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

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

The Holy or Precious Blood of Bruges 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 its way through the city on Ascension Day.

According to an old tradition, Dietrich of the Alsace, Count of Flanders, after the Second Crusade brought the relic of the Holy Blood from the Holy Land (1150). Due to his exemplary courage 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 IV of Jerusalem, king of Jerusalem. This relic was part of a whole series of relics associated with the suffering of Christ. This story has been so ingrained for many centuries that it has become inseparable.

Nevertheless, Benedictine Nicolas Huyghebaert published a critical study in 1964 from which it should be evident that the relic only arrived in Bruges more than half a century later. After the Fourth Crusade (1203-1204) led by Baldwin IX, Count of Flanders, the relic from plundered Constantinople ended up in Bruges.