Why Did Bones Matter So Much? The Medieval Trade in Holy Remains

The practice rests on the belief that holiness attaches to the physical remains of a holy person and to objects that touched them, so that proximity to those remains brings access to intercession, healing and protection. Early Christian practice of gathering at the tombs of martyrs developed into building churches over those tombs, and the altar came to require a relic beneath it, which made relics a structural requirement of church building rather than an optional devotion. A distinction was drawn between the body itself, objects the person used, and objects that had touched either, with the last category being manufacturable in quantity by contact. The theology insisted throughout that veneration was directed through the object rather than at it, which was argued about continuously and which ordinary practice frequently blurred.

The movement of relics was a substantial economic and political activity:

• •Purchase and gift, with relics functioning as the most valuable diplomatic presents available
• •Theft, which was common, organised and celebrated in written accounts presenting it as the saint's own wish
• •Division, since a body could be split and distributed, multiplying the number of sites
• •Fabrication, in enormous quantity, with the resulting proliferation noted sceptically at the time
• •Authentication, by documentation, by miracle and by the reputation of whoever supplied it
• •Housing, in elaborate containers that are among the finest surviving metalwork of the period

A church with important relics attracted pilgrims, and pilgrims brought money in several forms, including offerings at the shrine, payments for access, purchases of badges and souvenirs, and spending in the surrounding town on lodging and food. That revenue funded construction, which is why the great pilgrimage churches are where they are and why their architecture is shaped by the need to move crowds past a shrine without disrupting services, with ambulatories and radiating chapels being a direct response to circulation requirements. Competition between sites was real, with churches promoting their relics, recording miracles and commissioning accounts of them. Towns benefited enough to lobby for acquisitions. The collapse of the traffic in regions that broke with Rome in the sixteenth century removed a significant part of the local economy along with the shrines themselves.

A great deal of material culture produced by the practice still exists and is studied for reasons unrelated to belief. Reliquaries are among the most technically ambitious objects of the medieval goldsmith's craft, frequently shaped as the body part they contain, and they are central to the history of metalwork, enamel and gem setting. Pilgrim badges, cheap lead souvenirs bought in enormous numbers and frequently discarded or thrown into rivers, survive in thousands and map the popularity of individual shrines over time with a precision documents do not provide. Written accounts of miracles kept by shrines record who came, from how far and with what complaint, which is unusually good social data for the period. And the relics themselves have been examined scientifically in a number of cases, with radiocarbon dating producing results that have supported some attributions and comprehensively undermined others.

Objections were raised throughout and from inside the tradition. Writers noted that the same relic was claimed by several churches, that quantities exceeded any possible original, and that credulity was being exploited, with Erasmus and later Calvin making the point at length and with earlier critics doing so in more measured terms. The Reformation attacked the practice directly and shrines were destroyed on a large scale in several countries. Catholic practice was regulated rather than abandoned, with authentication requirements tightened. The underlying impulse is not confined to one religion, since relics of the Buddha are enshrined across Asia and have their own history of division, transfer and political use, Islamic traditions preserve objects associated with the Prophet, and secular societies preserve the bodies of leaders, the possessions of artists and fragments of historic objects with an attention that is recognisably similar.

Holiness was held to attach to physical remains, and an altar required a relic beneath it, which made them a structural requirement rather than an optional devotion. Purchase, celebrated theft, division and outright fabrication moved them around Europe. Pilgrim revenue funded construction and shaped church architecture, with ambulatories designed to move crowds past a shrine.