The treasury is a usual place in all religious buildings, which includes goods that are important for the life of the building, without being very precious. But the treasury of the cathedral of Nancy is really for once: it contains several objects linked to a sanctified bishop of Toul, Gauzelin. The man served in the tenth century.
Its treasury includes an exceptional evangeliary, a liturgical book containing the passages of the Gospel read or sung at Mass: a solid gold cross on the cover, with silver panels and ornamentation in precious stones. There is also a golden chalice and… a comb, carved from a single piece of ivory. The object with its ten large teeth was not used to comb one’s hair, but it was a liturgical object. It was made to touch people with ringworm, a skin disease in areas where there is hair.
The treasure has traveled
The Gauzelin’s treasure finds himself in Nancy following numerous tribulations: the bishop had created an abbey at Bouxières-aux-Dames, where these relics had been deposited. They were taken by the last abbess to Luxembourg, before the looting linked to the French Revolution.
They will return in 1803 to France, in the treasury of the cathedral of Nancy, where also rest a good part of the remainders of the bishop: the other “pieces” were dispersed as relics in various churches of Meurthe-et- Moselle.
