A chapel at Heiligenblut in the Duchy of Carinthia was first mentioned in 1271, containing a relic of the Blood of Christ. According to legend a flask of the Holy Blood, which is kept in a sacrament house, was brought here in 914 from the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople by the Danish knight Briccius. On his way home across the Alps, he was buried by an avalanche and hid the relic in an open wound at his calf. His corpse was later found by local peasants, where three ears of wheat broke through the snow (see the coat of arms). The Gothic pilgrimage church dedicated to Saint Vincent of Saragossa, with its prominent spire, was built between 1460-1491. The church also houses a late-Gothic winged altarpiece from 1520, and a crypt and tombcontaining Briccius' mortal remains.
A transhumance agricultural as well as a gold mining from ancient history to the Middle Ages, Heiligenblut was a stop on the bridle path and later Roman road leading to the Hochtor Pass across the Alps, probably already in use during the Hallstatt culture which followed on from the Late Bronze Age. In 1834 Archduke John of Austria had a first mountain hut built beneath the pass, and a driveway was constructed from 1875.