Search

Liturgy was the perfect and unparalleled medium for public relations in the Middle Ages, and when it came to relics, it could transform any stone, bone, or a piece of wood into an object worthy of devotion. This article revolves around the activating force of the relics of Mary Magdalene in medieval France. It examines two liturgies—from Vézelay and from Saint-Maximin in Provence—honouring the saint, representing two distinct responses whose character reflects the priorities of the communities that produced them and the agendas that set them in motion. Liturgy was accorded a special role in bolstering the claims of Provence over the corporeal presence of Mary Magdalene in its midst, with liturgists adopting a more audacious and unreserved vocabulary to validate these claims over those of Vézelay. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 11th–12th centuries, extreme ascetic practices reappeared in Western Europe, in particular, the wearing of hauberks and heavy iron chains, associated with penitence and eremitism. This article discusses the charisma of three ascetic saints of the 12th century: Bernard the Penitent (d. 1182), Wulfric of Haselbury (d. 1154/55), and Godric of Finchale (d. 1170). Their hagiographies were written shortly after their death. The authors emphasize that they were revered as holy men already in their lifetime. Their charismatic power was revealed by miracles of healing and prophecy, sometimes in visions. The manifestations of their charisma continued and even increased after their death and were transmitted and spread through their relics. Their mortifications and the signs of their holiness are comparable to those of the stylites and other hermits of Syria of late Antiquity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1082, at the council of Charroux convened by the papal legate Amatus of Oloron, astonished witnesses observed the Holy Prepuce, a rare body relic of Christ himself, to be miraculously spotted with fresh blood. This spectacular miracle holds implications for our understanding of charismatic strategies of religious reform in France in the era of Pope Gregory VII. Gregory's use of standing legates with regional mandates, such as Amatus, was a novelty in papal administration, but the legates, though empowered as proxies of the pope, were often weak lieutenants. When they could not induce or coerce cooperation, they frequently confronted the impotence of their legal–canonical mandates. The miracle at Charroux, I will show, exemplifies an alternative charismatic strategy, harnessing liturgical art and spectacle to magnify the legate's stature as an authority in the context of the Eucharistic controversy and religious reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The story of the Śrāvastī miracles is one episode of the Buddha's biography that is depicted in the art forms of Dvāravatī from about the 7th to the 11th centuries CE. The fact that many artefacts were produced—in such variety, over such a long period, and at so many sites—shows the popularity of the scene of the Śrāvastī miracles in the Dvāravatī culture. The objective of this research paper is to analyze the significance of the story of the Śrāvastī miracles that affected the creation of Dvāravatī art in Thailand by examining the textual sources together with the Dvāravatī artefacts. The analysis shows that the stories of the Śrāvastī miracles were significant in various ways, being one of the Buddha's necessary deeds, a principal miracle only performed by the Buddha, a means of converting others to Buddhism, and a key source for the idea of making Buddha images as an act of merit. These significant features may explain the popularity of the Śrāvastī miracle theme in Dvāravatī culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stories involving lost items, sick or missing birds and animals, and the strange behaviour of objects such as coins, candles and relic containers are frequently encountered in high medieval miracle collections, with the 'jokes' of St Foy of Conques being a well-known example. Such miracles, in which saints were thought to incongruously exercise their powers on 'minor' or 'trifling' matters, provoked a range of reactions, from laughing delight to unease and outright dismissal. This essay argues that the 'trifling' miracle would be a useful addition to typologies of medieval miracles, and contrasts the ways in which two late twelfth-century monks at Canterbury, Benedict of Peterborough and William of Canterbury, worked to integrate and explain stories like these in their collections of the miracles of Thomas Becket. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper asks how images came to be regarded as having miraculous power in the centuries before Iconoclasm. It argues that by the fifth century, the miraculous power of relics was intimately connected with their materiality, specifically the belief that relics were imbued with power by contact with a saint. Given this paradigm, images suffered from a lack; if images are representations of saints and not matter touched by them, they should lack the power of relics. Over the course of the sixth and seventh centuries, this apparent lack was overcome by reconceiving images. Rather than simply identifying images with representation, they were understood as material objects in their own right. Understanding images as holy matter rather than representations alone helped usher images into practices of veneration and supplication in the sixth and seventh centuries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the conversion of Anne de Gonzague, Princess of the Palatinate, which was allegedly brought about due to her experience with the True Cross. The author argues that Anne de Gonzague's conversion to Catholicism was largely impacted by her epistemological doubts concerning miracles and religious relics, which culminated in her testing of faith by placing a piece of the Cross in a fire and witnessing it not burn.

The article analyzes the miracles described in the biographies of two «founder- saints» who were active in Kãzarün, a small village of Fãrs during the ioth and 14th centuries. These miracles happened before the birth of them and anticipate their future sanctity. Their actions are inscribed in the Prophet Mutiammad tradition, they have also a pedagogical worth for the disciples. They anticipate the death of both holy men to immortalize their work as founders of the order. Finally these miracles, happen over the tombs of the saints attracting in this way the pilgrims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In the early 840s, Archbishop Amolo of Lyons wrote to one of his suffragan bishops about extraordinary miracles reportedly taking place at Dijon in the wake of the arrival of mysterious new relics. Re-examining the complex interaction of these relics with pre-existing social and political processes in the region and locally, this article also explores other aspects of Amolo’s letter which have been less discussed, notably its manuscript transmission and the insights it offers into structures of religious organisation. Finally, it argues that the way issues treated together in the letter tend to be separated or even opposed in the historiography points to the need for renewed, critically reflexive attention to the specificities of the Carolingian church reforms. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This article sketches the origins of the veneration of relics in the early Church through the Middle Ages to a new approach to them in western Europe after the sixteenth century. They had been seen as a living link between heaven and earth, but new questions transferred them from a symbolic universe to an analytic sphere. The new question was 'how' did this work, about mechanics, not about meaning, the 'why' question, 'What is in it for me now?' How can we value relics today in our scientifically orientated world? Changes in thought are suggested together with ways to return to a serious appreciation of relics. I want to suggest that we can appreciate relics as part of a mutual dependence here and now between ourselves, the living, and the dead who are alive in Christ. This would underline for us a sense of the goodness of the flesh, as well as the accessibility of the living saints in relation to us in Christ. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The Franks incorporated Saxony into the Carolingian empire through a long, brutal struggle coupled with forced conversion. When Saxons themselves began to write a few decades afterwards, they had to make sense of this history and of their role and identity in their contemporary Carolingian world. In contrast to the portrayal of Saxons in writers such as Einhard and Rudolf, three ninth-century Saxon accounts of relic translations — those of Vitus, Pusinna and Liborius — reinterpreted history to claim a place for the Saxons as a distinct group equal to the Franks within the populus Christianus under the Carolingian monarchs. As a key part of their literary strategies, these authors attempted to salvage from the story of their defeat and forced Christianisation an account of God''s sovereignty, native agency and virtue (especially fidelity) as a foundational element of Saxon identity. These texts prefigure the debates about post-conquest Saxon identity which would underlay the later and better-known Ottonian triumphal self-conceptions. Moreover, the concerns of these authors led them to remarkable hagiographical innovations in grappling with paganism, conversion, miracles, social class and faith. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The object of this enquiry is a silver-mounted, miraculously unbreakable drinking glass from early fourteenth-century Padua. Known as Aleardino’s Glass, the vessel took its name and status from the fact that it remained miraculously intact despite being cast to the ground by a heretical knight named Aleardino who had publicly challenged the sanctity of St Anthony of Padua. Taking Aleardino’s wonder at his unbroken glass as a point of departure, this contribution explores the interlacing of material properties and conceptual representations that underlies and informs our understanding of the vessel. It considers the status of the glass as a conceptual work, and investigates the relationship between the physical properties of the vessel and its visual attributes. The essay explores the notion of material difficulty mobilized by a glass that does not break and discusses the cleverness of Aleardino’s Glass in terms of the reciprocal relationship between the physical resilience of the vessel and its resistance to interpretation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]