Editing Sainte-Chapelle (section)

===The Royal Chapel===
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File:Fondation de la Sainte-Chapelle par Louis IX. - Archives Nationales - AE-II-2406.jpg|Charter of foundation of the Sainte-Chapelle by [[Louis IX]] (1246)
File: Louis9+Relics.jpg|Louis IX receives the crown of thorns and other sacred relics for the Sainte-Chapelle (14th century illustration)
File:Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry juin.jpg|Illustration in ''[[Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry]]'' (c. 15th century)

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Sainte-Chapelle, in the courtyard of the royal palace on the Île de la Cité (now part of a later administrative complex known as La [[Conciergerie]]), was built to house [[Louis IX of France|Louis IX]]'s collection of relics of [[Christ]], which included the [[crown of thorns]], the [[Image of Edessa]], and some thirty other items. Louis purchased his [[Passion of Christ|Passion]] relics from [[Baldwin II, Latin Emperor|Baldwin II]], the [[Latin Empire|Latin emperor]] at [[Constantinople]], for the sum of 135,000 [[Livre tournois|livres]]. This money was paid to the Venetians to whom the relics had been pawned. 

The relics arrived in Paris in August 1239, carried from [[Venice]] by two [[Dominican friar]]s. Upon arrival, King Louis hosted a week-long celebratory reception for the relics. For the final stage of their journey they were carried by Louis IX himself, barefoot and dressed as a penitent, a scene depicted in the ''Relics of the Passion'' window on the south side of the chapel. The relics were stored in a large and elaborate silver chest, the ''Grand-Chasse'', on which Louis spent a further 100,000 livres. 

The entire chapel, by contrast, cost 40,000 livres to build and glaze. Until it was completed in 1248, the relics were housed at chapels at the [[Château de Vincennes]] and a specially built chapel at the [[Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye]]. In 1246, fragments of the [[True Cross]] and the [[Holy Lance]] were added to Louis's collection, along with other relics. The chapel was consecrated on 26 April 1248 and Louis's relics were moved to their new home with great ceremony. Shortly afterward, the King departed on the [[Seventh Crusade]], in which he was captured and later ransomed and released.{{Sfn|de Finance|2012|p=6}} In 1704, the French composer [[ Marc-Antoine Charpentier]] was buried in the chapel's small cemetery, but this cemetery no longer exists.

The Parisian scholastic [[Jean de Jandun]] praised the building as one of Paris' most beautiful structures in his "Tractatus de laudibus Parisius" (1323), citing:

{{quote|that most beautiful of chapels, the chapel of the king, most decently situated within the walls of the king's house, enjoys a complete and indissoluble structure of the most solid stone. The most excellent colors of the pictures, the precious gilding of the images, the beautiful transparence of the ruddy windows on all sides, the most beautiful cloths of the altars, the wondrous merits of the sanctuary, the figures of the reliquaries externally adorned with dazzling gems, bestow such a hyperbolic beauty on that house of prayer, that, in going into it below, one understandably believes oneself, as if rapt to heaven, to enter one of the best chambers of Paradise.

O how salutary prayers to the all-powerful God pour out in these oratories, when the internal and spiritual purities of those praying correspond proportionally with the external and physical elegance of the oratory!

O how peacefully to the most holy God the praises are sung in these tabernacles, when the hearts of those singers are by the pleasing pictures of the tabernacle analogically beautified with the virtues!

O how acceptable to the most glorious God appear the offerings on these altars, when the life of those sacrificing shines in correspondence with the gilded light of the altars!<ref>Erik Inglis, "Gothic Architecture and a Scholastic: Jean de Jandun's Tractatus de laudibus Parisius (1323)," ''Gesta'', XLII/1 (2003), 63-85.</ref>}}