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Touching the Holy: The Rise of Contact Relics in Medieval England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 March 2017

REBECCA BROWETT
REBECCA BROWETT*
Affiliation:
Institute of Historical Research, University of London, Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU; e-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

This article explores the use and promotion of contact relics in medieval England. It argues that by the late eleventh and early twelfth century, large English monastic houses were uncomfortable with unauthorised individuals touching high status corporeal relics and so re-introduced and promoted contact relics as alternative objects of veneration. It argues that contact relics were an important aspect of English saints' cults until the Reformation, in a similar manner to Celtic and Brittonic cults.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 68 , Issue 3 , July 2017 , pp. 493 - 509
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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References

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58 ‘Exuitur itaque sanctus sancti martyrii uestibus, partim rubeis rubore sanguinis, partim perforates ictibus telorum crebis’: Herman, Miracles of St Edmund, 55

59 Ibid. 80–2. For a detailed distribution of Edmund's contact relics by Baldwin see Licence, ‘Cult of St Edmund’, 109–10.

60 Herman, Miracles of St Edmund, 84.

61 ‘Exuuie uero martyris in seruatorio reconduntur cum phylacteriis, unde de sacrario diuinitatis presto sunt beneficia multis, ad laudem eius, qui cum patre et spiritu sancto uiuit et regnat Deus’: ibid. 55.

62 ‘Cur sic irreuerenter reuerenda tractastis?… An obliuio iam sepeliuit, quod heri perpetratum est? Camisia sancti quam ob uulgi fauorem captandum publicis optutibus ingessistis – dum incaute minusue diligenter oppanditur, sacer sanguis quo infecta fuerat humi decidit et periit’: Goscelin, Miracles of St Edmund, 294–5.

63 Licence, ‘Cult of St Edmund’, 18.

64 ‘de peculiari fratrum familiaritate presumentes, uiciniora reuerende tumulationi loca petierunt’: Goscelin, Miracles of St Edmund, 227.

65 Licence, ‘Cult of St Edmund’, 18.

66 ‘Campana illius pulsetur de portando ad processionem et post missam deportetur ad cameram domine abbatisse replete uino ut omnes ex ea bibant. deinde ad cameras reliquas monialium modo predicto’: Ordinale and customary of the Benedictine nuns of Barking Abbey, ed. Tohurst, J. B. L., London 1927, ii. 222Google Scholar, trans. in Yardley, Anne Bagnall, ‘Liturgy as the site of creative engagement’, in Brown, Jennifer N. (ed.), Barking Abbey and medieval literary culture: authorship and authority in a female community, Woodbridge 2012, 267–82 at p. 272Google Scholar.

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70 Letters and papers, Henry VIII, x. 137–44.

71 Ibid. x. 142.

72 Ibid. It is suggestive that in 1400–1 John Knowte, a goldsmith, was paid 4s. for making a cross for the banner of St Cuthbert, hooks for the shrine and for ‘repairing a cup belonging to the refectory’ associated with St Cuthbert: ‘Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, Newcastle Upon-Tyne: the banner of Saint Cuthbert’, Gentleman's Magazine and Historical Review (Jan.–June 1857), 458–64 at p. 462.

73 See I. G. Thomas, ‘The cult of saints’ relics in medieval England', unpubl. PhD diss. York 1974, 73–87, 239–42, 280–4.

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75 For the development of Æthelwold's cult in the High Middle Ages see Rebecca Browett, ‘The cult of St Æthelwold and its context’, unpubl. PhD diss. London 2017.