The Deepest Sense: A Cultural History of Touch

The Cult of Relics

ATouchable God 35 To many the flagellants provided something more concrete, more vital, and more ostentatiously holy than the traditional rituals of the Church.In some cases groups of flagellants actually denounced traditional Christian rites, took possession of churches, and encouraged the populace to stone priests.The flagellants’ bodies alone were now the route to salvation. When sinfulness did not convince as the cause of the plague, and penance and attacks on the Church did not seem to suffice as its cure, another cause and treatment readily suggested itself to the flagellants and their followers.The plague was said to have been started by Jews poisoning wells, and so in many towns the flagellants attacked and in some cases annihilated the Jewish community there (Tuchman 1978: 114–16). By the latter fourteenth century Church and State had had enough of these turbulent acts of piety.Public flagellation was outlawed and its leaders executed. Nonetheless, throughout the premodern period the flagellant movement would experience revivals whenever times seemed troubled. In situations where the ordinary gestures of life might well appear useless,flagellation offered its devotees a heady sense of taking matters into their own hands. The Cult of Relics The most highly valued form of religious touch was that which brought one in direct physical contact with holiness. Hence, anyone reputed to be saintly, from Bernard of Clairvaux to a zealous flagellant, was likely to be an object of devotional touch.The desiring touch of the masses, in fact, might be directed not only at reputed saints, but at any striking public figure, especially one who met with a dramatic death.This occurred in the twelfth century with the English revolutionaryWilliam Longbeard.After Longbeard was hung as a traitor, pieces of his body,his clothing,and even dirt from the foot of the gallows were collected as relics by enthusiastic Londoners (Mackay 1980: 724). It is evident from such occurrences that what led one to be considered a source of supernatural power was not necessarily an exemplary religiosity, but the impact one’s reputation, acts, and death made on the popular imagination.The Church, however, only enshrined and fostered devotion to the relics of the officially holy. From the medieval point of view, a dead saint was in some ways even better than a living saint.Death was believed to intensify,as well as put the final dramatic seal on,a person’s sanctity.Furthermore,a dead body could be a material artifact in a way a living body could not. Living saints often tired of being touched and sometimes tried to avoid contact with the public.The bodily remains of a saint, by contrast, could be counted on to always be on hand. As material artifacts, Classen_Text.indd 35 3/15/12 2:48 PM 36 chapter two saintly relics could furthermore be bought and sold, making them highly valuable possessions. The cult of saintly relics was enormously popular in the Middle Ages. Cathedrals and monasteries vied with each other over the size and importance of their relic collections—and occasionally even stole relics from each other (Geary 1990). In some cases several churches claimed to possess the relics of the same saint. Mistaken documentation or outright counterfeiting was responsible for some of this duplication. Otherwise, it might be due to the practice of dividing the bodies of important saints into numerous pieces for greater spiritual and monetary gain. Hence, a number of skull-shaped reliquaries could each contain a piece of the same saintly skull with the result that several churches could claim to possess that saint’s head (Finucane 1995: 29). The enormous attention paid to relics makes it clear that they were the most potent objects possessed by the medieval Church. In an age in which tangible signs meant more to most people than written texts, relics provided an essential material link to the power of the Divine. An oath sworn on relics, in fact, was often seen as more binding than one sworn on the Bible or a missal (book of service), for breaking such an oath meant incurring the wrath of the saint whose bones had thus been offended (25–26).WhenWilliam the Conqueror wanted to ensure the allegiance of Harold, earl of Wessex, he had him swear with his hand on a missal open at a passage from one of the Evangelists.After the oath had been sworn,William removed the missal and the cloth on which it lay to reveal a chest full...