Look closely, and you’ll see if you squint . . . Not the holy hand grenade, but the Holy Lance! You know — the artifact that in the Christian Gospel of John was used by a Roman soldier to pierce the side of Jesus after he had died on the cross? (John 19:34). A quick Wikipedia search discusses three different relics that various people have claimed to be the one true Holy Lance, but my favorite is no longer extant: and this would be the Holy Lance from the First Crusade. The soldier in the image holding the spear-like object is the Bishop of Le Puy, and he was thrilled to be able to carry it into battle (bishops did that sort of thing back then). The stories surrounding the lance really do seem straight out of Monty Python: it was discovered, miraculously/conveniently by one Peter Bartholomew during the last stage of the long Siege of Antioch when the Crusaders were at a moment of extremely low morale, and this inspired the soldiers to rally and break the siege. Later, however, when one of the Crusade’s leaders (who was using the Holy Lance as a rallying focus) got out of favor, opponents began to claim the lance was a fake. Poor Peter Bartholomew would have none of this slandering, and rose to the challenge by undergoing the Medieval Ordeal by fire . . . (Ordeal=when you are so convinced that God’s will shall be done that you undergo physical torture/duress/etc to prove your claim, with the idea that God will prevent physical harm to you if you speak the truth.) On 8 April, 1098, he died from his burn wounds.
Source(s): _The World of the Crusades_, p 90, Christopher Tyerman (Yale UP, 2019). British Library, Yates Thompson MS 12, f. 29 r. Bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts .
