Dear Jim Bugslag,
your reference to Adolf Hitler is very interesting. I have been working on
the feast of the holy lance in Nuremberg, were the holy lance was kept
until Napoleon invaded southern Germany at the begin of the 19th century.
Corine Schleif (art historian) and I (musicologist) plan a project on the
ritual display of the empirial relics in Nuremberg, the most important
feast of the town.
According to the literature we had the empirial relics were brought back
from Vienna, were they had been taken to shelter them from Napoleon, on the
basis of the empirial decree of king Sigismund dated September 29th 1423
(giben in Ofen/Buda), that the empirial city of Nuremberg should have the
permanent right to keep and display them. The literature states that the
relics were therefore kept in Nuremberg until the end of the war.
Did you find the information on Adolf Hitler and the lance in the
literature you state or are there any other references that you could give us?
Thank you
Volker Schier
At 11:08 PM 3/17/99 +0000, you wrote:
>The spear of Longinus was purportedly owned by Charlemagne, and
>perhaps even by Constantine, in some more legendary versions. It
>became associated with the regalia of the Holy Roman Emperors at
>some point, although one version has it that it was sent to King
>Athelstan. Fascinatingly, its imperial thaumaturgic function was
>still alive earlier this century: during the Second World War, Adolf
>Hitler sent to Vienna for the Holy Lance and kept it with him
>through the war, fortunately will little seeming effect. See H.L.
>Adelson, "The Holy Lance and the Hereditary German Monarchy, " The
>Art Bulletin, XLVIII (1966), 177-91; Percy Ernst Schramm,
>Herrschaftszeichen und Staatssymbolik: Beitraege zu ihrer Geschichte
>vom dritten bis zum sechzehnten Jahrhundert (Stuttgart, 1955); and
>Laura Hibbard Loomis, "The Holy Relics of Charlemagne and King
>Athelstan: The Lances of Longinus and St Mauricius," Speculum, XXV
>(1950), 437-56.
>Cheers,
>Jim Bugslag
>
>
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