The Legend of the Holy Tear

The Holy Tear originated in the Lazarus story, when Jesus raised him from the dead. In the development of the legend of the Holy Tear, however, Mary Magdalene proved an even more consequential figure. Medieval theologians identified Mary Magdalene as Mary of Bethany, sister of Lazarus, and the woman who, at the house of Simon, washed the feet of Jesus with her tears and dried them with her hair. Mary Magdalene was the first to see Jesus on Easter morning. Thus, Mary Magdalene was present for the most consequential events in the Gospels. 

By the twelfth century, a narrative was in full bloom recounting how Mary Magdalene, along with her brother Lazarus, sister Martha, and Saint Maximin arrived in Southern France. Mary Magdalene and Maximus made their way to Aix, where they preached the Gospel and converted the population. Mary then retreated to a remote area around Aix, where she lived as a hermit. She was carried to heaven by angels on each of the canonical hours, which was the only spiritual sustenance she received, until on her final day, she received communion from St. Maximin.

The legend of the Holy Tear also claims that the relic was brought from Constantinople to Vendôme by Geoffrey Martel, count of Vendôme and founder of the abbey of La Trinité. According to the legend, Geoffrey was given the Holy Tear by the Byzantine emperor for driving away the Turks from Byzantium. In the twelfth century when the legend developed, the Byzantine treasury was considered to be a storehouse of the most precious relics in Christendom, including Passion relics and relics of the True Cross. This part of the legend of the Holy Tear is set within the context of Christ relics coming into Europe from the Holy Land and Constantinople. 

This chapter explores the influence of the Lazarus, Mary Magdalene and crusader narratives on the legend of the Holy Tear. I argue that the cult of Mary Magdalene and the network of crusader legends that developed in France in the eleventh and twelfth centuries created a matrix out of which the first part of the legend of the Holy Tear was constructed. The legend came to its fullest expression in an epic poem composed in the fifteenth century, a version of which if found in a manuscript now kept at the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford, UK.