City of light: Picturing the translation of the Crown of Thorns to Paris in the Gothic glass of the Sainte-Chapelle

This chapter presents new evidence for the source of the Gothic design seen in Window A in the stained glass of the Sainte-Chapelle, which represents the history of the translation of the Crown of Thorns to Paris. It will show how (and why )the artists employed by King Louis IX (d. 1270) adapted the Historia Susceptionis Coronae Spinea, a widely circulated text written by Archbishop Gauthier Cornut of Sens (d. 1241) concerning the relic's translation, to create this novel and influential visual narrative. After a careful overview of the design, destruction, and restoration of Window A through unpublished antiquarian sources, including the notes of Ferdinand de Guilhermy (d. 1878) and the "état actuel" watercolours of the glass panels recorded by Louis Steinheil (d. 1885), it builds on previous scholarship, especially the pioneering work of Alyce Jordan, to present a new study of the relationship between text and image, as well as the intersection of sacred and civic history, in the Gothic glass.