Louis IX’s Sainte-Chapelle: Relics, Architecture, and Microcosm

Louis IX, also known as Saint Louis, was a significant figure in 13th-century France, renowned for his piety and his role in acquiring and housing sacred relics. His actions aimed to connect the present with the biblical past, thereby associating himself with the kings of the Bible.

The Significance of Relics and the Sainte-Chapelle

Relics, particularly the Crown of Thorns, were believed to abolish time, making ancient events vivid and alive. However, Louis's greater ambition was to transform time into space, a concept embodied by the cathedral itself, turning Paris into a new Holy Land.

Louis recognized that his private royal chapel of St. Nicholas was inadequate for the relics he had amassed. In May 1243, Pope Innocent IV granted permission for a new chapel. By January 1246, Louis established a college of canons to care for the relics of this new chapel, the Sainte-Chapelle. Consecrated on April 26, 1248, just two months before Louis's departure for the Seventh Crusade, the Sainte-Chapelle cost £40,000 to build, with the reliquary alone costing £100,000.

Louis IX: A Prolific Builder

Louis IX was a prolific builder, not only of churches but also of military forts, such as those at Aigues-Mortes (from which he departed for the crusade) and Haifa in present-day Israel. He also constructed:

• A royal chateau at Tourelles.
• The Hospice of the Eighty for the blind in Paris.
• Hotels at Pontoise and Compiègne.
• A student residence near the Palais des Thermes in the fifth arrondissement of Paris.
• The abbeys of Maubuisson and Royaumont.
• A priory at Nogent.
• A charterhouse for the Carthusian monks at Vauvert in Paris.
• A béguinage for the Beguine nuns in Paris.

The Architecture and Purpose of the Sainte-Chapelle

The Sainte-Chapelle was not a public cathedral for the masses but a private palace chapel designed for the king and his household. Its modest size reflects an emphasis on the elegance of scale rather than immense grandeur. Unlike pilgrimage churches, it lacks ambulatory aisles and radiating chapels, as it was not intended to serve a permanent congregation or passing pilgrims. It is not a massive Gothic structure with wide flying buttresses but a slim, tall church built within the confines of the city, appearing somewhat cramped from the outside.

The lateral thrust of its high vaults was managed by a system of internal iron braces passing through the window mullions and piers, integrated with the window framework. This slender construction contributed to an illusion of height, evident even in 15th-century depictions.

The Sainte-Chapelle is a double structure: - Upper Chapel: A light-filled space of glass, where masonry primarily frames the windows rather than providing structural support. - Downstairs Chapel: For Louis's considerable household retinue, which included 50 to 60 servants, stable squires, smiths, stable boys, cooks, a sauce cook, a bellows blower, a pantler, linen keepers, a carter, ushers, clerks, a wax warmer, pages, and runners, all of whom prayed downstairs.

The Relics Housed in the Sainte-Chapelle

The Sainte-Chapelle was conceived as a giant reliquary box for the formidable collection of relics Louis had amassed. A 17th-century drawing illustrates the extent of this collection, which included:

• The Crown of Thorns.
• A piece of the wood of the Lance of Longinus.
• A piece of the blade of the Lance of Longinus.
• A purple mantle.
• A reed.
• The sponge.
• Handcuffs.
• The Cross of Victory.
• The Blood of Christ.
• Blood that emanated from an image of Christ struck by a non-believer.
• Christ's childhood clothes.
• The cloth Christ used to wash the feet of the apostles.
• Some milk of the Virgin Mary.
• Some hair of the Virgin Mary.
• Her veil.
• The top of John the Baptist's head.
• The Holy Shroud.
• A Holy Face.
• A piece of the stone of the Sepulchre.
• Moses's staff.

After Louis's canonization in 1297, his head (minus the lower jaw) was brought to the Sainte-Chapelle in 1298 and placed in a gold reliquary in 1306, along with one rib that went to Notre Dame, thus consolidating saintliness and monarchy.

Reliquaries as Microcosms

Churches, to some extent, are always reliquaries, as the possession of relics was central to their glory, honor, riches, and prestige. Reliquaries themselves are often designed as miniature churches. Examples include:

• An Eastern reliquary reproducing the shape of domed churches.
• An Italian reliquary designed to hold the head of St. Galgano.
• A 13th-century reliquary from the Sainte-Chapelle treasury, now in the Musée de Cluny, which held the remains of three beheaded saints: Maxia, Lucia, and Julia.
• The 19th-century reliquary by Viollet-le-Duc, which currently houses the Crown of Thorns, featuring details that draw an analogy between the Crown of Thorns (Christ's humiliated kingship) and the Crown of France with its fleur-de-lis, which Louis holds in his hands. The Crown of Thorns thus becomes a royal insignia, the "Galea Christi" or "helmet of Christ," crowning the realm.

This concept of a "microcosmic imitation" involves smaller things housed within similar larger ones. The Sainte-Chapelle itself is a giant reliquary, containing a reliquary box shaped like a church. This is further layered by the reliquary platform at the eastern end of the upper chapel, an enlarged ciborium or baldachin supported by eight pillars and vaulted in three rectangular bays, resembling a small chapel within a chapel. Wooden spiral staircases lead to this platform.

This principle of smaller forms contained within larger ones, such as the reliquary box within the reliquary stage within the architectural structure, embodies a fundamental mental structure of the Age of Cathedrals: the microcosmic model of the universe. Just as man is a microcosm of nature, which is a microcosm of the wider cosmos, this structural principle also works to abolish time or transform it into space. If smaller things with the same form as larger things can be contained within them in an infinite formal regress, then the smaller historical moment of the present might be contained within the larger drama of Christian history (the Passion), allowing Louis to participate in the aura of Christ. This is a core principle of Gothic architecture, where smaller forms like pinnacles, gables, canopies, and pointed arches are diminutives of the whole, integrating the history of France into sacred history.