Exploring Relics

When I wrote my 15-book series the Crispin Guest Medieval Noir novels, one of the features of each book was the pursuit of a relic or venerated object, either one stolen or one a person was trying to acquire…by any means necessary. They became McGuffins, an object that propelled the plot that was either foremost to that plot or only tangential.

What are relics?

In the life of the Church, there are many avenues in which to open oneself to the divine. First and foremost is the Eucharistic celebration where the community comes together to “taste and see.” There are also sacramentals, objects like rosaries, candles, and bells—to name but a few—that help express a deeper association with the greatest of mysteries.

But there are also religious relics, artifacts associated with Jesus and holy people. There is a hierarchy amongst relics and a unique history to them that I liked to explore in my Crispin Guest series, objects that my sleuth Crispin—a medieval disgraced knight turned detective—reluctantly finds himself involved with.

But just what is meant when we speak of relics?

As I said, a relic is an object with ties to Jesus and the saints. A First Class relic is one that is an actual body part of a saint, like hair, bone, or blood. A Second Class relic could be an article of clothing or other object the saintly person used, like a cup or a tool. A Third Class relic is an object touched to a first class relic, such as a piece of cloth that was touched to the bone of a saint.

The idea of relic veneration—often a grisly relic at that—sometimes gives rise to derision from those both within and outside the Catholic faith when the relic seems to “replace” expressions of piety rather than “extend liturgical life.” But is it an exclusively Catholic practice?

In the Hebrew Scriptures, we see the bones of a venerated prophet enacting a miracle. According to 2 Kings 13:20-21: “Elisha died and was buried. At that time, bands of Moabites used to raid the land each year. Once, some people were burying a man, when suddenly they spied such a raiding band. So they cast the dead man into the grave of Elisha, and everyone went off. But when the man came in contact with the bones of Elisha, he came back to life and rose to his feet.”

In the New Testament, Acts 19:11-12, “So extraordinary were the mighty deeds God accomplished at the hands of Paul that when face cloths or aprons that touched his skin were applied to the sick, their diseases left them and the evil spirits came out of them.”

Elisha’s bones (First Class relics) and cloths that touched Paul’s skin (Third Class relics), seemed to perform mighty deeds and became sacred objects, objects worthy of veneration, not of themselves (though many today have a hard time with the concept), but of what they represent: God’s accomplishments.

In the Middle Ages, relics became highly prized objects to keep in any church, because if the relic were famous enough—either by virtue of the object itself, the bones of a saint, for instance, or the blood of Jesus—that church would then become a popular pilgrimage site. (In my tenth Crispin novel SEASON OF BLOOD, two Jesus blood relics were in conflict, one from Hailes Abbey (above, what’s left of it after Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries, sometimes selling off the land or sometimes destroying it as an example of the king’s power), and one from Westminster Abbey, the former one being a more visited pilgrim site.)

And if it became the case that a relic became a pilgrimage site, that church was quick to charge the pilgrims a modest fee to see the venerated object (and we see a bit of this practice in my fourth Crispin Guest book TROUBLED BONES, concerning the bones of St. Thomas Becket).

On the face of it, charging a fee made sense. First off, there were a lot more people tromping

around your church than ever before, causing dirt and disruption, and in the case of places like Canterbury, the actual wearing down of the stone steps (above) leading to the shrine is evident today, though the shrine itself was destroyed by Henry VIII’s men. The church, consequently, would need more maintenance. However, it wasn’t hard to see that such fees could be abused and used as a money-making venture, especially if that relic had dubious origins. There was much trafficking in fake relics.

Crispin’s natural inquisitive nature makes him skeptical not only of the relic’s purported power but also of its authenticity. So far, we’ve seen Crispin encounter the Mandylion, the face cloth of Christ but one that might also be the famous Veronica’s Veil; the Crown of Thorns; several blood relics; the bones of a saint; and many more.

Why are we drawn to such objects? Relics, of course, bring the faithful that much closer to God. They fascinate us by their supposed power, a power that, in the wrong hands, might prove dangerous. It’s the stuff that dreams are made on, and though Crispin might be reluctant to pursue them, he knows it’s just part of the job.

What other kinds of relics are there out there, besides a piece(s) of the true cross? Blood, severed heads, fingers, feet, and skin, including the holy foreskin! It’s all a bit gruesome to our modern sensibilities, but to the medievals, the grosser the better.