The question
of what happened when the Franks were no longer top dogs is a
vexed one.
Quite apart from the 'redditus ad stirpe Karoli' under Philip Augustus,
I have been wondering about this recently in relation to Louis IX's
purchase of the Passion Relics in 1239 and 1241. It is well known
that the Sainte-Chapelle was built to house them, and that the
iconography of the chapel, along with all the circumstances
surrounding the project, were intended to legitimate Capetian claims
of kingship. In the program of stained glass, what might be fairly
termed the history of Old Testament kingship quite dramatically
jumps right from the Book of Kings to the History of the Passion
Relics, culminating with their translation to this very chapel (this
sudden jump is always characterized as a 'problem' in the
iconography, but it neatly sidesteps the imperial succession). While
many of these circumstances have been commented upon quite
recently by Beat Brenk, Otto von Simson, Francoise Perrot et al., I am
beginning to suspect that it may not have been stressed quite enough
that Louis bought these relics (for a huge sum, reputedly 135,000
livres) from the (usurping Latin) Byzantine Emperor, nor that these
weren't the only Passion Relics around in Western Europe. In
particular, several of them figured importantly in the treasury, and
even in the coronation regalia, of the Holy Roman Emperors. Would
it be fair, I wonder, to regard this purchase and showcasing of THE
most important Christian relics by the French king as pulling the
political rug out from under the Emperor's (or even Emperors') feet?
Jim Bugslag
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