When Monks Became Relic Thieves

Relics can be a part of a holy person’s body or his belongings that people keep as an object of reverence. To many churches in the Middle Ages, these are valuable artifacts that could put your town on the map and bring pilgrims in (as well as money and prestige). What’s more, it is said that these relics will protect you through miracles.

With this being the case, many bishops participated in the tradition of relic theft, going to drastic measures just to secure themselves a relic.

Consider the case of St. Foy. The monk who brought her relics to Conques, a French commune, went undercover for ten years at the Agen monastery there, before seizing the chance to make off with St. Foy’s skull...

There even seem to have been professional relic dealers, like the mysterious Duesdona, who raided the Roman catacombs for holy martyrs to trade away. It was a good trade: a single saint’s body could be divided into many saleable relics. Theologians held that “the whole was in each part,” meaning that the saint was equally present in each fragment of their body, no matter how small. As Paulinus of Nola writes, “Wherever a drop of dew has fallen on men in the shape of a particle of bone, the tiny gift from a consecrated body, holy grace has brought forth fountains in that place, and the drops of ashes begotten rivers of life.”

More details about this strange tradition over at JSTOR Daily.

(Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons)