The Lombards Convert

There was a period in the history of the Kingdom of Lombardy when they had no king. Two kings in a row had been murdered—the first by his wife, the second by a young slave he had mistreated—and a decade followed of rule by the dukes. This was in the 570s.

Paul the Deacon had nothing good to say about this era:

After his death the Langobards had no king for ten years but were under dukes, and each one of the dukes held possession of his own city, .... In these days many of the noble Romans were killed from love of gain, and the remainder were divided among their "guests" and made tributaries, that they should pay the third part of their products to the Langobards. By these dukes of the Langobards in the seventh year from the coming of Alboin and of his whole people, the churches were despoiled, the priests killed, the cities overthrown, the people who had grown up like crops annihilated, and besides those regions which Alboin had taken, the greater part of Italy was seized and subjugated by the Langobards.

With the threat of a Frankish invasion (by the successors of Clothair II), in 584 they chose to lead them Duke Authari (see illustration), the son of the last king. This is not about his fight with the Franks, however; it is about the woman he married and the result.

Authari married Theodelinda (c. 570 – 628 CE), the daughter of Duke Garibald I of Bavaria and Waldrada. This marriage brought a Bavarian Catholic into the (heretical) Arianism of the Lombards. They married in 588, but Authari died in 590. By that time, however, Theodelinda was so respected that she was asked to help choose the next king.

The next king was Agilulf, the Duke of Turin. Not only did she help choose him, she married him! At Theodelinda's request, Agilulf was baptized a Roman Catholic in 603, as well as their son. The king and queen built the Cathedral of Monza (which still exists). Under the two of them, the nation started abandoning Arianism and adopting Roman Catholicism.

For her efforts in this regard, Theodelinda was sent a nail from the Crucifixion. This was made into the Iron Crown of Lombardy, which replaced the crown used by the kings. and is now stored at the Cathedral of Monza. Agilulf made a truce with the papacy, allowing the Duchy of Rome to exist without threat from the Lombards (who possessed the territory all around Rome).

As for the threat from the Franks, that ended for a time due to their internal civil battles. Let's take a look at how the Franks fell to internal fighting and stopped being a threat to others for a time.

The Milevsko Nail

In the Czech Republic is the town of Milevsko, first mentioned in records in 1184, placed at the intersection of two important trade routes. In 1187 a Premonstratensian monastery was built there. The monastery was burned down in 1420 by Hussites, a Czech Christian movement influenced by John Wycliffe and reformer Jan Hus.

The monastery was rebuilt in 1581 as a manor house, but returned to the Premonstratensians as a monastery in 1622.

In the summer of 2020, beneath the monastery's St. Giles Church, a secret cavity was discovered. One theory is that the space was used to protect treasures from the impending attack by the Hussite soldiers. One researcher states that the Hussites destroyed church records, so knowledge of the secret cache was lost over time.

In the space was a wooden box decorated with a gold cross and the letters "IR" signifying "Iesus Rex," "Jesus King." Radiocarbon dating and an examination of the box reveals that it was made from larch wood grown in Israel between 1290 and 1394CE. The lid of the box as made of oak that was dated to between 260 and 416CE.

Inside the box was a six-centimeter iron nail. The assumption is that it was one of the Holy Nails used to crucify Jesus. There is a Celebration of the Holy Nail every 13 September where it can be seen in its new setting, the cross seen above in the illustration.

That ends for now our exploration of the Arma Christi and Holy Nails. Next we're going to find out what Premonstratensians are all about.

The Holy Nails

The Catholic Encyclopedia says "The question has long been debated whether Christ was crucified with three or with four nails." [link] Given how many can be found around the world, maybe it was more.

Depictions of the Crucifixion in the 13th century started routinely showing three nails (prior to that, and in the opinion of several Church Fathers, there was one in each foot): one through the overlapping feet and one each in the hand (biologically more appropriate would be in the wrist: the bones of the hand could not support the weight of a body). 

Shortly after converting to Christianity and becoming caesar and emperor, Constantine sent his mother, the Empress (later saint) Helena to find the Cross and the Nails used in the Crucifixion. According to the 5th-century author of an ecclesiastical history, Socrates of Constantinople, she was led to the site of what she was seeking by a Jew named Judas Cyriacus.

The nails went in different directions. Socrates said one was made into a bridle used by Constantine, and there are many other locations that claim to have nails. There is a bridle in the cathedral in Carpentras, in Provence that is said to have a nail in it. The Cathedral of Milan also has a bridle that is said to have a nail in it.

The Basilica of Santa Croce in Jerusalem, a church in Rome, has a spike that is supposed to be one.

One was pounded into a thin band and incorporated into the Iron Crown of Lombardy. As it turns out, the band that was supposed to be the nail is made of almost pure silver. Ironically, there is no iron in the "Iron Crown."

The treasury of Trier Cathedral was sent one (see illustration) from Helena, to (supposedly) commemorate her birthplace.

Bamberg Cathedral (Germany) claims to have part of one nail.

The monastery of San Nicolò l'Arena in Catania (Sicily) has the head of a nail.

The German imperial regalia in the Homburg Palace in Vienna has a nail incorporated into a Lance which is also the Spear of Longinus.

Then, in 2020, a piece of a Holy Nail was found in the Czech Republic. I'll tell you that story tomorrow.