Semur's crusader and the Virgin Mary's ring

At the end of the 12th century, a man from Sémur, Gérard le Riche, brought a relic back from Crusades: Virgin Mary’s wedding ring! Whoa, pretty nice relic...

And when he arrived near Sémur entrance gate, after a long, long trip from the Holy Land, Notre-Dame’s bells started to ring, without any bell-ringers!

Gérard didn’t care, and hid the relic inside Saint-Jean church… But this bloody ring didn’t want to stay here.

As soon as he placed it, the ring jumped in his mouth! He thought that it was Mary’s wish: she didn’t want her jewel to stay here. But… where else? Gérard finally decided to put the ring in Notre-Dame church.

Gérard was buried in this church. And people created a strange custom, based on his last remains: every year, they exhumed his bones, washed them and gave bread and wine to 13 poor people in the city. The ring itself disappeared during the French Revolution.