The Holy Lance

by Master Richard the Poor of Ely

Actually, I should be calling this article "The Holy Lances", since
there are a number of relics bearing that name.  But let's begin at the
beginnning.

In John 19:33-34, after Jesus dies on the cross, a soldier stabs his
body in the side with a spear.  By the sixth century, the soldier
became identified as Longinus; the spear was thus named the Spear of
Longinus.

Lance 1: When construction was underway on the Church of the Holy
Sepulcher in Jerusalem, the True Cross and the Nails of the Crucifixion
were uncovered.  These were kept at the church, and were joined by a
Spear of Longinus / Holy Lance at an unknown date.  In 614, the
Persians attacked the city and carried off these relics.  They were
later seized by the Byzantines, who returned the Cross to Jerusalem,
but kept the Lance in their Royal Treasury.  I don't know what became
of the Nails.  This one disappeared when the Fourth Crusade attacked
Constantinople, but it may be Lance 3.

Lance 2: The First Crusade was about to fall apart in Antioch.  Morale
could not get any lower.  Peter Bartholomew, a rather unsavory
character, came to Count Raymond of Toulouse to tell him of his
visions.  Christ and St. Andrew spoke to him and said the Crusaders'
troubles were the fault of their debauchery, but God was ready to
forgive them and would give them a sign.  It seems the Holy Lance was
buried under one of the churches in Antioch.  Since most people had
seen Lance 1 in Constantinople, Peter was given a big "Yeah, right."
But they went looking anyway, and found a bit of rusty iron which
might, at one point, have been a lance head.  Morale did a complete
reversal: the Crusaders rallied and would go on to take Jerusalem.
Count Raymond of Tripoli got the honor of looking after this Lance.  I
find no record of it after the Crusaders got to Jerusalem and recovered
the True Cross (evidently they didn't need it any more).  Presumably it
was captured by the Moslems.  It might be Lance 3.

Lance 3: In 1492, Sultan Bajazet II presented Pope Innocent VIII with a
Spear of Longinus.  You can see this one in the Pillar of Veronica at
the Vatican.

Lance 4: Sometime during the Carolingian Empire a lance head was made
to serve as a reliquary for one of the Holy Nails.  In the 920's, it
was purchased by the German Emperor Henry I, who wanted it as a symbol
of his divine right to rule.  It was passed on to his son, Otto I, who
carried it with him to battle.  When Otto kept winning, the victories
were attributed to the Holy Lance.  In the 13th century, Pope Gregory
IX proclaimed it to be the True Holy Lance, just to spite the
Byzantines who had a better claim to owning the Real Thing.  Over time,
this became one of the symbols of the Holy Roman Empire and wound up in
the possession of the Hapsburgs of Austria.  In 1938, along with the
Austrian Crown Jewels and other insignia of the Holy Roman Empire, it
was hidden in an air-raid shelter in Nuremberg where it survived both
the plundering of the Nazis and the bombing of the RAFwe.  It can now
be seen in Vienna's Kunsthistorisches Museum.


from the September 1997 Seahorse