“Equal Rites”: Fragmenting and Healing Bodies in the Early Modern Bay of Kotor

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to examine the exchange of practices that developed when treating the bodies of ordinary laymen and those of saints. Body parts that had been obtained in unorthodox ways were used in private households in a manner strongly resembling the official methods of relic veneration. Conversely, the church authorities carried out repairs to damaged reliquaries by adopting an approach that mirrored the ways in which common people were healed in their homes (the application of holy images, use of votive gifts, etc.).