St. Louis IX with Rinceau Border (BK 065)

St. Louis IX the King (1214-1270) ruled France for forty-four years guided by his Catholic Christian values. Surely, in his eyes, the acquisition for France of the Crown of Thorns believed to have been worn by Christ during His Passion must have been regarded as one of his crowning achievements. Revered for centuries in Jerusalem, the Crown of Thorns was transferred to Byzantium about 1063. In 1238, King St. Louis IX was offered it for a cash settlement by Baldwin II ‘the Broke’, the Latin Emperor of Constantinople. The French monarch received the Crown at the coastal town of Sens with great pomp and later installed it with solemn ceremonies in the chapel he especially built for it in Notre Dame in Paris. + Here St. Louis wears both a halo and his own golden crown as well as an ermine-lined mantle in dark aqua that is decorated with gold fleur de lis. He reverently carries the Crown of Thorns, which emits spiked rays of light, on a plump red cushion. The scene is confined to a ‘medallion’ or circular decorative device and takes place against a generic background of entwined swirls. The whole is enclosed in an elaborate square rinceau framework. A rinceau is a decorative form consisting of sinuous, entwined vines and tendrils or branches and foliages. Rinceau borders are very common in Gothic illuminated manuscripts and the 19th-century devotional prints they inspired. Epilog: Having survived the French Revolution against all odds, the Crown of Thorns was again endangered on Monday, 15 April 2019, when Notre Dame burned. It was, however, among the relics rescued--some would say miraculously--from the fire. + Feast of St. Louis the King: August 25 + Image Credit (BK 065): Antique NeoGothic image from a devotional print of St. Louis IX the King originally published by B. Kühlen, Mönchengladbach, Germany, late 19th century, from the designer’s private collection of religious ephemera.