h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Was the 'relic' in a bar ?

>I assume that the site of the reliquary is what we are looking for <
Correct.

Which reminds me, it wasn't in the Calcata church.

Taff -5

>I'm fairly sure that in the middle ages there were several Holy Prepuces doing the rounds<

Correct depending on how you believe, the number ranges from 12 - 18; though this one in particular had provenance of a particular sort.


>>It was basically just a con. [...] It's still going on today of course.<<

Ah interestingly that skates close to the solution and why it was moved and where is it now?

>Was the 'relic' in a bar ?<

No but somewhere similarly incongruous.

it was a little wrinkly foreskin that looked like jesus, hence its miracules provenance, just like the way mexican toast has piccys. of hey-sues on them and it is locked away in the vatican vaults right next to dan browns original and un edited/ censored manuscript

I'll give Taff back a DGI +1 for that.

It was a little wrinkly. One report describes it as a "shrivelled chickpea" So ask yourself (for points) how does provenance usually operate?

it had "jc nazereth 00 bc" stamped on the inside

you sailed close and now departing again for deeper waters.

acording to a man who was told by a man who was told by a man etc. etc.

it had brought a mortally wounded knight back to life during the crusades and had put lead back in his pencil because when he came back from the holy land, in no time his wife was with child

Usually, they just had certificates of authenticity to go with them

Much much earlier than the crusades, (like 8th century) and not just any warrior but a King

>put lead back in his pencil<
There's a funny addendum to this tale. Remind me to mention it in the explanation at the end.

charlemange???

Correct +3

He said he got it from an angel.

But who did he give it to?

the pope??? and it got handed down and down and taken away by one of the false popes when there were 3 to choose from and got handed on and on from bish to bish untill it surfaced again in calcata italy and the vatican was p*ssed because it was stolen propperty??

Yes.

There's no way not to say this and make it sounds weird, but the foreskin was the pope's.

so the question is now....which pope had 2 foreskins?????

theres a song about that

..............

we have been here berore

Sorry - was outside clearing the sheet ice from the drive. /

>so the question is now....which pope had 2 foreskins??<

No, didn't mean to confuse you that was just my little attempt at punnery.

When Taff said:

>it is locked away in the vatican vaults<

That was so close I felt it needed nudging.

The foreskin was in Rome before it came to Calcata, which is why it is amongst all the forgeries found in Europe, unique.

was it one of the many times rome was sacked that it came out of hiding and started going the rounds

Yes. The story for this part goes that the holy foreskin that ended up in Calcata - the only papal-approved version of the relic - was said to have been given by Charlemagne* to Pope Innocent III upon the French king's coronation in Rome on Dec. 25, 800. The Pope placed the relic in Rome's Sancta Sanctorum (where it resided with the heads of Sts. Peter and Paul) until 1527, when a German soldier—part of the booty-hungry army that sacked the city**—swept in to the relic-laden room, grabbing a bejeweled reliquary , tucking it under his arm , and making a mad dash northward. He got as far as Calcata before being caught and imprisoned in the village, where he stashed the relic in his cell. Thirty years later, in 1557, its discovery set off, it was said, a series of climatic miracles in the village.


*ditto the other 11 or 17 claimants of the double-digit-dicked-diety, spread out all over Europe. Charlemagne got about a bit, apparently.

**Two thirds of The Pope's personal protectorate The Swiss Guard were massacred in the attack.

I would imagine that, if the foreskin was "authenticated" to be the one in Calcata that some sort of cult would have started and perhaps a special building erected.

This thought leads to an idea that perhaps there was a monastery established to hold the relic?