raymond of Toulose reportedly brought the Antioch lance to Constantinople, and presented it to Emperor Alexios I Komnenos.
Steven Runciman argued that the Byzantine court regarded the Antioch relic as a nail (ἧλος), relying on Raymond's ignorance of the Greek language to avoid offending him.
[21]: 205–206 Several 12th century documents state that a single Holy Lance was among the relics at Constantinople, without any details that could identify it as either the crusaders' discovery or the Byzantine spear.
[24][25][26][27]: 381 [28]: 97–98 According to Alberic of Trois-Fontaines, a fragment of the Holy Lance was set into the icon that Alexios V Doukas lost in battle with Henry of Flanders in 1204.
[31]: 103, n.375 Following the sack of Constantinople, Robert de Clari described the spoils won by the newly-established Latin Empire, including "the iron of the lance with which Our Lord had His side pierced," in the Church of the Virgin of the Pharos.
[5] Despite the transfer of the Holy Lance to Paris, various travelers continued to report its presence in Constantinople throughout the late Byzantine period.[42]: 88 [43]: 10–11 [44]: 132 [45]: 160 [46]: 43 [47]: 86 [48]: col.
[43]: 10–11 Although the authenticity of Mandeville's travelogue is questionable,[52] the widespread popularity of the work demonstrates that the existence of multiple Holy Lance relics was public knowledge.
[5] Innocent's tomb, created by Antonio del Pollaiuolo, features a bronze effigy of the pope holding the spear blade he received from Bayezid.
[55]: 321 In the mid-18th century Pope Benedict XIV states that he obtained an exact drawing of the Saint Chapelle lance, to compare it with the spearhead in St. Peter's.
[58] The shaft was presumably lost or destroyed by the reign of Conrad II (1024–1039), who commissioned the Reichskreuz ("Imperial Cross") to serve as a reliquary for the spearhead.
Gilded stripes on both sides of the silver cuff bear another Latin inscription: "CLAVVS DOMINICVS HEINRICVS D[EI] GR[ATI]A TERCIVS / ROMANO[RVM] IMPERATOR AVG[VSTVS] HOC ARGEN / TVM IVSSIT / FABRICARl AD CONFIRMATIONE[M] / CLAVI D[OMI]NI ET LANCEE SANCTI MAVRI / CII // SANCTVS MAVRICIVS" ("Nail of the Lord Henry by the Grace of God the Third, Emperor of the Romans and Augustus, ordered this silver piece to be made to reinforce the Nail of the Lord and the Lance of St. Maurice / Saint Maurice").
[59]: 47 n.70 Liutprand associated the lance not with Longinus, but with Constantine the Great, citing a claim that the Roman emperor used the Holy Nails, discovered by his mother Helena, to make crosses in the middle of the spearhead.
When Stephen's successor, Peter Orseolo was deposed in 1041, he sought the aid of German king Henry III, who captured the lance in the Battle of Ménfő.
[59]: 34 Shortly before World War I, a gold-inlaid spearhead, identified as a Germanic work from around the year 1000, was dredged from the Danube River near Budapest.
[69]: 18–19 [70]: 732 Baron von Hügel took the regalia to Ratisbon for safekeeping, but by 1800 that city was also under threat of invasion, so he relocated them again to Passau, Linz, and Vienna.
[71][72] Based on X-ray diffraction, fluorescence tests, and other noninvasive procedures, he dated the main body of the spear to the 7th century at the earliest.
[72] Not long afterward, researchers at the Interdisciplinary Research Institute for Archeology in Vienna used X-ray and other technology to examine a range of lances, and determined that the Vienna lance dates from around the 8th to the beginning of the 9th century, with the nail apparently being of the same metal, and ruled out the possibility of it dating back to the 1st century AD.
It was previously held in the monastery of Geghard.The first source that mentions it is a text Holy Relics of Our Lord Jesus Christ, in a thirteenth-century Armenian manuscript.
[78]: 243–245 Despite the doubts of many, including the papal legate Adhemar of Le Puy, many of the crusaders credited the discovery of the lance for their subsequent victory in the Battle of Antioch, which broke the siege and secured the city.
[78]: 247–249, 253–254 [20]: 34–35 Greek Orthodox sources such as the biography of patriarch Christopher indicate that a relic thought to be the Holy Lance was among the treasures of the church of St. Peter as early as the 10th century.
[81]: 5 Parzival became the primary source for Richard Wagner's 1882 opera Parsifal, in which the Fisher King is wounded by the spear that pierced Jesus's side.
