How Do Relics Speak - Essay Example

Essay, History 18 June How Do Relics Speak? What is a relic? It is always a common behaviour for people to desire to hold on to something from the past even after its death. Most people attempt to hold on to pictures, attires or even jewelleries worn by the people they respected or loved. In their absence, the artefacts become a way of connecting and keeping them in remembrance. The culture of preserving relics was dominant during the times of medieval Christianity. Unlike the modern use of accessories and objects, the religious communities preserved the real bodies and body parts of the saints, martyrs and selective heroes from their past or during their time once they died. The reference to objects considered relics did however expand to what came to include materials touched or associated by the saints. Relics can be classified as “the bodies or bodily fragments of the saints and the objects connected with them such as clothes dipped the blood of the martyrs.”1 This entails arms, skulls, chests, fingers, skins, skeletons and heirlooms. These might have been obtained from grave retrievals, or remains of the assassinated or beheaded saints and heroes. There are also relics classified as second in line as those, which were touched by the saints in their lifetimes (for example sandals worn or tools they used). Walker and Paula mention that by late medieval age, reliquaries contained not just saint’s body parts but contact relics as shoes and clothes fragments.2 How were they used? Decorations of the sanctuaries: Relics preserved in reliquaries were celebrated as decorations for the catholic cathedrals and temples. Some have been enshrined at the sanctuaries’ entrances or close to alters in the places of worship. The reliquaries as containers used to hold the relics were covered by precious stones, gold and even silver to enshrine the actual relics.3 With the reliquaries, they expressed pieces of medieval art work before any introduction of museums in the medieval age. Prestige upon ownership in politics: They bestowed power and aspect of honour upon the possessor. Relics were used in creation of reliquaries expressively for privileged individuals. In China, Lee argues that “relics were used as symbols for prestige and power, and they had economic implications in that they attracted pilgrimage and patronage, and were of diplomatic value.”4 Reliquaries and artefacts made in the shape of, or containing the relic itself gave its owner pleasurable prestigious status. They not only served as treasures but in establishment of boundaries and authorities for monarchs.5 Gifts and commodities of exchange: Relics had always been regarded as objects of value for the possessor. According to Appadurai, “relics were in fact dealt with both as gifts and commodities even though a price list was never established.”6 The life histories of particular relics were essential to determination of their value. In cases of famous saints who travelled often across the continents, their relics had often been highly values compared to the locals ones that operated with limited vicinity. They were not prices as other commodities due to the nature of evaluating their value and for the reason of moral antipathy in trading relics (considered dead corpse). With relics objectified as commodities, they would be subject to theft, or sales and items of exchanges by the prominent authorities (politicians/rulers) who owned them. These were common means by which relics as commodities flowed and moved across cities in the medieval civilization, as ownership and control changed.7 How were they imaged and imagined? Faithful believers especially in Catholic Christian religions have strongly associated spiritual beliefs to relics of the saints. They imagined the relics as memorial objects of the former faithful servants who dwelt before and their works. The relics were taken to signify their presence even after death while their cherished deeds sought to inspire faith among believers. Due to the importance and respect given to the saints in their lifetime during the medieval age, their relics preserved or put together in the communities constructed to them what could be imagined as a city of God and a sacred geography, where the saints’ physical body parts conveyed different meanings from the universality.8 No doubt, the audience they received implied that they were imagined as holy objects of admiration. Abou-El-Hai argues that the audience for the “medieval cult and pilgrimage.... cut across class, involving rich and poor, clergy and laity.....and where men of all ranks, ages, and professions, the secular and the spiritual all hastened to be present.”9 The relics were preserved as precious and powerful images. How relics speak/communicate and the messages they entail Relics and inscriptions Relics alone may not fully make sense to the viewers unless signs are embedded to convey meanings. The preservation of some of the relics from the ancient medieval times played a sensitive role to the clergy and believers. They might have been passed along from the clergymen in generations later creating a story behind it. The remains of a saint and the people that came into contact with an object he once used make the story that could be embedded in the reliquary. An example is the reliquary of the Staff of Peter, a treasure of the Limburg-an-der-Lahn Cathedral, which is said to contain relics of peters stick. The reliquary was made in the shape of the stick; a several feet long staff with an orb at one end. Accroding to Nees, the reliquary of peter’s staff is inscribed images of peter and subsequent archbishops of Trier, and with writings communicating how the relics had landed to Trier.10 Just by looking at the reliquary, it’s evident that there is a message conveyed through its inscriptions. The series of letters appearing in Latin form and the various images makes the spectator to brainstorm and understand the message/story behind the relic arrival. “The first words, ‘Baculum beati Petri,’ claim that this is the very ‘staff of Saint Peter,’ and with images of some early bishops reputed to have resurrected a dead man and touched the hands of St. Peter, the relic in its reliquary speaks of been sacred and a conduit of miraculous power.11 Though with the passage of time the relic itself might have been damaged or reduced to organic materials, the reliquary holds the remains tightly and gives the imitation of the undamaged relic that can be carried in processions. Speaking in metaphors By looking at the object holding the relics or the relic itself does not necessarily give the viewer a direct message. Considering that some people just view them as pieces of corpse, they fail to understand or identify with the relics. Relics communicate through “complex metaphorical system of meanings” often from their postures, contents and inscribed signs.12 Relics express a diverse of metaphorical and rhetorical qualities, which creates a compelling interest for the viewer to make certain interpretations and construct their meanings. Numerous relics of saints have strategically been preserved in shrines in specific positions, postures and appearances that tend to imply particular actions to the viewers or believers. Through such the relics can create emotional and impressive effects to the crowd convincingly. To comprehend their metaphorical speech, consider the three major radiance, humility and blessing gestures they portray from the body parts reliquaries. Radiance gesture: Light depicts a divine presence from the Christian ethical practices and point of view. The scriptures openly associates light with divinity and righteousness compared to darkness as sin and evil. Numerous relics of saints are contained in shiny objects of splendid materials as gold and ornamented with precious jewels that give the radiating effect in the shrines during the sermons for believer. With exposure to sunlight, the encasing reliquary radiates light reaching the viewers in rays as paths through which the saints appear to teach or pass across their admired or divine virtues, and sanctify the mass of believers via the brightness.13 The reflections of the light from the precious metal and jewels encasing the relics are metaphorical speech of the contained relics implied to communicate spiritual gifts that masses of believers can embrace. Here, relics tend to reach out to people through flashes of light in action as metaphors. Blessing gesture: Based on the cultures of the medieval time, the saints had well identified ways of sign communication with the mass, especially through public address. The bishops or reputable saints from the Catholic Churches in Europe were known from history to have employed liturgical gestures, considered to be of great importance to command actions on behalf of the faithful. Arm reliquaries are common components of relics that metaphorically communicate actions of blessings by the stretch of the arm. A reliquary of the open arm of saint Gereon has managed to develop a great center of interest to the activities the saint in his lifetime and its gesture implying an action of blessing.14 A stretching right-hand relic tends to signify power to act, which gives it the resemblance of the saint’s power to bless. Shaped reliquaries of whole or fragmented parts speak their content Several parts of the relics combined together or just a fragment of a saint’s remains gives equal importance to their presence in whole. Several arm reliquaries have been used to house different body remains of numerous saints. Though given shapes that may not reflect the contents they carried, reliquary formed signified the presences of the saints in whole, long after they are gone. The reliquary has a functional significance to the relic, and placed strategically signifying that are saints are still active and with potentials. Each fragment of the saints’ remains acts as an assurance of the invisible presence. Together they make the reliquary and content a sacred object with divine powers and connection. “Speaking reliquaries shaped to represent the relics they contained: head and bust relics to contain skulls, feet reliquaries for foot-bones or sandals represented the dynamism believed to reside in them,” beckoned to touch and bless.15 Conclusion Relics have often spoken through signs inscribed in writings or images on the reliquaries, as simple and complex metaphorical systems from interpretation of the looks and the contents of the relics and reliquaries. Works Cited Abou-El-Hai, Barbara. “The Audiences for the Medieval Cult of Saints”, Gesta, 30 (1) (1991), 3 -15. Appadurai, Arjun. Ed. The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective (Cambridge: Cambridge University press, 1986) Bynum Caroline Walker, and Gerson, Paula, “Body-Part Reliquaries and Body Parts in the Middle Ages.” Gesta, 36 (1). (1997), 3-7. Duffy, Eamon. “Treasures of Heaven at the British Museum”, (2011), [Accessed 19 June 2015] Geary Patrick. “Sacred Commodities: the circulation of medieval relics.” chap. 6 in The social life of things: Commodities in cultural perspective Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1986. E-book. Hahn Cynthia. “Seeing and Believing: The Construction of Sanctity in Early-Medieval Saints Shrines.”Speculum, 72 (4) (Oct., 1997), 1079-1106. Hahn Cynthia. “The Voices of the Saints: Speaking Reliquaries”, Gesta, 36 (1) (1997), 20-31. Hann Cynthia. “What do reliquaries do for relics?” Numen 57 (2010), 284–316. Lee, Jonathan H.X. The Impact of Buddhism on Chinese Material Culture, Book reviews, (Princeton: Princeton University Press). Miller, Patricia Cox. The Corporeal Imagination: Signifying the Holy in Late Ancient Christianity (Philadephia: Pennyslavania Univ. Press, 2009). Nees Lawrence. Early medieval Art (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2002) Stouck, Mary-Ann. Ed. A Short Reader of Medieval Saints (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009) Read More