Constantinopolitan relics and reliquaries of the head of Saint John the Baptist brought to the West after 1204

This article by Jannic Durand constitutes a historical and archaeological study devoted to the Constantinopolitan relics and reliquaries of the head of Saint John the Baptist transferred to the West following the sack of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade (1204). Drawing on a comparative analysis of documentary sources — notably the account of Wallon de Sarton, the treatise of Du Cange, the manuscript notes of Peiresc and treasury inventories — as well as on the examination of preserved objects, the author reconstructs the history of the progressive dismemberment of the relic in Constantinople between the ninth and twelfth centuries. The study successively examines the relics of Amiens, Venice, the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris and Saint-Chamond, analyzing their lost or surviving Byzantine mounts. It establishes that the fragmentation of the head of the Baptist in Constantinople cannot predate the second half of the eleventh century and highlights the determining role of the imperial milieu in this dispersal.