]
Louis, beside paying the loan and the cost of transportation which came to
two thousand French pounds (the mark being then coined into L2, 15 sous
and 6 pence), made Baldwin a present of ten thousand pounds for acting as
broker. Baldwin was so well contented with this sale which he closed in
1239, that a couple of years later he sent to Paris all the contents of
his private chapel which had any value. Part of the treasure was a
fragment of what purported to be the cross, but the authenticity of this
relic was doubtful; there was beside, however, the baby linen, the spear-
head, the sponge, and the chain, beside several miscellaneous articles
like the rod of Moses.
Louis built the Sainte Chapelle at a cost of twenty thousand marks as a
shrine in which to deposit them. The Sainte Chapelle has usually ranked as
the most absolutely perfect specimen of mediaeval religious architecture.
[Footnote: On this whole subject of the inter-relation of mediaeval
theology with architecture and philosophy the reader is referred to
_Mont-Saint-Michel et Chartres_, by Henry Adams, which is the most
philosophical and thorough exposition of this subject which ever has been
attempted.]
When Saint Louis bought the Crown of Thorns from Baldwin in 1239, the
commercial value of relics may, possibly, be said to have touched its
highest point, but, in fact, the adoration of them had culminated with the
collapse of the Second Crusade, and in another century and a half the
market had decisively broken and the Reformation had already begun, with
the advent of Wycliffe and the outbreak of Wat Tyler's Rebellion in 1381.
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