The Bruges Blood Trudge

I hadn’t planned to be in Bruges—Belgium’s most picturesque town—on its busiest day of the year, but there I was, traipsing through the narrow spectator-flanked streets. Everyone was waiting for the star attraction. It wasn’t a celebrity or a politician that would be parading by. It was something much more endearing to the people of this Gothic-clad city: it was the blood of Jesus.

Every year since the late 13th century, the denizens of this handsome Flemish city flank the streets on the 40th day after Easter to partake in the procession of the “Heilig Bloed.” Though drops of Jesus’ blood were sprinkled around Europe, Bruges was the best-known claimant. And today was apparently the day it gets paraded around town.

The locals began an annual procession with the Holy Blood in 1303 and has lasted into the twenty-first century. Because the blood would liquefy for the faithful every Friday, Pope Clement V gave his official stamp of approval on the Bruges blood in 1310 with an indulgence—a remission of temporal punishment due for sins that have already been forgiven—to those who came to venerate it. After an unnamed blasphemy occurred later that year, the blood became stubborn and refused to perform its weekly trick, only liquefying once more in 1388.

Relic worship is a fascinating holdover from a time in Europe when thunderstorms were considered the wrath of God and bathing was considered unhealthy and taboo. The Redeemer’s blood wasn’t even the oddest relic of Jesus and his family.

His umbilical cord could have been saved. And, in fact, it (supposedly) was: the Sancta Sanctorum in Rome (and a handful of other places, mostly in France) was the home of the Holy Umbilical Cord and the Holy Foreskin. The baby Jesus’ milk tooth? Yep, an abbey at Soissons boasted it. A few strands of the Virgin’s hair made an appearance in different places. So did relics like the Holy Tear (which must have caused a cluster of potential relic collectors on Christ’s sadder days, some industrious disciples having to dive, vial in hand, before the tear hit the ground). And let us not forget about the two-for-the-price-of-one relic, the Holy Bib—complete with breast milk stains from the Virgin. In fact, vials of the Virgin’s breast milk were popular medieval relics—so much so that Jean Calvin later quipped that had the Virgin been a cow she couldn’t have produced so much breast milk. Along with a few strands of the Virgin’s hair, a vial of her breast milk was venerated in the Cybo family chapel in Rome’s Santa Maria degli Angeli. But, of course, there were other locations that stored the beloved latte.

One of the most remarkable relics is the House of Loretto, said to be the house of the Virgin Mary. The legend of how the house ended up in the Italian town of Loretto is that angels first carried it from the Holy Land to the Dalmatian Coast on May 10, 1291. And as the skeptical historians, G.W. Foote and J. M. Wheeler wrote, “But it was too precious a memorial of the true faith to be left there; and after a rest of three years, during which its angelic conveyancers were perhaps recovering from the fatigue of their first journey, it suddenly and miraculously appeared in the Papal state of Loretto, a few miles from Ancona.”

It may seem preposterous to our 21st-century minds—after all, a thunderstorm is just a weather pattern and bathing and personal hygiene are necessary if you want to have some semblance of a social life—but we do still practice relic worship, albeit in a more secular manner.

I could reference here various in-demand dead celebrities’ possessions—Michael Jackson’s glittery glove, one of Prince’s guitars, glass from the car crash that killed Princess Diana, etc.—but this one is more fun: when I was 13 years old, my grandpa Don passed away. And my grandma bestowed upon my older brother, Bob, grandpa’s toenail clippers. It gets weirder. A few days later, my sister Diane and I clipped our toenails, put them in a small plastic baggie, and wrote a note that said, “Dear Bob, To go along with your grandfather’s toenail clippers, here are some of his toenail clippings. Love, grandma.” And then we sent it off to Bob. A relic of grandpa. Or at least my brother thinks so.

The author in front of the Holy Blood relic.

And so, every year in Bruges, 100,000 people march out to see a supposed relic of Jesus. On the day I was there, the streets were crammed with spectators, many of whom had reserved seats along the procession route. In the main square, 15-row bleachers were set up. As the procession began, I started to get a sense of what I was in for: a history lesson. The procession, which lasted about two hours, is a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade of religious teaching, starting with the Old Testament. It began with a man and a woman, Adam and Eve dressed like they’d just emerged from a pre-history cave, traipsing down the middle of the street. Float after float was a chronological narrative of the Bible. I have to admit, I tuned out until we got to the New Testament. A float of Mary and Joseph holding the baby Jesus started the new phase of the procession (there was no float showing a mock Holy Circumcision, unfortunately). One of my favorites was the Last Supper (I think because I was hungry), literally a moveable feast on wheels. Actors playing the Redeemer and his apostles slowly went by as they pretended to look serious and to eat and drink as the crowd waved. By the time the float of Jesus being condemned by Pontius Pilate went by, Christ was looking increasingly beleaguered.

A little later, Christ walked by carrying a cross. And you know how this story ends. Or at least how this phase of the story ends. Because Jesus may have died, come back to life, and then ascended into the heavens but this wasn’t the end of the procession. We moved through history, as floats depicting the spreading of Jesus’ message cruised by. A gregarious group of robe-wearing, white-bearded men walked by—presumably the Apostles—and one of them high-fived an indifferent-seeming teenager wearing a Radiohead shirt and Chuck Taylor All-Stars. The end of the Roman empire and the beginning of the medieval period sailed past. Oh, there went Charlemagne. Armies of Crusaders marched on. The sun was beating down on all of us and I was getting tired.

Finally, after a group of bishops, nuns, and clerics strode past, there it was, the star of the show: the reliquary that held the Holy Blood of Bruges. After witnessing depictions of events that took place over thousands of years, it was anticlimactic to finally see the headliner. The reliquary itself dates from 1617 and is bedecked with precious stones, including a black diamond. There was little reverence for the relic itself, perhaps because medieval piety hasn’t been resurrected yet in the 21st century. Or because the relic has been in the town for eight centuries and is like that grandpa who moves in and, you get the sense, is never going to leave, so you just kind of get used to it sitting there in the armchair watching Matlock reruns.

Speaking of “grandpa,” I’m told my brother still has our grandfather’s toenail clippers and that beloved baggie of toenail clippings, which he very much believes is a relic from our grandpa. Who knows? Maybe he’s even made a reliquary for them.