Saints and

Sacred Matter
Du m ba rton Oa k s By z a n t i n e S y m p osi a a n d Col lo qu i a

Series Editor
Margaret Mullett

Editorial Board
John Duffy
John Haldon
Ioli Kalavrezou
Saints and Sacred Matter
The Cult of Relics
in Byzantium and Beyond

Edited by

Cynthia Hahn and Holger A. Klein

Du m b a rto n Oa k s R e s e a rch L i b r a ry a n d C o l l e c t io n
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Saints and sacred matter: the cult of relics in Byzantium and beyond /
edited by Cynthia Hahn and Holger A. Klein. — First [edition].
pages cm. — (Dumbarton Oaks Byzantine symposia and colloquia)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-0-88402-406-4 (alk. paper)
1. Relics—Byzantine Empire.
2. Byzantine Empire—Religious life and customs.
I. Hahn, Cynthia J. (Cynthia Jean), editor.
II. Klein, Holger A., editor.
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managing editor: Joel Kalvesmaki

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 contents

Acknowledgments
vii

Introduction
Cynthia Hahn and Holger A. Klein
1

1. Relic, Icon, and Architecture

The Material Articulation of the Holy in East Christian Art
Jaś Elsner
13

2.  Relics
An Evolving Tradition in Latin Christianity
Julia M. H. Smith
41

3.  Jewish Veneration of the “Special Dead” in Late Antiquity and Beyond
R a‘anan Boustan
61

4.  Medieval Muslim Martyrs to the Plague

Venerating the Companions of Muhammad in the Jordan Valley
Nancy Khalek
83

5.  Figuring Relics

A Poetics of Enshrinement
Patricia Cox Miller
99

6.  Liturgical Time and Holy Land Reliquaries in Early Byzantium

Derek Krueger
111

7.  Sacred Installations

The Material Conditions of Relic Collections in Late Antique Churches
Ann Marie Yasin
133
 8. “Gr ant Us to Share a Place and Lot with Them”
Relics and the Byzantine Church Building (9th–15th Centuries)
Vasileios Marinis and Robert Ousterhout
153

9.  Spolia as Relics? Relics as Spoils?

The Meaning and Functions of Spolia in Western Medieval Reliquaries
Hiltrud Westermann-Angerhausen
173

10.  “The Sting of Death Is the Thorn,

but the Circle of the Crown Is Victory over Death”
The Making of the Crown of Thorns
Cynthia Hahn
193

11.  The Relics of New Saints

Deposition, Translation, and Veneration in Middle and Late Byzantium
Alice-Mary Talbot
215

12.  Materiality and the Sacred

Byzantine Reliquaries and the Rhetoric of Enshrinement
Holger A. Klein
231

13.  Byzantium and Beyond

Relics of the Infancy of Christ
Jannic Dur and
253

14.  The Incarnate Shrine

Shi‘ism and the Cult of Kingship in Early Safavid Iran
Kishwar Rizvi
289

15.  The Relics of Scholarship

On the Production, Reproduction, and Interpretation of Hallowed Remains
in Late Antiquity, Byzantium, Early Islam, and the Medieval West
Anthony Cutler
309

Abbreviations
347

About the Authors

351

Index
355
 chapter two

Relics
An Evolving Tradition in Latin Christianity

Julia M. H. Smith

G i useppe Tom a si di L a m pe dusa’s e l egy to t h e a r istocr at ic Sici ly of

his ancestors, Il Gattopardo (The Leopard), ends long after the death of the Prince of Salina, its
central character, in 1883. The final section depicts the extinction of private devotion in the Salina pal-
ace, now inhabited only by his three elderly, unmarried daughters, Carolina, Caterina, and Concetta. It
narrates the Cardinal Archbishop of Palermo’s visit to the family chapel in May 1910, and his secretary’s
destruction of its extravagant collection of relics. After long and laborious work, he declared that five of
the seventy-four were legitimate but reduced all the remainder to a basketful of torn papers and bits of
bone and gristle. The family dog, long since dead and doing duty as a floor rug, was then thrown away,
leaving, in the novel’s very final words, “un mucchietto di polvere livida”: “a little heap of livid dust.”1
A whole way of life, of being, had perished.
The Cardinal’s secretary was Don Pacchiotti, who, like the elderly prelate, hailed from Piedmont. He
had been trained, we are told, in the Vatican School of Paleography (founded in 1884) and put his exper-
tise to work to scrutinize the documentation accompanying the Salina relics in search of authentic items.
Piedmont dominated the newly unified Kingdom of Italy, and while Lampedusa’s parable epitomized
the fate of Sicily itself at the hands of northerners, it also reflected on the transformation of traditional
Catholicism during the author’s own lifetime (1896–1957). Set in May 1910, the fiftieth anniversary of
Garibaldi’s conquest of Sicily, the episode encapsulated the crisis of Modernism in the Italian church.
The Cardinal Archbishop and his secretary had imposed on the Salina relic collection the normative tests
of the late nineteenth-century papacy, procedures ratified in the codification of canon law commissioned
by Pius X in 1904. But that meant nothing to Carolina, who “was one of those Catholics who consider
themselves to be in closer possession of religious truths than the Pope himself” and who thought that
Pius X should mind his own business.2 By confronting the eager collecting and dream-filled piety of the
Salina sisters with the legal procedures of Don Pacchiotti, Lampedusa juxtaposed contrasting assump-
tions about what relics were: one subjective, intuitive, familial and deeply traditional, the other the prod-
uct of the modern, professionally trained ecclesiastical establishment.
This chapter exploits this divergence to demonstrate that the assumptions that frame the place of
“relics” in much late twentieth- and twenty-first-century scholarship on medieval Christianity derive

1  First published in Milan in 1958; I have used Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, Il Gattopardo, ed. T. O’ Neill and P. Glenan (Dublin,
2010), quotation at 311; trans. A. Colquoun (London, 2005), quotation at 220. Unless otherwise credited all translations in this chap-
ter are my own.
2  Ibid., 205.

41
from the scholarly niceties of Don Pacchiotti’s material holiness have been in tension with each
late nineteenth-century formation professionelle other from the age of Augustine to that of Don
and its long prehistory, and that they bear little, if Pacchiotti.5
any, relationship to how relics were regarded dur- I take my cue from John Arnold’s observa-
ing the middle ages themselves. I do this by work- tion that sixteenth- and seventeenth-century
ing backward from the twenty-first century to Christianity was characterized by “a tightening
the early middle ages in order to expose the slip- up of definition and control, and a closing down
page between modern and medieval understand- of a certain fuzziness and room for manoeuvre.”6
ing of the term and to outline how it came about. Having explored modern definitions and empha-
By distinguishing learned discourses from the sized the centrality of control in early modern
practices of relic users, I demonstrate that they discourses, I then turn to the middle ages, from
did not converge during the medieval and early two angles. I outline the room for maneuver in
modern eras. My approach thus complements the medieval learned thinking about relics before
numerous accounts of saint-making that empha- drawing on neglected evidence in search of the
size a fundamental tension between spontane- things medieval men and women intuitively
ous and officialized veneration.3 By approaching regarded as relics. In the final section, empirical
sacred matter in a similar way, I separate lived observation reveals what medieval Christians
experience from legalistic formulations, and draw gathered and treasured. The ways, if any, in which
attention to the ways in which these objects have they conceptualized these objects as relics point
been conceived, reconceived, and misconceived to “a certain fuzziness” throughout the middle
in the course of an evolving tradition. ages. In retrospect, three interventions stand out
It will be seen that the relics treasured by for their long-term significance: Aquinas’s rea-
medieval men and women embraced many dif- sons for regarding body (or body-part) relics as of
ferent small, easily portable material substances, especial theological significance; the crucible of
some organic, others inorganic, which had been Counter-Reformation Catholicism and its pro-
removed from their place of origin and car- gram of liturgical reform that created a ranked
ried elsewhere. As “the material articulation of classification of relics; and the incorporation of
the holy,”4 they all mediated between the cre- that schema into the programmatic canon law of
ated world and the divine: this chapter pursues twentieth-century Catholicism. Scholastic theol-
changes in how that articulation was conceptu- ogy, the early modern papal drive for liturgical
alized, defined, and interpreted over the longue standardization, and modern legal precision have
durée in the Latin West. Several crucial points thus fused to define relics much more narrowly
emerge. First, the range of holy matter gradually than in the middle ages.
narrowed to such an extent that, by the modern This perspective is of fundamental signifi-
era, “relics” comprised a small subset of their late cance for two reasons. In the first place, the his-
antique variety. Second, it follows that the term tory of relic cults has commonly been presented as
must be understood as a concept which encodes one strand within the grand narrative of Catholic
culturally specific meanings and institutional pri- Christianity from archaic, even superstitious,
orities. I use it in this sense throughout this chap- behaviors and practices to enlightened, interi-
ter. Finally, its evolution was deeply implicated in orized beliefs and ethical values.7 This story is
discourses about ecclesiastical control of worship reinforced by embedded definitions. A fully histo-
and religiosity, for differing understandings of ricized perspective thus necessitates a determined

3  See importantly A. Vauchez, La sainteté en Occident aux der­ 5  I shall deal elsewhere with the equally important question
niers siècles du moyen âge d’après les procès de canonisation et les of “authenticity.”
documents hagiographiques, Bibliothèque des Ecoles Françaises 6  J. H. Arnold, Belief and Unbelief in Medieval Europe (Lon­
d’Athènes et de Rome (Rome, 1981), trans. Jean Birrell, Sainthood don, 2005), 231.
in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1997); K. L. Woodward, 7  This is the narrative underpinning Arnold Angenendt’s
Making Saints: How the Catholic Church Determines Who much-cited account Heilige und Reliquien: Die Geschichte ihres
Becomes a Saint, Who Doesn’t, and Why (New York, 1990). Kultes vom frühen Christentum bis zur Gegenwart (Munich,
4  Cf. Jaś Elsner’s chapter in this volume, whose subtitle I quote. 1994).

42 Julia M. H. Smith
effort to separate medieval understanding from its (2005). Here, the distinguished Dominican lit-
postmedieval teleological carapace, lest we inad- urgist Pierre-Marie Gy (1922–2004) stated that
vertently rely on modern assumptions to interpret the term relics “refers primarily to the bodily
medieval evidence. This anachronism permeates remains of saints and martyrs, and secondarily to
much nineteenth-century scholarship, and can objects that are directly associated with the life
still be found in some accounts of late medieval of Christ (the Cross, for instance) or of a saint,
cults of saints. In the second place, the study of or again, objects which have touched the saint’s
relic-like objects in other world religions has body.”11 Divided into primary and secondary
attracted considerable attention in recent years. categories, relics are, once more, to do with bod-
Those traditions differ substantially from those of ies of the dead, including, this time, the cruci-
Christianity, and the unthinking export of terms fied Jesus. Alternatively, and with exclusive focus
of Christian discourse runs the risk of occluding upon the Christian middle ages, the Encyclopedia
cultural specificity or, alternatively, perpetuating of Medieval Pilgrimage (2010) proposes that there
inappropriate assumptions.8 This chapter explains are three classes of relics: first-, second-, and third-
why sensitivity to the cultural baggage of the term class, also termed primary, secondary, and tertiary
relics is an urgent priority for scholarship on mate- relics. The primary category comprises the bodily
riality and religion. remains of saints, relics of Jesus’s passion, and of
Mary; the secondary ones are objects owned or
used by a saint, however small they may be, while
Definition: Present-Day Ideas of Relics tertiary ones are items which have touched first- or
It is helpful to begin with a clear sense of how the second-class relics.12 There is thus a contemporary
concept is used in current, twenty-first-century scholarly consensus that relics are either corpo-
scholarship. A selection of readily available and real remains of holy persons, notably the saints of
authoritative reference works provides a con- Christian tradition, or objects very closely associ-
venient benchmark. For example, in the 2005 ated with them in their lifetime, or which have
edition of the Encyclopedia of Religion relics are touched their corpse. That the Christian class of
defined by the Buddhologist John Strong as “the objects called relics can be subdivided into either
venerated remains of venerable persons.”9 More two or three groups in descending order of impor-
playfully, in the words of another Buddhologist, tance is also widely accepted.
Gregory Schopen, in Critical Terms for Religious This system of classification is, however, a
Studies (1998), they are “bodies and bits of bone mid-twentieth-century variant on the catego-
and otherwise seemingly dead matter [which] ries prescribed in post-Tridentine canon law. It
have played a lively role in the history of several involves three separate decisions: selecting objects
major religions.”10 In other words, scholars fre- to include in discussion; classifying them into
quently assign pride of place to body parts and groups by type; and, finally, ranking the classes
other remains of persons among the material into a hierarchy of significance. Fused together,
objects which are venerated in world religions. they form a powerful analytical tool for control-
For an explicitly Christian definition, we may ling the sacral use of certain material objects.
turn to the Encyclopedia of Christian Theology In effect, this classificatory scheme downgrades
some relics and excludes all those which do not
8  See, for example, the explicit interpretation of Buddhist rel- conform to the normative definition it estab-
ics in terms of the Roman Catholic canon law category of reli­ lishes. In short, the twentieth- and twenty-first-
quiae insignes (a category discussed in detail below): J. Strong,
Relics of the Buddha (Princeton, NJ, 2004), 46. Cf. C. W.
century definitions quoted above reflect the
Bynum, Christian Materiality: An Essay on Religion in Late
Medieval Europe (New York, 2011), 273–79, for a sensitive exam- 11  P.-M. Gy, “Relics,” in Encyclopedia of Christian Theology,
ple of a comparative treatment of material tokens of sacrality in ed. J.-Y. Lacoste (New York, 2005), 3:1357. This is a translation
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. of the Dictionnaire critique de théologie, ed. J.-Y. Lacoste (Paris,
9  J. Strong, “Relics,” in Encyclopedia of Religion, ed. L. Jones 1999).
(Detroit, 2005), 7686–92, quotation at 7686. 12  M. Sauer, “Relics,” in Encyclopedia of Medieval Pilgrimage,
10  G. Schopen, “Relic,” in Critical Terms for Religious Studies, ed. L. Taylor (Leiden, 2010), 597–99. See also the entries for
ed. M. C. Taylor (Chicago, 1998), 256–68, quotation at 256. “Bodily Relics,” “Contact Relics,” and “Belongings of Saints.”

Relics 43
Catholic Church’s role as the guardian and arbi- during their lifetime or after their death that they
ter of correct worship in the post-Reformation retained something of their venerable, sacred
era, and embody its evolving theological claims, character, such as the Cross, the Crown of Thorns
liturgical priorities, and institutional governance. and the other instruments of the Lord’s passion,
This is immediately apparent when we turn to the crib at which he was laid at birth, clothing of
Joseph Braun (1857–1947), a Jesuit schoolmaster the Lord and of Mary, the instruments of mar-
and indefatigable researcher whose theological tyrdom by means of which martyrs suffered and
training took place in the late nineteenth century. were killed, the chains with which they were
His massive studies of medieval altars, reliquar- bound captive, the instruments of penance of
ies, liturgical vestments, and ecclesiastical textiles holy confessors, objects of continual daily use of
remain invaluable for their compendious learn- religious or non-religious nature, which they used
ing laid out in efficient typologies. In 1940, he during their lives, shrouds, etc.”15 In effect, then,
opened his account of reliquaries by noting that Braun saw the middle ages through the lens of
in his own day there were only two types of rel- the canon law of his own day. Although he did
ics, “primary” and “secondary,” categories which acknowledge in passing that medieval usage had
he explicitly aligned with the terminology of the been more flexible, he injected early twentieth-
Codex iuris canonici.13 Inaugurated by Pius X but century classification into scholarship on the
published in 1917 after his death, the Codex dis- middle ages.16 As a result, two ideas have become
tinguished two classes of relic, reliquiae insignes common currency: first, that there are two classes
and reliquiae non insignes, and subjected them of relics, of which one comprises bodies or body
to different provisions. All reliquiae insignes—I parts and the other everything else, and, second,
shall term them distinguished relics—had to be that the latter were of secondary importance. To
kept in churches where their liturgical veneration him also we owe the dissemination of the con-
was under episcopal control; they could be trans- cept of “speaking reliquaries”: but just as this
ferred to a different permanent home only with severely distorted the nature and role of reliquar-
papal permission, and a wide range of specific ies shaped like body parts, so Braun’s distinction
provisions regulated their public cult. They were between primary and secondary is a grave misrep-
defined as “the body, head, arm, forearm, heart, resentation of the world of medieval relics.17
tongue, hand, leg, or that part of a martyr’s body Within twenty years, an alternative taxon-
which suffered [the death blow], provided that omy was proposed by a much more sophisticated
it is complete and not small.” By implication, all clerical scholar, Bernhard Kötting (1910–1966).
other relics were non insignes: undistinguished, In 1950, he published a major study of pilgrim-
unremarkable, or minor. Only these could be age in antiquity and the early Church, research
owned by laypersons and kept in their private which won him an appointment the follow-
chapels or homes and, for this reason, were not ing year as Professor of Early Christian History,
subjected to as many stipulations as those housed Christian Archaeology, and Patristics at the
in churches under episcopal supervision.14 University of Münster.18 In it, he relied on a clear-
Braun defined primary relics by an almost cut categorical distinction between “relics” and
verbatim translation of wording used in the 1917 “pilgrim mementos,” such as oil, dust, wax, or
Codex iuris canonici to specify what constituted cloth from a shrine. The distinction nevertheless
reliquiae insignes. But he added a definition of repeatedly failed to cope with the early Christian
“secondary” that the canon law lacked: “objects textual and archaeological evidence Kötting
which stood in such a close and integral rela-
tion to Christ, Mary, the saints and the blessed
15  Braun, Reliquiare, 3.

13  J. Braun, Die Reliquiare des christlichen Kultes und ihre 16  J. Braun, Der christliche Altar in seiner geschichtlichen Ent­
Entwicklung (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1940), 1–3, with reference wicklung, 2 vols. (Munich, 1924), 1:621–22.
in footnote 2 to the relevant clause of the Codex iuris canonici. 17  C. Hahn, “The Voices of the Saints: Speaking Reliquaries,”
14  P. Gasparri, Codex iuris canonici Pii X pontificis maximi Gesta 36, no. 1 (1997): 20–31.
iussu digestus, Benedicti Papae XV auctoritate promulgatus 18  B. Kötting, Peregrinatio religiosa: Wallfahrten in der Antike
(Rome, 1917), can. 1281, §§1–2. und das Pilgerwesen in der alten Kirche (Regensburg, 1950).

44 Julia M. H. Smith
knew so well.19 His unease seems to have spurred on formal characteristics to create his typology
him to organize a typology, presented in two and to eliminate from consideration anything for
short but highly influential articles. In 1957, an private devotional use.
encyclopedia entry on private devotional objects In varying ways, twenty-first century defini-
accepted that oil, dust, cloth, and the like were tions of relics thus draw heavily on Braun and
the same substances as secondary relics but that, Kötting, separately or together. Although these
in nonecclesiastical contexts, were to be classified influential German scholars provide the proxi-
under the modern concept of “devotionalia.”20 mate sources for current classifications, they did
The following year, an article on the origin and not invent them. As we shall see, neither schema
forms of relic veneration replaced Braun’s two had a single point of origin; instead, they are the
classes of relics with a threefold schema by draw- cumulative sedimentation of centuries of think-
ing on historical and patristic sources instead of ing and arguing about relics in many different
canon law.21 Kötting argued that the continu- contexts, debates which the following two sec-
ously increasing pressure for yet more relics not tions pare away.
only led to the fragmentation of martyrs’ bodies
but the introduction of a new “category” of rel-
ics, those he termed “contact relics.” They took Control: The Contribution
their efficacy and spiritual meaning from having of Early Modern Catholicism
touched the saint’s body, and he subdivided them When the 1917 Codex iuris canonici affirmed
into three types, of varying liturgical significance. the veneration of relics and images, its compiler,
“Naturally,” he asserted, the “primary objects Car­­dinal Pietro Gasparri (1852–1934), relied
of liturgical veneration” were objects which had on the support of two early medieval councils
come into contact with a saint during the per- and one early modern one. Alongside the con-
son’s lifetime. Next came instruments of martyr- demnation of Iconoclasm issued at the Second
dom, beginning with the Cross, but extending Council of Nicaea in 787 and reiterated in 869–
to include objects which featured in legendary 70 at the Council of Constantinople, he cited the
hagiographical tales, such as Lawrence’s griddle. Council of Trent.22 Its weary final session, on 3–4
After these, he placed objects which saints had December 1563, had confirmed that the invoca-
used during their lifetime, such as clothing. All tion of saints and the veneration of their relics
these were partible, unlike his third group. These and images were integral to Catholicism, but did
were substances sanctified by their contact with not go into any details about what this meant in
a saint’s tomb but not the body itself, notably practice. Indeed, apart from asserting that relics
oil, water, or cloth, and they came mainly from were an aspect of the cult of saints, the Council
Rome and Thessalonike, cities which refused to of Trent had offered no definition of them at all.23
allow the subdivision of their saints’ bodies, or so Nor, without extended debate, could it
he believed. Kötting’s classification is a less sys- have done so. No medieval ecclesiastical legisla-
tematically ranked hierarchy than Braun’s, but it tion had ever defined relics, let alone classified
encapsulated the same sharp distinction between or ranked them, and thus the Council of Trent
body (or body-part) relics and all others, and it lacked any precedents for thinking about relics in
differentiated between objects in contact with this way. Like so much else that caught the atten-
a living saint or with a grave. Much more sensi- tion of local synods and bishops in council, or
tive to changing historical circumstances than even the papacy, medieval canon law was as much
Braun, Kötting nevertheless felt impelled to rely
22  Gasparri, Codex iuris canonici, can. 1255, §2. The procedures
19  Ibid., 200 n. 644, 271–72, 282, 408, where his awareness and politics of its codification are summarized by C. Fantappiè,
that the terminology of his own day did not correspond to that Storia del diritto canonico e delle istituzioni della Chiesa (Bolo­
of his sources is clear. gna, 2011), 262–70.
20  B. Kötting, “Devotionalien,” RAC, 3:862–71; A. Stuiber, 23  N. P. Tanner, Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, 2 vols.
“Eulogia,” RAC, 6:900–28, at 925–28. (London, 1990), 2:774–76. For the hurried production of this
21  B. Kötting, “Reliquienverehrung, ihre Entstehung und ihre decree, see J. W. O’Malley, Trent: What Happened at the Council
Formen,” TThZ 67 (1958): 321–34. (Cambridge, MA, 2013), 242–44.

Relics 45
a barometer of the interactions of clergy and peo- In brief, Lambertini indicated how in the
ple as it was of the changing ecclesiastical balance decades after 1588 the Congregation had tried
between diocesan self-regulation and increasing to eliminate the hundreds of festive celebrations
papal assertiveness. Meager in quantity until the of saints which cluttered the church calendar, in
twelfth century and far from copious thereafter, order to restore to its rightful prominence the
medieval rulings on relics had dealt only with annual sequence of services reflecting on the bib-
those issues liable to trigger disagreement, such as lical narrative. To this end, it severely curtailed
authenticity, access, or the criteria for sainthood, the celebrations of saints’ days, and allowed saints
topics that were symptomatic either of struggles to be given special liturgical commemoration
about the location of authority in medieval soci- only in such churches as possessed “distinguished
ety or of the ambiguous status of relics between relics.” In the face of considerable self-interested
sacred substance and mundane object.24 opposition, a series of rulings gradually estab-
Gasparri thus followed in the footsteps of lished that if the entire body of a saint was
the bishops assembled at Trent 350 years pre- lacking, “distinguished relics” comprised, at a
viously in placing relics and images alongside minimum, the head, arm, leg shank, or other part
saints, but he departed from the precedent they of a martyr which had sustained the fatal blow,
provided by distinguishing between reliquiae provided always that it was complete and not
insignes and non insignes. In so doing, he drew small. (Clarifications made explicit that complete
on decrees promulgated by the Congregation of meant, for example, the entire lower leg [crus], not
Sacred Rites and Ceremonies, founded in 1588 just the tibia, and that body parts such as fingers,
as part of a post-Tridentine initiative to regular- teeth, and hair were excluded because they were
ize the varied liturgical practices of the Catholic too small.) It was a further prerequisite that they
Church.25 Among the many matters that had were kept in churches and subject to firm control
received its attention was the liturgical venera- in conformity with the procedures laid down by
tion of relics and, through the Congregation’s the Congregation. These, and only these, were
pronouncements on specific local cases, rulings reliquiae insignes, distinguished relics, with the
of general applicability gradually crystallized into single subsequent addition of spines from the
a normative definition of relics. Early modern Crown of Thorns.27 In effect, the Congregation
papal thinking on all aspects of saints and their of Rites defined by exclusion: no other relics were
cults was synthesized in the magisterial work insignes, however venerable and important they
on canonization procedures of the eighteenth- might be to their owners, whether ecclesiastical
century jurist and papal administrator Prospero institutions or private individuals. With some
Lambertini (subsequently Pope Benedict XIV): further refinements and restrictions added in the
his chapter on the forms of liturgical veneration nineteenth century, this was the definition used
for canonized saints is an authoritative guide to by Gasparri for the Codex iuris canonici of 1917.
the relic legislation of the previous 150 years, but The Tridentine reforms of the liturgy had two
trimmed and adjusted for a Church in an age significant effects on saints’ cults: they promoted
of change.26 a much more critical reading of the historical
sources and they profoundly altered the balance
24  E. A. Dooley, Church Law on Sacred Relics (Washington,
between local, diocesan control of the liturgi-
DC, 1931); N. Herrmann-Mascard, Les reliques des saints: cal veneration of saints and papally approved
Formation coutumière d’un droit (Paris, 1975). rites and procedures to be used everywhere. As
25  S. Ditchfield, Liturgy, Sanctity and History in Tridentine
Italy: Pietro Maria Campi and the Preservation of the Particular
(Cambridge, 1995), 97–99. 27  In summarizing the rulings which resulted from many
26  P. Lambertini, De servorum Dei beatificatione et beato­ different cases, I have also used the index provided by G. M.
rum canonizatione, 4 vols. (Bologna, 1734–38), 4.2:37–49. Cavalieri, Opera omnia liturgica seu Commentaria in authentica
For a twentieth-century account of the legislation, see R. Naz, Sacræ Rituum Congregationis decreta ad Romanum præsertim
“Reliques,” in Dictionnaire de droit canonique, ed. idem, vol. 7 Breviarium, Missale, et Rituale quomodolibet attinentia, 5 vols.
(Paris, 1958), 569–74. O. Chadwick, The Popes and European (Augsburg, 1764), 1:xvi, decrees nos 45–57, with page references
Revolution (Oxford, 1981), 295–98, provides a succinct evalua- to the detailed discussion of each of them. On Cavalieri, see fur-
tion of Lambertini as an effective modernizer. ther below, 47–48.

46 Julia M. H. Smith
universal norms were clarified, so there emerged by turning to the commentary on the decrees
a “carefully differentiated hierarchy of sanctity.”28 of the Congregation of Sacred Rites dedicated
Although not achieved without controversy and to him shortly after his accession as Benedict
concessions, the standardization of what counted XIV (1740–1758) by Giovanni Michele Cavalieri
as “distinguished relics” was in effect part of (d. 1757).32 Cavalieri used the Congregation’s leg-
the much larger enterprise of regulating Roman islation as the scaffolding for arguments derived
Catholic worship in an attempt to bring consis- from patristic authorities, and coupled them with
tency and uniformity to it.29 The term reliquiae awareness that the veneration of saints had a his-
insignes thus encapsulated the circumstances of torical dimension. His fourth chapter addressed
its post-Tridentine origin: as a category, it was the relics of saints, and opened in an etymologi-
liturgical, normative, and curial. cal vein by citing the classical meaning of the
This process of definition nevertheless took word reliquiae as exemplified by Cicero. Cavalieri
place against the backdrop of wider discussions continued: “Ecclesiastical writers, however, call
among historians, liturgists, theologians, and ‘relics’ not only what remains from a saint, such
polemicists about what relics were. They were as the corpse, bones, clothes, and other things, but
responding to varying stimuli: the need to defend also other things which do not reflect the word’s
the cult of saints and their relics from Protestant etymology but which are venerated by the faith-
onslaughts; rivalry between Catholic churches ful as relics of saints.” In his estimation, relics were
each with historical grounds for claiming exclu- “any monuments of the saints, that is, whatever to
sive possession of the relics of their own patronal do with them is apt to arouse the memory of the
saint; awareness of the inconsistencies among saints in us, and so their veneration and cult.” He
patristic and medieval commentators on saints’ then offered a taxonomy divided into three genera,
cults. The emerging sciences of paleography, dip- three categories: those “properly and rigorously”
lomatics, and Christian archaeology contributed termed relics; those so termed “less properly”; and
too.30 In this sense, relics were a small subset of those “sanctified,” or “improperly” termed relics.33
much larger issues. On the one hand, they epit- Despite his assertion that all relics fitted into
omized the weighty cultural meaning vested in this classification, he noted divergent opinions
saints and sanctity in early modern Catholicism about the first category. This comprised bodies,
as well as the deep anxieties surrounding them.31 body parts, and bodily effluents, but he acknowl-
On the other, they refracted long-term evolutions edged two controversies: whether the word
and tensions in western thought, as new forms of reli­quiae could be applied to a complete body or
knowledge, changing modes of proof, and differ- whether it described only what was left after the
ent methods of reasoning marked the transition greater part had been removed, and whether to
from Scholasticism to Enlightenment. include here the healing manna, oil, or other liq-
The curial definition of “distinguished rel- uid which seeped from the bodies of certain saints
ics” that had emerged by the time of Lambertini upon their feast days. His concern was that if the
can be placed in the broader context of its day liquids which sometimes oozed from martyrs’
corpses were to be included, then so too could the
28  S. Ditchfield, “Tridentine Worship and the Cult of Saints,”
tears and other exudations of statues and images
in The Cambridge History of Christianity, vol. 6, Reform and of the saints. Cavalieri was not prepared to take
Expansion 1500–1660, ed. R. Po-Chia Hsia (Cambridge, 2007), that step.34 In the second category, things “less
201–24, quotation at 217.
properly termed relics,” he included the clothing
29  The controversies and concessions emerge clearly from
Lambertini, De servorum Dei beatificatione, 4.2:39–44.
and anything else saints had used during their
30  Ditchfield, Liturgy, Sanctity and History; D. Julia, “L’église
post-tridentine et les reliques: Tradition, controverse et critique
(XVIe–XVIIIe siècle),” in Reliques modernes: Cultes et usages 32  First published in Brescia, 1743–45. I have used the edition
chrétiens des corps saints des Réformes aux révolutions, 2 vols., ed. in Cavalieri, Opera omnia liturgica.
P. Boutry, P. A. Fabre, and D. Julia (Paris, 2009), 1:69–120. 33  Ibid., 141: “Sunt autem Reliquiæ proprie, & rigorose dictæ,
31  See the incisive overview of S. Ditchfield, “Thinking with minus proprie, ac Reliquiæ sanctificatæ, seu improprie dictæ.”
Saints: Sanctity and Society in the Early Modern World,” CI 35, Punctuation and italics original.
no. 3 (2009): 552–84. 34  Ibid., cap. 4.5–9, pp. 141–42.

Relics 47
lifetime and that had been sanctified by contact anachronism and alertness to historical evolu-
with a living saint, and he observed that this tion, Cavalieri was very much a man of the early
had always been the custom of Christians. He Enlightenment, a period when others still clung
also placed in this class of objects instruments of to more traditional patterns of thought—hence
martyrdom, plus the keys of St. Peter and the fil- the tensions and contradictions he had to nego-
ings from the apostle’s chains which Gregory the tiate. He also reveals that educated churchmen
Great had distributed. He then turned to build- of his day did not accept all relics venerated by
ings and places made so holy by a saint’s dwelling “the faithful” as legitimate. Most significant of
or death that no relics needed to be added to sanc- all in this context, he ranked relics in a hierarchy
tify them, and cited the example of the curative of diminishing appropriateness, and simultane-
properties of soil from the spot where, in Bede’s ously strove to constrain the concept even further
account, St. Oswald had been slain in battle.35 by means of the comments he made in passing.
The third category, sanctified things “improp- Finally, the authorities he cited include many who
erly” called relics comprised shrouds, clothing, are central to twenty-first-century scholarship on
flowers, and anything else which had been in con- late antique and medieval saints’ cults and mira-
tact with a saint’s corpse and had, through prox- cles. However, his valiant effort to impose a firm
imity or contact, acquired “some supernatural classification belittled their diversity, nuance, and
power and heavenly virtus” that brought benefits particularity because it shoehorned them into
to the faithful. In this context, he drew attention alien categories. In sum, Cavalieri reveals the
to a “custom of ancient times” that was foreign to challenges involved in pruning and redirecting
the behavior of his own day: regarding as sancti- early Christian and medieval understanding of
fied the oil from the lamps at saints’ shrines, oil relics so that it fitted the normative, standardizing
whose miracle-working properties were docu- needs of the eighteenth-century clerical establish-
mented by Gregory of Tours and Augustine. He ment. The legislative impact of the Congregation
also noted the oil brought to priests to be blessed, of Rites had been supplemented by an effort to
which then healed people (citing examples from discipline the patristic inheritance.
Sulpicius Severus, the Apostolic Constitutions, Cavalieri’s approach thus mirrored the selec-
and Jerome). Finally, he included the brandea dis- tion, classification, and ranking which lay at the
tributed by Gregory the Great in this category. heart of the efforts of the Congregation of Rites
Cavalieri clearly found these “improper” relics to exert control over the cult of relics. It had little
distasteful, for he hastily concluded his discus- in common with the way churchmen had wor-
sion by referring the reader who wanted to know ried about relics before the Congregation began
more to Augustine, John of Damascus, Gregory its legislative endeavors: sixteenth-century pas-
of Tours, and unspecified others.36 tors, theologians, and polemicists, for the most
Cavalieri is important for several reasons. part, still relied on the methods and insights of
His personal ambivalence about what might late medieval scholastic theology, but redirected
be deemed a relic and his recognition of deep- them to the fight against the iconoclasm of the
seated scholarly disagreements indicate that seri- Protestant reformation. Nevertheless, it took
ous divergences of opinion persisted within the until 1600 for the Catholic arguments in defense
ecclesiastical circles of his day: classification sim- of relics to cohere: that they did so was thanks
ply papered over the cracks. His determination to Giovanni Battista Segni (1550–1610), prior of
to distance his own times from the early church S. Salvatore di Bologna. Segni had been to Rome
marks a dawning historical consciousness, an in 1599 to fetch martyr remains for his commu-
emerging awareness that the meaning of relics had nity, and the experience made him realize that,
changed over time, and that the concept was now, although much had been written in defense of
in the mid-eighteenth century, far more restricted relics in many different contexts, no one had
than in the patristic era. In his awareness of previously gathered it all together in one place.37

35  Ibid., cap. 4.10–12, p. 142. 37  G.  B. Segni, Reliquiarium, siue de reliquiis, et venera­
36  Ibid., cap. 4.13–16, pp. 142–43. tione sanctorum in quo multa de necessitate, præstantia, usu, ac

48 Julia M. H. Smith
The resulting treatise opened by proposing that by Christ—foreskin, tears, blood—and noted
reliquiae include “all those things which were left churches where they could be found. He then
to us and remained after the death of saints, from extended the list with Christ’s clothing, the cross
body, property, place, and anything of theirs.” In and other instruments of the Passion, the table at
support of this, Segni cited the leading authori- which he ate the Last Supper, the towel on which
ties of his own day, all of whom were in the van- he wiped his hands, and the shroud in which he
guard of the Catholic attack on Luther, Calvin, was wrapped. The chapter ended, by noting very
and their disciples but who had published their briefly that he held the same view with respect
views on relics before the Congregation of Sacred to Mary, the apostles, and all the saints.42 Thus,
Rites began its work.38 From the Summa sum­ when Segni culled the preeminent theologians of
marum of Silvestro Mazzolini (ca. 1456–1527; sixteenth-century Catholicism, he found no clear
also known as Silvestro Prierias), he took the consensus about what constituted relics beyond
elegant formulation that they are “the remnants bodies and body parts, but felt able to offer his
of saints’ human existence,” either the entire own view, a notably broad one.
body or particles of it.39 He then turned to the
polemicist Roberto Bellarmino (1542–1621) for
the view that they included not only bones and Room for Maneuver: The Ambiguities
clothes but also places in which saints were mar- of Medieval Views of Relics
tyred, where they lived or achieved anything From the very beginning of the Protestant
outstanding.40 Finally, he quoted from the com- Reformation in 1517, there was an acknowledged,
mentary on Aquinas’s Summa theologiae by the urgent need for Catholics to defend the cults
leading theologian and philosopher of the late of saints, of which relics formed but one part.
sixteenth century, Francisco Suárez (1548–1617), Reflecting on this imperative in 1589, Bellarmine
to the effect that relics are not only the bodies had gone straight to the heart of the contro-
of saints, or parts thereof, but also their clothes versy when he opened his tract on the Church
and other similar things of which the saints had Triumphant by an attack on “the arguments of
made special use.41 Then, noting that other words heretics by which they strive to prove that saints
such as fragmenta and micae were also used, are not yet blessed, etc.” This is what he wrote:
Segni turned to the Gospels for some examples.
To these, he added the corporeal remains left This is therefore the first question: Whether
or not the souls of pious persons, which have
fructibus reliquiarum pertractantur (Bologna, 1600), preface been released from their body and have no
and 154. need of purgation, have already been admit-
38  Ibid., 1. ted to enjoying the blessedness which is
39  S. M. Da Pierio, Summa summarum que Sylvestrina dicitur, located in clear sight of God? Indeed, it was
2nd impression (Strassburg, 1518), 396r.: “Reliquiae in proposito the opinion of ancient [i.e., early Christian]
dicuntur ea quae nobis de sanctorum humanitate remanserunt,
ut totum corpus, et propriae particulae eius.” This was first pub- and recent heretics that all souls, even of
lished in 1514. sainted persons, do not see God until the day
40  R. Bellarmino, Quartus controversia generalis, De ecclesia of the last judgment but lurk in some hidden
triumphante (first published in 1589), in Disputationum Roberti places, and cannot be said to be “blessed,”
Bellarmini Politiani . . . de controversiis Christianae fidei, adver­
sus huius temporis haereticos opus, 4 vols. in 6, Editio ultima ab
unless in hope.43
ipso auctore aucta & recognita (Ingolstadt, 1605), 2:1395.
41  F. Suárez, Opera omnia, 26 vols., ed. C. Berton (Paris,
1856–78), 18:653b (first published in 1590). For Suárez’s theol- 42  Segni, Reliquiarium, 2–3.
ogy of relics, see P. Séjourné, “Reliques,” Dictionnaire de théo­ 43  Bellarmino, Quartus controversia generalis, 1107: “Argumenta
logie catholique, 13.2 (Paris, 1937), 2312–76, at 2366–67. In the hæreticorum, quibus illi probare nituntur, sanctos nondum esse bea­
second, enhanced, edition of 1610, Segni elaborated his citation tos, etc. Est igitur quæstio Prima: Sintne piorum hominum spiritus,
of Suárez. He added a list of body parts, specifically hair, bones, qui & corpore soluti sunt, & nulla purgatione egent, iam ad fruen­
flesh, teeth, ash, and dust; he extended clothing to include veils dam beatitudinem, qua in clara Dei visione sita est, admisi? Et qui-
and cloths; and he glossed the third type of relic to include any- dem antiquorum, et recentium hæreticorum opinio fuit, animas
thing which had been in contact with the saint’s bones or body, omnes, quantumvis sanctorum hominum, usque ad ultimi iudi-
or which the saint had touched or owned. cii diem servari in quibusdam abditis receptaculis, ubi nec Deum

Relics 49
 As Bellarmine realized, relics were mean- theologians, Thomas Aquinas (1224/25–74).
ingless unless saints’ souls were in paradise. He derived his conclusions from a blend of rig-
Although the Reformation had placed the cult of orous reasoning and authoritative patristic obi­
saints on the front line of confessional polemics, ter dicta; in turn, his formulation had a decisive
the doubts and anxieties about what happened influence on subsequent scholastic discussions
to souls after death were nothing new, as Bellar­ of relics, including, notably, that of Suárez. At
mine made clear. It would thus be a fundamen- the end of the section of his Summa which dealt
tal mistake to regard the centuries before the with the Incarnation, Aquinas placed ques-
Reformation as an age of consensus about relics. tions about saints’ relics, after his treatment of
As Caroline Bynum has pointed out, ambiva- Christ’s divine and human nature, the cross, his
lence, confusion, and difficulty characterized mother, and the saints.48 With a Latin transla-
medieval attitudes toward many sorts of “holy tion of John of Damascus available, his discus-
matter.”44 Rather, the change came with the deci- sion relied throughout on the crisp language that
sion at the Council of Trent to require bishops to distinguished worship (latria; adoratio) from
“instruct the faithful carefully about the interces- veneration (doulia; honor) that had been for-
sion of the saints, invocation of them, reverence mulated as part of John’s counterattack against
for their relics and the legitimate use of images of Iconoclasm.49
them.”45 Prior to that time, the place of saints and When he reached the issue of whether any
relics in medieval Christianity had been among form of honor should be paid to the relics of
those things which, as the early twelfth-century the saints, Aquinas grounded his argument in
monk Guibert of Nogent put it, were “practiced the succinct formulation provided ca. 500 by
but not taught.”46 In other words, they were not Gennadius of Marseille in his version of the Liber
core aspects of dogma to be interpreted by theo- ecclesiasticorum dogmatum. This compendium of
logians and passed on by instruction to the faith- Nicene dogma and its concomitant teachings was
ful, but were rooted in the quotidian behavior of a conveniently short and simplified summary
most Christians. Until Trent, relics were habitus, of patristic theology which circulated widely in
not creed.47 various versions throughout the middle ages; we
In this context, it is little surprise that it took shall return to it very shortly.50 In further sup-
exceptional intellectual rigor even to attempt to port of his position, Aquinas cited Augustine
order the many and varied patristic and medi- and Jerome. From The City of God 1.13 he took
eval discussions of what constituted relics. The the comment that if children who love their par-
most effective way to approach them is through ents have great affection for their father’s cloth-
the comments of one of the most powerful, ing and other paraphernalia, they should honor
disciplined, and comprehensive of medieval his corpse with even greater respect as part of his
very being (a remark whose original purpose was
videant, nec beatæ dici possint, nisi in spe.” Punctuation and ital- to link the human body, via the resurrection of
ics original. the flesh, with the heavenly city).51 From Jerome,
44  Bynum, Christian Materiality, esp. 154–76. See also eadem, he excerpted the incisive rebuttal of the Gallic
The Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity, 200–1336
(New York, 1995), 92–94, 104–14, 200–225; Arnold, Belief and
priest Vigilantius (ca. 400), whose claim that
Unbelief (n. 6 above), 221–30; M. Dal Santo, Debating the Saints’
Cult in the Age of Gregory the Great (Oxford, 2012). 48  Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae: Latin Text and English
45  Tanner, Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils (n. 23 above), Translation, Introductions, Notes, Appendices, and Glossaries,
2:774. 61 vols., gen. ed. T. Gilby (London, 1964–81), IIIa.25.6 (vol. 50,
ed. and trans. C. E. O’Neill, 202–5).
46  Guibert of Nogent, De sanctis et eorum pigneribus, ed.
R.  B.  C. Huygens, CCCM 127 (Turnhout, 1993), 85–87. 49  For Aquinas’s theology of relics in general, see Bynum,
English translation by Thomas Head, Medieval Hagiography: Resurrection of the Body, 263–66; Séjourné, “Reliques” (n. 41
An Anthology (New York, 2001), 405. Guibert’s unease about above), at 2360–65.
relics is discussed by J. Rubenstein, Guibert of Nogent: Portrait 50  C.  H. Turner, “The Liber ecclesiasticorum dogmatorum
of a Medieval Mind (New York, 2002), 124–30. attributed to Gennadius,” JTS 7 (1905–6): 78–99; idem, “The
47  A point I have made more fully in “Portable Christianity: Liber ecclesiasticorum dogmatum: supplenda,” JTS 8 (1907–8):
Relics in the Medieval West (c. 700–1200),” ProcBrAc 181 103–14.
(2012): 143–67. 51  Cf. Bynum, Resurrection of the Body, 94–108.

50 Julia M. H. Smith
relics were almost accorded pagan ritual Jerome about basilicas and transferring Gennadius’s
had refuted by relying on the distinction between emphasis from the relics of the blessed martyrs
worship and honor. Aquinas followed Augustine to saints’ bodies. “We are bound . . . in memory of
and Jerome in placing relics in the context of a them [the saints as membra Christi],” he wrote,
justification of the general principle of the cult “to accord due honor to any of their relics; and
of saints. Augustine well knew that dust, soil, this is primarily (praecipue) true of their bodies,
oil, water, flowers, and the like were channels of which were the temples and instruments of the
saintly virtus as potent as human remains, for his Holy Spirit . . . and which are to be made like
account of the miracles wrought by St. Stephen’s the body of Christ by glorious resurrection.”56
relics in North Africa did not differentiate in any Aquinas thus ignored reverence for places asso-
way between them.52 Nor had Jerome’s invective ciated with saints and instead turned the special
against Vigilantius addressed the material speci- role which Gennadius had reserved for the bodies
ficity of relics—that they might be “a bit of pow- of martyrs into emphasis on the bodies of saints
der wrapped up in a costly cloth in a tiny vessel” (all saints) at the expense of other relics. Asserting
was not the point.53 At issue, as Bellarmine had that the Holy Spirit dwelled in and worked
spotted, was Vigilantius’s refusal to accept that through saints’ bodies, and that their bodies
deceased saints had any ability to intercede with would be Christ-like at the resurrection, Aquinas
God for humankind. In this respect, Aquinas thereby linked saints to the Incarnation and
was true to his sources.54 Resurrection to provide theological grounds for
Thanks to his reworking of Gennadius, how- his significant shift of emphasis. This move also
ever, Aquinas produced a significantly different aligned his interpretation of patristic authorities
account of relics. Gennadius had stated, “We with the recently established papal procedures for
believe that the bodies of saints and especially canonizing saints. In redirecting and narrowing
(praecipue) the relics of blessed martyrs should the concept of relics, Aquinas provided the germ
be honored very sincerely as the limbs of Christ, from which Mazzolini, Bellarmine, and Suárez
and that basilicas dedicated in their name, as subsequently developed their own views.
holy places given over to worship, should be vis- Prior to Aquinas’s formulation of theological
ited with very reverent love and most faithful grounds for putting primary attention on bodily
devotion. If anyone denies this, they are to be remains, Gennadius’s succinct formulation had
regarded not as a Christian but as a follower of been the only widely available statement of the
Eunomius and Vigilantius [i.e., as a heretic].”55 place of relics in Latin Christianity. For example,
Aquinas changed this by omitting the clause it made its way into a Roman florilegium com-
piled in defense of images and relics during the
iconoclast era. As a result, it features among the
52  Augustine, De civitate Dei, CCSL 47–48 (Turnhout, 1955),
texts cited in their support by the Roman synods
22.8 (815–27).
of 731 and 769; then, in 793/94, when Hadrian I
53  S. Hieronymi presbyteri opera III.5: Adversus Vigilantium,
ed. J.-L. Feiertag, CCSL 79C (Turnhout, 2005), ch. 5 (12); I cite rebutted the Franks’ refusal to support the way
the translation of W. H. Fremantle, G. Lewis, and W. G. Martle, in which saints, images, and relics had been rein-
St. Jerome: Letters and Select Works, Select Library of Nicene stated at the Second Council of Nicaea in 787, he
and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church 2nd ser., v. 6.
(Oxford, 1893), 419.
relied on it as a statement of the papal position.57
54  J. Raaijmakers, “The Souls of the Saints—Debates about
Relic Veneration in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages” 56  Trans. O’Neill. Aquinas, Summa theologiae, IIIa.25.6 (202):
(forthcoming). I am very grateful to Dr. Raaijmakers for allow- “Et ideo eorum reliquias qualescumque honore congruo in eorum
ing me access to her unpublished work. memoriam venerari debemus; et praecipue eorum corpora, quae
55  PL 58:997: “Sanctorum corpora et praecipue beatorum fuerunt templa et organa Spiritus Sancti in eis habitantis et
martyrum reliquias, ac si Christi membra sincerissime hono­ operantis et sunt corpori Christi configuranda per gloriosam
randa, et basilicas eorum nominibus appellatas, velut loca sancta resurrectionem.”
divino cultui mancipata, affectu piissimo et devotione fidelis- 57  Concilium Romanum a. 769, MGH Conc 2.1:87; Epi­
sima adeundas credimus. Si quis contra hanc sententiam venerit, stolae selectae pontificum Romanorum 2, cap. 49 [Hadrian I’s
non Christianus, sed Eunomianus et Vigilantianus creditur.” Responsum to the Franks], MGH Ep 5:41. For the 731 flori-
I cite the version used by Aquinas; for variant recensions see legium, see the evidence adduced by T. F. X. Noble, Images,
articles cited n. 50 above. Iconoclasm, and the Carolingians (Philadelphia, 2009), 118–23.

Relics 51
That position was an inclusive one, for the coun- objects. It was irrelevant whether not-body rel-
cil convened in Rome in 769 declared that “if we ics derived from the martyrs’ earthly or heavenly
wish to reach the company of the saints, assuredly life, and indeed, with fears that the end times were
we should venerate with the most outstanding at hand and resurrection in the flesh imminent,
honor all things in the saints’ honor, whether rel- this would have been a meaningless distinction.62
ics not only of their bodies and clothing or basili- Whenever politically expedient, however, he was
cas dedicated in their name and even images and firm about the difference between corporeal and
portraits of them wherever they are painted.”58 In noncorporeal relics, and his decisions reflected the
mid-eighth-century Rome, then, “relics of saints” specifics of the situation, the city, and the saint in
was an open, fluid category, for bits of their bod- question. He did not decide on the basis of either
ies and clothing were easily assimilated to their principle or category.63
likenesses and churches.59 In this context, it must also be emphasized
One other Roman author must be briefly dis­­ that Gregory’s descriptions of different relics
cussed: Gregory the Great. An enthusiast for send- only hardened into firm categories endowed with
ing gifts of relics, he never attempted to define, normative authority from the late ninth century
categorize, or rank them. Nevertheless, he did onward. When his letter became incorporated
describe them in his accompanying letters. On into canon law collections in the tenth and elev-
one occasion, in the course of justifying his refusal enth century, it acquired a definitive status which
to send body parts of Rome’s apostles to Con­ it had hitherto lacked and became the progeni-
stantina, wife of the Emperor Maurice, he distin- tor of a categorization into corporeal and contact
guished body parts from the relics he was willing relics. In this way, an anachronistic reading was
to dispatch: filings from the chains of St.  Paul retrospectively foisted onto Gregory.64 That a for-
(objects associated with the apostle during his mal distinction between corporeal and “contact”
lifetime) and small pieces of cloth placed on the or “representative” relics was frequently reiterated
saint’s tomb and sanctified by proximity.60 These in later centuries tells us nothing about relics at
were a textile equivalent to the oil or water poured the end of the sixth century.
over a holy tomb in several eastern Mediterranean Thiofrid of Echternach was an early twelfth-
shrines for distribution in little phials and flasks century monastic writer who knew Gregory’s
but, to avoid any confusion, he invented a Latin letter to Constantina well but used it as the
form of a Greek word to describe them: bran­ springboard into a distinctive—indeed unique—
dea.61 Gregory clearly assimilated these little cloths medieval attempt to organize a comprehensive
to the martyr’s lifetime clothing and associated classificatory scheme for relics. In reality, though,
his treatise on the Flowers of the Epitaph of the
Saints provides a fascinating illustration of how
58  Concilium Romanum a. 769, actio IV, MGH Conc 2.1:87:
intellectual agility trumped definition when
“Si ad sanctorum consortium venire optamus, profecto hic
omnia in honore sanctorum sive reliquias non solum corporum, religious truths were the goal. Thiofrid found it
set et vestimentorum sive basilicas nominibus eorum memora- convenient to divide his allegorical and typologi-
tas seu etiam imagines et vultus eorum in quolibet loco depictos cal interpretation of saints’ cults into four parts.
caeleberrimo honore venerari debemus.”
First, he treated the bodies of saints. Then came
59  In his Opus Caroli regis contra synodum, Theodulf of
Orléans disagreed. For him, the relics to be venerated “in accor-
the places in which they rested, their graves and
dance with the tradition of the early Fathers” comprised saints’ reliquaries, but also the bellies of wild beasts, the
bodies, or parts thereof (he mentions dust, bones, and ashes ocean floor and the pits of sewers. There followed
elsewhere), their clothing and other similar things which they
had used or had about their person during their lifetime: Opus
two books on the saints’ external accoutrements,
Caroli 3.16, 24, MGH Conc 2, Supplementum, 409, 411, 448,
449, 451, quotation from 411. See also Noble, Images, 200, 214. 62  R. A. Markus, Gregory the Great and His World (Cam­
60  Gregory the Great, Registrum epistularum, ed. D. Norberg, bridge, 1997), 50–67.
CCSL 140–140A (Turnhout, 1982), Ep. 4.30 (1:248–50). 63  I diverge from the influential argument of J. McCulloh,
61  I have discussed this at length in J. M. H. Smith, “The Care “The Cult of Relics in the Letters and ‘Dialogues’ of Pope
of Relics in Early Medieval Rome,” in Rome and Religion in the Gregory the Great: A Lexicographical Study,” Traditio 32
Early Middle Ages: Studies in Honor of Thomas F. X. Noble, ed. (1976): 145–84 for the reasons I detail in “Care of Relics.”
V. Garver and O. Phelan (Aldershot, 2014), 179–205. 64  Smith, “Care of Relics.”

52 Julia M. H. Smith
their appendicia exteriora: anything associated widespread, however, and we can establish what
with them in their lifetime, including their a large circle of people regarded as relics by inter-
names and shadows as well as clothes, staff, uten- rogating the evidence of what they collected and
sils, and so forth; and, finally, the instruments of treasured. Dozens of inventories of medieval relic
torture that led to their martyrdom.65 Thiofrid collections survive, and they contain enough
does not reveal whether he knew Gennadius, but detail to allow conclusions to be drawn about
that is hardly relevant, for his categorization is what sorts of things were meaningful to those
simply an enabling device for a profound medita- lay and clerical devotees who collected, inherited,
tion on relics in relation to incarnation, resurrec- or bequeathed relics to churches. These invento-
tion, and incorruptibility. He had no interest in ries were compiled from the identificatory tags
historical or liturgical, let alone legal, ideas about attached to relics themselves. In addition, several
relics, and his uniquely imaginative conceptual hundred of these labels survive, and yield direct
framework remained entirely without influence. information on what was safeguarded inside reli-
Medieval and early modern learned discourses quaries and how it was described.66 This evidence
had one key feature in common: they all dealt demonstrates that the range of objects deemed
with relics in the context of the cult of saints. In to be relics was more varied than medieval and
late antiquity and the middle ages, relics’ primary early modern learned treatises acknowledge. It
meaning was as signs of the truths of incarna- also indicates the practical methods of sorting
tion and resurrection—and, more generally, that and classifying in common medieval use and
the saints were already with God. As a result, rel- introduces us to the conceptual vocabulary with
ics remained embedded in theological discourses which those who cared directly for relics were
of embodiment, signification, and intercession, familiar. By these means, we can bypass norma-
with all their attendant difficulties and anxiet- tive pronouncements and focus instead on the
ies. In the sixteenth century, the need to counter substance of medieval relics themselves.
Protestant polemic reinforced this. From the sev- As an example of a monastic collection,
enteenth century, however, as papal centraliza- we can turn to the careful inventory of the rel-
tion tightened up regulation of the cults of saints, ics of Abingdon made by Abbot Faritius in 1116,
a standardized liturgical template made relics into which was copied into the house chronicle later
the subject of prescriptive stipulations for the first in the century.67 One of the most important and
time. Although the germ of the notion that one wealthy Anglo-Saxon monasteries, Abingdon
sort of relics was superior to others can be traced had amassed a large collection of relics by the
back to Aquinas, ranked classifications as such time of the Italian Faritius, its first post-Conquest
were a product of the seventeenth to eighteenth abbot. It had certainly possessed some of them
centuries and had no medieval precedent. As a for centuries, but others had been acquired by
canon law hierarchy of classes emerged, so many Faritius himself, clearly a great lover of relics.68
of the objects which the middle ages had regarded He arranged the inventory in the order used in
as relics of saints were eliminated. Flowers, stones, litanies of the saints by commencing with Christ,
oil, names, shadows: none had any place among and proceeding via Mary (to whom his monas-
saints’ relics by the age of Benedict XIV. tery was dedicated), then apostles, to martyrs,

66  For a general discussion of relic inventories and their struc-

Fuzziness: Relics as Practice ture, see P. Cordez, “Gestion et médiation des collections de
in Medieval Christianity reliques au moyen âge: Le témoignage des authentiques et des
inventaires,’’ in Reliques et sainteté dans l’espace médiéval, ed.
Medieval discourses about relics were the prod- J.-L. Deuffic (Saint-Denis, 2006), 33–63.
uct of the educated, clerical, and monastic elite. 67  J. Hudson, Historia ecclesie Abbendonensis: The History of
Participation in the cult of relics was far more the Church of Abingdon, 2 vols. (Oxford, 2002–7), chs. 223–28
(2:220–25). Hudson’s translation is followed in this chapter.
68  The development of the relic collection can be traced
65  Thiofrid of Echternach, Flores epytaphii sanctorum, ed. from the early tenth century: see Hudson’s Introduction, ibid.,
M. C. Ferrari, CCCM 133 (Turnhout, 1996). For appendicia 1:clxxiii–clxxv, 2:civ–cvi. On Faritius’s abbacy and his love of
exteriora see 3.1 (57). relics, ibid., chs. 55–56 (2:264–73).

Relics 53
confessors, and finally virgins. A common, but by of three notable Anglo-Saxon bishops, Chad,
no means universal rank order for relic lists, this Aldhelm, and Æthelwold, and it implies, though
heavenly hierarchy made clear that relics bridged is not explicit, that all the other confessors
the distance between earth and heaven. Relics were also represented by bodily relics. Finally,
thus linked Abingdon to the celestial Jerusalem the seventeen virgins were headed by “hairs of
without regard for whether they were body parts St Mary Magdalene.” Some of the virgins who
or not. followed were Roman martyrs, such as Caecilia
It must have been a considerable administra- and Agnes, but they were interspersed with early
tive undertaking to collate details from many dif- medieval abbesses, including Balthild, Eadburh,
ferent altars and reliquaries and, unsurprisingly, and Genovefa. Abingdon had corporeal remains
some relics were overlooked in the process.69 of most but not all of them, and the list closed
Never­­theless, Faritius’s inventory is sufficiently with “from the clothes of St. Brigid, Radegund,
full to give a clear indication of how they were Juliana, Victoria.”72
catalogued and what was especially treasured. As a result, Abingdon’s most prestigious rel-
The list commenced with passion relics: frag- ics are scattered across its different sections, with
ments of Christ’s sudarium, the cross, a nail from Faritius’s gifts to his monastery dispersed among
the crucifixion, Christ’s table (i.e., from the Last the martyrs, confessors, and virgins. For our pur-
Supper), and his tomb. Next came Mary, repre- poses, it is notable that not all the most treasured
sented by her clothing. Twelve relics denoted six relics were body parts, nor even large objects,
of the apostles: Abingdon possessed bones or for the “small piece” of the nail of the crucifix-
teeth of John the Baptist, Andrew, James, and ion and the “precious finger” of St. Denis were
Bartholomew; part of the beard of Peter; par- both remembered as gifts of King Æthelstan.73
ticles of the crosses of Peter, Paul, and Andrew; Further­more, in common medieval fashion,
and the clothing of James. Twenty-eight mar- Abingdon extended relic veneration to various
tyr cults featured, headed by several remains of biblical characters (the Holy Innocents, Mary
St.  Stephen (bone, stole, dalmatic, hair, stones Magdalene) and took a broad view of what might
from his lapidation). Abingdon had recognizable be hailed as a relic, including the stole and dal-
body parts of some others, such as St. Victor: “his matic of the New Testament martyr, Stephen,
arm and a whole rib and part of another rib and and the sawdust stuffing from Edmund of East
very many other bones.”70 There were also bones Anglia’s pillow. This itemization of the Abingdon
of the Holy Innocents. Among its possessions collection at one moment in its long history
were relics of two martyred Anglo-Saxon kings: gives us a helpful snapshot of what a major mon-
“Of the blood-stained shirt of St. Edmund, king astery regarded as relics in the age of Guibert
and martyr [king of East Anglia, d. 869], which of Nogent.
he was wearing at the hour of his passion, and From Abingdon, we move to the Saxon town
of his wooden coffin, and of the reliquary of of Brunswick, where the collegiate church of
his pillow and of the shavings of box-wood of St. Blaise was, by the fifteenth century, the home
which it was full. The greatest part of St. Edward of a stunning hoard of sacred art assembled by the
[d.  978].”71 Finally a further fourteen martyrs Guelph ducal family from the eleventh century
were mentioned by name, without indication of onward, the so-called “Welfenschatz.”74 In 1482,
what material was preserved. Most were mar- all the St. Blaise reliquaries were inventoried and
tyrs of the city of Rome, alongside whom feature
two murdered early medieval bishops, Boniface 72  Ibid., chap. 228 (2:222–25).
(d. 754) and Leodegarius (d. 679). The list of 73  Ibid., chap. B62 (1:282–83) for the gifts of Æthelstan in their
thirty-nine confessors was headed by body parts silver reliquary. I have commented on these in my “Rulers and
Relics, c. 750–950: ‘Treasure on Earth, Treasure in Heaven’,”
in Relics and Remains, ed. A. Walsham, Past & Present Supple­
69  Ibid. for references to relics of John the Evangelist, ment 5 (Oxford, 2010), 73–96, at 95.
Margaret, and Faith, which the inventory missed.
74  P.  M. de Winter, “The Sacral Treasure of the Guelphs,”
70  Ibid., chap. 226 (2:220–21). Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 72, no. 1 (1985): 2–160,
71  Ibid., chap. 226 (2:222–23). with an account of its twentieth-century fate at 132–37.

54 Julia M. H. Smith
their contents itemized: approximately 1,220 altar, even the relics described as “large” can, in
relics inside 138 reliquaries.75 Some relics had fact, have only been of tiny size.80
demonstrably been in the family’s possession The contents of Gertrude’s altar are represen-
since the eleventh century; some others had been tative of the Guelph relic collection as a whole,
acquired by more recent members of the Guelph as revealed by the 1482 inventory.81 The major-
dynasty, and the inventory betrays the fact that ity of its 286 named saints are early Christian
many of the relics had moved around between martyrs, with an admixture of church fathers,
reliquaries on various occasions.76 Merovingian and Carolingian saints, and local
Countess Gertrude (d. 1077) had cofounded German saints, of whom Adelheid is just one.
St. Blaise with her husband, Liudolf, in 1030, and Relics of Jesus and his passion were not limited
her generous benefactions include the portable to the two in the altar, but included a wide range
altar bearing her name, now in the Cleveland of others. His grave, crown of thorns, sudarium,
Museum of Art (fig. 2.1). In 1482, it contained a nail, reed, lance, and many pieces of the cross
thirty-one named items, plus an uncounted num- marked the crucifixion, as presumably also a
ber without any labels attached.77 They are not piece of the veil of the temple. The events of his
listed in any structured sequence, but were item- lifetime were made real by relics of the crib, soil
ized in whatever order they were extracted, as was from the place where he had stood in the river
the case throughout the inventorying process.78 Jordan, a piece from the five loaves he distributed
Several of the relics refer directly to the iconog- at the feeding of the five thousand, from the gate
raphy of the embossed gold figures which adorn through which he entered Jerusalem, and bread
the four sides of the altar, notably two relics of he had blessed at the Last Supper. There were
the crucifixion (from the column of the flagel- also his hair, robe (de peplo), white garment (de
lation and from the rock where the cross stood), veste alba), and tunic (de tunica), and so forth. A
of seven of the apostles, and of Adelheid of Selz penny with a nail through it was a typically north
(d. 999), widow of Emperor Otto I, whose pres- German domestic relic of the wounds of Christ.82
ence on the reliquary marks the claims to royal There is a similarly wide range of relics of Mary:
blood and throne-worthiness of Count Liudolf ’s from her hair and milk, her robe, cloak and gloves,
line.79 Most of the saintly relics are identified by stones from her tomb, from the place where the
name but not substance, although the tooth of angel carried her up into heaven. An ampulla of
St. Christopher and tibia of St. George are men- oil from Mary’s miracle-working icon at Saidnaya
tioned, as is also the tunic of the apostle Philip. near Damascus was among the many phials of oils
Given the modest dimensions of the portable from various shrines. Important Old Testament
prophets featured: several pieces of the rods of
Aaron and of Moses, plus a relic from the burial
75  A. Boockmann, Die verlorenen Teile des ‘Welfenschatzes’:
Eine Übersicht anhand des Reliquienverzeichnisses von 1482 place of the prophet Samuel. The stony landscape
der Stiftskirche St. Blasius in Braunschweig, Abhandlungen der of the Holy Land was present too: the rock on
Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen, Phil.-hist. Klasse, which Moses stood when he received the law, the
3e Folge 226 (Göttingen, 1997), with comments on the circum-
stances which led to the inventorying at 18–19 and statistical
boulder on which Christ had sat, a stone from the
summary at 65–66. place where he was taken captive, the rock which
76  Ibid., 59–60, 72–79. the angel rolled away from his tomb, a stone from
77  Ibid., 130–31, no. 8 for the list of its contents. the place where St. Helena found the cross, one
78  Ibid., 58–59. from Mount Tabor, and the rock on which Christ
79  P. Corbet, “L’autel portative de la comtesse Gertrude de stood when he ascended to heaven. Many of these
Brunswick (vers 1040): Tradition royale de Bourgogne et con-
science aristocratique dans l’Empire des Saliens,” CahCM 34 80  Boockmann, Die verlorenen Teile, 130: “. . . sancti Bartolomei
(1991): 97–120; H. Westermann-Angerhausen, “Die Stiftungen apostoli magna portio; . . . item in una ligatura unum magnum os
der Gräfin Gertrud—Anspruch und Rang,” in Der Welfenschatz et alie partes sine scripturis; item reliquie sancti Marciani martiris
und sein Umkreis, ed. J. Ehlers and D. Kötzsche (Mainz, magna particula. . . .”
1998), 51–76; L. Lambacher, “Reliquien im Welfenschatz als
Zeugnisse von Pilgerschaft und Politik,” in Heiliges Grab— 81  All details in this paragraph from ibid., 69–80, 162–65.
Heiliger Gräber: Aktualität und Nachleben von Pilgerorten, ed. 82  R. Kroos, “Vom Umgang mit Reliquien,” in Ornamenta Ec­­
U. Röper and M. Treml (Berlin, 2014), 49–68. cle­­siae, 3 vols., ed. A. Legner (Cologne, 1985), 3:25–49, at 33–34.

Relics 55
Fig. 2.1  Portable Altar of Countess Gertrude, ca. 1045. Gold, cloisonné enamel, porphyry, gems, pearls, niello, wood core; 10.5 × 27.5 ×
21.0 cm. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of the John Huntington Art and Polytechnic Trust 1931.462 (photo courtesy The Cleveland
Museum of Art)

56 Julia M. H. Smith
doubtless originated during the pilgrimages to In brief, the collection mostly comprised early
the Holy Land which successive dukes of Saxony medieval objects, for seventy-five percent of the
are known to have undertaken in the twelfth and 119 legible labels date from the ninth century or
thirteenth centuries.83 As late as 1482, all these, earlier; the remaining relics were labeled between
and more, were subsumed under the generic term the eleventh and mid-thirteenth centuries. Tags
reliquie without any further classification.84 from this later period are confined to the remains
The Guelph relic collection had accumulated of saints, whereas the early medieval stratum of
gradually, the result of gifts, pilgrimages, crusades, the collection contains a very large number of
bequests, and exchanges. The particles treasured relics of Christ, Mary, and biblical sites in the
in this dynastic church were in no way unusual, Holy Land, in addition to early martyrs and a
exceptional, or implausible, and provide a sober handful of post-persecution saints. By contrast,
index of what men and women in late medieval tags explicitly mentioning saints’ body parts are
Europe revered as relics. When these objects notably few, and all date from the twelfth- to
also served as mementos of illustrious ancestors, thirteenth-century part of the collection.87
patrons, and benefactors, their prestige was all A wide range of substances had reached
the greater, as at Abingdon and elsewhere. They Rome from the Holy Land in the seventh, eighth,
derived extra significance from political circum- and ninth centuries. Frequent reference is made
stances and associations that were as readily appli- to soil, pebbles, and stones, from the crib (i.e.,
cable to relics of the places, persons, and events of Bethlehem), the river Jordan, Calvary, Christ’s
the Bible as to relics of saints and martyrs.85 That tomb, and the garden around it.88 Wax and oil
biblical relics were characteristic of medieval piety both came from the tomb, in the latter case in a
emerges clearly from the next and final example. pottery oil lamp.89 A phial of Christ’s blood had
The altar in the Sancta Sanctorum, the pri- been labeled in the eighth century.90 Manna came
vate papal chapel in Rome’s Lateran palace, was from the shrine of the head of John the Baptist at
opened in 1905. Built into the later marble sur- Emesa.91 Some indicate the care with which some
round was a reliquary chest made by Leo III early medieval visitors sought out Old Testament
(795–816), and many of the reliquaries and early sites, not only Mount Sinai but also the tombs of
patterned silks discovered inside it are now prophets such as Amos and Isaac.92 They also vis-
justly famous.86 Scholars are much less familiar, ited places associated with Jesus and his family:
however, with the large collection of unspec- the tomb of Zachariah; the cave where Elizabeth
tacular relics which accompanied them. These fled with the infant John the Baptist to escape the
were stored in assorted small bags, boxes, and massacre of the innocents; the tree which Jesus
wrappers, and, together with the associated
identification tags, are a valuable insight into 87  For a detailed analysis of these trends, see Smith, “Care of
relic collecting in medieval Rome. They reveal Relics” (n. 61 above).
an acceptance of holy stuff which was far more 88  B. Galland, Les authentiques de reliques du Sancta Sanctorum,
heterogeneous—far fuzzier—than the formu- Studi e Testi 421 (Vatican City, 2004). Soil, pebbles, and stones in
nos. 10, 48, 63, 70, 99–103, 106, 118, 120–24 (pp. 96, 110, 116, 119,
lations of theologians, canonists, or liturgists 131–35, 138, 146, 148–51).
would recognize. 89  Ibid., nos. 109, 111, 119 (pp. 140, 142, 146). Label 111 (oleo de
sepulchro Domini) was found wrapped around an oil lamp: see P.
83  Boockmann, Die verlorenen Teile, 77–78. Lauer, Le trésor du Sancta Sanctorum (Paris, 1906), fig. 15, p. 91.
84  The inventory begins: “Registrum in quo conscripte sunt 90  Galland, Les authentiques, no. 14, p. 98. Lauer, Trésor du
Reliquie que habentur. . . .,” ibid. 127. Sancta Sanctorum, figs. 10, 15, pp. 53, 91.
85  On this, see further Smith, “Rulers and Relics.” 91  Galland, Les authentiques, no. 6, p. 95. There may be confu-
86  An overview (with bibliography) of works of art found in sion here: tradition did locate the shrine of the head of John the
the altar is available in G. Cornini, “‘Non est in toto sanctior orbe Baptist at Emesa, but manna recurs in association with the tomb
locus’: Collecting Relics in Early Medieval Rome,” in Treasures of John the Evangelist at Ephesos from the time of the apocry-
of Heaven: Saints, Relics and Devotion in Medieval Europe, ed. phal Acts of John onward. For a twelfth-century explanation
M. Bagnoli, H. A. Klein, C. G. Mann, and J. Robinson (New of this sweet, sticky effluent from saints’ bodies and tombs, see
Haven, 2010), 69–78. For a detailed discussion of one significant Thiofrid, Flores epytaphii sanctorum (n. 65 above), 3.6 (75–76).
reliquary found in Leo III’s chest, a painted box dated ca. 600, 92  Galland, Les authentiques, nos. 2, 9, 29, 41, 78 (pp. 93, 96,
see below, fig. 6.1 and pp. 112–14. 103, 107, 122).

Relics 57
had planted as a child; Cana, “where the Lord In early medieval Rome, reliquiae was thus a
made wine out of water”; the sycamore tree which capacious word whose usage extended far beyond
Zacchaeus climbed to get a better look at Jesus; the remains of Christian saints to embrace
the rock on which Mary’s body had been washed churches and other holy sites as well as holy per-
and anointed.93 The numerous biblical relics sons. Reflecting a pre-Iconoclast notion of the
have analogues in two other large collections of holiness of places and persons as well as buildings,
seventh- to eighth-century relic labels, those of it assimilated high points of the Old Testament
Sens and Chelles; most also correlate with sites into the Christian experience.100 Durable organic
mentioned in late antique and early medieval pil- or inorganic substances from holy places and per-
grim itineraries.94 All told, they are a powerful sons which could be transported in tiny portions
reminder of how late antique and early medieval might turn into reliquiae. Moreover, prior to
Christians elaborated the biblical narrative— ca. 800, it was only one of several Latin synonyms
canonical and apocryphal—by adding meaning- for these holy substances: benedictio, beneficia,
ful places, details, and objects to “update” the nomen, patrocinia, pignus, sanctuaria could all
Judaean landscape to match their own pragmatic mean the same.101 This rich vocabulary was appo-
understanding of events, as well as drawing on site for the many and varied forms of holy matter
their experience of the liturgy.95 gathered up in the sixth, seventh, and eighth cen-
More than one third of the Sancta Sancto­rum turies as well as for the wide range of biblical and
labels explicitly use the term reliquiae.96 Although saintly sites from which it derived.
the majority of instances refer to patriarchs, Although relic labels cannot be precisely
prophets, and saints, the word also denotes objects dated, the considerable number of late sev-
associated with Jesus’s death: his cup (from the enth- and eighth-century ones for Holy Land
Last Supper), the column of the flagellation, his objects may suggest that they filled the place left
cross, and his tomb.97 One of its more intriguing when the production of mass-produced metal
occurrences is for “relics of the twelve thrones,” ampullae collapsed in the seventh century (figs.
the thrones on which Christ prophesied that his 5.1–5.5, 6.3, and 6.5–8 for examples). Lacking
disciples would sit alongside him in glory to judge
the twelve tribes of Israel (Matthew 19:28, Luke Jerusalem Pilgrims Before the Crusades (Warminster, 2002),
22:30).98 In all likelihood, this was oil, wax, or a 345–346, s.v. “Seven Springs.”
stone from the much-frequented church “of the 100  See A. Louth, “Holiness and Sanctity in the Early
Church,” in Saints and Sanctity, ed. P. Clarke and T. Claydon,
Twelve Thrones” on the shore of Lake Tiberias, in Studies in Church History 47 (Woodbridge, 2011), 1–18.
other words an object whose material nature effi- 101  The vocabulary of pre-Carolingian relic labels overlaps
ciently conflated the created world with the world with hagiographical, epistolary, and epigraphic usage. For patro­
to come, a relic of the eschatological future.99 cinia, see Bruckner and Marichal, Chartae Latinae Antiquiores,
vol. 1, no. 25, pp. 34–35 (Saint-Maurice d’Agaune); vol. 12,
no. 548, p. 84 (Säckingen: relics from Rome); vol. 28, no. 665,
pp. 75–75 (Baume-les-Messieurs); no. 669, pp. 84–108, labels 16,
93  Ibid., 10, 21 (quoted), 24, 43, 65, 99, 124 (pp. 96, 100, 101, 55, 66, 69, 127 (Chelles); vol. 19, no. 691, p. 77, label 7 (Vergy:
108, 117, 131, 150). relics from Rome); no. 682, pp. 40–59, label 87 (Sens). Pignora:
ibid., vol. 28, no. 665, pp. 75–75 (Baume-les-Messieurs); no. 668,
94  A. Bruckner and R. Marichal, Chartae Latinae Antiquiores:
p. 83 (Chartres); vol. 19, no. 691, p. 77, label 6 (Vergy). Nomina:
Facsimile-Edition of the Latin Charters Prior to the Ninth Century,
ibid, vol. 43, no. 1240, p. 3 (Röns).
49 vols. (Olten, 1954–98), vol. 18, no. 669, pp. 84–108 (Chelles)
For the terminology in epigraphic, epistolary, and other
and vol. 19, no. 682, pp. 40–59 (Sens). See also the comments of M.
genres, see G. Gagov, “Il termine ‘nomina’ sinonimo di ‘reliquiae’
McCormick, Origins of the European Economy: Communications
nell’antica epigrafia cristiana,” MiscFr 55 (1955): 3–13; idem, “Il
and Commerce, AD 300–900 (Cam­bridge, 2001), 283–318.
culto delle relique nell’antichità: Riflesso nei due termini ‘patro-
95  Cf. Derek Krueger, chapter 6 in this volume. cini’ e ‘pignora’,” MiscFr 58 (1958): 484–512; C. Mohrmann,
96  With the exception of label 6, manna from the head of John “A propos de deux mots controversés de la latinité chrétienne:
the Baptist, no other descriptors are used. Tropaeum-nomen,” VChr 8 (1954): 154–73; McCulloh, “Cult
97  Galland, Les authentiques nos. 26, 27, 74, 86, 87, 91 (pp. 102,
of Relics” (n. 63 above); M. Weidemann, “Reliquie und Eulogie:
121, 125–26, 127). Zur Begriffsbestimmung geweihter Gegenstände in der frän-
kischen Kirchenlehre des 6. Jahrhunderts,” in Die Ausgrabungen
98  Ibid., no. 42 (p. 108). in St. Ulrich und Afra in Augsburg 1961–1968, 2 vols., ed. J. Werner
99  M. McCormick, Charlemagne’s Survey of the Holy Land (Munich, 1977), 1:353–73. After ca. 800 the range of words used
(Washington, DC, 2011), 212–13, 232. See also J. Wilkinson, in all contexts narrows to reliquiae and pignus/-ora.

58 Julia M. H. Smith
iconographic detail, reliquiae represented many medieval relic collections testify that, right until
of the same holy places depicted on them and the end of the middle ages, reliquiae and pignora
were their functional equivalent in transmit- retained their original generic meaning for any
ting the “blessing of the holy places of Christ particle of sacred matter, whether biblical or
the Lord” (ΕΥΛΟΓΙΑ ΚΥΡΙΟΥ ΤΩΝ ΑΓΙΩΝ saintly, body part, vegetable or mineral matter,
ΧΡΙΣΤΟv ΤΟΠΩΝ).102 In view of the facts that or fabric. Only in the centuries after Trent did
benedictio (the Latin translation of eulogia) was a this broad-spectrum usage shrink to an exclusive
common synonym for reliquiae in early medieval focus on saints, and its final metamorphosis into
Rome,103 and that tiny glass phials of holy oil the relics of contemporary encyclopedia defini-
from Mediterranean shrines continued to make tions is scarcely a century old.
their way into medieval relic deposits, as the
Brunswick inventory confirms, their equivalence
is clear. Commonly classified separately as devo- This chapter has juxtaposed two approaches to
tionalia, ampullae emerged as a separate category the place of relics in Latin Christianity: practices
of religious object only when relics acquired their of accumulation and evolving ways of thinking
narrow twentieth-century definition.104 In a late about them. I have contended that learned dis-
antique and early medieval perspective, however, courses are not reliable guides to what medieval
oil in a decorated flask meant the same as a hand- Christians selected and treasured as relics or how
ful of dirt, a twig, or a sliver of bone wrapped they made sense of them. Inspection of selected
in silk. medieval monastic, aristocratic, and papal col-
In Rome and elsewhere in the early medieval lections has revealed that they were more hetero-
West, the material articulation of the holy thus geneous than could be predicted on the basis of
took a notably wide variety of forms. A consid- either medieval or postmedieval conceptualiza-
erable range of interchangeable Latin descriptors tions of relics. In addition, the range and vari-
referenced many biblical events and stories in the ety of words employed to describe this holy stuff
distant past, and even the eschatological future, has confirmed that, especially in the early mid-
as well as the saints of Christian history. When dle ages, it was not constrained by either a stan-
the scribes who penned papyrus or parchment dardized conceptual vocabulary or clear criteria
labels for this holy stuff bothered to give it any for inclusion. I have also demonstrated that the
descriptive noun, it was, to be sure, most com- kinds of relics gathered and safeguarded in the
monly reliquiae. This was, after all, a word which early medieval era continued to remain impor-
Augustine, Jerome, Gennadius, and Gregory the tant until the end of the middle ages.
Great all used. But their advocacy was driven by No unified, consistent, or coherent relic-
pastoral, polemical, and theological concerns, related discourse developed during or after the
and was never about selecting, classifying, and middle ages. Instead, relics of saints were concep-
ranking objects into a hierarchy of significance. tualized in different ways for different purposes.
Patristic vocabulary had no prescriptive conno- Pluralism and inconsistency were the hallmarks
tations, liturgical or legal. Although the vocab- of discussion. I have drawn attention to theologi-
ulary thinned around 800, the contents of later cal, spiritual, liturgical, legislative, and political
strands of thought, some in the writings of indi-
102  I quote the inscription from Monza 5: A. Grabar, Ampoules vidual scholars, others in the pronouncements
de Terre Sainte (Monza-Bobbio) (Paris, 1958), 22–23. of those in positions of ecclesiastical authority.
103  For benedictio as “relic” for the consecration of a new Some were monastic or academic disquisitions
church see T. E. Von Sickel, Liber Diurnus Romanorum pon­
tificum, 2nd ed. (Aalen, 1966), 1:xxii, xxiii, 16–17. References
of a reflective or scholastic kind, while others
in the correspondence of Gregory the Great are collected by were stimulated by pressing pastoral or polemical
A. T. Hack, Codex Carolinus: Päpstliche Epistolographie im priorities. Some took greater account of earlier
8. Jahrhundert, Päpste und Papsttum 35 (Stuttgart, 2007), discussions than others; some were much more
782–91.
sensitive to historical change than others. All
104  For bibliography on ampullae as devotionalia, see Krueger,
chapter 6, and for iconography, Cox Miller, chapter 5 in this pondered what relics might be; none reached the
volume. same conclusion as another. None offered a view

Relics 59
which fully describes the actual contents of medi- they failed to conform to the normative, regu-
eval reliquaries. lated needs of a modernizing Church.
The disjuncture between the ideas about Nevertheless, the hard work of control by
and the practice of relics in Christian tradition ranking and exclusion could touch relics only
has two principal explanations. One concerns as they existed in handbooks and encyclopedias
the complexities of historical change: prescrip- but not as they persisted as objects inside sur-
tive institutional directives, modes of thought, viving reliquaries. Abingdon’s relics perished at
and everyday practice almost never evolve in the Reformation, but many of the Brunswick
tandem. The other relates to the religious attri- reliquaries retained a portion of their medieval
butes of these material substances: theological contents into the late nineteenth century: those
problems surrounded only a portion of relics. that survive are now museum exhibits. But when
Saints’ remains raised pressing questions about the ancient silks, ivories, and gemmed reliquar-
the relation of soul to body after death, and about ies extracted from the Sancta Sanctorum became
the ability of saints to intercede on behalf of the art historical treasures for public display, the rel-
living, whereas relics of holy places were unen- ics discovered inside them were placed back in
cumbered by such fraught problems, and hence the altar, where they remain. Today’s encyclo-
triggered no theological speculation. They simply pedias (in libraries and online) reproduce ideas
faded from attention in postmedieval centuries: about relics grounded in the 1917 Codex iuris
wherever they survived in situ in reliquaries, they canonici: but were they to take their cue from
remained inert but were not discarded. the material objects that remain inside medi-
These dissonances continued into the age of eval reliquaries, they would tell a very different
Enlightenment. Although selection, classifica- story about what relics are. If Don Pacchiotti’s
tion, and hierarchy came into prominence as destruction of the Salina relic collection sym-
intellectual tools during the early modern era, bolized Sicily’s religious future as part of a mod-
the fusing of theology, liturgy, and law into a ernizing and systematizing Church, the Salina
monolithic definition took much longer. When sisters epitomized a past where relics derived
it finally happened, it did so from a basis in codi- their meaning from the subjective understand-
fied canon law, not history. As a result, a propor- ing of those who gathered and cherished them,
tion of medieval relics were relegated to the status not from clerical regulation, theological insight,
of “devotionalia” or “pilgrim souvenirs” because or legalistic interpretation.

o In addition to thanking the editors for the “Matter for Debate: Relics and Related Devo­
opportunity to participate in the symposium, tional Objects,” which she graciously invited
I am grateful to Lyndal Roper and the History me to cohost with her in 2010, and they germi-
Faculty of the University of Oxford for the invi- nated during subsequent conversations. In addi-
tation to deliver the 2011–12 Annual Special tion, Tom Noble gave valuable comments on an
Lecture in History, and thereby prompting me to early draft, Simon Ditchfield guided me through
develop my thinking much further. I would also Counter-Reformation treatises, and Charlotte
like to acknowledge my debt to Caroline Walker Methuen provided invaluable help with points of
Bynum: the seeds of this study were sown during detail ranging from the fourth to the twenty-first
our preparations for the crosscultural workshop century.

60 Julia M. H. Smith