Thank you for downloading this episode of A History of the World in 100 Objects from BBC Radio 4.
I'm in Paris and I'm in what was once one of the greatest museums of Medieval Europe,
although it doesn't look like a museum.
It's a two-story Gothic building with soaring architecture and spectacular stained glass.
It's the Sainte-Chapelle, the palace church of the kings of France,
built in the 1240s to house what were then the most precious objects in the world.
And supreme amongst those objects was, without question, the crown of thorns,
placed on Christ's head before the crucifixion and a relic of the utmost sanctity.
For medieval Christendom, the key purpose of life in this world was to secure salvation in the next,
and relics of the saints offered a direct line to heaven.
No relics were more powerful than those associated with the suffering of Christ himself or more valuable.
This amazing church created to exhibit the King's collection of relics cost 40,000 livres to build.
The crown of thorns alone cost the King over three times that amount.
It was probably the most valuable thing in Europe.
The most precious gift that the King of France could make was a single thorn detached from the crown.
And the object in this program is one of those thorns and the reliquary made to house it.
It's not just an object, it's got the devotion of centuries behind it.
It looks like a window into another world, which I think is what it is.
A history of the world in 100 objects.
Holy Thorn Reliquary.