Anonymous - Brugge: heilig Bloedspel / België- folklore - 1960s

Original tourist poster dating from about 1960 with the main scene from the Holy Blood Play (Holy Blood Procession) in Bruges. Issued by the Belgian General Commissariat for Tourism.
Printing; Leysen - Mechelen.
Condition B+: creases at the bottom of the left white margin. Image and text intact.

The Holy or Precious Blood of Brugge is a relic of the Holy Blood of Jesus Christ, kept in the Basilica of the Holy Blood in the Belgian city of Bruges. It is one of Belgium's most popular relics; it is venerated daily during the basilica's opening hours and annually by tens of thousands during the Holy Blood Procession, which winds through the city on Ascension Day.

According to an old tradition, Dietrich of the Alsace, Count of Flanders, brought the relic of the Holy Blood from the Holy Land after the Second Crusade (1150). Because of his outstanding heroism during the crusade, Dietrich would have received the relic, with the permission of the Patriarch of Jerusalem, from the hands of his brother-in-law Baldwin III of Anjou, King of Jerusalem. This relic formed part of a whole series of relics connected with the suffering of Christ. This story has been so ingrained for many centuries that it is no longer imaginable without it.

However, Benedictine Nicolas Huyghebaert published a critical study in 1964 showing that the relic came to Bruges more than half a century later. After the Fourth Crusade (1203-1204) led by Baldwin IX, Count of Flanders, the relic ended up in Bruges from the plundered Constantinople.