Capturing Christ’s Tears

This chapter investigates the historiography of the cult of the Holy Tear of Christ, La Sainte Larme, and explores the materiality and affective life of the relic. The apocryphal narrative tells that an angel caught the tears Christ shed on hearing about Lazarus’ death and gave them to Mary Magdalene for safekeeping. Around 1040, Geoffrey Martel received the relic of the Holy Tear as a reward for his military efforts. Enshrined at the Abbey of La Trinité, Vendôme, France, the Holy Tear enjoyed a robust devotion during the Middle Ages, attracting pilgrims from all over Europe. The end point for La Sainte Larme’s fame is the French Revolution, when the relic disappears. Christ’s Tear provides an exemplary case for emotion studies and material culture because it encapsulates religious piety and feeling, but, as an ephemeral bodily excretion, it presents interpretive challenges as an object.