What Do Reliquaries Do for Relics?

Hahn, Cynthia

doi:10.1163/156852710x501324

Cited by 69 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…77 And it decreased the importance of pilgrimages, especially as gift-giving (of relics) became more frequent. 78 There was in addition one further consequence of this new-found Christian tradition: financial scandal related to the sale or transfer of relics. Malfeasance has a history nearly as long as the relic trade itself, as impresarios developed alongside the growing interest in sacred bones.…”

Section: IIImentioning

confidence: 99%

Profaning the Sacred: The Unorthodox Financial Activities of Catholic Clerics During the Napoleonic Period, 1796–1814

Korten

2021

European History Quarterly

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This article reveals for the first time how Catholic clerics survived financially during the Napoleonic period in Italy (1796–1814). Despite the very rich, 200-year historiography on one of the Church's most critical periods, there is almost nothing on how religious clerics coped at this time. Their institutions had been despoiled by the French, often in collaboration with locals, negating traditional forms of clerical income, such as alms or rental income from non-ecclesiastical properties. This caused clerics to search out unorthodox – at times, non-canonical – ways of eking out a living, either for themselves, their religious communities or both, as such distinctions were often blurred. Masses were monetized and traded; ecclesiastical paraphernalia composed of precious metals were smelted and commodified, and relics were sold for profit. The uncovering of these controversial acts by men who in normal times were upstanding reveals the desperation of the times and provides insight into the rich discussion on determining the degrees of separation (and overlap) between the sacred and profane.

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Section: IIImentioning

confidence: 99%

Profaning the Sacred: The Unorthodox Financial Activities of Catholic Clerics During the Napoleonic Period, 1796–1814

Korten

2021

European History Quarterly

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“…The makers of medieval reliquaries, for example, used precious materials to enhance the power of the saints' relics they contained, by producing an intentional slippage between the materiality of the reliquary and the body of the saint which they contained. 23 However, even unadorned human remains were also valued as objects of desire, with both individuals and religious institutions wanting to see, touch and possess relics as well as collect them in ever increasing quantities. 24 Alain de Botton in his book The Architecture of Happiness, discussed the ability of buildings to have an effect on human emotions:…”

Section: Aestheticsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sources for the History of Emotions

Barclay¹,

Rosa²,

Stearns

2020

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The study of how human emotions interact with materiality is a relatively new field, despite growing out of well-established bodies of research both in material culture and the history of emotions. 1 This work attempts to carve a theoretical space at the intersection of historical emotions and materiality, in which to consider how emotions affect the material world, and how materiality defines and changes human emotions. Using material culture as a source and focus for the history of emotions, based on an understanding that both emotions and materiality are historically and culturally constituted, provides a way of looking beyond the textual sources which have previously dominated the field.The term 'material culture' is usually taken to mean the physical items that a society produces and uses for itself, including built environments and the adaptation of naturally occurring objects and places. 'Materiality' is a broader term, which includes aspects of the material world which are experienced and adapted, but not necessarily created by people.Humans also interact emotionally with phenomena that have materiality but which are neither objects nor places. Fire, for example, is material, but becomes part of material culture only as it is used deliberately, or when it impinges on the built environment or other objects. Light, similarly, is produced both artificially and naturally, and can be manipulated through building orientation and glass windows. Humans also have emotional relationships with the natural environment, ascribing it meaning within cultural and religious frameworks and reacting to it aesthetically. The study of the material world through the history of emotions is, therefore, inherently interdisciplinary, drawing on anthropology, archaeology, art history, religious studies, philosophy, museum studies and literary studies among other disciplines. Interacting emotionally with the material worldHumans respond directly to the material world in emotional ways. They may be filled with delight or awe when standing in a Gothic cathedral, be overcome with terror at the edge of a precipice, or disgust when confronted with the physical manifestations of illness. They also modify and manipulate materiality, creating objects and environments in order to express, produce and regulate emotion. They exchange love tokens as both private and public testaments of affection; build churches, mosques and temples to express religious devotion; landscape wilderness into pleasure gardens, and give flowers in celebration or leave them on graves. Some objects are not specifically created for emotional purposes but acquire emotional meaning as they are used: a child's shoe becomes a sentimental treasure, or an apotropaic talisman; the site of a massacre becomes a shrine; a brick becomes a symbol of political anger when hurled through a window in protest. Just as humans respond to materiality with emotions, so too are those emotions manifested materially. Sara Ahmed labelled this the reciprocity of objects and emotions, maintainin...

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“…Each of these cases demonstrates the idea that mundane materials used in the services take on a blessed quality. They also each suggest that the blessing of the mundane material can be passed on, in a sort of manner not unlike 'holy contagion', wherein the virtus (life energy) of a saint is passed from relics onto pilgrims as a blessing (Hahn 2010;Carroll 2016). The blessing of the liturgy, transferred into the leaves, can subsequently be transferred into the clothing, food, or body: depending on how the contagious material is used.…”

Section: Botanical Blessingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The ethics of Orthodoxy as the aesthetics of the local church

Carroll

2017

World Art

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This paper addresses the ritual aesthetics of mundane aspects within the global Eastern Orthodox Christian liturgical practice. By comparing a variety of 'local practices' within the liturgical traditions of various Orthodox Christian communities, the paper explores how commonly held ethical commitments are expressed in radically different-and at times exactly opposite-practices of quotidian religion. In this evaluation of 'little traditions' within the 'great tradition' of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, the paper focuses on the beauty, judgement, and affect of local practices and their relation within the larger canonically inscribed theology of 'correct practice' (orthopraxy). Drawing upon anthropological and sociological theory of art, aesthetics, and invention, the paper argues that aesthetics is localised ethics in practice.

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What Do Reliquaries Do for Relics?

Cited by 69 publications

References 22 publications

Profaning the Sacred: The Unorthodox Financial Activities of Catholic Clerics During the Napoleonic Period, 1796–1814

Profaning the Sacred: The Unorthodox Financial Activities of Catholic Clerics During the Napoleonic Period, 1796–1814

Sources for the History of Emotions

The ethics of Orthodoxy as the aesthetics of the local church

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