How artefact was seized from Constantinople by Crusader and sold to French king

THE Crown of Thorns, along with the Cross and other relics of the Crucifixion, are said to have been hidden in Jerusalem for three centuries, until their location was revealed in a dream to St Helena, the mother of the Emperor Constantine.

By the 9th century, they had made their way to Constantinople. The Fourth Crusade reached Constantinople in 1204, and its leader, Count Baldwin, decided there were richer pickings to be had by sacking the city, rather than seizing Jerusalem back from the Moors. Baldwin crowned himself emperor and seized as many of the assets of the imperial family as he could, including the Crown of Thorns.

In 1238, short of money, he pawned it to a consortium of Venetian merchants and finally sold it in 1239 to French king Louis IX. All that remains of it today - in Notre Dame in Paris - is the mat of twisted reeds on which it once sat.