What really matters in the Covid culture wars?

During the grimmest days of the First Crusade in 1098, the western Christians found themselves besieged by the Turks in Antioch. They had travelled more than a thousand miles from France, and countless fellow believers had died in the almost impossible trek across the known world; now running out of food and water, they were tired, hungry and desperate.

At their lowest point, and ready to give into despair, Christian spirits were raised by the arrival of one Peter Bartholomew, a poor man from Provence who claimed he had been visited by the Virgin, promising them victory. The noblemen in charge were suspicious, as Peter was not only an illiterate farmhand type but also quite shifty, yet soon momentum built around his cause. He had an audience.

Peter had then dreamed he had seen the Holy Lance, the spear which had pierced Jesus’s side on the cross, and apparently – according to his vision – was buried outside the city’s church of St Peter.