Paying the bills

Legend has it that this is a Holy Nail, used in the crucifixion of Christ. The iron spike and its reliquary are displayed in the treasury at St. Peter Cathedral in Trier, Germany.

You gotta have a gimmick
If you wanna have a chance!
("Gypsy")

In the Broadway musical "Gypsy," the gimmick that the beautiful young Louise adopts for her flagging vaudeville song-and-dance routine is dropping a single shoulder strap on her gown, a precursor to what later becomes a full-blown striptease act. Audiences start turning out in droves.

What does this have to do with Medieval cathedrals?

Once they're built, at enormous cost, cathedrals have to be maintained -- also at enormous cost. Priests and monks have to be fed. Candles have to be purchased. Roofs need to be repaired. Crumbling stones and rotting wooden beams must be replaced.

Even in the 12th century, archbishops recognized the need for a revenue-generating gimmick to lure "customers." Often the gimmick centered on relics.

St. Peter Cathedral in Trier is a good example. Trier Cathedral was one of the first Medieval cathedrals I visited. Trier, which is the oldest city in Germany (founded about 16 BC), was the closest city of any size to Bitburg Air Base, where I was stationed beginning in late 1966.

Trier Cathedral's gimmick was powerful: Pilgrims flocked to see and worship what were said to be Christ's robe and one of the four nails used in his crucifixion.

St. Peter Cathedral traces its history to Roman times. Constantine, the first Christian emperor, was celebrating the 20th year of his reign when a church was built at the site of his mother's palace in Trier in 326 AD. Constantine began construction simultaneously on St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. A major addition to the Trier church in the Romanesque style was begun in 1035. Gothic and Baroque additions came later.

Constantine's mother, the Empress Helena, also a Christian, traveled to Jerusalem and returned to Trier with the Holy Robe of Christ, the seamless garment said to have been worn by Jesus during the crucifixion. Helena gave the relic to her son's church at Trier.

The Holy Robe was first mentioned in documents written in the 12th century. Some 400 years later, in the 16th century, the high altar of Trier Cathedral was opened, and the robe was found inside. It was displayed for 23 days. More than 100,000 pilgrims came to venerate it. The robe was last shown in 1933 for 21 days. Two million pilgrims flocked to Trier. In 1959, the garment was sealed in a reliquary in its own chapel at the church, where it remains today.

The Trier Cathedral is also home to what is said to be a Holy Nail, one of four used to affix Christ to the cross at Golgotha. The reliquary for the nail was made in Trier in about 980 AD. The Holy Nail was used for processions and for swearing oaths and is even said to have healed blind believers.

Other relics in the cathedral's treasury include a sandal from St. Andrew and a tooth from St. Peter.

It's immaterial whether Christ ever wore Trier's Holy Robe or whether the Holy Nail is authentic. What is important -- and what has sustained and maintained the Trier Cathedral's existence -- is that they lure pilgrims.

The Medieval Trier churchmen knew well -- as did Louise in "Gypsy" -- that if you give the people a good enough reason, they will come. And they'll bring money.