Presence and cult of the Baptist's head in the East until 1204

This article by Michel Stavrou traces the history of the inventions and translations of the head of Saint John the Baptist in the East, from the earliest patristic mentions to the Crusaders' capture of Constantinople in 1204. Adopting an approach of critical source history, the author successively examines three accounts of the invention of the relic: that of Sozomen in the fourth century, that of the monk Marcellus at Emesa in the fifth century, and that linked to Patriarch Ignatius of Constantinople in the ninth century. The study analyses the reliability of each account in light of Byzantine, Syriac and Latin sources, comparing chronicles, synaxaria and hagiographic narratives. The principal contribution lies in demonstrating that no scholarly certainty allows for the establishment of a continuous identity of the relic between Emesa and Amiens, while showing that this hypothesis is in no way contradicted by the available texts.