The TRUE Lance.
Utrum horum?

Before speaking further on the lance itself, it must not be forgotten that Alban Butler has told us, “the holy lance kept at Rome wants the point,” and that after various adversities, the point was “conveyed to Paris, where it is still kept in the holy chapel.” But Richard Lassels, who in his “Voyage of Italy, 1670,” visited the church of St. Peter’s, Rome, says, the cupola of that church rests upon “vast square pillars a hundred and twenty feet in compass, and capable of stairs within them, and large sacristyes above for the holy reliques that are kept in them; to wit—the top of the lance wherewith our saviour’s side was pierced—under the top of the lance the statue of Longinus.” So that at Rome, where according to Mr. Butler, the “holy lance” itself is kept, he omits to mention that there is a top of the lance, besides the other top “in the holy chapel” at Paris. In that cathedral, too, we have the statue of St. Longinus, whom Mr. Butler also, for good reasons no doubt, omits to mention in his twelve volumes of “Lives of the Saints.”

But there is another “holy lance.” It is kept in the church of the hospital of Nuremberg, with the crown and sceptre and other regalia of Charlemagne. Misson so particularly distinguishes it, that his account shall be given verbatim. After mentioning the sword of Charlemaigne, which its keepers pretend “was brought by an angel from heaven;” he says, “they also keep many relics in this church; and among others St. Longin’s lance.” There is no reason to doubt, therefore, that the ecclesiastics of Nuremberg deemed Longinus a saint, as well as the ecclesiastics of St. Peter’s at Rome. Misson goes on to say, “They are not ignorant that this pretended lance is to be seen in above ten other places of the world; but, they say, theirs came from Antioch; it was St. Andrew who found it; one single man with it discomfited a whole army; it was the thing of the world which Charlemaigne loved most. The other lances are counterfeits, and this is the true one.” It is requisite to observe Misson’s very next words, which, though they do not seem connected with this “true lance” of Nuremberg, are yet connected with the issue. He proceeds to say, “They have also an extraordinary veneration for a piece of the cross, in the midst of which there is a hole that was made by one of the nails. They tell us, that heretofore, the emperors placed their greatest hopes of prosperity and success, both in peace and war, in the possession of this enlivening wood, with the nail and other relics that are kept at Nuremberg.” Misson then adds, by way of note, the following

List of these Relics.

These relics, accompanying Misson’s account of the “true lance” of Nuremberg, are here enumerated, because his statement as to the existence of the lance, in connection with those relics, is corroborated by a rare print, sixteen inches and a quarter wide, by thirteen inches high, published by the ecclesiastics of Nuremberg, in the possession of the editor of the Every-Day Book. It represents the whole of these relics at one view, except the five thorns. The true lance, being placed in the print angle-ways, measures nineteen inches and three quarters, from the point of the sheath to the rim of the iron shaft. The preceding column contains a reduced [fac-simile] of this “true” relic. It is not denied that the “holy lance” at Paris, “where it is still kept in the holy chapel,” is also “true”—they are without a shadow of doubt, equally “true.” See Butler and Misson, and Misson and Butler.

By the by, it must be remembered, that the genuine lantern which Judas carried, was also “kept at Rome,” when Misson was there; and that, at the same time, Judas’s lantern was also at St. Denis in France—both genuine.[99]