Note (return) — CHAP. V.

2. The lance also with which our divine Saviour's side was pierced, was found by S. Helen, as the Bollandists shew: and it was preserved in Jerusalem, as S. Gregory of Tours and our venerable Bede observe: but towards the end of the 6th cent., the iron part of it was transfered to Costantinople; of this the point was placed in the imperial palace; the other part in the church of S. Sophia, and afterwards in that of S. John. William of Tyre and Anna Comnena mention it as existing there in the 11th and 12th centuries. Towards the close of the 13th century the point of the lance with other relics passed into the possession of S. Louis of France: the other part of the lance still remained at S. John's in Constantinople, as Buondelmount, who saw it, bears witness. When Mahomet subdued Costantinople, he preserved all the relics, as Theodore cited by Benedict XIV relates in his history of the Turks, and his son Bajazet sent an ambassador with the relics of the lance to Pope Innocent VIII, in order to induce his Holiness not to protect Zizimus, who disputed with him the succession to the Turkish throne. The Pope received it with great reverence, and placed it in the Vatican. As some suspicion was entertained about the veracity of the Turkish ambassador, Benedict XIV, as he mentions in his very learned work on the Canonisation of the Saints, from which I have extracted this account, sent for an exact cast of the point preserved at Paris, which perfectly corresponded with the piece preserved in the Vatican; and thus were confirmed the assertion of the Turk107.