Faith Tibble’s new book, The Crown of Thorns: Humble Gods and Humiliated Kings, challenges centuries of assumptions about one of Christianity’s most iconic symbols. Drawing on meticulous research and a storyteller’s touch, she invites readers to look again at the medieval art they thought they knew.
It started in the middle of a Roman history class. Faith Tibble was in her final undergraduate year at university, listening to a lecture on military decorations—intricately awarded honours, each tied to a specific plant. “As it was probably around Easter, it hit me,” she recalls. “The Roman soldiers who mocked Jesus saying ‘hail king of the Jews’ would have had no concept of ‘kingship’ as we know it. What if, instead, they were mocking him, not as a failed king, but a failed general? What if the Crown of Thorns wasn’t a crown at all, but a mock military decoration?”
That flash of insight led her to an even more startling discovery: the earliest depictions of the Crown of Thorns didn’t look like a twisted band of pain at all. They were something else entirely—woven, yes, but not bristling with spikes. “When I found out that the image of the Crown of Thorns was never meant to be a crown made of thorns at all – and its earliest depictions reflect this idea – that’s when I knew I had to find out more and tell this story. Because no one was talking about it!”
Her new book, The Crown of Thorns: Humble Gods and Humiliated Kings (Bloomsbury, 2025), takes that moment of curiosity and follows it through centuries of Christian and medieval art, unpicking how a mistranslation, theological shifts, and political needs reshaped one of the most recognisable symbols in Western culture.
A Researcher in the Archives
For Tibble, who earned her PhD in Art History at the University of Haifa, the work of research is as much about the senses as it is about the intellect. Her field takes her into museums, libraries, and archives, where the objects she studies often surprise her in person. “The most extraordinary fun while writing this book was handling the artefacts that I was researching,” she says. “You have to study these pieces of art for a long time – learn every detail, provenance, and purpose. But to see it in person, even get a chance to hold it in your hands, this is the greatest thrill.
“I always get a deeper understanding of the art. You can pick up on details that photography just cannot reveal. The art that I research – early Christian and Medieval primarily – is incredibly intricate. Every inch has been carefully planned, slowly crafted and executed in excruciating detail. You don’t always get this sense unless you are face to face with the piece. For example, the colors of the illuminated manuscripts I studied from the 11th century were almost eye-wateringly vibrant. The figures on the sarcophagi or on the miniscule ivory plaques, nearly leap off their base to tell a story. Two-dimensional pictures struggle to capture these details.”
Reframing the Crown
In The Crown of Thorns, Tibble’s discoveries lead readers to reconsider centuries of Christian imagery. Early Gospel accounts, in their original Greek, refer to a stephanos akanthinos—not necessarily a thorny circlet, but a wreath of acanthus leaves, a plant associated with triumph and immortality. For Roman soldiers, this might have echoed the corona obsidionalis, a rare and prestigious military award.
From there, Tibble traces how the image transformed. By the 11th century, the thorny version had begun to dominate Passion imagery, its visual sting amplified in the later Middle Ages. Kingship, humility, and suffering became intertwined—and, in the 13th century, the relic’s arrival in Paris under Louis IX gave the Crown an enduring political dimension.
Writing as a Way of Thinking
The launch party for Faith Tibble’s book was held earlier this year in London – photo by Sandra Alvarez
Tibble’s approach to writing history is grounded in constant engagement with both sources and the page. “I find that researching and writing simultaneously is the most efficient process for me… I take notes, then summarise, then jot down my own reflections.” She gives herself permission to write imperfectly at first, connecting ideas on the fly, letting fragments form themselves into chapters. Only later does she edit “everything to death.”
She gives two pieces of advice to fellow historians who are also aiming for a public audience in their works:
First: write constantly. As I mentioned earlier, I have found that writing continually to be hugely beneficial. Not only for book-writing process, but for one’s brain. Try not to let the need for perfection the first time around get in the way. Step away from needing your surroundings to be perfect too: whether needing absolute silence, or a specific desk, or mug of tea, or the light just so. Just get your thoughts down. On a train, waiting for a friend in a coffee shop, on your lunch break. Don’t worry if it’s rubbish – half of it will be and that’s okay. Let writing be fun, not a chore you have to do at the end of research.
Second: Find the narrative. There’s nothing more boring than a list of facts interspersed within long, convoluted sentences sporting highfalutin vocabulary. History is not just ‘one thing after another’. There is a narrative – a story – waiting to be told. It’s our job as historians to bring it to life for people. To do the research for them, read between the lines, and put the pieces together. Don’t make your readers work for it! Help your audience understand the complexities. Your readers will likely not be as well-versed in the subject as you are, so bring them along for a ride of discovery. Don’t leave them in the weeds of complex sentence structure.
Tibble’s work is a reminder that the past is never static, even in its most familiar symbols. She sees research and writing not as separate acts, but as a single process—one that keeps her mind “agile, more alert, constantly learning, and open to new ideas.” And she invites readers to join her in that process: to look again, question what they see, and find the story behind the image.
The Crown of Thorns: Humble Gods and Humiliated Kings is published by Bloomsbury. You can buy it through their website, or on Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Amazon.co.uk
Faith Tibble’s new book, The Crown of Thorns: Humble Gods and Humiliated Kings, challenges centuries of assumptions about one of Christianity’s most iconic symbols. Drawing on meticulous research and a storyteller’s touch, she invites readers to look again at the medieval art they thought they knew.
It started in the middle of a Roman history class. Faith Tibble was in her final undergraduate year at university, listening to a lecture on military decorations—intricately awarded honours, each tied to a specific plant. “As it was probably around Easter, it hit me,” she recalls. “The Roman soldiers who mocked Jesus saying ‘hail king of the Jews’ would have had no concept of ‘kingship’ as we know it. What if, instead, they were mocking him, not as a failed king, but a failed general? What if the Crown of Thorns wasn’t a crown at all, but a mock military decoration?”
That flash of insight led her to an even more startling discovery: the earliest depictions of the Crown of Thorns didn’t look like a twisted band of pain at all. They were something else entirely—woven, yes, but not bristling with spikes. “When I found out that the image of the Crown of Thorns was never meant to be a crown made of thorns at all – and its earliest depictions reflect this idea – that’s when I knew I had to find out more and tell this story. Because no one was talking about it!”
Her new book, The Crown of Thorns: Humble Gods and Humiliated Kings (Bloomsbury, 2025), takes that moment of curiosity and follows it through centuries of Christian and medieval art, unpicking how a mistranslation, theological shifts, and political needs reshaped one of the most recognisable symbols in Western culture.
A Researcher in the Archives
For Tibble, who earned her PhD in Art History at the University of Haifa, the work of research is as much about the senses as it is about the intellect. Her field takes her into museums, libraries, and archives, where the objects she studies often surprise her in person. “The most extraordinary fun while writing this book was handling the artefacts that I was researching,” she says. “You have to study these pieces of art for a long time – learn every detail, provenance, and purpose. But to see it in person, even get a chance to hold it in your hands, this is the greatest thrill.
“I always get a deeper understanding of the art. You can pick up on details that photography just cannot reveal. The art that I research – early Christian and Medieval primarily – is incredibly intricate. Every inch has been carefully planned, slowly crafted and executed in excruciating detail. You don’t always get this sense unless you are face to face with the piece. For example, the colors of the illuminated manuscripts I studied from the 11th century were almost eye-wateringly vibrant. The figures on the sarcophagi or on the miniscule ivory plaques, nearly leap off their base to tell a story. Two-dimensional pictures struggle to capture these details.”
Reframing the Crown
In The Crown of Thorns, Tibble’s discoveries lead readers to reconsider centuries of Christian imagery. Early Gospel accounts, in their original Greek, refer to a stephanos akanthinos—not necessarily a thorny circlet, but a wreath of acanthus leaves, a plant associated with triumph and immortality. For Roman soldiers, this might have echoed the corona obsidionalis, a rare and prestigious military award.
From there, Tibble traces how the image transformed. By the 11th century, the thorny version had begun to dominate Passion imagery, its visual sting amplified in the later Middle Ages. Kingship, humility, and suffering became intertwined—and, in the 13th century, the relic’s arrival in Paris under Louis IX gave the Crown an enduring political dimension.
Writing as a Way of Thinking
Tibble’s approach to writing history is grounded in constant engagement with both sources and the page. “I find that researching and writing simultaneously is the most efficient process for me… I take notes, then summarise, then jot down my own reflections.” She gives herself permission to write imperfectly at first, connecting ideas on the fly, letting fragments form themselves into chapters. Only later does she edit “everything to death.”
She gives two pieces of advice to fellow historians who are also aiming for a public audience in their works:
First: write constantly. As I mentioned earlier, I have found that writing continually to be hugely beneficial. Not only for book-writing process, but for one’s brain. Try not to let the need for perfection the first time around get in the way. Step away from needing your surroundings to be perfect too: whether needing absolute silence, or a specific desk, or mug of tea, or the light just so. Just get your thoughts down. On a train, waiting for a friend in a coffee shop, on your lunch break. Don’t worry if it’s rubbish – half of it will be and that’s okay. Let writing be fun, not a chore you have to do at the end of research.
Second: Find the narrative. There’s nothing more boring than a list of facts interspersed within long, convoluted sentences sporting highfalutin vocabulary. History is not just ‘one thing after another’. There is a narrative – a story – waiting to be told. It’s our job as historians to bring it to life for people. To do the research for them, read between the lines, and put the pieces together. Don’t make your readers work for it! Help your audience understand the complexities. Your readers will likely not be as well-versed in the subject as you are, so bring them along for a ride of discovery. Don’t leave them in the weeds of complex sentence structure.
Tibble’s work is a reminder that the past is never static, even in its most familiar symbols. She sees research and writing not as separate acts, but as a single process—one that keeps her mind “agile, more alert, constantly learning, and open to new ideas.” And she invites readers to join her in that process: to look again, question what they see, and find the story behind the image.
The Crown of Thorns: Humble Gods and Humiliated Kings is published by Bloomsbury. You can buy it through their website, or on Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Amazon.co.uk
You can learn more about Faith Tibble by following her on Instagram, Facebook, Bluesky or X/Twitter.
See also this piece by Faith: 5 Things You Didn’t Know About the Crown of Thorns
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