Louis built the Sainte Chapelle at a cost of twenty thousand marks as a
shrine in which to deposit them. The Sainte Chapelle has usually ranked as
the most absolutely perfect specimen of mediaeval religious architecture.
[Footnote: On this whole subject of the inter-relation of mediaeval
theology with architecture and philosophy the reader is referred to
_Mont-Saint-Michel et Chartres_, by Henry Adams, which is the most
philosophical and thorough exposition of this subject which ever has been
attempted.]

When Saint Louis bought the Crown of Thorns from Baldwin in 1239, the
commercial value of relics may, possibly, be said to have touched its
highest point, but, in fact, the adoration of them had culminated with the
collapse of the Second Crusade, and in another century and a half the
market had decisively broken and the Reformation had already begun, with
the advent of Wycliffe and the outbreak of Wat Tyler's Rebellion in 1381.
For these social movements have always a common cause and reach a
predetermined result.

In the eleventh century the convent of Cluny, for example, had an enormous
and a perfectly justified hold upon the popular imagination, because of
the sanctity and unselfishness of its abbots. Saint Hugh won his sainthood
by a self-denial and effort which were impossible to ordinary men, but
with Louis IX the penitential life had already lost its attractions and
men like Arnold rapidly brought religion and religious thought into
contempt. The famous Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, born, probably, in
1175, died in 1253. He presided over the diocese of Lincoln at the precise
moment when Saint Louis was building the Sainte Chapelle, but Grosseteste
in 1250 denounced in a sermon at Lyons the scandals of the papal court
with a ferocity which hardly was surpassed at any later day.