Mobile Saints: Relic Circulation, Devotion, and Conflict in the Central Middle Ages 0367705613, 9780367705619

Citation preview

Mobile Saints

Mobile Saints examines the central medieval (ca. 950–1150 CE) practice of removing saints’ relics from rural monasteries in order to take them on out-and-back journeys, particularly within northern France and the Low Countries. Though the permanent displacements of relics—translations— have long been understood as politically and culturally signifcant activities, these temporary circulations have received relatively little attention. Yet the act of taking a medieval relic from its “home,” even for a short time, had the power to transform the object, the people it encountered, and the landscape it traveled through. Using hagiographical and liturgical texts, this study reveals both the opportunities and tensions associated with these movements: circulating relics extended the power of the saint into the wider world, but could also provoke public displays of competition, mockery, and resistance. By contextualizing these effects within the discourses and practices that surrounded traveling relics, Mobile Saints emphasizes the complexities of the central medieval cult of relics and its participants, while speaking to broader questions about the role of movement in negotiating the relationships between sacred objects, space, and people. Kate M. Craig is an Assistant Professor at Auburn University, USA. She is a former Fulbright Scholar.

Studies in Medieval History and Culture Recent titles include

The Triumph of an Accursed Lineage Kingship in Castile from Alfonso X to Alfonso XI (1252–1350) Fernando Arias Guillén Franks and Lombards in Italian Carolingian Texts Memories of the Vanquished Luigi Andrea Berto The Bible and Jews in Medieval Spain Norman Roth The Cursed Carolers in Context Edited by Lynneth Miller Renberg and Bradley Phillis Women in the Medieval Common Law c.1200–1500 Gwen Seabourne Jews and Converts in Late Medieval Castile Breaking with the Past Cecil D. Reid Mobile Saints Relic Circulation, Devotion, and Confict in the Central Middle Ages Kate M. Craig Monetisation and Commercialisation in the Baltic Sea, 1050–1450 Edited by Dariusz Adamczyk and Beata Możejko

For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.com/ Studies-in-Medieval-History-and-Culture/book-series/SMHC

Mobile Saints Relic Circulation, Devotion, and Confict in the Central Middle Ages Kate M. Craig

First published 2021 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2021 Kate M. Craig The right of Kate M. Craig to be identifed as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identifcation and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Craig, Kate M., author. Title: Mobile saints : relic circulation, devotion, and confict in the central Middle Ages / Kate M. Craig. Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York : Routledge, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Subjects: LCSH: Christian saints—Cult—Europe. | Relics—Europe. | Rites and ceremonies, Medieval. | Liminality—Europe—Religious aspects—Christianity. Classifcation: LCC BX2333 .C73 2021 (print) | LCC BX2333 (ebook) | DDC 235/.2—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020049843 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020049844 ISBN: 978-0-367-70561-9 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-367-70563-3 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-14694-0 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by codeMantra

For my mother, Helen

Contents

List of illustrations Acknowledgments List of abbreviations Introduction

ix xi xv 1

PART ONE

Departures

25

1

The effects of forced relic movement

27

2

Liturgical frameworks for relic circulation

52

PART TWO

En route

79

3

Relics and their companions as travelers

81

4

Traveling relics and ecclesiastical competition

113

5

Lay responses to traveling relics

137

PART THREE

Afterlives

159

6

Relic circulation and the landscape

161

Conclusion

183

Bibliography Index

187 203

Illustrations

Figures 3.1 3.2 3.3

3.4

St. Cuthbert’s relics carried through the sea to Lindisfarne. Oxford, University College ms. 165, fol. 82r. Image © The Master and Fellows of University College Oxford The funeral of St. Amandus at Elnone. Valenciennes, Bibliothèque municipale ms. 502, fol. 30v. Image © Médiathèque Simone Veil de Valenciennes The transportation of the Ark of the Covenant accompanying Psalm 131 in the Eadwine Psalter. Cambridge, Trinity College ms. R.17.1, fol. 237r. Image © The Master and Fellows of Trinity College Cambridge The translation of the relics of St. Stephen on a historiated capital at Lubersac, Eglise Saint-Gervais. Image © Centre d’études supérieures de civilisation médiévale (CESCM), Photothèque du CESCM, 1957

84 84

85

86

Maps I.1 I.2 I.3

Known stops and routes for the 1066 and 1107 journeys of St. Amandus’ relics from Elnone. Map by David H. Holt Houses which circulated their relics, 900–1200. Map by David H. Holt Known stops and routes for the groups traveling from StWinnoc with the relics of St. Lewinna (1058), from Lobbes with the relics of St. Ursmar (1060), from Elnone with the relics of St. Amandus (1066 and 1107), from Corbeny with the relics of St. Marculf (1102), from Laon with the relics of the Virgin Mary (1112 and 1113), and from Gigny with the relics of St. Taurinus (1158). Map by David H. Holt

2 9

12

Tables 2.1 2.2 2.3

The Palm Sunday procession in the Liber tramitis Entry processions for kings, queens, bishops, and abbots in the Liber tramitis Ascension Day relic processions at Fruttuaria and Canterbury

59 61 68

Acknowledgments

The publication of this book is a milestone in my life. To look back on the process by which it has come into being is to look back on years of work, transition, and growth. Through all the successes and struggles on the way, there has been one constant: the support and encouragement of many dear mentors, friends, and colleagues. My frst and warmest thanks belong to Patrick J. Geary and Teoflo F. Ruiz. Many years ago, they read a graduate school application from a young woman with a B.S. in applied physics, no languages, and only the vaguest idea of what it meant to be a medieval historian. They took a chance on me then, and they have been my tireless advocates ever since. They have shown me not only what it means to be a medievalist, but what it means to be a public scholar, an advisor, and a teacher. Every letter of recommendation I write for a bright, hopeful young person is written in their honor. My thanks, too, to Mary and Scarlett, for their kindness, encouragement, and advice when the road seemed long and dark. This project began at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), within the community of medievalists created and maintained by the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (CMRS). I thank UCLA and the CMRS for their generous fnancial support throughout my doctoral program, as well as my fellow graduate students who helped me along the way, particularly Elizabeth Comuzzi, Leanne Good, Alma Heckman, Maya Maskarinec, Laura Morgan, Dana Polanichka, Kathryn Renton, and Ned Schoolman. But I would not have made it through without Kristina Markman, who from the frst day of our frst year at UCLA together has been the voice assuring me that we could do it. My time in France with the Fulbright program in 2011–2012 was essential for completing the initial stages of the research presented in this book, and I am grateful to all those who work for the Fulbright and those who defend it. I thank Jean-Claude Schmitt and the faculty and students of GAHOM (EHESS) for welcoming me into their group that year, and my fellow Fulbrighters for their camaraderie, especially Elizabeth Bond, David Calder, Julia Doe, Molly Giblin, Lauren Mancia, Jill Rogers, and my very dear friend Maeve Doyle, without whom this book would not exist.

xii Acknowledgments I have also benefted greatly from the assistance of two other centers for medieval studies: the Centre d’études supérieures de civilisation médiévale at the Université de Poitiers and the Marco Institute for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. The CESCM welcomed me both in 2012 as a member of the Semaines d’études and when I returned in 2017 to work in their libraries, and the Marco Institute supported me with a Lindsay Young Visiting Faculty Fellowship in 2018. It was a delight to work alongside the scholars in both places, and thank you particularly to Edina Bózoky, Vincent Debiais, Eric Palazzo, and Cécile Treffort at Poitiers and Matthew Gillis, Gregor Kalas, Katie Hodges-Kluck, Bradley Phillis, and Sara Ritchey at Knoxville. And special thanks are due to Lauren Whitnah, whose advice and friendship have been a great gift. I feel extremely fortunate to have become a member of the Auburn University Department of History, where the support of my colleagues has been instrumental in seeing this book through to completion. Thank you to the original members of the cul-de-sac, Melissa Blair, Sarah Hamilton, Kelly Kennington, Eden McLean, Alan Meyer, and Mark Sheftall, for their encouragement during my frst year here and in all the years since. My warmest thanks are also due to Donna Bohanan, Christopher Ferguson, and Matt Malczycki for their guidance and advice, and to the members of the writing group that helped me revise several chapters: Xaq Frohlich, Elijah Gaddis, Heidi Hausse, and Daren Ray. In the department and elsewhere at Auburn, I have been deeply grateful for the friendship of Chase Bringardner, David Carter, Julia Charles, Emily Friedman, Leigh Gruwell, Jason Hauser, Ashley Ludwig, Austin McCoy, Asha Pogge, and Diana Sisson. I thank the College of Liberal Arts for the fnancial support they provided to this project in the form of a New Faculty Leave and a New Faculty Summer Research Grant. Thank you to the dear friends and medievalists at other institutions who have supported and advised me throughout this process, especially Esther Liberman Cuenca, Courtney Luckhardt, and Sarah Luginbill. Their friendship, encouragement, and help have meant the world. Isabelle Cochelin, John Howe, Dominique Iogna-Prat, and Steven Vanderputten kindly gave advice on certain questions, and the members of the Huntington Medieval Seminar offered me an amicable and collegial environment to work out my ideas in their earliest stages. And of course, I would never have become a medieval historian in the frst place without the inspiration and encouragement of Warren Brown at Caltech. My thanks, too, to Michael Greenwood, the editorial board, and the rest of the team at Routledge for their hard work and willingness to bring this book to publication. I am indebted to the many librarians and archivists who have helped me fnd materials over the years, and those who have kindly given me permission to use the images in this book: the Master and Fellows of Trinity College Cambridge, the Master and Fellows of University College Oxford, the Médiathèque Simone Veil at Valenciennes, and the Photothèque

Acknowledgments

xiii

at the CESCM. I am especially thankful for David Holt at the University of Southern Mississippi, who swooped in at the ninth hour to produce the maps for this book. My sincere thanks to the two anonymous reviewers, and to Cecilia Gaposchkin and Anne Lester, for their thorough and insightful comments which helped improve the book immensely. Finally, my heartfelt love and thanks to Peter Haderlein and Adrianne Jackson, the best friends anyone could hope to have, and to my wonderful and supportive family: my sister Anna, my brother Mark, and my mother Helen, to whom this book is dedicated. All errors are my own.

Abbreviations

AASS AASSOSB BHL BM BNF CC CCCM CCH Brussels CCH Paris CCM KBR MGH SS MGH SS rer. Merov. PL

Acta sanctorum quotquot toto orbe coluntur, 69 vols. Acta sanctorum ordinis sancti Benedict Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina Bibliothèque municipale Bibliothèque nationale de France Corpus Christianorum Corpus Christianorum, Continuatio Medievalis Catalogus codicum hagiographicorum… Bibliothecae regiae Bruxellensis Catalogus codicum hagiographicorum… Bibliotheca nationali Parisiensi Corpus consuetudinum monasticarum Koninklijke Bibliotheek—Bibliothèque Royale Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum Patrologia cursus completus, series Latina, ed. J.P.-Migne

Introduction

Around 664, the missionary-saint Amandus created a document that might be considered his will, a fnal request, or a threat. When he had frst started his ecclesiastical career, he had hoped that “the Lord would permit his whole life to spent in pilgrimage.”1 This wish had been granted, and he had spent decades traveling, preaching, and founding monasteries.2 Despite this professional itineracy, however, his fnal demand was for immobility. Nearing the end of his life, he returned to one of his foundations, the monastery of Elnone on the banks of the Escaut (St-Amand-les-Eaux, dép. Nord). In the text now known as his testament, he insisted that his body should remain there forever, and he damned anyone who might try to remove it: …if God has decided that I leave this world in this place, I ask and I dare to demand, in the presence of Jesus Christ son of God, that none of the bishops or abbots or laymen, or any other power oppose this, so that in that same monastery, which I said above is Elnone, my little body may rest among the brothers, to whom I now commend both body and spirit… If anyone indeed will want to contradict this, or to carry off my body from this monastery by force, or to contest [it] with an audacious spirit, frst let him incur the offense of the holy Trinity and let him appear excommunicated from all catholic churches, and let him be made a foreigner to the society of the saints, and let him suffer the damnation which Dathan and Abiron suffered, whom hell devoured alive, and let him be anathema, maranatha, which means perdition at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. And let him lack the power to change my desire, but let my stipulation remain frm and inviolate forever…3 This ferce command, sealed with curses borrowed from contemporary charters, suggests that Amandus knew before his death that he would be venerated as a saint and thus that his physical remains would be considered relics: holy, powerful, and highly desirable objects within the medieval world. The testament was created to thwart any rival claims to Amandus’ relics by explicitly prohibiting their relocation—that is, preventing them from being taken away from Elnone and “translated” to a new place. Clearly

2

Introduction

such a document served the interests of Elnone, which of course casts some doubt on whether the testament was authentically composed by Amandus himself or forged later.4 Yet whether or not Amandus was its true author, the testament expressed a strong anxiety that the relics of saints like Amandus were highly susceptible to being moved by the powerful. Four centuries after Amandus’ death, his relics were indeed taken away from Elnone, but under very different circumstances and with very different motives than those imagined and feared by the testament.5 It would be the brothers of Elnone themselves, not encroaching bishops or abbots, who would take Amandus’ body away from its resting place. On February 11, 1066, the entire monastery complex at Elnone burned to the ground in a disastrous fre. In response, the monks carried Amandus’ relics on a circular journey of more than 175 miles, leaving on June 7. They visited the cities of Laon, Noyon, and Douai as well as local churches and properties which belonged to the monastery, before returning on July 4. And Amandus’ posthumous travels were not over; 41 years later in 1107, the monks would take his relics on a second journey, this time heading north through Tournai, Geraardsbergen, and Ghent (Map I.1).

Map I.1 Known stops and routes for the 1066 and 1107 journeys of St. Amandus’ relics from Elnone. Map by David H. Holt.

Introduction

3

By the central Middle Ages, roughly 950–1150 CE, the cult of saints and the veneration of relics were longstanding features of belief and practice throughout the Christian world, and the portability of relics had been central to that success.6 The translation of relics had begun during the earliest days of the development of saints’ cults, exemplifed by Ambrose of Milan’s acquisition and importation of the bodies of Gervasius and Protasius in the fourth century.7 Without this initial revolution in relic portability, Peter Brown speculated, “the holy might have been permanently localized in a few privileged areas.”8 Instead, relic translation transformed the relationships between the cult of saints and geographical place, enabling their social and cultural prominence throughout the medieval Christian world. The large-scale relic-moving programs of the early Middle Ages relied on the idea that the translation of relics could also symbolically transfer broad cultural ideas of authority, legitimacy, and empire: thus, relics were actively imported into early medieval Rome, exported from Rome to Carolingian Francia, and sent into conquered Saxon territory.9 Acquiring relics brought the distant near, making possessable objects into place-signifers.10 Yet the two trips of Amandus’ relics in 1066 and 1107 were not translations, but a new and more fuid form of relic movement. Beginning in the mid-tenth century, rural monasteries and some collegiate churches, particularly in what is today France and the Low Countries, increasingly engaged in removing their relics and circulating them on a temporary basis. In some respects, these events resembled translations—as with a translation, the bond between the relics and their resting places was broken and reestablished.11 Yet unlike translations, they did not have the goal of permanent relocation; departure and travel were matched with the expectation of return. Rather than ftting neatly into earlier, established patterns of relic movement, relic journeys turned the saints into posthumous pilgrims, leaving “home” in order to travel through the outside world. In this book, I argue that by transforming relics temporarily into liminal objects, relic circulation created situations that placed stress on the social and cultural tensions inherent in the medieval cult of relics, and in so doing, created opportunities for both devotion and confict. Relics lay at the heart of many central medieval “webs of signifcance”—not only were they perceived as focal points for the supernatural power of the saint to heal or harm the living, they could also embody the economic, spiritual, and legal authority of the religious institution (whether monastery or cathedral chapter) that curated that saint’s cult. By connecting the material to the immaterial, relics linked the living to the dead, the earthly to the heavenly, and the sacred to the secular. As a result, different groups—the monks or canons themselves, bishops, other religious fgures, powerful secular families, and communities of laypeople—all brought their own interests and ideas to the spaces surrounding these objects. To move a relic was to trigger conversations about the saint as a powerful presence on earth, their relics as a

4

Introduction

material locus of that presence, and the relationship of the saint/relics to the groups organizing and engaging with their movement. This book is about those conversations. The claims and counterclaims regarding traveling relics’ identities, meanings, and value demonstrate once again that the central medieval cult of saints was fundamentally multivocal and negotiated, even in its most universal aspects. By focusing on these effects of movement rather than its goals, I am proposing that the signifcance of a relic journey transcended its justifcations. My interest lies in the consequences, not the causes, of travel. The houses that sent their relics out did so for a number of reasons: to attend peace councils and church dedications, to intimidate or negotiate with lay opponents, or simply to collect donations.12 Yet as recent scholarship on modern pilgrimage has emphasized, the impulse to categorize travel based solely on its stated motivations reduces its complexities to simplistic and morally infected comparisons: for example, the false dichotomy between “frivolous, materialistic tourists” and “serious, ascetic ethnographers and pilgrims.”13 Premodern travel was multifaceted, and the travel of a relic encompassed more than a line on a map from point A to point B.14 Regardless of the rationales for that movement, relic circulation opened up multiple spaces of interpretation: a result that Kathleen Ashley and Pamela Sheingorn called “the possibilities of procession” in their study of the travels of St. Faith’s reliquary at Conques.15 These potential effects were open-ended: whether a relic was being moved hundreds of miles or hundreds of feet, that travel could introduce the saint to new and appreciative audiences, provide opportunities for miracles, or inscribe their power onto the landscape, but it could also expose them to apathy, mockery, or competition. They might also be disruptive: relic travel could infame old friendships and rivalries, provoke contests over power and authority, or incite intense expressions of both veneration and resistance. Thus, the story of central medieval relic circulation I wish to tell is fundamentally one of experimentation and variation.

Relics as mobile objects Understanding the ways in which the circular movement of relics opened these possibilities requires appreciating relics as objects that had long been contested and constructed in ways that made their transportation signifcant.16 The implications of moving relics ultimately stemmed from ideas, often conficting ones, about the relationship between the saint, the material objects of relics themselves, and geographical place. These connections dated back to the earliest theological developments around the supernatural character of relics as objects. Robert Wiśniewski has attributed the initial development of beliefs in the divinatory and thaumaturgical properties of martyrs’ bodies to the attraction of the buildings constructed as their mausoleums, beginning in the mid-fourth century. The martyria drew people in,

Introduction

5

providing both potential candidates for miracles and audiences to witness them.17 The places, in a sense, initially created the relics, or at least the impression that the bodies of the martyrs might contain special power. The development of translation practices across the fourth century sparked increased confict over questions about the physical locations of relics, their movement, and the presence and power of the saint. What did the exhumation and movement of martyrs’ bodies accomplish, and was the power of the saint something that could be gained, lost, or concentrated by the physical presence of their relics? The fourth-century Gallic bishop of Rouen, Victricius, famously argued for the saints’ omnipresence regardless of the exact location of their relics. Addressing the saints whose relics he translated to Rouen, he apologized for being late to their adventus, writing that he knew that they were in all places at once.18 Yet Victricius was also an eager collector of relic fragments, and promoted the argument that the saints’ power was just as strong in a particle of their bodies as in the undivided whole.19 Though sometimes taken as a representative work, Victricius’ sermon should be read as the controversial argument it was rather than a statement of shared ecclesiastical beliefs.20 Some sense of those contemporary theological disagreements was preserved in the work of Victricius’ Gallic colleague, Vigilantus, known only through Jerome’s hostile critique. Vigilantus expressed disgust at the idea that the souls of saints were somehow attached to their mortal remains, such that the location of their relics restricted where the saints “were” on earth.21 Vigilantus’ arguments had little theological traction in the long term, but his comments struck at the heart of one of the issues inherent in moving a relic: the action itself presupposed that some part of the saint’s powers and presence were linked to the object, which would deny that power to the place being abandoned and bestow it on the new location. In this sense, the movement of a relic was an embodied argument for the spatial limitation of the saint’s power. Jerome had acknowledged this problem in his response, insisting that since it was unimaginable that the saints could be locked up in altars, they must not be physically constrained by the location of their relics.22 These issues could not be fully laid to rest because of the fundamental contradiction between the theological omnipresence of the saints and the ongoing medieval conviction that “matter carries presence.”23 Relics were both locatable objects and non-locatable subjects, and relic movement inherently challenged the balance between those identities.24 These theological concerns about the implications of relic movement were generally overshadowed by the practical utility of acquiring, gifting, and translating relics for rulers and other elites.25 As noted above, translations had long been used to communicate ideas of authority and legitimacy, because relics were both powerful objects and markers of power.26 And to be sure, translations certainly continued to be performed alongside the relic circulations discussed in this book. Yet by the central Middle Ages, for many monasteries it was the geographical stability of their relics (and

6

Introduction

thus, their saints) that was the key to their cultural power. While some relics (e.g., rocks chipped from the Holy Sepulcher) continued to be prized and curated for their identities as place-signifers, monastic patron saints such as Amandus were perceived to be geographically “centered” on their relics, defning a vague territory of protection and infuence often referred to as the limina sancti.27 What made the new culture of relic mobility powerful was the contrast it provided to the intensive investment in the framing of relics “at home.” Almost all of the relics discussed in this book were, like those of Amandus at Elnone, kept in rural Benedictine monasteries. These houses devoted signifcant time and energy to developing the cults of their saints through the production of hagiographical texts, image programs, and architecture.28 Relics were carefully embedded in a series of controlled spaces, designed to guide the experiences of devotees: a relic was surrounded and shielded frst by its reliquary, which might also contain documents of authentication and other relics as well as exterior decoration and inscription; by its placement within a larger architectural context in a shrine, on an altar, within a side chapel, alongside other reliquaries, or on columns; and by the human curators who controlled access to these spaces and produced or collected stories and texts about it.29 These nested frames were carefully erected not only to shield relics from doubt and critique, but also to encourage particular modes of viewing, interacting with, and thinking about them.30 They were physical, oral, and textual arguments rather than passive refections of the uncontested status of all relics, and they were designed to control the spatial and spiritual experiences of these objects.

Economic and moral visions of relic circulation Given this intense interest in contextualizing relics for their viewers and guiding or limiting access to them, it is surprising that so many central medieval monasteries (and some cathedrals) would choose to remove their relics from those contexts and send them out into the world. Our sense of the importance of relic stability, and the hazards of relic travel, is perhaps why many studies of relic circulation have focused on what these events were “for”—that is, to explain what goals were compelling enough to induce houses to send their treasures out into the world. The frst major study addressing the circulation of relics as a distinct practice is the pair of now-classic articles written by Pierre Héliot and Marie-Laure Chastang. They framed central medieval relic journeys as the beginnings of a longstanding practice of circular fundraising trips (with or without relics) to collect donations, particularly after the destruction of important buildings by fre.31 The 1066 journey of Amandus’ relics, for example, was included in their extensive lists of sources (continuing to the ffteenth century), demonstrating the use of relic movement as a tactic to appeal for funds in extraordinary circumstances.

Introduction

7

Other early studies, too, highlighted the connections between central medieval relic displacement and the economic interests of the monasteries that held them. In 1932, Baudoin de Gaiffer portrayed relic movement as a weapon of monastic aggression, wielded through the practice of bringing relics to disputed properties in order to intimidate (and sometimes injure or kill) counterclaimants. Amandus’ second journey in 1107, in fact, had property “defense,” not fundraising, as its stated motivation: “most evil men” had supposedly threatened Elnone’s landholdings to the north.32 These actions rested on the expectation, as articulated by monastic authors, that the presence of the saints in the form of their relics would act as a brake on undesirable lay activities, whether those activities involved the loss of lives or the loss of ecclesiastical property.33 As a result, central medieval relic movement was interpreted as both a sign of and a reaction to a violent and lawless feudal world. This older vision of relic journeys and combative hagiographical production as a solution to the disappearance of secular justice was explicitly outlined by de Gaiffer: If we now transport ourselves to the eleventh century… and we look for the guarantees that the Church still has to protect its possessions, we realize that all have disappeared, except the spiritual guarantees; that is, the protection of the saints and their effcacious intervention… it is not surprising that the monks, stripped of all other protection, abused hagiographical literature to support their lesser known rights, to reclaim their confscated property, to establish the justice of their cause, and to show that the saint, sooner or later, exerted resounding vengeance on those bold enough to pillage their possessions.34 The impression of chaotic feudal anarchy evoked by de Gaiffer has been largely dismantled, and the image of ecclesiastical desperation in the face of lay encroachment has been generally recognized as a conscious narrative strategy rather than a statement of fact.35 Yet here we encounter another interpretation of relic circulation as a kind of necessary abuse—economically motivated, but also morally ambiguous—that speaks to an uncertainty about how to interpret a monastery’s willingness to put its saints on the road. This uncertainty deserves attention because it has deep roots. Analyses of relic circulation have long been connected to moral critiques, tied to an uneasiness with the economic aspects of the cult of saints that dates back to the medieval period. The association of relic touring and display with the sin of greed was well-developed by the late Middle Ages; Chaucer’s scandalous Pardoner, traveling with his dubiously sourced relics and the indulgences to match, is only the most famous example.36 Reformation thinkers and writers developed and cemented the polemic that relics were circulated by those seeking only to proft from them. Calvin began his treatise on relics with the claim that since Augustine’s time, there had been dishonest men “carrying

8

Introduction

here and there the relics of the martyrs” for fnancial gain, associating the untrustworthiness of relics with their mobility.37 These scathing late medieval and early modern critiques, which in the case of relics often harmonize well with the skepticism of modern secularism, cast a long shadow backwards. In reading eleventh-century descriptions of relics being displayed before a crowd while a preacher encourages generosity in the name of the saint, it can be hard not to hear Luther hammering at the Wittenberg door. These inheritances continue to infect our impressions of relic circulation. Even Héliot and Chastang drew a moral distinction between the actions of the monks of Elnone and late medieval relic quêteurs, framing these journeys as a history of debasement over time. This was a question of motivations: for Héliot and Chastang, what began as a justifable emergency measure, performed by rural monasteries on their own behalf, became over time a cynically exploited cash cow carried out on behalf of cathedrals who hired lay professionals: As with all the works of humankind, the institution suffered deeply from the bite of time. It gradually lost its original appearances as a pious enterprise… to take on those of a vulgar affair of money. One sees it well when professional quêteurs were substituted for the interested religious and when laymen were preferred to clerics.38 There was indeed a momentous change in relic culture after 1204 as relics fooded into the Latin West from looted Constantinople, and the sources regarding relic circulation do shift away from monastic hagiography after about 1150.39 Yet my approach in this book, to assemble central medieval sources regarding relic circulation regardless of the justifcations for that movement, also has the effect of sidelining to some extent these overarching and fattening moral frameworks. Those who engaged with relics did not all share the same ideas about these objects, their movement, or the essential morality of their curators, and my hope is that this book partially recovers those complex and at times conficting perspectives. By setting aside questions of whether relic movement was primarily a tool of violence or peace, of need or greed, I return instead to questions about the nature of relics as cultural and material objects, the movement of which was never neutral or disconnected from contemporary concerns.

The sources and their complications I am not the frst to notice that by the central Middle Ages, relics were being circulated at a remarkable level.40 The explosion of relic mobility after the mid-tenth century seems best explained by the fact that relic movement inspired and justifed further relic movement. Forced relic translations in response to ninth-century Viking attacks dislodged some relics in ways that enabled later displacements, as I suggest in Chapter 1. The initial inspiration

Introduction  9 to move relics to assert legal claims may have followed larger networks of association and communication; the Columbanian monasteries of Bobbio (northern Italy) and Luxeuil (dépt. Haute-Saône) were some of the first to take their relics on the road for this purpose in the mid-tenth century.41 The regional gatherings of relics associated with the Peace of God, church dedications, and other local traditions of relic assemblies were also responsible for pulling multiple relics out of their homes at once, as when 26 different saints’ relics were brought to the dedication of the church of Hasnon (dépt. Nord) in 1070; documentation of these kinds of events is why we can see local “clusters” of mobile relics (Map I.2).42 It is also not coincidental that the geographical spread of houses known to have moved their relics somewhat overlaps with the distribution of Peace of God meetings; relics in southern France like those of St. Faith at Conques (dépt. Aveyron) and St. Marius at

Map I.2  Houses which circulated their relics, 900–1200.  Map by David H. Holt.

10

Introduction

Mauriac (dépt. Cantal) not only attended at least one Peace of God assembly but circulated on numerous other occasions. The chain effect of relic movement is even made explicit in some texts, as when the prior Andreas of Corbeny (dépt. Aisne) cited relic journeys performed by St-Quentin and St-Martin of Tours as precedent when he was seeking permission to take the relics of St. Marculf on the road to raise funds in 1102.43 Finally, trade routes provided the practical logistics for some very long-distance movements, as when the canons of Laon traveled alongside merchants to bring their relics to England. In this, there is no single reason that explains why many different houses, in some cases far removed from one another, decided it was advisable to circulate their relics in some circumstances, but they seem to have drawn inspiration and a sense of permissibility from one another. I do not treat Ireland in this book; as Karen Overbey has shown in her extensive study, the circulation of Irish sacred objects followed different patterns and expectations than those discussed here—there, “relics were seen (and understood) primarily in motion.”44 It is worth noting however that the apparent concentration of relicmoving houses in northern France and the Low Countries may also be an effect of the preservation of hagiographical sources in the Acta Sanctorum through the work of the Société des Bollandistes, based in Belgium since the seventeenth century. Though I have attempted to understand the effects of relic circulation in broad terms, many of my sources are known only through early modern editions in the absence of extant manuscripts, and even then the evidence is highly fragmentary; there are doubtless many additional examples of out-and-back relic displacements that deserve future study and that I do not discuss. However, this irregularity is also the result of several special complications involved in studying central medieval relic circulation as a phenomenon through textual sources. In the frst place, there is no genre or model that could defne an internal corpus of sources. Unlike translationes, which became a separate hagiographical genre in which authors often copied one another, there was no conscious effort to produce self-standing delationes. In fact, there was no consistent medieval terminology for circular relic movement at all; delatio is one term among many, including (confusingly) translatio, which might be used to label these kinds of events: relatio, illatio, circumvectio, triumphus, peregrinatio, and transmigratio all make appearances.45 But more frequently, relic movements were not assigned any particular labels; the passive voice is often used to narrativize these events, as when the people living at a distance from Hautmont petitioned “that the relics of the martyr [Marcellus] might be carried to them.”46 In addition to this heterogeneity, there was an ongoing ambivalence about the act of moving relics outside of a translation—would a truly powerful saint’s relics travel, and under what circumstances?—as I discuss in Chapters 1 and 5. This meant that there were reasons not to produce texts that celebrated, highlighted, or even mentioned these events. This was again a

Introduction

11

contrast to the production of texts describing relic translations or elevations; the curators of a relic that had been just translated or “discovered” had a clear interest in producing texts to tell the story of how and why the relic had come to them, to establish both the legitimacy and authenticity of the new acquisition.47 In the cases where relics had supposedly been stolen from their previous location, a translation text also served to morally justify that action and to assert that the theft had only happened because the saint had permitted it.48 For a circular journey, no comparable interest in producing written documentation existed beyond a general inclination to account for the saint’s miracles. Some relic journeys that are mentioned in other texts (as with the journeys performed by St-Quentin and St-Martin of Tours, cited by Andreas) do not have extant descriptions; it is impossible to know if texts were produced and then lost or if there was simply no interest in documenting these events. This is why monastic customaries, which were concerned with the logistics of the formal processions performed for the exits and entries of relics, offer important non-narrative evidence toward the frequency and liturgical framing of these events; they are the subject of Chapter 2. Finally, the nature of the documentation regarding relic journeys emphasizes the complex relationships between the lived experiences of relics and the written record. The texts created about encounters with relics were not passive refections of events, but rather active agents in the creation of relics’ signifcance and the maintenance of the environments surrounding them— part of what Robyn Malo calls “relic discourse.”49 Although occasionally charters and chronicles make mention of traveling relics, the majority of the sources that describe central medieval relic journeys are the hagiographical texts that report miracles performed by the saint in the course of the relics’ movement. Because representatives of the monastery generally traveled along with their relics, the accounts of the events of a relic’s journey relied on internally developed narratives about these travel experiences rather than collecting the stories of others.50 Thus, descriptions of relic journeys combine the interpretive diffculties of hagiography with those of travel literature. Not only are they written by the privileged, those with a “relic’s-eye view” of the journey, but they also record a version of events as interpreted by the travelers rather than those they encountered.51 Yet these texts are not travelogues in the modern sense; though at times it is clear that a hagiographer was a participant in the journey, in general the authors were often uninterested in describing the act of travel itself except when it could serve to demonstrate the saint’s power. Often, these texts offer only incidental evidence regarding the organization and details of a journey; where one author might mention a trip in passing as the context for one miracle, others developed the travels of a relic as part of a larger theme across a broader collection of miracles. Only in a very few cases did hagiographers embrace a journey as the narrative frame for the miracles and discuss the process of justifying, planning, and executing the relics’ travel.

12

Introduction

Contexts of production: the eight “classic” relic journeys This is why eight particular relic journeys are especially important for this study: not because of the time or distance covered, but because the texts produced about them give a more consciously holistic image of these circular movements. These eight trips spanned the mid-eleventh to the mid-twelfth century: they are the journeys of the relics of St. Lewinna (from the monastery of St-Winnoc, 1058); St. Ursmar (Lobbes, 1060); St. Amandus (Elnone, 1066 and 1107); St. Marculf (Corbeny, 1102); two journeys of a collection of relics, including Marian objects, held by the cathedral chapter of Laon (1112 and 1113); and of St. Taurinus (Gigny, 1158) (Map I.3). It was PierreAndré Sigal who frst treated these journeys and the associated texts as a coherent grouping, despite the fact that they have no textual connections to each other.52 Although they did not draw on each other, the accounts of these journeys are broadly similar in format; they begin by introducing the

Map I.3 Known stops and routes for the groups traveling from St-Winnoc with the relics of St. Lewinna (1058), from Lobbes with the relics of St. Ursmar (1060), from Elnone with the relics of St. Amandus (1066 and 1107), from Corbeny with the relics of St. Marculf (1102), from Laon with the relics of the Virgin Mary (1112 and 1113), and from Gigny with the relics of St. Taurinus (1158). Map by David H. Holt.

Introduction

13

rationales and preparations for moving the relics, then proceed to tell the story of the journey as a series of miracles performed at various stops— implying that they are arranged in the order in which they occurred (that is to say, chronologically) in the course of the journey. Some include information like the dates of departure and return, and Sigal’s interest in these texts lay particularly in analyzing these logistical details to understand the nature of this kind of travel.53 It is worth taking the time to briefy review these texts individually, in part because they offer extensive and sustained descriptions of relic journeys and will be referenced throughout this book, and in part because they represent the contexts of production of many of the other hagiographical sources discussed in this book: produced in-house in order to promote the saint’s cult, sometimes by a participant in the journey, generally shortly after the events described, with very limited manuscript circulation. The journeys of the cathedral chapter of Laon are the major exceptions, as discussed below. Though I bring these accounts into conversation with many other texts throughout this book, it is important to note from the outset their contexts of production as a way to bookmark their differences, and to show a fuller picture of the circumstances that led to their creation, circulation, and preservation. First, the textualization of the journey of Lewinna’s relics was linked to the relics’ recent translation to St-Winnoc. In 1058, the monastery had acquired these relics by theft from southern England and immediately toured them through Flanders. Both the translation and the journey were reported in a single work, the Historia translationis sanctae Lewinnae, written within a decade of these events by Drogo of St-Winnoc, a monk of the house.54 The description of the journey, then, was intended to be read as a companion piece to the translation, establishing Lewinna’s ability to perform miracles in her new home and creating a local cult ex nihilo. Although this suggests that the monks of St-Winnoc hoped to develop Lewinna into a major regional saint, David Defries has argued that this was not the case, since Winnoc himself was the primary patron of the house. The monks were more interested in developing Lewinna’s cult into a draw for local pilgrims than creating a potential competitor for Winnoc. Acquiring and circulating her relics was just one aspect of a larger project of developing a cohesive identity for St-Winnoc, as part of a campaign to distance itself from the authority of its mother house St-Bertin.55 The motivations for the relic journey of St. Ursmar, performed by the monks of Lobbes in 1066, were left slightly vague; the unknown author of the miracula text evoked the fnancial diffculties of Lobbes as a result of the recent war between the count of Flanders and the emperor as context for the journey, but without specifying exactly how the journey was intended to restore the monastery’s fortunes.56 In the course of the trip, the monks did encounter the count and countess of Flanders and had their properties confrmed, but another major theme of the journey was their engagement in “peacemaking” en route.57 Thus, this text served to situate the local activities of the monks and the movement of their relics within the larger

14

Introduction

ideological programs of the Peace of God councils, writing Ursmar and Lobbes onto the frontlines of the peace movement. The anonymous author was a participant in the journey himself; the text includes detailed descriptions of situations and people he and his brothers encountered.58 The authorship, texts, and manuscript tradition surrounding the two journeys of Amandus’ relics are more complex. Two extant texts describe the trip made by the monks of Elnone in 1066: frst, a lengthy poem in leonine verse, the Carmen de incendio sancti Amandi Elnonensis, comprising a prologue and four books describing the destruction of the monastery complex by fre (Book 1), the miracle-producing journey of the relics (Books 2 and 3), and the return of the relics to Elnone and the reconstruction of the churches (Book 4).59 The author is identifed in the sole manuscript of the Carmen as Gislebert (d. 1095), who was frst a priest and dean and later a monk of Elnone; he likely witnessed the fre and participated in the relic journey.60 The Carmen is a moralistic work which interprets the fre at Elnone and the subsequent events through the lens of biblical analogy; the margins of the manuscript are annotated with the terms allegoria and moralitas. The Carmen has been almost entirely ignored, however, in favor of the more accessibly written prose hagiographical account of the 1066 journey. Gislebert has also been understood to be the author of this text, because of the similarities to the events reported in the Carmen, though that attribution was never explicit.61 This text circulated independently of the Carmen; it was included in the two great collections of texts about Amandus produced by Elnone in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, alongside the account of the 1107 relic journey (written by an anonymous author).62 In this manuscript context, the 1107 journey appears as a kind of sequel to the events of 1066. St. Marculf is perhaps best known as the saint who specialized in the healing of scrofula, an ability later shared with the French kings, but this aspect of his cult did not develop until the thirteenth century.63 The text describing his relics’ journey in 1102 away from Corbeny, a priory of St-Remi of Reims, was written by an anonymous hagiographer who may have participated himself; it was supposedly produced at the request of the canons of St-Fursey of Péronne to commemorate the miracles done by the saint in that city.64 However, the journey itself was not performed for them; it was launched in response to the fnancial diffculties the house faced as a result of an outbreak of animal disease and confict with a local lord. The prior had quit as a result of these tough circumstances; he was replaced by Andreas, who convinced St-Remi to allow the circulation of Marculf’s relics, citing, against their discomfort, his own familiarity with the practice and the fact that other notable houses had recently done the same. These reservations and deliberations were described openly and at length, suggesting that the production of the text was also intended to show the ultimate success of the journey as confrmation of Andreas’ wisdom in proposing the project. Despite the supposedly external audience and Marculf’s later prominence, the text appears in very few extant manuscripts.65

Introduction

15

The journeys of the canons and laymen of Laon—traveling through France in 1112 and crossing the Channel into England in 1113—have attracted the most scholarly attention out of all of these events, but in some ways are outliers when read alongside other central medieval relic journey accounts.66 There was the sheer ambition, particularly of their trip to England: the canons covered more than 1,300 miles.67 In addition, rather than traveling with the body-relics of a monastic patron like Lewinna, Ursmar, Amandus, or Marculf, they brought a collection of cathedral relics featuring Marian and christological objects. But, perhaps most importantly, the texts regarding these journeys were produced by authors who were not members of the cathedral chapter and only indirectly connected to the events in question: Guibert of Nogent and Hermann of Tournai.68 Guibert, by all accounts a complicated author and thinker, included a description of some of the major miracles performed on both trips in his autobiography, completed shortly after the journeys in 1115.69 As others have noted, his documentation of Laon’s relic-moving activities and the resulting miracles seem an odd contrast to his famous critique of certain aspects of the medieval cult of relics, De pignoribus sanctorum.70 Hermann’s much lengthier and more detailed account was dedicated to the bishop of Laon, Bartholomew de Joux, who had been elected after the assassination of his predecessor Gaudry during the communal movement of 1112.71 The upheaval of those events, compounded by the damage done by the fre that swept through the cathedral and the city, formed the background and motivation for the relic journeys themselves. However, Hermann wrote signifcantly later; the two books of the Miracula beatae Marie Laudunensis discussing the relic journeys were composed after Hermann had left his abbacy in Tournai, after his return from a trip to Spain in 1136–1138 but before 1141.72 Intriguingly, despite these factors Hermann chose to write his account of the English journey using the frst-person plural, in the voice of the canons of Laon. Though the texts of Guibert and Hermann were independent of one another, both authors may have been consulting a shared text produced by the canons themselves.73 Though Guibert’s text had almost no circulation, Hermann’s stories of the Marian miracles performed in the course of the journeys were adopted into the widely circulated vernacular text of Gautier de Coincy.74 The fnal text making up this group is the Circumvectio corporis sancti Taurini, describing the circulation of the relics of St. Taurinus from Gigny, a priory of Cluny, following a fre in 1158.75 A serious confict over tithes between Gigny and Le Miroir, a nearby Cistercian foundation, had just been resolved; in the course of the dispute, the monks of Gigny had attacked and partially destroyed Le Miroir in 1151–1152.76 Despite this relatively recent violence, the matter had been fnally settled in 1155 and the fre at Gigny was likely unrelated and accidental.77 Nevertheless, the text’s emphasis on the good relationship between Gigny and Cluny (the frst stop on their tour) suggests that the unknown author had in mind Cluny’s staunch defense of Gigny over the course of the dispute. As with the other monastic sources, the text seems to have had very limited circulation.78

16

Introduction

These texts are, again, far from the only hagiographical sources regarding relic journeys discussed in this book; to focus only on these longer texts would be to ignore many other brief but signifcant descriptions of the effects of relic circulation. These accounts are exceptional because they developed the travels of the relics into freestanding narratives. However, the contexts of these eight journeys and the production of these texts provide us a sense of the variety of circumstances involved in relic circulation: there are newly arrived saints (Lewinna), saints who had been translated centuries prior but whose cults were not extensive (Marculf, Taurinus), and established patrons with deep regional roots (Amandus). Relics were circulated by independent houses looking for increased distance from a powerful neighbor (St-Winnoc), by priories whose frst stop was their mother house (Corbeny, Gigny), and by cathedral chapters (though the Laon case is unusual; in general, cathedrals circulated their relics only after 1150). While some houses framed their motivations for circulating their relics in explicitly commercial terms (Elnone, Corbeny, Laon), others indicated their goals vaguely or not at all (St-Winnoc, Lobbes). On the other hand, these houses and their relics (again with the exception of the canons of Laon) were part of the same world: rural monasteries embedded in local secular and ecclesiastical networks of power, concerned for their saints’ reputations as miracle-workers as the engine of their economic and spiritual success, and willing to make use of their relics’ portability to advance their interests in new ways. In documenting the travels of their relics, they were participating in older traditions of monastic practice: the collection and promotion of relics as a “treasure trove” of sanctity, the production of hagiography to record their saint’s miracles, the encouragement of (appropriate) lay interaction with relics through pilgrimage, and the insistence on the prerogatives of their saints as lords and protectors. Yet their decisions to circulate their relics, and to produce narratives around their experiences, also represent a new kind of experimentation with the roles of relics in the world.

Organization To explore the diverse effects of those decisions, I have chosen to organize this book thematically. The three parts of this book correspond to the three broad “stages” of a relic’s journey: when its curators removed it from its contexts (Departures), when it and its companions encountered different people and places during their travels (En Route), and when broader programs of commemoration and signifcance were produced after it had returned home (Afterlives). The frst two chapters address the tensions surrounding a relic’s departure from two perspectives: the question of what a relic’s travels meant for the perceived presence or absence of a saint’s power, and the question of how and why monasteries constructed spiritual meaning around the ritual act of sending away relics. I argue that the confict between ideals of relic stability and realities of relic movement took on a new intensity in the ninth

Introduction

17

century, as multiple relics were displaced as a result of Viking attacks on the northern continent (Chapter 1). The “refugee saints” of this period juxtaposed expectations of geographically localized divine protection with temporary voyages of exile, from which some relics never returned home. The effects of these journeys went beyond simply forcing relics onto the road, since they fundamentally challenged hagiographical discourses about the relationship between the object of a relic, the power of a saint, and geographical place in ways which resonated long after the attacks had ended. I then turn to the ritual practices of relic departure, as seen from the perspective of monastic customaries (Chapter 2). These texts, at once prescriptive and descriptive, suggest that sending out relics in the eleventh century was relatively commonplace but required signifcant liturgical investment. As with the entries performed for visiting (living) dignitaries, the movement of relics involved the participation of the entire community. Yet these events also took place against a backdrop of regular relic procession, both inside and outside the annual liturgical cycle, which complicates our understanding of how relics were viewed and treated as portable sacred objects. In the central three chapters, I return to hagiographical texts to examine the events that took place during relic journeys in terms of their effects on three different groups and their interactions with one another: the travelers, understood both as the relics and the people accompanying them (Chapter 3); the ecclesiastical groups that they encountered as friends, hosts, and rivals (Chapter 4); and the laypeople, whose responses to visiting relics ran the spectrum from devotion to disdain (Chapter 5). For relics, travel exposed them to the elements, to physical touch, and even to violence, uncomfortably emphasizing their materiality as objects over their theological and metaphorical interpretations (Chapter 3). This sense of physicality especially tested the relationship between relic and reliquary, often elided together as a single entity when at rest. Similar processes of challenge and scrutiny operated on the people carrying and traveling with that object, as their personal and collective merits were actively reviewed by those they encountered (as well as by the saint). The arrival of these travelers in turn opened a feld of possibilities for local ecclesiastical and lay groups, both for collaboration and antagonism (Chapter 4). Although central medieval houses increasingly moved their relics to express their unity and solidarity with one another (as during the Peace of God), relic mobility also raised the specter of comparison between saints. In theory, the saints were disinterested in earthly glory, but practical questions of prestige (and donations) framed the choice of whether to treat an arriving relic as a long-lost friend or an unwelcome competitor. Faced with these troubling questions, those traveling with relics turned to laypeople to fnd allies against their rivals (Chapter 5). Yet in a similar fashion, the actions of laypeople confronted with a traveling relic are not reducible to a single pattern; where some saw the potential for healing or unrestricted access to the divine, others saw a chance to openly and vocally question, mock, or vilify the saint and their representatives. Taken altogether, these three chapters

18

Introduction

work to establish that relic mobility laid bare the contradictions and conficts within the cult of saints that could often remain comfortably dormant when relics were at rest, challenging those who traveled with, welcomed, or viewed a displaced relic to negotiate their own responses. Finally, all relic travel moved into and through the larger secular world, and the fnal chapter asks how relic movement affected perceptions of the connection between saint and landscape in ways that could continue long after the relics had been returned home (Chapter 6). Some relic journeys were directly linked to the land itself: relic journeys to protect against plague, to plead for more (or less) rain for the harvest, or to assert rights to monastic property. Yet relic movement also served to project a much broader and more ambitious vision of the saint’s roles and active presence in the exterior world, not only through the physical landmarks created by relic travel (the erection of crosses, shrines, or other holy sites associated with the saint’s passage), but also through the promotion of monastic ideas about sacred territory, space, and possession that were marked out and reinforced through relic movement. In the end, my hope is that this study will challenge its readers to look for medieval travel where it is not always highly visible. Narratives of stasis and immobility are powerful, in the present as in the past, which is why descriptions and discussions of travel often focus on its motivations rather than its effects. But as the circulations of central medieval relics show, the justifcations for travel do not dictate its outcomes; rather, movement opens conversations with many different voices and reveals a diversity of perspectives that may not be as visible when things (and people) stay put.

Notes 1 Baudemond, “Vita Amandi,” MGH SS rer. Merov. V, 433. “ut… omni vitae suae cursum in peregrinatione expenderetur.” Translation after Barbara F. Abou-ElHaj, The Medieval Cult of Saints: Formations and Transformations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 167. 2 On the testament and Amandus as traveler, Courtney Luckhardt, The Charisma of Distant Places: Travel and Religion in the Early Middle Ages (New York: Routledge, 2019) 195–98; Courtney Luckhardt, “The Testament of St. Amandus: Self-Fashioning a Sacred Place in the Early Middle Ages,” in Walking with Saints: Protection, Devotion, and Civic Identity. The Role of the Landscape. Proceedings of the International Conference on Intangible Heritage, 24-26 May 2018, Ronse, Belgium, ed. Eric Devos, Anne-Sophie Meurice, and Anne-Françoise Morel (Ronse: GOKRTI-CHARTI, 2020), 113–23. 3 “Petitio seu coniuratio sancti Amandi de corpore suo,” MGH SS rer. Merov. V, 484. si nos ibi Deus de hoc mundo decreverit emigrare, peto et coram Christo Iesu, flio Dei, coniurare praesumo, ut nullus de episcoporum vel abbatum seu saecularium virorum aut quibuslibet potestatibus hoc contrarium non sit, ut corpusculum meum in ipso monasterio, quod superius diximus Elnone, inter illos fratres requiescat, ubi iam nos ad ipsos fratres et corpore et anima commendavimus… Si quis vero hoc contradicere aut de ipso monasterio corpus meum per fortia abstrahere aut temerario spiritu contradicere voluerit,

Introduction

19

inprimitus sanctae trinitatis incurrat offensam et ab omnibus ecclesiis catholicis excommunicatus appareat et a societate sanctorum extraneus effciatur et dampnationem, quam Dathan et Abiron sustinuerunt, quos infernus vivos absorbuit, ipse sustineat, et sit anathema maranatha, quod est perditio in adventum domini nostri Iesu Christi. Et nec sic nostram voluntatem mutare valeat, sed haec deliberatio nostra in perpetuo frma et inviolata permaneat. 4 On the testament’s authenticity, Eduoard Moreau, Saint Amand: apôtre de la Belgique et du nord de la France (Louvain: Editions du Museum Lessianum, 1927), 264–65. The earliest manuscript dates to the mid-tenth century: MGH SS rer. Merov. V, 414. 5 The testament was copied immediately before the accounts of Amandus’ relic journeys in the great eleventh-century illustrated compilation of Amandus’ cult: Valenciennes BM ms. 502, ff. 124v–25v (testament); ff. 126–40v (relic journey accounts). On this manuscript in the context of Elnone and the cult of Amand, Barbara F. Abou-El-Haj, The Medieval Cult of Saints, 67–106. 6 For a comprehensive survey of the medieval cult of saints and relics, Robert Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things?: Saints and Worshippers from the Martyrs to the Reformation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013). 7 Robert Wiśniewski, The Beginnings of the Cult of Relics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), 118–21. 8 Peter Brown, The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity, The Haskell Lectures on History of Religions; New Series 2 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), 90. 9 On these uses of early medieval relic translation: Maya Maskarinec, City of Saints: Rebuilding Rome in the Early Middle Ages (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018); Hedwig Röckelein, Reliquientranslationen nach Sachsen im 9. Jahrhundert: über Kommunikation, Mobilität und Öffentlichkeit im Frühmittelalter, Beihefte der Francia (Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, 2001); Julia M. H. Smith, “Old Saints, New Cults: Roman Relics in Carolingian Francia,” in Early Medieval Rome and the Christian West: Essays in Honour of Donald A. Bullough, ed. Julia M. H. Smith, The Medieval Mediterranean 8 (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 317–39. 10 Julia M. H. Smith, “Portable Christianity: Relics in the Medieval West (c.700–c.1200),” Proceedings of the British Academy Volume 181, 2010–2011 Lectures (Oxford: British Academy, 2012), 158. 11 Pierre-André Sigal, “Le déroulement des translations de reliques principalement dans les régions entre Loire et Rhin aux XIe et XIIe siècles,” in Les reliques: Objets, cultes, symboles, ed. Anne-Marie Helvétius and Edina Bozóky (Turnhout: Brepols, 1999), 213–27. 12 For surveys of different forms of relic movement: Renate Kroos, “Vom Umgang mit Reliquien,” in Ornamenta ecclesiae: Kunst und Künstler der Romanik: Katalog zur Ausstellung des Schnütgen-Museums in der Josef-Haubrich-Kunsthalle, ed. Anton Legner (Cologne: Stadt Köln, 1985), 25–49; Rita Tekippe, “Pilgrimage and Procession: Correlations of Meaning, Practice, and Effects,” in Art and Architecture of Late Medieval Pilgrimage in Northern Europe and the British Isles, ed. Sarah Blick and Rita Tekippe, Studies in Medieval and Reformation Traditions (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 693–752. 13 Ellen Badone, “Crossing Boundaries: Exploring the Borderlands of Ethnography, Tourism, and Pilgrimage,” in Intersecting Journeys: The Anthropology of Pilgrimage and Tourism, ed. Ellen Badone and Sharon R. Roseman (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2004), 186–87; Ellen Badone and Sharon R. Roseman, “Approaches to the Anthropology of Pilgrimage and Tourism,” in Intersecting Journeys: The Anthropology of Pilgrimage and Tourism, ed. Ellen Badone and Sharon R. Roseman (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2004), 2.

20

Introduction

14 As Jim Leary has challenged archaeologists to “go beyond the fact of the journey… in order to discuss the rhythms, meanings, complexities, performance and social relations of mobility, as well as how different mobilities effect [sic] people and groups.” Jim Leary, “Past Mobility: An Introduction,” Past Mobilities: Archaeological Approaches to Movement and Mobility, ed. Jim Leary (Farnham: Ashgate, 2014), 5. 15 Kathleen Ashley and Pamela Sheingorn, “Sainte Foy on the Loose, Or, The Possibilities of Procession,” in Moving Subjects: Processional Performance in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, ed. Kathleen Ashley and Wim Hüsken (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2001), 54, 62. I owe much of the inspiration for this book to their article. 16 Studies of the medieval cult of relics easily fall into generalizations and commonplaces, particularly those adopted from medieval theological treatises. Robyn Malo, Relics and Writing in Late Medieval England (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013), 13–16. 17 Wiśniewski, The Beginnings of the Cult of Relics, 35–41. 18 Gillian Clark, “Translating Relics: Victricius of Rouen and Fourth-Century Debate,” Early Medieval Europe 10, no. 2 (2003): 175. 19 Caroline Walker Bynum, Christian Materiality: An Essay on Religion in Late Medieval Europe (New York: Zone Books, 2011), 179–80; Wiśniewski, The Beginnings of the Cult of Relics, 194. 20 Clark, “Translating Relics,” 171–76. 21 Contra Vigilantium 8, PL 23:362; David G. Hunter, “Vigilantius of Calagurris and Victricius of Rouen: Ascetics, Relics, and Clerics in Late Roman Gaul,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 7, no. 3 (September 1, 1999): 425; Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things?, 624–25; Wiśniewski, The Beginnings of the Cult of Relics, 197–98. 22 Bynum, Christian Materiality, 178–79. These questions were paralleled by the problem of division of relics; both dealt with the question of how and to what extent the saint’s presence was linked to the material object. 23 Bynum, 193. This problem also troubled Jonas of Orléans in the ninth century: Jean-Marie Sansterre, “Les justifcations du culte des reliques dans le haut Moyen Age,” in Les reliques: Objets, cultes, symboles, ed. Anne-Marie Helvétius and Edina Bozóky (Turnhout: Brepols, 1999), 89. The tensions between materiality and presence resurfaced, particularly for corporeal relics which were housed in spatially controlled contexts. Secondary relics also developed as a means to ease the tension between the localization and omnipresence of a saint. Alan Thacker, “Loca Sanctorum: The Signifcance of Place in the Study of the Saints,” in Local Saints and Local Churches in the Early Medieval West, ed. Alan Thacker and Richard Sharpe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 6. 24 The supposedly clear division between subject and object has generally masked more nuanced conceptions of animacy and the “alive-ness” of objects in non-Western contexts, which are useful comparative cases for detangling the material/spiritual intersections of medieval European relics: Lindsay Jones, “The Fate of Earthly Things: Aztec Gods and God-Bodies,” Material Religion 13, no. 1 (January 2017): 114–15; Wei-Ping Lin, “Conceptualizing Gods through Statues: A Study of Personifcation and Localization in Taiwan,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 50, no. 2 (April 2008): 454–77. 25 Julia M. H. Smith, “Rulers and Relics c.750–c.950: Treasure on Earth, Treasure in Heaven,” Past & Present 206, no. suppl 5 (January 1, 2010): 73–96. Courtney Luckhardt, “Gender and Connectivity: Facilitating Religious Travel in the Sixth and Seventh Centuries,” Comitatus: A Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 44 (2013): 36–38. 26 Edina Bozóky, La politique des reliques de Constantin à saint Louis: protection collective et légitimation du pouvoir, Bibliothèque historique et littéraire (Paris: Beauchesne, 2007).

Introduction

21

27 On the construction of relics and relic collections as place-signifers, particularly of the Holy Land, in the eleventh century: Renana Bartal, “Relics of Place: Stone Fragments of the Holy Sepulchre in Eleventh-Century France,” Journal of Medieval History 44, no. 4 (August 8, 2018): 406–21; Julia M. H. Smith, “EleventhCentury Relic Collections and the Holy Land,” in Natural Materials of the Holy Land and the Visual Translation of Place, 500-1500, ed. Renana Bartal, Neta Bodner, and Bianca Kuhnel (London: Routledge, 2017), 19–35. 28 The development of a controlled and textualized world, “in which relics were boxed, labelled, distributed, and dispensed with episcopal sanction,” was itself a result of Carolingian centralization and regulation of the cult of saints. Paul Fouracre, “The Origins of the Carolingian Attempt to Regulate the Cult of Saints,” in The Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages: Essays on the Contribution of Peter Brown (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 145. 29 On reliquaries as signifers and agents, Cynthia J. Hahn, Strange Beauty: Issues in the Making and Meaning of Reliquaries, 400 - circa 1204 (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2012); Seeta Chaganti, The Medieval Poetics of the Reliquary: Enshrinement, Inscription, Performance (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008). On the development of the architectural contexts for relic display, John Crook, The Architectural Setting of the Cult of Saints in the Early Christian West c.300-c.1200 (New York: Clarendon Press, 2000). On “relic custodians” as the guides for lay experiences of relics through texts and descriptions, especially as relics themselves became more physically inaccessible in late medieval England, Robyn Malo, Relics and Writing in Late Medieval England (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013). 30 As Cynthia Hahn has argued, “the reliquary makes the relic.” Cynthia J. Hahn, The Reliquary Effect: Enshrining the Sacred Object (London: Reaktion Books, 2017), 11. Studies of the medieval cult of relics are once again in close dialogue with broader anthropological, archaeological, and art historical arguments regarding the agency of objects and their signifcance to humans, which go a step beyond the proposal that objects can have “social lives” to the idea that they actively exert infuences over their users, as in: Shannon Gayk and Robyn Malo, “The Sacred Object,” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 44, no. 3 (October 1, 2014): 460–62. 31 Pierre Héliot and Marie-Laure Chastang, “Quêtes et voyages de reliques au proft des églises françaises du moyen âge,” Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique 59 (1964): 789–822; Pierre Héliot and Marie-Laure Chastang, “Quêtes et voyages de reliques au proft des églises françaises du Moyen Âge,” Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique 60 (1965): 5–32. 32 “Miracula s. Amandi in itinere bragbantino,” AASS Feb. I, 900. 33 Liturgical cursing and the ritual of the clamor operated on similar principles: Lester K. Little, Benedictine Maledictions: Liturgical Cursing in Romanesque France (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993); Patrick Geary, “L’humiliation des saints,” Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales 34, no. 1 (1979): 27–42. 34 Baudouin de Gaiffer, “Les revendications de biens dans quelques documents hagiographiques du XIe siècle,” Analecta Bollandiana 50 (1932): 126. Si maintenant nous nous transportons au XIe siècle…et que nous recherchons quelles sont les garanties dont l’Église dispose encore pour protéger ses biens, nous constatons que toutes ont disparu, sauf les garanties spirituelles, c’est a dire la protection des saints et leur effcace intervention… Des lors il n’est pas étonnant que les moines, dénues de toute autre protection, aient abuse de la littérature hagiographique pour faire valoir leurs droits méconnus, revendiquer leurs biens confsques, établir la justice de leur cause, et montrer que le saint, tôt ou tard, tire une vengeance éclatante des audacieux qui pillent ses biens.

22

Introduction

35 Warren Brown, Unjust Seizure: Confict, Interest, and Authority in an Early Medieval Society, Conjunctions of Religion & Power in the Medieval Past (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001); Barbara H. Rosenwein, To Be the Neighbor of Saint Peter : The Social Meaning of Cluny’s Property, 909-1049 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989); Barbara H. Rosenwein, Thomas Head, and Sharon Farmer, “Monks and Their Enemies: A Comparative Approach,” Speculum 66, no. 4 (1991): 764–96. These reinterpretations of the question of “public” justice go back to the classic article by Fredric L. Cheyette, “Suum Cuique Tribuere,” French Historical Studies 6, no. 3 (Spring 1970): 287–99. 36 Robyn Malo, “The Pardoner’s Relics (and Why They Matter the Most),” The Chaucer Review 43, no. 1 (July 16, 2008): 82–102. 37 Jean Calvin, Traité des reliques, ed. Albert Autin (Paris: Bossard, 1921), 85. “portant çà et là les reliques de martyrs” 38 Héliot and Chastang, “Quêtes et voyages de reliques,” 1964, 815. Comme toutes les oeuvres humaines, l’institution subit profondément la morsure du temps. Elle perdit graduellement ses allures primitives d’entreprise pieuse… pour prendre celles d’une vulgaire affaire d’argent. On le vit bien quand on eut substitué des quêteurs professionnels aux religieux intéressés et quand on eut préféré les laïcs aux clercs.

39 40

41 42 43 44 45

46

This sentiment was echoed by both Pierre-André Sigal and Nicole HerrmannMascard: Pierre-André Sigal, “Les voyages de reliques aux onzième et douzième siècles,” in Voyage, quête, pèlerinage dans la littérature et la civilisation médiévales (Aix-en-Provence; Paris: Presses universitaires de Provence; Champion, 1976), 89– 90: “Le développement des quêtes avec reliques entraina d’ailleurs des abus dont le principal fut de substituer des quêteurs professionnels aux membres des communautés intéressées et fnit par tomber dans le discredit a la fn du Moyen Age;” Nicole Herrmann-Mascard, Les reliques des saints: formation coutumière d’un droit. Collection d’histoire institutionnelle et sociale (Paris: Klincksieck, 1975), 302: “On voit donc apparaître dès la fn du XIe siècle ces quêteurs professionnel, clercs ou laïcs, qui devaient à partir du XIIIe siècle déconsidérer complètement l’institution et transformer l’entreprise pieuse des origines en affaire commerciale.” Anne E. Lester, “Translation and Appropriation: Greek Relics in the Latin West in the Aftermath of the Fourth Crusade,” Studies in Church History 53 (June 2017): 88–117. As John Ott noted: “one of the more distinctive features of religious enthusiasm in [the central Middle Ages] was that the relics of the saints attained a level of mobility approaching that of the pilgrims.” John Ott, Bishops, Authority and Community in Northwestern Europe, c.1050-1150, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought, Fourth Series 102 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 99. For Bobbio, Alexander O’Hara and Faye Taylor, “Aristocratic and Monastic Confict in Tenth-Century Italy: The Case of Bobbio and the Miracula Sancti Columbani,” Viator 44, no. 3 (2013): 43–61. For Luxeuil, Chapter 6. For the Hasnon dedication event, Chapter 4. “Miracula s. Marculf Peronae facta,” AASS May VII, 534. Karen Eileen Overbey, Sacral Geographies: Saints, Shrines and Territory in Medieval Ireland, Studies in the Visual Cultures of the Middle Ages, v. 2 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2012), 6–9. Martin Heinzelmann, Translationsberichte und andere Quellen des Reliquienkultes (Turnhout: Brepols, 1979), 53. This fuidity, and the large disparities in time/ distance removed, is why I have chosen to refer to these kinds of relic movements generically rather than calling them “delations,” as in Ott, Bishops, Authority and Community, 99. Ursio of Hautmont, “Miracula s. Marcelli,” MGH SS XV.2, 801. “ut ad se martyris reliquiae deferrentur.”

Introduction

23

47 As Julia Smith notes in the case of Breton saints, the translation of a saint’s body-relics was one of the few occasions which might prompt the production of a written text in cultural contexts where oral tradition was normally deemed adequate. Julia M. H. Smith, “Oral and Written: Saints, Miracles, and Relics in Brittany, c.850-1250.,” Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies 65, no. 2 (1990): 338. 48 Patrick Geary, Furta Sacra: Thefts of Relics in the Central Middle Ages (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978), 125–26. 49 Malo, Relics and Writing in Late Medieval England, 5–6. 50 This is not to say that these miracles were not stories, but that the hagiographers did not seem to make a conscious effort to solicit personal narratives from the laymen and women who experienced miracles in the course of a relic’s journey, as “miracle collectors” did: Rachel Koopmans, Wonderful to Relate: Miracle Stories and Miracle Collecting in High Medieval England, The Middle Ages Series (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011), 20–27. However, some laypeople did travel with the relics in order to tell their stories along the way, in ways which suggest how lay oral storytelling practices might be integrated into these trips in the conversational mode Koopmans describes. See Chapter 5. 51 Simon Yarrow, Saints and Their Communities: Miracle Stories in Twelfth Century England, Oxford Historical Monographs (Oxford; New York: Clarendon Press; Oxford University Press, 2006), 15. The experiences of relic-companions as travelers make an interesting counterpoint to the “exotic” medieval travelers, like Marco Polo, around whom general arguments about the nature of medieval travel tend to be constructed, as in Shayne Legassie, The Medieval Invention of Travel (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2017). The observation by Marianne O’Doherty and Felicitas Schmieder that “exceptional travels… have received disproportionate levels of attention in recent years” continues to hold true. Marianne O’Doherty and Felicitas Schmieder, “Introduction,” in Travels and Mobilities in the Middle Ages: From the Atlantic to the Black Sea, ed. Marianne O’Doherty and Felicitas Schmieder, International Medieval Research 21 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015), xvi. 52 Pierre-André Sigal, “Les voyages de reliques,” 75–76. 53 Ibid., 82. Sigal’s practical approach to the logistics of this type of travel is mirrored by Reinhold Kaiser, “Quêtes itinérantes avec reliques pour fnancer la construction des églises (XIe-XIIe siècles),” Le Moyen Âge 101, no. 2 (1995): 213–17. 54 “Translatio S. Lewinnae,” AASS Jul. V, 623–27; David Defries, “The Making of a Minor Saint in Drogo of Saint-Winnoc’s Historia Translationis s. Lewinnae,” Early Medieval Europe 16, no. 4 (2008): 423. On Drogo, Nicholas Huyghebaert, “Un moine hagiographe: Drogon de Bergues,” Sacris Erudiri 20 (1971): 191–256. 55 Defries, 424–25, 439. A copy of the text was held at St-Winnoc and annotated, suggesting its use for readings; only two other manuscripts are extant, suggesting the limited development of this cult. 56 “Miracula s. Ursmari in circumlatione per Flandriam,” AASS Apr. II, 573–74. The author evokes both the need for funds to rebuild and the loss of property as a result of the war, but the intention to solicit cash donations is not as explicit as elsewhere. No manuscripts are extant; the partial edition in the MGH was prepared from the early modern editions. “Miracula s. Ursmari in itinere per Flandriam facta,” MGH SS XV.2: 837–842. 57 Jehangir Y. Malegam, “No Peace for the Wicked: Conficting Visions of Peacemaking in an Eleventh-Century Monastic Narrative,” Viator 39, no. 1 (January 1, 2008): 23–49; Geoffrey Koziol, “Monks, Feuds and the Making of Peace in EleventhCentury Flanders,” in The Peace of God: Social Violence and Religious Response, ed. Thomas Head and Richard Landes (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992), 239–59. 58 “Miracula s. Ursmari in itinere per Flandriam facta,” 831. 59 Paris BN 2093, ff. 169r-177v; Carmen de incendio Sancti Amandi, MGH SS XI, 409–32. 60 On Gislebert, Ludwig Bethmann, MGH SS XI, 413.

24 Introduction 61 “Miracula s. Amandi corpore per Franciam deportato,” AASS Feb. I, 895–98; “Ex miraculis s. Amandi in itinere Gallico factis,” MGH SS XV.2, 848–51. 62 Valenciennes BM 502, ff. 126r-135r (1066) and ff. 137r-140v (1107); Valenciennes BM 500, ff. 130r-139r (1066) and ff. 139r-143r (1107). The author of the 1107 account has been proposed as one Gunterus: Oswald Holder-Egger, MGH SS XV.2, 848, Sigal, “Les voyages de reliques,” 76. 63 On the relic journey seen within the larger development of Marculf’s cult, JeanPierre Poly, “Le capétien thaumaturge: genèse d’un miracle royal,” in La France de l’an Mil, Collections Points, série histoire, 130 (Paris: Seuil, 1990), 286–87. 64 “Miracula s. Marculf Peronae facta,” AASS May VII, 533. 65 Paris BN lat. 15034, ff. 17v–21v; Tours BM ms. 339B, ff. 54–68. 66 These journeys and the contexts of production of the two texts about them have been discussed extensively, in particular in terms of their implications for the rise of Marian devotion: Yarrow, Saints and Their Communities, 63–99; Gabriela Signori, Maria zwischen Kathedrale, Kloster und Welt: Hagiographische und historiographische Annäherungen an eine hochmittelalterliche Wunderpredigt (Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, 1995), 99–124. 67 On the uniqueness of the Laon trips, Yarrow, 66. However, Marchiennes also sent their relics to England, so the length of the Laon trip is possibly not as unusual as it seems; see Chapter 3. 68 The identity of the Hermannus monachus who authored the Miracula beatae Marie Laudunensis has been a subject of considerable debate, with some identifying him with Hermann of Tournai, the abbot responsible for the restoration of the monastery of Saint-Martin in that city, others with an otherwise unknown canon “Hermann of Laon.” Alain Saint-Denis has reviewed the evidence at length and concluded that the Hermannus of the Miracula is indeed Hermann of Tournai, author of the Liber de restauratione Sancti Martini Tornacensis: Alain Saint-Denis, ed., Les Miracles de sainte Marie de Laon, Sources d’histoire médiévale 36 (Paris: CNRS Editions, 2008), 37–65; also Alain Saint-Denis, “Hermannus Monachus. Qui était vraiment l’auteur du livre des Miracles de Notre-Dame de Laon?,” Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres: Comptes-rendus des séances 3 (2006): 1611–47. 69 Guibert of Nogent, De vita sua, PL 156, 837–962; Yarrow, 70. On Guibert as author, among many contributions, Jay Rubenstein, Guibert of Nogent: Portrait of a Medieval Mind (New York: Routledge, 2002). 70 On Guibert’s critiques, Chapter 3. The literature on Guibert’s De pignoribus sanctorum is extensive; for one perspective, Henri Platelle, “Guibert de Nogent et le De pignoribus sanctorum. Richesses et limites d’une critique médiévale des reliques,” in Les reliques: Objets, cultes, symboles, ed. Anne-Marie Helvétius and Edina Bozóky (Turnhout: Brepols, 1999), 109–21. 71 On Guibert’s relationship to the events of 1112: Yarrow, 70–72; Heather F. Blurton, “Guibert of Nogent and the Subject of History,” Exemplaria 15, no. 1 (January 2003): 111–31. 72 Saint-Denis, Les miracles, 75. Yarrow dates Hermann’s composition to the mid1140s; Yarrow, 76. 73 Saint-Denis, Les miracles, 47–48. 74 Gautier de Coinci, Les miracles de Nostre Dame, ed. V. Frederic Koenig, vol. 4, Textes littéraires français (Geneva: Droz, 1970), 76–94. 75 “Circumvectio corporis sancti Taurini,” AASS Aug. II, 650–55. 76 Giles Constable, “Cluniac Tithes and the Controversy between Gigny and Le Miroir,” in The Abbey of Cluny: A Collection of Essays to Mark the ElevenHundredth Anniversary of Its Foundation, Vita regularis. Ordnungen und Deutungen religiosen Lebens im Mittelalter 43 (Berlin: Lit, 2010), 464. 77 Ibid., 467, note 126. 78 There seem to be no extant manuscripts of the Circumvectio corporis sancti Taurini.

Part one

Departures

1

The effects of forced relic movement

In 827, a man named Ratleig stood in the crypt of the basilica of St-Tiburtius in Rome. Having failed to access the relics of the eponymous saint, he and his companions were now targeting the grave of two saints who had been martyred and entombed together: Marcellinus and Peter. They lifted the stone slab covering the tomb and found what they were looking for: the body of Marcellinus, in the upper part of the sarcophagus, with a marble tablet by his head identifying the saint. They wrapped the relics in linen, carefully replaced the lid to prevent discovery of the theft, and brought them back to the house of the professional relic procurer and deacon Deusdona.1 At this point, Ratleig’s mission was complete: he had been sent to Rome by his employer, the Carolingian courtier Einhard, to bring back the relics of Roman saints. He now had the relics of Marcellinus—yet he hesitated. As he supposedly confded to Einhard later: …it seemed to him not at all permissible to return home with only the body of blessed Marcellinus—as if it would be a sin that the body of the blessed martyr Peter, who had been his associate in his passion and for more than fve hundred years had rested with him in the same sepulcher, should remain while he was leaving.2 As Ratleig’s reasoning went, the two saints were companions and friends, and it would be wrong to split them up by taking the relics of one but not the other. His resolution was to fnd a way to go back and get Peter’s relics too, so that the saints could embark on the journey to their new home north of the Alps together. Ratleig (or rather Einhard) was not the only one of his contemporaries thinking through the problems and possibilities inherent in moving relics. By the ninth century, relic translation was a matter of course in the Carolingian world.3 The deposition of relics in altars as part of a church’s formal consecration had been common since the sixth century and required since the ninth.4 The capitularies pronounced at Mainz in 813 indicated that episcopal permission should be sought prior to a translation, but proscriptions like this did not mean translations were considered undesirable; rather, they refected

28

Departures

the will to place the cultural power of relic movement securely within the hands of the ecclesiastical hierarchy in service to the Carolingian state.5 In the relocation of relics over long distances, the Carolingians saw the opportunity to achieve a number of ends, especially to borrow spiritual prestige from Rome by obtaining its martyrs, as in the case of Marcellinus and Peter.6 Using relic translations to accomplish these goals relied on the perception that the saint’s supernatural presence, their praesentia, moved along with their relics.7 Translations insisted that a saint could leave one place and inhabit another by virtue of their relics’ movement. This was the issue at the heart of the problem with removing Marcellinus without taking Peter along. Theologically, neither saint was limited by their relics’ location: the saints could happily visit with one another in heaven regardless of their relics’ location on earth.8 Yet Einhard’s description of this moment implicitly argued that it did matter—that separating Marcellinus and Peter’s relics on earth would have affected the saints’ bond with one another. Though he was clearly making these claims to justify the choice to take both saints’ relics, his framing of the problem relied on the idea that the saints’ presence was connected to their relics. Translation narratives, like Einhard’s account, were thus stories of geographical abandonment and reconnection through relic movement. It was exactly this association between relic, place, and presence that posed diffculties when the relics’ movement was instead undesirable, as happened during the “forced translations” of relics in response to the attacks of Vikings and other groups.9 These attacks have long been associated with a mass exodus of relics from the affected areas, in keeping with the descriptions of later authors such as Orderic Vitalis.10 The image of a wave of terrifed monks feeing with their relics from the 850s onward is evocative, believable, and as Felice Lifshitz has shown, at times suspiciously in sync with the political motives of the late Carolingian kings (at least in Neustria).11 Despite these considerations, many relics were actually displaced temporarily or permanently, and the effects of these events on the discourses of relic movement are the subject of this chapter. Relic movement had implications for the saint and their people, even when it was presented as an unavoidable consequence of violence. These displacements especially posed challenges to the clean logic of saintly presence that a translation took for granted and in fact relied on. If a saint could “leave” a place and inhabit another via the movement of their relics, as translation accounts insisted, did the removal of relics mean the saint was feeing rather than fghting? There was no single model for how a Carolingian hagiographer might address these issues. The frst half of this chapter explores how two ninthcentury monastic authors grappled with the problem, by paying attention to the ways in which they represented the saint’s presence and absence as their relics were moved away from the danger. Even if the relics were expected to return, their movement severed the physical connection between the saint and their home; thus, the process of interpreting a relic’s forced removal had to go beyond explaining why it was necessary. An author needed to reframe the

The effects of forced relic movement

29

relationships between place, relics, and saint in ways which allowed the relics to depart while maintaining that the saint was powerful and an effective protector. The texts I discuss in this light are Ermentarius’ two books on the successive removals of the relics of Philibert from Noirmoutier and Aimoin’s descriptions of the departures and returns of the relics of Germanus to Paris. In their work, the two hagiographers each used different narrative strategies to treat the question of what relics’ movement meant for the places left behind. They had to choose whether to represent the saint’s departures in a positive or negative light, what relationships the saint should have to the places they passed through or rested at, and most troublingly, where the saint’s power was ultimately located. Their approaches, while always emphasizing the infallibility of their saint, reveal just how fexible the concept of saintly presence needed to be to accommodate both stability and movement. If the saint’s power was in fact tied entirely to the physical location of his relics, how could relic fight in the face of danger ever be justifed? If, instead, the saint maintained a holy foothold in various places regardless of the presence of his relics, why did the relics themselves matter and why did they need to be saved? I do not claim that a consensus emerged around these questions, or even that these authors’ approaches were representative—only that these texts highlight the pressure that unwilling relic movement put on contemporary understandings of saintly presence in ways that were different from planned relic translations. Yet the signifcance of these events for our understanding of relic movement did not end in the ninth century. In some cases, relics that were moved away from Vikings were later moved again for different reasons (as was the case for Philibert), suggesting that these forced translations dislodged relics in ways which led to the increased voluntary relic movement of the tenth and eleventh centuries. But the motif of ninth-century relic fight from Vikings also took on a life of its own, refecting and shaping later discourses about relic mobility and stability. The second half of this chapter examines later hagiographical representations of forced translations as narrative strategies. Centuries later, authors were still refecting on the meanings of these movements and how they differed from translations, as a ffteenth-century scribe surmised in his rubric for a text describing Remigius’ displacement in 882: “The relatio of the precious body of the most holy saint Remigius is done on the third kalends of January. It is not called a translation, because it came about on account of fear of the pagans.”12 Accordingly, the “memories” of Viking-era relic fight were remembered and adapted over time, both to rationalize further relic movements and to support new arguments about saints and their geographical homes.

The refugee saint Perhaps no saint is more closely associated with the relic fights of the ninth century than St. Philibert. Over the course of 40 years, the monks moved his relics at least fve times: from their initial home on the island monastery of

30

Departures

Noirmoutier (Hero) to Déas (836), Cunault (858), Messay (862), St-Pourçain (871), and fnally Tournus (875).13 The frsthand description of the initial three stages, written by the monk Ermentarius, once made Philibert the classic example of saints displaced by Vikings in the ninth century and a touchstone for the continuing debates over the extent and effects of Viking assaults on a troubled Carolingian world. Ermentarius’ account, which emphasized widespread destruction and the need to move ever further east in search of safety, seemed to epitomize this period as a time of general chaos.14 This vision has been generally revised, and Ermentarius himself reevaluated as an ambitious author who “wanted as quickly as possible to escape the Atlantic backwater in which he was living.”15 In this view, his two books of miracles promoting Philibert as a “Viking-displaced” saint were written to endear him to Charles the Bald and the Carolingian ecclesiastical power brokers. Yet a skeptical take on Ermentarius’ motives in promoting Philibert’s cult does not preclude the realities of the threats posed to Noirmoutier, or the concerns described by Ermentarius that led to Philibert’s repeated removals. Laying aside the tangled debates regarding the effcacy and political acumen of Charles the Bald, the realities of continuity or disruption by the Viking attacks, and the diffculties of reliance on monastic perspectives on either issue, Ermentarius’ text remains a peculiar and revealing meditation on the conception and effects of an iterative relic translation, extended over 40 years, that was not particularly desirable or glorious on the face of it. His history of Philibert’s movements offers us more than a series of fve places and dates—it outlines a picture of a new favor of translation, one that was forced to address with the geographical implications of unwanted relic movement. For Ermentarius, the relics’ portability and the saint’s ability to leave Noirmoutier was not an opportunity but a liability. Ermentarius’ two books of miracles suggest evolving approaches to these questions; the frst, recounting the initial movement to Déas (SaintPhilibert-en-Grandlieu), was composed after the arrival in Déas in 836 and likely before 840; the second was a product of the early 860s, after the moves to Cunault (858) and Messay (862).16 The frst book reads like a translation account; Ermentarius carefully maps out the places where the saint stopped along the way as well as the length of time they were there, giving us a very clear picture of the itinerary followed by the monks. After receiving formal permission for the translation from Pippin of Aquitaine, as well as ecclesiastical authorities, the saint’s body was frst put into a boat and foated down to the port of Furca. From there, it was carried overland by the monks and priests to the village of L’Ampan and placed in a church. There, over the course of three days (each carefully noted), the saint performed seven healing miracles. From there, he was moved to Varinna (Rois-de-Céné), where the monks set up tents in a feld. Three miracles were performed en route to Varinna and three more before sunset once they had arrived. They only spent a single night before heading off to tent again at Paulx, where

The effects of forced relic movement

31

Philibert performed eight miracles before sunset. The next day, they made it to Déas and miracles continued to be performed.17 In these general outlines, Philibert’s frst journey is a typical example of a Carolingian translation account, giving an itinerary of resting places and miracles performed on the way. Though the Vikings provided a justifcation for the movement, the journey itself was not a narrative of panicked fight, but instead drew on established tropes of long-distance translation (the granting of permission, the joyous crowd welcoming the relics, the miracles performed at each stop). The movement was presented as a cause of celebration and power rather than fear and escape. Whether or not the monks at this point hoped to return to Noirmoutier is unclear; measures had been taken to fortify and defend the island before its abandonment, but the monks had used Déas as a summer refuge themselves before deciding to move the saint, suggesting that the fnal choice to translate Philibert was a recognition of the impossibility of staying at Noirmoutier in the short term. This frst book, as a project of framing Philibert’s movement as a preplanned and joyous translation, emphasized the full and complete removal of Philibert’s relics and his presence from Noirmoutier to Déas. There was almost a defensive insistence on this point. In the frst place, the object that the monks carried was identifed as the sepulchrum or tumulum. This has been understood to refer to the saint’s stone sarcophagus, but the consistent use of the term gives the impression that the saint’s tomb itself was on the road.18 One of the miracles performed at Varinna also seems to be a very pointed commentary on the nature of the object and its relationship to the saint. A mute fve-year-old was brought by his parents to the sarcophagus in its bier, which at the time was resting on the ground while the monks performed Sext. The abbot took the boy’s hand and asked him if he knew who was being carried in the bier. The boy replied, “This is my lord saint Philibert.”19 A miracle, of course, but also an affrmation that the object resting on the ground was the saint himself. The presence of the saint was clearly and tightly tied to the sepulcher, resting almost funereally on the bier. The installation of the relics at Déas, even if it was initially considered to be temporary, also served to assert the physical connection between the saint and this new home. Abbot Hilbod immediately embarked on remodeling projects, since “the foundations of that church had not been erected previously for the enclosing of a sepulcher.”20 The question of access to the church also became an issue. The very frst miracle the saint performed at Déas was to immobilize a thief on the threshold of the church as he tried to enter with the rest of the crowd, making it clear that there was a new authority inhabiting the space. The access of women was more problematic— should they be allowed to cross into the limina sancti, the boundaries of the saint, with male monks now present?21 On this matter, a deal was struck; women were granted full access to Déas for the space of one year (calculated from the feast of the saint, August 20, to his feast the following year).22 All of these actions served to reinstall Philibert’s power and his relics into the

32

Departures

church at Déas. Noirmoutier, once abandoned, was never again mentioned in Book I. In these elements, Ermentarius’ account of the move to Déas in Book I embraced the logic of translation regarding Philibert’s presence. The saint had fully and completely left Noirmoutier, and fully and completely inhabited Déas. Yet just as the saint was re-immobilized, the symbol of his mobility began to move through a process of fragmentation. This was the bier used to transport his sepulcher, referred to in Ermentarius’ text by the term scala, suggesting a kind of horizontal ladder. The bier was portrayed as a separate devotional object and a secondary proxy for the relics even during the journey: the people who gathered at L’Ampan “were happy if they were able to touch the bier which carried the relics or the cloth which touched them.”23 In later miracles, people were healed as soon as they touched the bier and the cloth covering the sarcophagus: a noblewoman experiencing a hemorrhage believed that she would receive health “if only she was able to touch the bier in which the holy body was carried or the cloth which had touched [it],” in an explicit comparison to the christological miracle.24 This perception of the importance of the bier as a secondary relic led to its fragmentation, both on the road and once installed at Déas. At Palus, a woman kissed the bier and among the kisses managed to secretly cut off a piece of it, which cured her toothache. In the cruciform church at Déas, the sarcophagus was placed in the right transept and the bier was hung in the left transept.25 There it seems to have been openly accessible to visitors, because many people were apparently able to acquire fragments for themselves. A man had a piece of the wood which he was accustomed to kiss and that cured him far away from the church at Déas, and Ermentarius clarifed in a parenthetical that he was not an exception: “for whoever had been able to cut off from [the bier] some part for themselves, carried it with them on account of reverence or love of that saint.”26 But these were also dangerous objects: a piece of the bier’s wood was brought to a woman who thought that it was worthless and threw it into the fre. According to Ermentarius, her right eye then popped out and fell into the same fre.27 This diffusion of bier fragments would come to a surprising end. A village near the monastery caught fre, which spread to a house where a piece of the bier was being kept. The fames burned the house right up to the column where the piece was hung, at which point they stopped. While we might expect that this miracle would have increased popular desire to own one of these fragments, Ermentarius insisted it had the opposite effect. Rather than taking the incident as evidence of the power and value of having a piece of the bier in their houses: …all those who had something of the wood of that bier brought [it] to the monastery, asking what they ought to do with it, for they did not dare to have such a venerable wood without veneration for it. The response to these people was that either they could place [it] in churches near to

The effects of forced relic movement

33

them in which the offce of God was celebrated by day and night, or also they could restore [it] from where they had taken it; so it was done.28 While the circulation of pieces of the bier meant that the symbol of Philibert’s relocation temporarily traveled in its own right, the recollection of those pieces reversed that mobility and refocused Philibert’s sacred space again at Déas. Their retrieval (though presented as a result of the concerns of the laypeople holding onto them) and their re-enshrinement in offcial spaces suggest that the unrestricted diffusion of even these proxies for Philibert’s relics was a source of concern for Ermentarius and his fellow monks. The regathering of the pieces of the bier corresponded to an even tighter focus on the physical site of Déas as the location for accessing Philibert’s power. The only time the bier was mentioned again was when a mother placed her son under it to sleep and be healed within the church. The dispersal of Philibert’s power, even by means of the proxy of the bier, seems to have become undesirable. In Book II, this focus on Déas would in turn be disrupted—like Noirmoutier, it too needed to be abandoned, and all the monks’ work in establishing it as the new home of the saint was lost. Accordingly, in his much shorter second book of miracles, Ermentarius seems to have become more uncomfortable with the fact of the saint’s movement. The celebratory, translation-like tone disappears: the translation to Cunault happened quickly and quietly (“on account of the hands of the Normans, the holy body was carried off secretly rather than transferred festively with praise”).29 It was in Book II rather than Book I that Ermentarius articulated the impression of widespread devastation and exile, in order to argue that the relics of many saints, not just Philibert, were part of a general abandonment of the region. In keeping with these new circumstances, where Book I focused on the re-localization of Philibert’s presence in Déas, Book II took a much broader view of the geographies associated with the saint’s power. It can be roughly divided into three parts: a frst section which recounted more miracles that took place en route from Noirmoutier to Déas during the frst translation; a second section which went back even further in time to the period before that translation to recount miracles performed at Noirmoutier; and a third which fnally (and very briefy) treated miracles performed en route from Cunault to Messay. In other words, rather than relying on Philibert’s current location to justify his power, Ermentarius returned to the previous homes of the saint (at the times that the relics had been there) to articulate a broader vision of the places associated with his activities.30 The miracles that supposedly took place at Noirmoutier prior to the translation to Déas are especially interesting in this regard: one claimed that Philibert’s power repulsed a group of marauding Britons from the island, and another that he pushed back an army of Saracens, though few details are given in either case.31 These were followed by a third miracle which made an elaborate case for the saint’s effectiveness against, somewhat ironically, the attacks

34

Departures

of Vikings. Two years before the saint was moved to Déas, Ermentarius claimed, a monk of Corbie had a vision in which he saw the monastery of Noirmoutier about to be attacked. Then he saw Philibert rise from his tomb, carrying a golden sword and followed by an army, and leave by the west door of the monastery where he encountered and defeated the invaders. The implication of the three stories of marauders-turned-back was that Philibert would defend (in person, if necessary) his home, despite the fact that by the time Ermentarius was writing, Noirmoutier had long since been abandoned. These considerations lend both a weight and a hint of anxiety to Ermentarius’ continued and repeated use of the phrase limina sancti throughout Book II; where, in the end, were the boundaries of the saint located? Despite his choice to recount these older miracles, Ermentarius never detached Philibert’s presence from the physical location of his relics. Where his relics were, there was Philibert also. This was necessarily the case for a saint who, it had become clear, would never return to Noirmoutier. Since Philibert never went home, like the authors of other Carolingian translation accounts, Ermentarius had no reason to claim that some of the saint’s power still clung to the places he had abandoned. Yet in the fragmentation and reassembly of the bier in Book I, the sudden choice to recount Noirmoutierbased miracles in Book II, and the acknowledgment that there was a difference between the joyous translation to Déas and the secretive translation to Cunault, we see Ermentarius confronting the question of what movement meant for a “refugee saint.” He could not claim that Philibert was still performing miracles elsewhere now that his relics had left, but could still evoke these places as locations of previous demonstrations of power. Called on to justify repeated movements further and further away from Noirmoutier, Ermentarius fngered the beads of geographical memory while positively asserting that Philibert’s presence moved with his relics. No vestige of his power remained at Noirmoutier, though anti-Viking miracles performed there decades prior could be recounted as a defense against the impression that Philibert was a failed protector.

The saint in exile Other contemporary hagiographers had less diffcult jobs than Ermentarius. Philibert’s exile was unusual in the fact that it was permanent—an unexpectedly “genuine” translation. With the beneft of hindsight, other authors knew that their saints would (and had) returned to their original homes, and were therefore free to frame the question of presence and movement in different ways, lamenting the saint’s departure and exploring its ramifcations more openly than Ermentarius could. The saint could be represented as gone, but still present.32 This tension is refected in Aimoin’s account of the departure of Germanus’ relics from St-Germain-des-Prés (Paris) in 846, compiled several decades after the events took place.33 Aimoin described the Viking incursions and the necessity of removing most saints’ relics from

The effects of forced relic movement

35

the area (with the exception of St. Dionysius [Denis], specially protected by Charles the Bald) before telling his readers that Germanus’ relics were removed to the subordinate church of Combes. Unlike Ermentarius, Aimoin freely described an atmosphere of mourning and lamentation. His tropes inverted the motif of the joyous welcoming crowd typically invoked at the arrival of a relic; instead of the crowd celebrating a relic’s arrival, “old men and young men, boys and children, no one was able to hold himself back from tears.”34 However, Aimoin immediately followed this image of grief with a series of three miracles meant to establish the departure of Germanus’ relics as permitted, foretold, and temporary. The frst reported that a candle miraculously re-illuminated as the saint was being exhumed; a clear sign of divine approval of the action despite the sad circumstances. In the second, a team of monks returning before dawn saw a bright light emanating from the church where the relics had been placed, indicating the saint’s presence was linked to his holy bones. Most revealing, however, was the third miracle. It reported a vision that had supposedly taken place two years prior to the relics’ removal and predicted it.35 In his sleep, a monk had seen Germanus rise bodily from his tomb and start preparing as if for a journey. The dreamer asked the saint what he was doing; Germanus replied that he would be leaving this place. To the monk’s expressed concern at this planned departure, Germanus responded “with a sad expression” that the monks would also be leaving! Reassuringly, though, he went on to explain that they would all return. Aimoin concluded by noting that this was a true vision, because (as he knew when compiling his account) all of this would happen as foretold. This narrative meant that, with the gift of hindsight, the story of the relics’ send-off could be framed with the assurance that the saint knew about and had planned on the journey long in advance, the assertion that he was sad to leave his home, and the guarantee that both saint and monks would return. Aimoin could thus safely dramatize the pain and sadness of the relics’ departure. While Germanus’ relics were at Combes, the monastery was pillaged and partially dismantled for building supplies, which might have been taken as a sign that the saint’s sphere of action had left with the relics. Yet Aimoin was clear: the departure of his relics did not mean the total absence of the saint’s power. Rather, “with God’s pity, the power of the most holy father was not absent from that place,” as demonstrated by a series of unpleasant miracles punishing the raiding groups who had despoiled the abandoned monastery, conveniently reported later to the monks.36 In fact, Aimoin claimed, the Viking Ragnar said that of all the timid Franks, “he had encountered no one to resist him, except the old dead man Germanus.”37 While highly unreliable as a factual account of Ragnar’s perceptions or the nature of on-theground resistance, the story suggests the desire on Aimoin’s part to partially uncouple the saint’s power from a narrow focus on the location of his relics. Germanus, however ineffectual his protection may have seemed at the

36

Departures

time, was still a heavenly defender of his monastery. And yet, a fnal miracle indicated the very real perceived effects of the relics’ departure. After the majority of the monks had come back to St-Germain but before the relics had returned, the custodians were sleeping in the church when they heard a commotion coming from the altar of St. Stephen.38 Upon inspection, they found no one and realized that they had heard the voices of the demons who had been squatting in the church during the absence of the saint, lamenting that with the imminent return of the relics, their fun was soon to come to an end. Once the relics were returned, naturally, nothing of the kind was ever heard again. The soon-to-be-evicted demons pose an interesting counterpoint to the miraculous punishments of the Vikings: had Germanus stayed at home, or not? Regardless of the implications of absence, the ritual power and glory available as part of the relics’ return were clear. Translation practices offered no model for lamentable departure and exile, but they were full of precedent for how to celebrate an arrival. Germanus’ return was as emotional as his departure: “the tears of grief at [the saint’s] transmigration were no more plentiful than the tears of joy at his return.”39 A girl was healed as the reliquary passed over her, a candle carried before the reliquary extinguished by the wind was reignited, and a wooden cross was erected on the site to commemorate the miracle.40 The returning relics were met by an entry procession led by the abbot. As a further sign that this event effectively offered the monks the opportunity to reenact the saint’s translation, the relics were not immediately replaced; rather, they rested on the altar of St. Stephen until the saint’s translation day, when they were once again reinterred in his sarcophagus. A fnal dream made clear that the saint’s travels were over and there could be no further ambiguities regarding his presence. In this new vision, one of the monks saw the saint dressed in military armor standing in front of the altar of St. Stephen. The saint, apparently feeling somewhat belatedly pugnacious, advanced on the monks and demanded to know where the Vikings—“violators of that temple, dissipators of the fatherland, who had compelled his body and those of other saints to be dug up”—had gone off to.41 Upon learning that they had fed, he sat down and ordered them to help him take off his armor. This concluding image of rest after a job accomplished may seem strange, given that the saint’s relics were moved again roughly a decade later (857/8) in response to a second assault, a fact which Aimoin knew.42 This second journey, perhaps as a result of the attention given the departure and return in 845, was treated as less as an extraordinary occurrence and more as a repeat performance; the term Aimoin uses for this second journey is not transmigratio, but peregrinatio (pilgrimage) of monks and relics alike. The relics were moved multiple times on this trip: frst to Combes, then to Acmanto, and fnally to Nogent-sur-Marne before they were returned by boat to Paris in 863. The saint’s power manifested on this trip through miracles of healing in each place visited, beginning with the healing of a monk named

The effects of forced relic movement

37

Adalarius, who insisted on helping carry the relics to Combes and by the end of the journey had discarded his crutches.43 Yet while the saint performed healing miracles on the road, the monastery itself suffered again. During this raid, more than just buildings were damaged—a group of monks and servants were killed while celebrating Easter services. This apparent second failure on the part of the saint to protect the monastery seems explicable only if the saint’s power had left the monastery along with his relics. Accordingly, the hymn supposedly sung when Germanus’ relics returned—copied into the text by Aimoin— emphasized that the saint had not been present for these events, and that his return would restore his power to the physical location he had been forced to temporarily abandon: Come now, come, return, best and good pastor Seek your own sheep, and restore peace Do not allow further sadness regarding the carried-away relics. Paris deplored that you went away, lord, Bewailed and moaned that she was without glory Which she will celebrate having recovered now in your presence [praesentia]. Oh! That which your servants the monks cried for and lamented Exceedingly, along with your entire crowd of people, When you were an exile from your place, most holy one! What speech was able to tell of their heart’s wailing, And similarly, to set free the most bitter tears Because the priest of piety had been wickedly driven out. However, the fnal lines also claimed that he had not abandoned his people and had in fact remained both powerful and accessible: Who if he withdrew from the rough ferocity of the pagans, [Departed] neither from the place or the vengeful fames; he was still near, Present in dangers, on account of the worthy prayers of [his] servants.44 It is diffcult to understand how a saint who had done nothing to stop the murder of people devoted to him could be praised as “present in dangers,” even if this line refers to the power of the saint accessed through prayer in absentia rather than through the proximity of his relics. Much as Victricius of Rouen had attempted to explain fve centuries earlier how the arrival of physical relics both mattered and did not matter, the hymn argues that Germanus’ presence and power were both tied to his relics (such that he could leave as an exile, and return) and not tied to his relics (such that he was always “present” for his servants). Germanus could, at least according

38

Departures

to the monks who were his professional curators, be simultaneously present and not present, powerful despite his fight from danger, in need of welcome even though he had never truly left—an omnipresent exile. One has to wonder if there were at least a few among those celebrating the return of the relics who privately wondered about these claims and the value of welcoming back a fair-weather protector.

Remembering forced movement (tenth to eleventh centuries) Stories of Viking displacement generally ended as Germanus’ did, with the saint reestablished either in their prior location or a new and better home, in an image of geographical stability restored. Yet the memories of these movements remained alive and active; many saints now had a hagiographical tradition reporting the miracles they had performed when their relics had been extracted, carried around for a time, and replaced. Certain relics had even been moved into more portable reliquaries to allow for easy (and quick) transportability.45 Long after the threats that had prompted these displacements had passed, stories about the potential power accessible through the movement of relics continued to circulate. The ceremonies of translation no longer required an actual translation; miracles and the spectacle of joyous arrival could take place without the acquisition of a new relic, but instead through the movement of one already in possession. A “triumphant exile” precedent had been created for the temporary removal of relics, which linked narratives of disaster and threat with relic mobility. In the tenth and eleventh centuries, these traditions of movement would take on new life as monasteries experimented with moving relics in response to different kinds of contemporary threats. To see how memories of prior relic movements might provide inspiration and justifcations for later activities, we return to Philibert, whose relics had rested at Tournus since 875. The eleventh-century chronicler Falco of Tournus was well acquainted with Philibert’s ninth-century travels and provided his own version of them; with the beneft of two centuries’ worth of hindsight, Falco framed the peregrinations of Philibert’s relics as a new Exodus leading to the predestined Promised Land of Tournus, rather than the ad hoc series of translations described by Ermentarius.46 Falco found a further justifcation for the saint’s departure from Noirmoutier in the New Testament dispensation for apostolic wanderings: “if you are persecuted in one city, fee to another.”47 This verse may also have been in the minds of the dissident group of monks of Tournus who, sometime between May 945 and August 949, carried Philibert’s relics back to St-Pourçain (which had the last stop before the fnal move to Tournus) in response to a contested abbatial election. They remained there with the relics for three years, holding a rival election in the meantime. As Falco saw it a century later, the inspiration and justifcation for this monastic strike lay explicitly in the exilic tradition of the community: “they wished rather to endure a long exile in the image

The effects of forced relic movement

39

of their forefathers than to acquiesce to that criminal audacity of presumption.”48 The audacity in question was that of a lay lord, Gislebert the duke of Burgundy, who had attempted to force the community to accept Guido as abbot. Thus where Vikings had prompted the exile of Philibert’s relics and community from Noirmoutier in the ninth century, by the mid-tenth century the monks were casting Christian lords who interfered with their affairs in that antagonistic role. The logic of deprivation of the saint’s relics and presence was what the disgruntled monks relied on to make their actions meaningful; while Philibert’s relics were at St-Pourçain, Falco claimed, Burgundy experienced a famine and Gislebert’s own family was miraculously punished. A council was called to investigate, and emissaries convinced the exiles to return from St-Pourçain to Tournus. Praesentia, or rather its absence, had turned relic movement into a monastic weapon with the ninth-century escapes from Vikings as inspiration and precedent. The memory of that repeated movement was also actively kept alive, since Falco notes that the relics’ tenth-century departure and return were commemorated each year at Tournus with a procession on the Friday after Ascension.49 Tournus was not the only house which, by the eleventh century, was annually commemorating the past removal and return of their patron saint’s relics. Fleury, the home of the relics of St. Benedict that had supposedly been taken/stolen from Monte Cassino around the late seventh century, celebrated that event each year on July 11.50 But in addition to the translatio feast, a separate feast on December 4 was held at Fleury and “through all of Gaul” in commemoration of the saint’s illatio, according to the eleventhcentury hagiographer Theoderic.51 This illatio was in fact a relic removal in response to ninth-century Viking attacks. Upon hearing that raiders were on their way to Fleury, the monks sent the relics of Benedict in a boat downriver to safety in the city of Orléans. The relics were thus secure, but as at St-Germain, the Vikings burned the monastery and slaughtered the people left behind. Benedict then took it upon himself to appear in a vision to a local count, to inform him of these outrages and to provide the count with a battle plan for catching up with and punishing them. This revenge accomplished, and with the king stepping in to help restore the monastery, the monks were ready to move Benedict’s relics back by December. The river was iced over, so they planned to take him over the countryside. Technical diffculties due to the cold resulted, and so a monk suggested that they try the boat anyway—since it was only ftting that the saint return by the same method that he had left. Miraculously, the ice melted on either side of the craft, and even though too many monks dangerously crowded onboard, it foated effortlessly. The relics were brought frst to the church of St. Peter, where they stayed for a year before being fnally moved to their regular resting place in the church of St. Mary on the same day, December 4.52 In total, they had been away for two years.

40

Departures

Fleury’s annual celebration of these events indicates the power of narratives of relic movement and their commemoration over time. Though by the eleventh century few other houses (besides perhaps Monte Cassino) would have disputed Fleury’s claim to Benedict’s relics, the celebration of Benedict’s return reasserted the links between place and saint through a narrative of geographical bonds broken and reforged. In telling the story of the illatio, Theoderic repeatedly emphasized the geographical identities of saints’ relics and the idea that every saint has a seat. In his description of Gaul at the time of Viking attacks, he calls the region “the treasury of the Lord” and lists the most prestigious and their locations: Dionysius in Paris, Martin in Tours, Remigius in Reims, Anianus in Orléans, Martial in Limoges, Lucian in Beauvais, and of course, Benedict in Fleury.53 This equation of saint with place projected an image of relic stasis—each of these saints had a home where they belonged, and the fact that Benedict belonged in Fleury was reaffrmed as a prelude to the story of how he left and came back. Thus when Benedict appeared in the count’s vision and was asked who he was, the saint responded with a summary of his (relics’) travels: [I am] brother Benedict, who having been translated from the region of Benevento into Gaul, spurned my rest in Monte Cassino, and chose this place of the monastery of Fleury, so that the light of discipline through the presence of my body might be known in all Gaul…54 Benedict’s translation provided the context and precedent for his illatio, and both events made the argument that his presence and home were located in Fleury. This impression—that the departure and return of a relic could ultimately strengthen the bond between saint and place—may have helped justify the increased relic mobility of the tenth and eleventh centuries. Relics which had been moved (or were supposed to have moved) in the ninth century are often found moving again in the tenth and eleventh. Viking-fight stories might become part of a progression of mobile miracles, as in the miracles of Hubert, whose relics were housed at the monastery of Andage (St-Huberten-Ardennes, roughly 50 miles southeast of Namur).55 According to an eleventh-century hagiographer, Hubert’s relics were moved for fear of Vikings on two separate occasions: a frst movement to either Evernicourt in Champagne or Lieser on the Moselle, each roughly 100 miles away, and a second which passed through the village of Paliseul.56 Then in 955, when count Stephen gave the property of Chauvency to Andage, Hubert’s relics were moved as part of the donation process. Around 50 years later, when the brother of a duke disputed that property, the relics were again brought to Chauvency in order to defend it.57 These stories of Hubert’s miracles framed the travels of Hubert’s relics as part of a tradition of taking action through relic movement in cases of urgent necessity, whether that necessity was escaping Vikings or defending the rights and powers of the saint and monastery.

The effects of forced relic movement

41

Tying the saint’s presence tightly to his relics enabled these activities. When the relics were brought to Chauvency against the claims of the duke’s brother, this so angered him that he rode through the town in a counteract of defance—only to fall from his horse and break his neck. As the hagiographer claimed, the duke himself identifed Hubert’s presence in the town (in the form of his relics) as the reason and mechanism for his brother’s punishment, condemning “the reckless pride of the unjust invader, who did not respect the presence of so great a priest and his lord [Hubert].”58 However, it also came with complications. The inhabitants of the village of Paliseul supposedly confronted the monks of Andage on their second journey away from Vikings: “because they were carrying a patron of such stature so ill-advisedly so often; they feared to lose the protection of his presence, if he was carried so far away.”59 Given the date of composition of the text, this is likely as much an expression of eleventh-century concerns about saintly presence as ninth-century ones.

The saints and their homes From the perspective of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the idea that saints’ relics had been forced to move in earlier periods could also prompt refection on two potentially troubling questions: how did certain relics come to be where they were, and where, in the end, did they belong? It is here that the lines between memory, myth, and outright fabrication begin to blur in complicated but revealing ways. The motif of temporary or permanent relic exile could be a very handy retrospective tool. As Felice Lifshitz suggested, the potential usefulness of this trope for claiming (or fabricating) possession of relics, particularly Norman relics, likely contributed retroactively to the development of Orderic Vitalis’ vision of an “exodus of holy bodies.”60 Here I am not concerned with uncovering which central medieval claims about relic possession might be true or false, but with examining the rhetorical effects of the central medieval impression that many saints’ relics might reasonably have traveled several centuries earlier. Even if some or many of these claims had anti-Norman or Capetian royalist underpinnings, as Lifshitz argued, their implications were not limited to the political.61 There were many possible uses for claims that relics had traveled in the distant past. A hagiographer writing the miracles of St. Bertha claimed that the relics of Sts. Wandregisil and Ansbert of Fontanelle, in feeing the Vikings, were brought to Bertha’s convent of Blangy (Blangy-sur-Ternoise, dépt. Pasde-Calais) and stayed there for 20 years.62 This seems doubtful; although Wandregisil and Ansbert’s relics did in fact travel extensively in the last half of the ninth century, the account of these movements away from Fontanelle do not reference a stay at Blangy, certainly not a 20-year-long stay.63 But for Bertha’s hagiographer, the fact that Wandregisil and Ansbert’s relics were known to have been highly mobile may have made such a visit plausible. This claim of a historic visit provided the author with an opportunity to

42

Departures

portray Bertha as a gracious hostess, collaborator, and equal of these two other saints by relating a miracle the three performed collaboratively.64 The text relates that a mute man had a vision in which all three saints (Wandregisil, Ansbert, and Bertha) advanced toward him on the step where he sat and then engaged in a polite conversation about who should heal him. Wandregisil told Ansbert that he should go frst, since he was an archbishop. Then the two of them courteously turned to Bertha and told her that since the man was in her place, he should regain his health by her merits. Wandregisil then put his hand on the man’s head, Ansbert grabbed his right arm, Bertha squeezed his jaw, and the cure was accomplished.65 The trope of forced translation afforded this hagiographer the chance to retroactively link these saints and houses together through the travels of their relics. Stories about long-past relic fights could also reinforce more contentious claims to contemporary supervision and authority. The author of the Gesta episcoporum of Cambrai argued that monasteries had needed the safety of cities and the wise protection of bishops to house their exiled relics in order to make forceful statements about the supremacy of episcopal over monastic authority. In Book I, he scoffed at the contemporary claims of abbot Falrad of St-Vaast regarding his monastery’s freedom from episcopal oversight, citing stories about Viking-era relic movement to claim that St-Vaast had once been dependent on the bishops of Cambrai for aid and permission to secure their relics. In those troubled times, according to the Gesta author, the abbots of St-Vaast had approached bishop Theoderic and humbly begged him for his permission to temporarily relocate the relics of Vedast (Vaast), and for his help to fnd a suitably safe place and coordinate the effort.66 The relics were accordingly moved to Beauvais, and years later were retrieved and brought back to St-Vaast by bishop Dodilo. Though hagiographical narratives of these events remember Dodilo’s help in securing the relics’ retrieval from Beauvais, they do not record Theoderic’s involvement with the initial transfer.67 The Gesta author continued this theme by telling the story of another group of canons living in a monastery called Baralle who, unlike the wise monks of St-Vaast, did not listen to the bishop’s advice and met a terrible fate. According to the Gesta author, these canons had an arm of St. George, which during Dodilo’s tenure they brought to Cambrai for security.68 When they wanted to return, the bishop told them it was unsafe to do so and that they should wait. After holding on for a time, they once again decided to go back and the bishop warned them against it a second time, insisting that even if they left he would keep the relic safely in Cambrai.69 It was well he did, the Gesta author complacently concluded, because otherwise the treasure would have been lost. The canons only made it three miles from the city before they were intercepted and killed. The monastery itself was destroyed and not rebuilt, and so George’s arm remained in Cambrai. The interrelated messages of these stories were clear for the author of the Gesta: bishops help and protect their (subject) monasteries, relics should only be moved by the

The effects of forced relic movement

43

authority and prerogative of the bishop, and relics were displaced by the Viking attacks—some temporarily, others permanently. It was this quasi-archaeological view of ninth-century relic movement that was at the heart of a confict over the relics of St. Geremar (Germer), also held at Beauvais. In 1149, a monk of St-Germer-de-Flay (about 16 miles west of Beauvais) produced a text that used stories of Viking-related exile to assert a claim to Geremar’s relics against the bishop of Beauvais. The text begins with a version of the “exodus of holy bodies” motif: as the vicious Viking Rollo attacks, “many congregations of those serving God, carrying with them the bodies of the saints that they had, departed into the safer cities of Francia.”70 Thus it happened, our hagiographer explained, that Geremar’s relics were brought to Beauvais, and, having frst been placed in a tower in the city, were later moved by the bishop to the church of St. Peter. Yet the saint never went home. One hundred and thirty years later (in the mid-eleventh century), following the chronology of the text, the monastery of St-Germer was fnally restored, but the brothers were upset that they did not have the body of their patron. Guido the bishop of Beauvais was supposedly sympathetic to their distress and began to make plans to return the relics to the monks. According to the author, he did so on the grounds that: …it was just that what had been commended to the mother church in the time of necessity for the purpose of safety, ought to be returned to the seeking daughter as [her] own.71 Though likely not fully trustworthy as a description of Guido’s words or perspective, the twelfth-century hagiographer’s argument was that Geremar’s apparent translation to Beauvais was in fact only a dislocation—meant to be temporary, not permanent—and that the monks were only asking that the relics be returned to them. Despite Guido’s supposed sympathy to this claim, the relics were not relinquished; the cathedral clergy of Beauvais took it upon themselves to steal Geremar’s body out of his reliquary. Then, since the theft had been widely published and no one believed that his body was in his reliquary, there could surely be no safer place to hide them than back in that same reliquary. After this convoluted explanation of the relics’ “true” whereabouts, another time gap conveniently intervenes in the hagiographer’s story. The exact location of the saint’s relics remained unknown, until in the early twelfth century a clergyman opened up Geremar’s reliquary and to his surprise found the saint actually in it. At that point the bishop of Beauvais (now Peter) planned a formal ostension ceremony. The rediscovery of the relics and announcement of the ostension suggested to the monks of St-Germer that it would be a good time to renew their claim to the saint’s relics. They requested this time not the full body—just an arm. This appeal was refused, and the abbot decided to boycott the ostension as a result. However, on the day of the ostension, as Bishop Jocelin of Soissons demonstrated the relics to the crowd, a man shouted at him insisting that

44

Departures

some part of the relics be given to the monks.72 The bishop responded positively but placed the onus of the decision on the people, telling the crowd that although they ought to return the entire body of the saint to the monks who had commended it to them so long ago, at least they should give up a piece.73 Moved to tears, the people called back that they would. And so it was that the monks of St-Germer acquired (or reacquired) the right arm of their saint, and in 1132 brought him back to “his own place and temple.”74 If the long list of Viking-displaced saints—Germanus, Richarius, Bavo, Genevieve, Vedast, Hermes, and many others—had, for the most part, all returned to their homes, who was to say that those saints supposedly still in their places of refuge should not do the same, regardless of the intervening centuries?75 The twelfth-century monk of St-Germer and his contemporaries found Viking escape narratives a means by which to make historicizing arguments regarding relics, saint, and place: not about where relics were, but about where relics should be. It was a tactic that had its roots in the same theme of geographical stability that Theoderic had emphasized in his account of Benedict’s illatio. In the end, fragmentation of Geremar’s body was the somewhat uncomfortable means to resolving the dispute; by detaching his right arm, the saint’s presence could (theoretically) be shared, though this was clearly not the preferred option for either party.76

Conclusion As far as we know, the monks of Elnone were never forced to move Amandus’ relics for fear of a Viking attack. Yet the erudite canon Pierre-Joseph Warichez mistakenly identifed the prose account of the journey of Amandus’ relics in 1066 as a narrative of fight from Vikings.77 It was an understandable and revealing error. Memories, or invented memories, of the relic movements of the ninth century were alive and well in the eleventh, and in some quarters were being actively developed for contemporary use. More subtly, eleventh-century hagiographers, like their ninth-century counterparts, needed to frame and justify the movement of relics as the movement of the saint. The author of the verse account of Amandus’ 1066 journey (Gislebert) specifcally drew on metaphors of disaster, exile, mission, and triumphant return to portray the saint as a traveler in death as he had been in life.78 In his verses describing the departure of the relics after the fre at the monastery, Gislebert used a furry of travel metaphors to interpret Amandus as simultaneously an exile, an itinerant priest/healer, a guest, a pilgrim, and a missionary: Grief, have an end! The fre has been quenched with tears. Look! The path of rejoicing is opened by the merits of Amandus. This priest is exiled so that you [grief] might go from these boundaries as an exile. Go, holy priest, go to see the sick and sad,

The effects of forced relic movement

45

So that Gaul might be safe and sound, where you will have gone as a visitor, Then spreading the law of heaven through the Gallic countryside Bring back the precious trophies [relics] to our desert. Run, mortals, to the divine pilgrim! The company of Elnone bears a citizen of the highest region To carry as a messenger the heavenly news to the earth.79 When the relics returned, Gislebert framed the saint as a hero returning home after war: Behold the expected one, see the one called by night and day Amandus the alumnus, the duke and hope of all, is coming Returning rich with spoils from the kingdom of the Franks With many people added, to whom he is the giver of health, Who were standing around; and his people rushed towards [him] With praise resounding; as if the thought of the saint Said to them: “My crowd, run out to my trophies [relics]!”80 Departure as an exile was matched with return as a victor. In 1066, no Vikings threatened the safety and security of Elnone, but the roots of Gislebert’s metaphors describing the traveling saint were grounded in narratives of relic movement developed long before. In the end, the forced displacements of relics in the ninth century forced contemporary hagiographers to grapple with the implications of posthumous travel of the saints, contrasting ideals of geographical stability with realities of movement. Yet they also demonstrated to later readers that while there was the danger that the relics might not return, travel offered the saints an opportunity to extend their infuence while reaffrming their permanent attachment to their original community. Stories about relics feeing before Viking assaults suggested that a saint could not only leave but come back stronger than ever, having forged new connections and accumulated more miracles. The rhetorical power of translation became reusable, as the perception that the saints’ relics had moved in the past was joined by the expectation that they might be called on to travel once again.

Notes 1 On Deusdona’s involvement and activities, Patrick Geary, Furta Sacra: Thefts of Relics in the Central Middle Ages (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978), 44–48. 2 Einhard, “Translatio et miracula ss. Marcellini et Petri,” MGH SS XV.1, 241. “Nam—ut mihi postea retulit—videbatur illi nequaquam sibi licere, cum solo beati Marcellini corpore in patriam regredi, quasi nefas esset, ut corpus beati Petri martyris, qui ei socius in passione fuerat et per quingentos et eo amplius annos in eodem sepulchro una cum illo requieverat, illo inde transeunte, ibi remaneret.”

46 Departures 3 Julia Smith, “Old Saints, New Cults: Roman Relics in Carolingian Francia,” in Early Medieval Rome and the Christian West: Essays in Honour of Donald A. Bullough, ed. Julia Smith, The Medieval Mediterranean 8 (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 318. 4 John Crook, The Architectural Setting of the Cult of Saints in the Early Christian West c.300 - c.1200 (New York: Clarendon Press, 2000), 67. On the creation of sacred space (including the use of relics) during Carolingian church consecration, Dana M. Polanichka, “Transforming Space, (Per)Forming Community: Church Consecration in Carolingian Europe,” Viator 43, no. 1 (January 1, 2012): 79–98. 5 Robert Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things?: Saints and Worshippers from the Martyrs to the Reformation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013), 285; Paul Fouracre, “The Origins of the Carolingian Attempt to Regulate the Cult of Saints,” in The Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages: Essays on the Contribution of Peter Brown (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 161–65. 6 On use of relic translations as part of the Saxon conquest, Hedwig Röckelein, Reliquientranslationen nach Sachsen im 9. Jahrhundert: über Kommunikation, Mobilität und Öffentlichkeit im Frühmittelalter, Beihefte der Francia (Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, 2001). 7 Crook, The Architectural Setting of the Cult of Saints, 16–18. 8 As Jerome had argued in response to Vigilantus, the saints were not “contained” by their relics; Caroline Walker Bynum, Christian Materiality: An Essay on Religion in Late Medieval Europe (New York: Zone Books, 2011), 178–79. 9 “Forced translations” is the term proposed for these displacements by Daniel Deselm, whose work has assembled a corpus of relic fight texts and analyzed their political implications on a regional basis. Daniel C. DeSelm, “Unwilling Pilgrimage: Vikings, Relics, and the Politics of Exile during the Carolingian Era (c. 830–940)” (University of Michigan, History, 2009). 10 On the “exodus of holy bodies” thesis: Élizabeth Corvisier, “L’exode et l’implantation des reliques des saints de l’Ouest de la France en Ile-de-France aux IXe et Xe siècles,” Paris et Ile-de-France - Mémoires 32 (1981): 289–98; Felice Lifshitz, “The Exodus of Holy Bodies Reconsidered: The Translation of the Relics of St. Gildard of Rouen to Soissons,” Analecta Bollandiana 110 (1992): 329–40; Felice Lifshitz, “The Migration of Neustrian Relics in the Viking Age: The Myth of Voluntary Exodus, the Reality of Coercion and Theft,” Early Medieval Europe 4, no. 2 (September 1, 1995): 175–92; DeSelm, “Unwilling Pilgrimage.” 11 Lifshitz, “The Migration of Neustrian Relics,” 175–92. 12 CCH Brussels, vol. I, 588. “Relatio pretiosi corporis beatissimi Remigii, quae III Kl. Januarii celebratur; nec dicitur translatio, quia propter metum pagnorum hoc accidit.” Martin Heinzelmann, Translationsberichte und andere Quellen des Reliquienkultes (Turnhout: Brepols, 1979), 53. 13 Isabelle Cartron, Les pérégrinations de Saint-Philibert: genèse d’un réseau monastique dans la société carolingienne (Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2009), 32. 14 As in Marc Bloch, La société féodale; la formation des liens de dépendance (Paris: A. Michel, 1939), 30–31. 15 Lifshitz, “The Migration of Neustrian Relics,” 191–92; Janet Nelson has suggested this may not be entirely fair to Ermentarius: Janet L. Nelson, “England and the Continent in the Ninth Century: II, The Vikings and Others,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 13 (2003): 10. 16 Ermentarius, “Translationes et miracula s. Filiberti,” in Monuments de l’histoire des abbayes de Saint-Philibert, ed. René Poupardin (Paris: Picard et fls, 1905); Cartron, Les pérégrinations de Saint-Philibert, 25–26. Despite Philibert’s prominence in the historiography, extant manuscripts of Ermentarius’ text are limited, and Book II particularly seems to have had little circulation.

The effects of forced relic movement

47

17 Cartron, 34–35. 18 Sepulchrum is unusual to describe a transportable relic container, though sepulchrum was used to describe the niche within the altar in which relics were hidden during a dedication; Charles Du Cange, Glossarium mediae et infmae latinitatis, vol. 6 (Paris: F. Didot, 1846), 195. The stone sarcophagus understood to be that of Philibert is still extant at St-Philibert-de-Grand-Lieu; Eugène Pépin, “Saint Philibert et ses reliques,” Centre international d’études romanes: Revue trimestriel 4 (1975): 10. 19 Ermentarius, “Translationes et miracula s. Filiberti,” 29. 20 Ermentarius, 34–35. The nature of Hilbod’s rebuilding projects has been the subject of much architectural discussion: Poupardin, 35; Crook, The Architectural Setting of the Cult of Saints, 138–41. 21 On the question of female access to male monastic spaces, Chapter 6 and Jane Tibbetts Schulenburg, “Gender, Celibacy, and Proscriptions of Sacred Space,” in Women’s Space: Patronage, Place and Gender in the Medieval Church, ed. Virginia Chieffo Raguin and Sarah Stanbury (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005), 185–205. 22 Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things?, 262. 23 Ermentarius, 26. “gaudent omnes vel scalam qua vehebatur seu etiam linteum quo tegebatur se posse contingere.” 24 Ibid., 36. “ista vero tantae fdei ardore fagrabat, ut si scalam in qua sanctissimum corpus vectum vel linteum qua tectum fuerat contingere potuisset, e vestigio sanitas sequeretur.” 25 Ibid., 34. “venerandum sepulchrum cum sacratissimo pignore de scala deponitur et in dextro cornu ecclesiae quae, sicut diximus, in modum crucis constructa est, collocatur, atque in sinistro latere ecclesiae scala ipsa appenditur.” Pépin has proposed that the bier was suspended from the ceiling in order to protect it from lay access; however, it seems more likely that it remained physically accessible, given the number of pieces which seem to have been taken from it. Pépin, “Saint Philibert et ses reliques,” 11. 26 Ermentarius, “Translationes et miracula s. Filiberti,” 38. “quicumque enim aliquam sibi particulam ex ea excidere poterat ob reventium vel amorem ipsius sancti secum ferebat.” 27 Ibid., 39. 28 Ibid., 39–40. omnes qui de ipso scalae ligno aliquid habebant ad monasterium detulerunt, sciscitantes quid de ipso facere deberent; non enim audebant tam venerabile lignum sine sui veneratione habere. Quibus responsum est, ut vel in ecclesiis sibi propinquis in quibus die noctuque Dei offcium celebratur collocarent, vel etiam unde acceperant restituerent; quod ita factum est. 29 Ibid., 62. “de ipsis prope Nortmannorum manibus rapitur potius cleptim quam transfertur festivis cum laudibus.” 30 Very few miracles occur in the absence of the saint’s relics; an interesting exception is a story regarding a leaden vessel belonging to the saint that was left on the road as the relics were moved to Déas. It was stolen by a group of Britons, who carried it with them up the Atlantic coastal trading routes till fnally convinced by consistently bad winds and a startling vision of the saint that the stolen goods were to blame. Ermentarius, 54–56. 31 Ermentarius, 65–66. 32 On this question, as applied to the relationship between relic and shrine in late medieval England, Robyn Malo, Relics and Writing in Late Medieval England (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013), 68–98. 33 Aimoin’s account, written between 867 and 887, reworked two prior accounts of these events; these two accounts have also been edited as the Miraculi sancti

48 Departures

34

35 36 37 38 39 40 41

42

43 44

Germani, MGH SS XV.1, 10–16; Carroll Gillmor, “Aimoin’s Miracula Sancti Germani and the Viking Raids on St. Denis and St. Germain-des-Prés,” in The Normans and Their Adversaries at War: Essays in Memory of C. Warren Hollister, ed. Richard P. Abels and Bernard S. Bachrach (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2001), 112–13. Aimoin, “Miracula s. Germani,” AASS May VI, 798. “Senes itaque ac juvenes, pueri febant et infantes, utpote nemo sese a lacrymis temperare valens.” The trope relies on the juxtapositions of ages/social classes/ genders in order to model “everyone;” see Chapter 2. Ibid., 798. Ibid., 798–99. “sed quia domino miserante nec ibi virtus defuit eiusdem sanctissimi patris.” Ibid., 799. “nullumque invenerit sibi resistentem, praeter Germanum senem mortuum.” Ibid. Ibid., 800. “Nec uberior moestitiae fetus in transmigratione, quam laetitiae extitit in reversione.” The word transmigratio is unusual; I have not encountered it to describe any other relic’s departure. On the erection of crosses in the landscape as part of a relic’s passage, Chapter 6. Aimoin, “Miracula s. Germani,” 800–801. “ubi essent vel quo abissent Nortmanni, ipsius templi violatores, patriae dissipatores, qui sua aliorumque sanctorum membra effodi compulissent.” Aimoin interpreted this exchange as a sign that the saint had successfully defended his territory. There has been some debate whether or not Aimoin accurately reported the circumstances of two attacks, one in 845 and the other in 858, or whether he had misinterpreted sources describing a single incident in 845 as accounts of two separate events. Gillmor has argued for Aimoin’s reliability on this matter: Gillmor, “Aimoin’s Miracula Sancti Germani,” 113–27. While he does not consider the mobility of Germanus’ relics in his discussion, the different details regarding the relics’ movement in the account of each trip (e.g., the specifcation that the relics were carried back from Combes in 845, but foated down the Marne from Nogent in 858) would seem to indicate that two separate relic journeys indeed took place. For other examples of men and women who carried relics on their journeys (or wished to) in order to access the saint’s power or express their gratitude for it, see Chapter 3. Aimoin, “Miracula s. Germani,” 804. Veni jam, veni benigne, redi pastor optime,/ Oves proprias require, ac paci restitue, / Nec tristari ultra sine de sublato pignore. / Deplorabat te cessisse dominum Lutecia, / Se plangebat et lugebat caruisse gloria, / Quam adplaudet recepisse jam tua praesentia. / Heu quam febant et gemebant servi tui monachi, / Et caterva populorum cuncta nimis propria, / Cum fuisses exsul loco a tuo, sanctissime! / Quis illorum sermo valet planctus fari cordium, / Atque simul expedire fetus amarissimos, / Quod sacerdos pietatis pulsus esset impie. / Qui si cessit feritati paganorum rigidae, / Necnon loco vel ultrici fammae; tamen adfuit / Votis dignis famulorum praesens in periculis.

My thanks to Lauren Whitnah for her assistance with this translation. 45 Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things?, 276. 46 Cartron, Les pérégrinations de Saint-Philibert, 318; Edina Bozóky, “Voyage de reliques et démonstration du pouvoir aux temps féodaux,” in Voyages et voyageurs au moyen âge (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 1996), 268. 47 Falco, “Chronicon Trenorchiense,” in Monuments de l’histoire des abbayes de Saint-Philibert, ed. René Poupardin (Paris: Picard et fls, 1905), 83.

The effects of forced relic movement

49

48 Falco, 91. “longum adhuc patrum instar priorum exilium subire quam huic adquiescere nefarie praesumptionis audatie maluerunt.” Falco’s account of the tenth-century exile contains chronological inaccuracies; Cartron discusses the temporal issues surrounding this event in depth, and I have followed her dating: Cartron, Les pérégrinations de Saint-Philibert, 140–44. 49 Though Poupardin suggests that this date was chosen because it was the date on which the relics returned, it may have been chosen for the temporal correlation with Rogations/major litanies that preceded Ascension. Falco’s text specifes that the processions would happen “velud in letaniis feri solet,” making the liturgical connection to Rogations explicit. Falco, “Chronicon Trenorchiense,” 94 note 1. 50 Geary, Furta Sacra, 120–22. 51 Jean Mabillon, ed., “Liber de illatione redituque corporis s. Benedicti Aurelianis Floriacum,” AASSOSB 4.2., 354–55. The term illatio appears in contemporary manuscripts, as in Paris BN lat. 5342, fol. 160v: “Incipit textus illationis patris Benedicti” and Paris BN lat. 12606, fol. 163v: “Incipit illatio beati patris Benedicti.” 52 “Liber de illatione,” 352–54. 53 Ibid., 351–52. 54 Ibid., 352. “Ego sum frater Benedictus, qui de Bevenentanis fnibus in Galliam translatus, propriam requiem in Casino monte sprevi, et hunc locum Floriacensis monasterii elegi, ut lucerna disciplinae per meam corporalem coessentiam universae innotesceret Galliae.” 55 Hubert’s relics had been translated from Liège to Andage in 825, as described by Jonas of Orléans, as part of a larger project by the bishopric of Liège to establish a frm foothold in the Ardennes. There was also a tradition of croix banales which brought local groups to the monastery in procession. Satoshi Tada, “The Creation of a Religious Centre: Christianisation in the Diocese of Liège in the Carolingian Period,” The Journal of Ecclesiastical History 54, no. 2 (April 2003): 218–19. 56 “Miracula s. Hucbert (Liber secundus),” AASS Nov. I, 826. On the sources of Hubert’s cult, Tada, 212. 57 “Miracula s. Hucbert (Liber secundus),” 827. 58 “Miracula s. Hucbert (Liber secundus),” 827. “et iniqui pervasoris temerariam improbavit superbiam, qui tanti pontifcis et eiusdem domini non reveritus est praesentiam.” 59 “Miracula s. Hucbert (Liber secundus),” 826. “cur sic inconsulte toties efferrent tantae dignitatis patronum; cuius praesentiae, si longius asportaretur, timebant amittere patrocinium.” The monks, in a peculiar response to this concern, opened the reliquary to view the uncorrupted body of Hubert; why such a demonstration was supposed to alleviate concerns about taking the saint away is unclear. Chapter 3 discusses the particular strain movement put on the relationship between relic and reliquary. 60 Lifshitz, “The Migration of Neustrian Relics,” 187. 61 As with the claims of Gigny to the relics of St. Taurinus against Fécamp; the journey of Taurinus’ relics in 1158 provides one of the major texts regarding central medieval relic journeys; Lifshitz, 189–90. Marculf, whose relics traveled in the twelfth century, had also come to Corbény as a result of forced displacement. 62 “Relatio corporis (Berthae, abbatissae Blangiacensis) Blangiacum et miracula,” AASSOSB 3.1, 430; “Ex miraculis et translatione s. Bertae,” MGH SS XV.1, 565. 63 “Miracula s. Wandregisili,” MGH SS XV.1, 407–9. 64 On collaborative/competitive miracle performance and the question of saints’ relative “ranks”, Chapter 4. 65 The conversation suggests Bertha’s hagiographer was concerned that Wandregisil and Ansbert would get the credit for this miracle and Bertha herself would be

50

66 67 68

69 70

71

72

73 74 75

Departures sidelined. This was not unreasonable, considering that the early eleventh-century author of the miracles of St. Wulframnus actually did attribute this miracle to the two male saints and sidelined Bertha: “a man mute for a long time was cured by the merits of saints Wandregisil and Ansbert at Blangy, where St. Bertha rested,” even though the authors acknowledged that all three saints had laid their hands on him. “Inventio et miracula s. Wulframni,” AASS Mar. III, 149. “Gesta episcoporum Cameracensium,” MGH SS VII, 446. “Translatio s. Vedasti,” AASS Feb. I, 809–12. The return of Vedast’s relics from Beauvais was commemorated with a relatio feast on July 15. “Gesta episcoporum Cameracensium,” 458–59. The story presents a number of problems. No house of canons at Baralle is confrmed by any other source, and an arm of St. George seems a peculiar relic for a house supposedly founded by Clovis and destroyed in the late ninth century. George’s relics were generally associated with crusade acquisitions; however, this section of the Gesta was fnished ca. 1025, making the identity of this St. George and the episode a puzzle. “Gesta episcoporum Cameracensium,” 459. “Cum haec ita sit vestra sententia, esto! in vestra manu deliberationem constituo; illud tamen pignus preciosi brachii apud me retinebo.” “Translatio s. Geremari anno 1132 (Narratio qualiter reliquias beati patris nostri accepimus),” AASS Sept. VI, 704. “Quo terrore per provincias intonante, multae Deo servientium congregationes, ablatis secum, quae habebant, Sanctorum corporibus, in tutiores Franciae civitates concesserunt quantocius.” “Translatio s. Geremari,” 705. “de reddendo eis corpore sancti cum praefato rege coepit consiliari, dicens, justum esse, ut, quod ecclesiae matri commendatum fuerat tempore necessitatis ad salvum faciendum, debere reddi fliae repetenti tanquam proprium.” Guido was caught up in accusations of simony: John S. Ott, Bishops, Authority and Community in Northwestern Europe, c.1050–1150, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought, Fourth Series 102 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 59. Why Jocelin of Soissons is described as performing the ostension and acting as the interlocutor with the crowd rather than the bishop of Beauvais is not clear. Perhaps only an outsider could effectively make this appeal to the citizenry. Ott considers Jocelin’s presence as evidence of a larger culture of regional episcopal collaboration at relic translations; Ott, 304. “Translatio s. Geremari,” 706. Ibid., 707. “ad suum proprium locum et templum”.” In Normandy, these kinds of “returns” were not disconnected from contemporary politics: the various forgeries, phony inventiones, and re-written translationes of the eleventh and twelfth centuries are not, as some have suggested, a sign of a pervasive conspiracy to create a false backstory for later developments; rather, they are a testament to the enduring signifcance of forced relic translations during the Viking attacks, whose full effects often took centuries to fower. DeSelm, “Unwilling Pilgrimage,” 217

76 The question of the desirability and possibility of medieval relic fragmentation is closely related to the question of saintly presence and relic circulation. I agree with Malo that we should draw a clear distinction between the medieval theological claim that all relics, no matter whether a fragment or a whole body, contained the full power of the saint, and the abundant evidence that this was not a universally shared perception; Malo, Relics and Writing in Late Medieval England, 39–44. On the issue of fragmentation, Bynum, Christian Materiality, 192–94.

The effects of forced relic movement

51

77 Joseph Warichez, Les origines de l’église de Tournai (Louvain: Typographie Charles Peeters, 1902), 205. 78 On Gislebert and the Carmen, see Introduction. 79 Gislebert, “Carmen de incendio s. Amandi Elnonensis,” MGH SS XI, 418. “Meror, habe fnem! satiasti fetibus ignem, / En! via letandi meritis aperitur Amandi. / Exulat hic presul, ut eas his fnibus exul. / I, sacer antistes, egros i visere tristes; / Gallia sit sospes, qua tu successeris hospes; / Tum caeli iura pandens per Gallica rura / Nostro deserto speciosa trophea referto. / Currite divinum terrestres ad peregrinum!” 80 Ibid., 427. En expectatus, en nocte dieque vocatus / Dux et spes omnis occurrit Amandus alumnus, / Horis [regno] Francorum rediens dives spoliorum, / Pluribus adductis, quibest est dator ipse salutis, / Qui circumstabant; contraque sui properabant / Laude resultanti, tanquam sententia sancti / Dicat eis: ‘Mea turba, meis occurere tropheis!’ The use of tropaeum to refer to the saint’s relics is interesting given Gislebert’s militaristic language, but is not without precedent: Christine Mohrmann, “A propos de deux mots controversés de la Latinité chrétienne: tropaeum—nomen,” Vigiliae Christianae 8 (1954): 154–73.

2

Liturgical frameworks for relic circulation

When the monks of Gigny came to Cluny in 1158 with their relics of St. Taurinus, they were welcomed with an impressive display of the wealth and power of their mother house. Abbot Hugh of Cluny had ordered the entire village to go out to meet the relics and launched an intensive preparation campaign at Cluny itself. The very best decorations had been carefully put up, and at Hugh’s signal, a formal procession was launched. He came frst, of course, and behind him the entire body of Cluniac monks carried silver crosses and golden censers out beyond the enclosure of the monastery. Once they reached the relics, the praecentor began an antiphon and accompanied by song, Taurinus’ relics were escorted into Cluny and placed on the altar of the Holy Cross. The people of the village gave generous donations, and even those not able to bring anything to contribute brought their goodwill.1 This magnifcent welcome was clearly meant to be highly fattering to the saint and his curators, and the hagiographer returned the compliment, noting that “one would be hard-pressed to fnd a more expensive or beautiful monastery [than Cluny] anywhere on earth…[or] a larger or more religious group of monks.”2 And Cluny was not the only stop along Taurinus’ journey to roll out the red carpet. The town of Mâcon, the next stop on the way, made similar preparations for the relics’ arrival. The road was smoothed, draperies were hung on both sides of the street, and the bells of the church rang as men and women of all ages went out from the city to meet the relics and escort them joyfully into the city and the church of St. Peter. This type of formal welcome, in which a coordinated procession went out to meet an arriving party at some distance, was variously termed an occursus, adventus, or entry. Its roots as a ritual format lay in the triumphs and processions used to welcome Roman emperors, later synthesized with the Christian model of Christ’s entry into Jerusalem and adapted to a wide variety of situations, both ecclesiastical and secular.3 By the twelfth century, entries had long been performed by individuals, monasteries, and cities to welcome kings, queens, popes, bishops, and other fgures of authority, and these highly formal and structured events would grow more symbolic and spectacular over the course of the late Middle Ages.4 Entries had also been used to welcome arriving relics during a translation since at least the fourth

Liturgical frameworks 53 5

century. In theory, every stop along a relic’s travels could result in an entry procession, but even longer hagiographical descriptions of relic journeys note these events only occasionally. Either not all stopping places performed an entry, not all were documented, or both. When entries were described, their specifcations tend to vary little; often the authors drew on commonplaces, especially the juxtaposition of different ages (young/old) and sexes (men/women) to indicate that “everyone” was involved and uniformly excited to receive the saint’s relics into their town or monastery.6 The details given regarding Cluny and Mâcon’s preparations to welcome Taurinus are more the exception than the norm. As a result, looking at hagiography alone gives the impression that the act of formally welcoming an arriving relic was a straightforward and almost timeless performance. A more complex and nuanced picture of the process of formally sending out relics and welcoming them back is offered by central medieval customaries. Despite a recent increase of interest, customaries remain relatively underutilized sources. Generally speaking, they catalog the additional practices of a particular house above and beyond the Rule of St. Benedict or any of the other rules which were used to regulate the day-to-day operations of a monastery.7 Though the Rule was authoritative, it was not comprehensive, and contained no guidance on many aspects of central medieval monastic life—other types of texts documented how those practical liturgical and administrative gaps were flled. Customaries were one of the genres that existed in those gaps, along with ordines and ordinaries.8 An ordo was a freestanding instruction for a single liturgical event, for example, the deposition of relics in an altar during the dedication of a church. The most well-known examples of early medieval ordines were those included in the Ordines romani, a series of ordines theoretically based on the practices of Rome itself that initially circulated alone but were quickly grouped into collections that were copied together.9 Ordinaries were much more comprehensive and localized compilations of liturgical celebrations; they collected liturgical instructions for a particular house’s practices and organized them according to the calendar year, particularly including the incipit for each piece to be sung or spoken and rubricated instructions for any accompanying actions. Customaries generally focused instead on the administrative life of a monastery in ways akin to a rule, especially addressing events which might happen at any time (e.g., the ritual acceptance of a novice), though they could also include liturgical material in ways which can blur our sense of strict separation between customaries and ordinaries.10 Though customaries may seem like practical or even necessary monastic documents, there are serious questions about exactly why central medieval customaries were produced, used, and circulated. Older scholarship suggested that each house (or order) would have developed its own customary as an internal reference guide, to be used didactically or as documentation of practice in case of a dispute. Yet the relative scarcity of extant

54

Departures

customaries before the thirteenth century suggests that ownership of a written customary was probably the exception rather than the rule, and that oral transmission of practices likely took precedence over recourse to a written text.11 Thus, Isabelle Cochelin has argued that central medieval customaries (before the increased regulatory impulses of the twelfth century) should be primarily interpreted as inspirational rather than administrative documents, often refecting the customs of a house as idealized for an external audience rather than internally legislated.12 This aligns with the fact that several extant customaries were explicitly produced at the request of outsiders wishing to learn more about their practices, as was the case for one of the earliest examples of a customary-like text: the letter of abbot Theodemar in the late eighth century regarding the practices of Monte Cassino written at the request of Theoderic.13 These questions surrounding the production, use, and preservation of customaries have implications for their interpretation. As sources, customaries straddle the boundary between descriptive and prescriptive texts. They give formulaic recipes for ritual activity, implying an expectation that these were rules and standards being set down for the future. At the same time, they claim to be describing the current state of affairs, textualizing the present as precedent. Thus, a customary offers its readers a rigid image of stasis and immutability: this is how it is done, and therefore how it should be done. This presents a challenge to the historian: do these texts provide us with a contemporary snapshot of the practices of the monastery, with an idealized image of desirable practices, or some combination of both? Here I use the appearance of customary instructions for relic circulation as evidence that relics were indeed being moved, but treat those instructions as idealizations which offer information on the mental frameworks and aspirations that guided these forms of ritual activity, whether or not these aspirations represented how things were done on any particular occasion. In fact, the value of examining customaries’ relic-moving programs lies in the fact that they are not tied to any particular event. They offer a counterbalance to hagiographical descriptions of entry processions because they disconnect the liturgical action from any specifc saint or context. Comparing multiple customaries helps contextualize and contrast their individual representations. This chapter particularly focuses on four customaries that describe the practices of Cluny before 1100. These are texts with widely differing manuscript traditions and connections to one another; it is perhaps more accurate to describe them as four extant groups of manuscripts refecting Cluniac practice rather than four Cluniac customaries. Like Cluny itself, this level of customary production and preservation was unique, and so these texts are certainly not representative of central medieval monasticism as a whole. Yet the fact that they are all linked to Cluny in this period offers the opportunity to compare some of the variations of practice, text, and memory of relic movement within a relatively limited time frame.

Liturgical frameworks 55 Yet the story of relic movement as seen across monastic customaries, within and beyond Cluny, is ultimately one of puzzling omissions and surprising dead ends. Customaries that “should” describe practices to move relics on an ad hoc, non-calendrical basis do not, and the ones that do are strangely separated from one another in space and time. Relic-moving practices associated with liturgical feasts (particularly Ascension Day and Palm Sunday) vary widely in their details, even between customaries that are closely related to one another textually. Thus, this chapter does not, and indeed cannot, use monastic customaries to trace a neat evolution of the formal rituals of relic movement across time and space. Rather, it attempts to outline a more complex picture of relic circulation. The customary evidence demonstrates, above all else, that hagiography alone does not fully represent either the frequency or the complexity of relic transportation. Customaries show relics being moved both inside and outside the regular liturgical rhythms of monastic life and inside and outside the space of the monastery. Relic entries, exits, and circulations, seen from the customaries, were only one part of a larger processional culture that could use portable relics in a variety of different ways. The confict between the impression of certainty and immutability given by individual customaries, and the mutations and adaptations seen across customaries, will frustrate us if we seek consistency from these texts. It is exactly their inconsistency that allows us to see relic movement as a fexible and versatile form of ritual.

The Cluniac customaries I should begin with a brief introduction to the four eleventh-century Cluniac ordinary/customary texts. Taken together, these four traditions form a corpus characterized by diversity rather than uniformity; they were produced at different times, for different audiences, and underpinned by different concerns. Though the images they present vary, when considered together they map out a spectrum of forms of relic mobility at Cluny across the eleventh century. First are the group of texts known as the Consuetudines antiquiores.14 Even among the fve core redactions, none of which were produced at Cluny itself, signifcant variations exist. Most likely produced in the 990s or early eleventh century, these texts exclusively address the ritual practices of the regular liturgical cycle rather than extraordinary events or the roles and responsibilities of individual offces, making them more precisely ordinaries rather than customaries. Second, the Liber tramitis likely describes the practices of Cluny around 1040 during the abbacy of Odilo (994–1049). The only surviving manuscripts of the Liber tramitis are housed at Farfa and St-Paul’s in Rome, and so it was originally believed to be a customary of Farfa.15 Internal evidence suggests that the Liber tramitis was composed in several stages, as it either retains pieces of earlier texts and/or had material added later. Despite this, the texts of the Consuetudines and the Liber tramitis are unrelated to each other, and it is impossible to know whether a copy of either was actually kept at Cluny itself.16

56 Departures Neither of these previous works was used by the authors of the two sweeping Cluniac customaries produced during the second half of the eleventh century: Bernard of Cluny and Ulrich of Zell. Bernard was a child oblate of Cluny and possibly held the position of armarius there. As he wrote in his prefatory letter to abbot Hugh (I, 1024–1109), novices of Cluny often left chapter meetings more confused than when they came, on account of the controversies regarding the correct customs, and his work was intended to resolve this problem by providing a defnitive internal guide.17 Though his audience was thus theoretically restricted to Cluny itself, Bernard’s customary had by far the widest circulation of any of the Cluniac customaries; more than 20 manuscripts are still extant in full, partial, or modifed form.18 In contrast, Ulrich came to Cluny as an adult and wrote for an external audience: William of Hirsau, who had requested a description of Cluniac practice as an aid to his own reform program. Ulrich adopted a more casual tone in comparison to Bernard’s didactic approach; at times, he even criticized the Cluniacs. Despite these qualities, Ulrich’s customary seems to have had a small level of circulation; only seven manuscripts have been identifed.19 The question of the dating of Ulrich’s customary relative to Bernard’s is highly disputed. Isabelle Cochelin argues that Ulrich, though writing in the early 1080s, was describing the practices of Cluny during his time there in the 1060s.20 Part of the diffculty stems from the fact that the customaries of Bernard and Ulrich are closely related texts. It is indisputable that one or both authors had access to the other’s work, but the question of who copied from whom, and when, has occupied scholars for some time.21 The lack of agreement between the two regarding Cluny’s practices of relic movement, discussed later in this chapter, does not help to clarify the nature of their entanglement.

Reliquias minores and phylacteries All four textual traditions demonstrate that the movement of relics was a recurring part of liturgical life at Cluny. Given the centrality of the central medieval cult of relics, this may seem unsurprising, but Cluny’s interest in relics has been relatively ignored in comparison to its other more innovative qualities. As Scott Bruce has shown, Cluny (unlike Gorze) did not place relics at the center of its identity in the frst century of its existence; however, new relic acquisitions in the late tenth and early eleventh centuries meant that certain relics began to take on new signifcance for the Cluniacs.22 These special Cluniac relics are the subject of the following section, but it is worth noting frst the extent to which relic transportation was woven into the fabric of monastic processional life. Much of the recurring relic movement at Cluny was not linked to the specifc identities of the saints whose relics they were. Rather, objects referred to as reliquias minores were treated like pieces of liturgical apparatus (along with censers and evangeliaries), carried in the processions for festival masses and on other occasions but

Liturgical frameworks 57 not identifed as associated with any particular saint.23 This treatment of some relics as objects forming just one element of a backdrop of sanctity is a reminder that hagiographical presentations of relics as avatars of the saints were not the only means of understanding relics. As hagiographers worked to present relics as subjects, the customaries generally treat reliquias minores as objects. All four Cluniac customaries also offer a striking example of what the transportation of these “anonymous” relics could accomplish. Their descriptions of the use of relics during Rogations processions offer an alternative vision of relic movement, one that minimized the saints as individual actors and instead placed the monks and their personal sanctity at the heart of the spiritual performance. The celebration of Rogations was less clearly defned in the early Middle Ages than has been generally acknowledged. The assumption that the litaniae maiores referred to a procession held on April 25 and the litaniae minores referred to the procession(s) held three days prior to Ascension is not consistently born out across texts; as Joyce Hill has shown, the pre-Ascension Day processions were at times identifed as the major litanies.24 The term “rogations” was also applied to processions held in times of crisis (such as drought), regardless of the liturgical time of year.25 Rogation days were often associated with relic-carrying, but the Cluniac variation took on a specifc form that seems to have few hagiographical or narrative counterparts.26 In brief, each Cluniac monk, upon exiting the church during the Rogations procession, was issued a reliquary necklace called a phylactery, which they were to hang around their necks and so carry to the destination church. Once there, they placed their phylactery on the altar in a position that mirrored their own place in the choir, such that each monk could retrieve their own specifc phylactery when exiting, as described in detail by Bernard: Two of the secretaries, one on the right side of the choir, the other on the left, hold phylacteries in silver dishes, serving them to two others, who distribute them among the brothers. They should not be given to children, nor to those to whom something of this kind touched in the night. While all this is being done, everyone should be silent in the choir; then before they go out, all the bells should be rung… When they come to the church, each one as he enters should place his phylactery on the altar and once it is placed, ask forgiveness. The right choir [should place their phylacteries] on the right corner [of the altar], and similarly on the left, and those who distributed [the phylacteries] adjust them on the altar; and when after the end of the mass the brothers take them back, no one should take up any except his own, and at that time forgiveness is not asked…27 The fact that a small collection of phylacteries could be contained in a silver dish for distribution gives a sense of their modest size. The other customaries

58

Departures

suggest that the forms of these objects varied—the Liber tramitis described them as “little golden capsules,” while Ulrich offered slightly more detail: “the relics of the saints enclosed in little crosses, boxes, and brooches.”28 The use of these phylacteries during Rogations seems to mirror the amuletic and apotropaic uses of wearable reliquaries known from other sources.29 As James Robinson notes, wearing a portable reliquary as a necklace was a deeply individual experience, “an intensely personal expression of medieval piety,” in part as a result of the close physical contact between the relics, their precious container, and the human body.30 The customaries do not elaborate on the special qualities of any individual phylactery worn at Cluny, and do not specify what saints’ relics they contained. They are treated as a category of object rather than unique items deriving meaning from the identity of the relics they contained or from any particular decoration (such as gems) they might have had, though their “identities” may have been known and acknowledged by the monks distributing and wearing them. Yet the ways in which they were distributed and used suggests a refection of that intimate experience between relic and wearer. Those disqualifed by age (children) and impurity (those who had been “touched in the night,” who had presumably had a wet dream) were ineligible for the honor. The identifcation of each phylactery with the holy character of the individual monk is suggested by their careful deposition on the altar in such a way that they would not be jumbled together, the use of the possessive in describing their placement, and the purifcation of the monks through the ritual (they asked forgiveness when placing their phylactery on the altar, but not when picking it back up). Though these phylacteries were not “owned” by the monks wearing them, the effect was still to place the emphasis on their individual spiritual health and merit. Cluny originally based its reputation on the personal merit of its inhabitants, and only in the early eleventh century began to emphasize its relic collection.31 In the carrying of phylacteries during the Rogations procession, these two traditions seem to merge, linking the personal holiness of the monks with the spiritual prestige of portable relics. The collective of holy saints represented by the collection of phylacteries was temporarily projected onto the collective of monks, refecting Cluny’s vision of itself as a house of aggregate sanctity. It was a model for relic transportation which did not rely on the hagiographical vision of saints/relics as persons, but on the representation of heavenly perfection in the monastic body. The use of phylacteries at Rogations thus encompasses a separate relic-moving tradition that paralleled the more conspicuous transportation of Cluny’s “named” relics.

Relics in Palm Sunday processions Over time, Cluny came to invest more of its identity in certain special saints whose relics they had acquired. Their reliquaries were important enough

Liturgical frameworks 59 to be identifed within the customaries as unique objects, and formed the backbone of one of the most spectacular liturgical processions of the year: Palm Sunday.32 The author of the Liber tramitis put together a diagram to show the order of the Palm Sunday procession, demonstrating both the importance of these relics and their hierarchical relationships to one another (Table 2.1). At least four reliquaries were carried separately on Palm Sunday, spaced out by other portable liturgical objects (crosses, candelabra, censers, etc.). First came the “relics of the holy fathers,” followed by the relics of St. Gregory (pope), the relics of St. Marcellus, the arm of St. Maur, and fnally, the image of St. Peter. The specifcation that these reliquaries were carried by “four or two” brothers suggests that they were placed on biers or had poles attached to them for transportation, as in contemporary images of relic translations and the transportation of the Ark of the Covenant.33 This diagram mapped out the ordering of the procession, but also refected Cluny’s attitudes towards these relics as a source of identity and meaning. The relics were implicitly ranked by their order in the procession; the anonymous “relics of the holy fathers” were frst, the image of Peter was last and thus the most important.34 This sense of increasing prestige is also suggested by the fact that the “relics of the holy fathers” and the relics of Gregory and Marcellus could be carried by two porters, but Peter’s image was always carried by four (though this could also indicate its physical weight). Maur’s inclusion and placement is more obscure. Although his name is not given, it is likely that brachium denotes his arm reliquary, along with the imperial scepters and apple (sceptrum, pomum) donated to Cluny by Henry II. These items were recent acquisitions at the time of the composition of the Liber tramitis, and under Abbot Odilo the cult of Maur was being actively cultivated as Cluny’s link to St. Benedict.35 Given this, it is possible that Maur’s status relative to the other great patrons of Cluny was somewhat in fux, and so we fnd his arm associated with other objects carried right before the image of Peter, but not identifed by name or given space in the row denoting the other major reliquaries. Table 2.1 The Palm Sunday procession in the Liber tramitis Banners Four or two [carry] the relics Banners of the holy fathers

Four or two brothers [carry the relics] of pope Gregory

Four or two brothers [carry the relics] of St. Marcelle pope

Four brothers should carry the image of St. Peter.

[folio break] Cross

Cross Crucifx

Holy water Candelabra Evangeliary

Cross Scepter Scepter

Censer Reliquary? (cassulam) Censer Apple Arm (of St. Maur?)

Candelabra Evangeliary Candelabra Priest Candelabra

60

Departures

Though the procession diagram clearly suggests that the fve reliquaries were individual objects uniquely associated with individual saints and carried separately, it is not clear that the relics of Marcellus and Gregory were actually in different reliquaries. The fnal chapter of the Liber tramitis, likely composed prior to the description of the Palm Sunday procession, contains an inventory and descriptions of some of Cluny’s notable relics.36 The inventory describes a single silver reliquary containing the relics of Pope Marcellus and Pope Gregory, and a glass vial with a hair of St. Maiolus.37 It is possible that this is the single, unnamed “large reliquary” referred to in the Palm Sunday descriptions of the Consuetudines antiquiores, which predated the Liber tramitis.38 Were the two saints placed into separate reliquaries between the composition of the relic inventory and the composition of the Palm Sunday description such that they could be carried individually? While this is a possibility, the later Cluniac relic inventory of 1399 also indicates that a single reliquary contained relics from Marcellus and Gregory, suggesting that if the saints were separated, they were reunited in a single reliquary at a later date.39 More likely, the Palm Sunday diagram imagines an individuality for these two saints that did not correspond to physical reality. The puzzle of whether or not Marcellus and Gregory’s relics could have traveled individually is paralleled by the complicated nature of the image of Peter. The image was a very special object for Cluny.40 It was the only reliquary specifcally named in any of the redactions of the Consuetudines antiquiores; two versions specify that the himmaginem of Peter was to be carried by two brothers in the Palm Sunday procession.41 Peter as a saint had special signifcance to Cluny, which had been dedicated to Peter and Paul. Yet the image’s description in the inventory challenges simple understandings of its nature as a reliquary; it was in fact not a singular object but an amalgam of holiness. While it did contain Peter’s relics, the image concealed an exceptionally wide-ranging collection of objects, including Mary’s clothing and a piece of Christ’s crib.42 Thus, the Liber tramitis presents a disconnect between the complicated realities of relics-as-objects and the prescriptive image of the Palm Sunday procession. The diagram invites readers to view Cluny’s most prestigious relics as distinct persons who could be clearly arranged into a specifc order. Just as one person might walk before another in procession, so too could Gregory be carried in front of Marcellus; the fact that Peter’s image was presumably a bust-reliquary suggests a visual personhood as well. All the saints named and carried in the Palm Sunday procession—Peter, Marcellus, Gregory, and Maur—had reputations and histories which gave them individual signifcance to Cluny, whether hearkening back to its founding (Peter), its ongoing connections to the papacy (Peter, Marcellus, and Gregory), or its vision of itself as the successor to the legacy of St. Benedict (Maur). In these men, eleventh-century Cluniacs saw motifs that refected their contemporary concerns and positioning, and the Palm Sunday procession mapped

Liturgical frameworks 61 them out in the form of their relics. Although this ideal may not have corresponded to lived reality, the Liber tramitis particularly developed a vision of relics as named, ranked, and linked to a single saint’s hagiographical and personal identity.

Idealizing exits and entries Cluny’s relics, then, were no strangers to movement; their transportation was a regular feature of liturgical life in the monastery. Yet two of the four customaries—the Liber tramitis and Bernard’s customary—also included instructions for sending relics out of the monastery and welcoming them back as needed, outside of the liturgical cycle. The Liber tramitis suggests the treatment of these relics as persons rather than objects, by including the instructions for relic entries alongside the instructions for welcoming arriving dignitaries (kings, queens, abbots, and bishops) with a formal entry procession. The text gives explicit instructions for each of these occasions, paying close attention to the variations which would serve to mark the prestige of the visitor and the messages that Cluny would wish to send to them (Table 2.2).43 To note some of the differences—while kings, queens, and bishops could expect a procession of monks and novitiates all dressed in the fnest copes and albs, only abbots “of a certain level of dignity” would receive that honor. A king or queen would be met by a procession with three crosses, two censers, six candelabras, and three evangeliaries; a bishop, with only one cross, two candelabras, and one evangeliary; what items were sent out for an abbot is not specifed.

Table 2.2 Entry processions for kings, queens, bishops, and abbots in the Liber tramitis

Dress code

King/Queen

Bishop

Abbot

All in copes, including the conversi; children in tunics

All in copes; children in albs

Only those carrying [items] in the procession [wear copes], unless the abbot is of a certain level of dignity, when the brothers might wear copes and the boys wear albs Not specifed

Items carried Specifed in special table: holy water, three crosses, two censers, six candelabra, three evangeliaries Going to Silence meet the visitor

Holy water, cross, two candelabras, one evangeliary Silence

Silence

(Continued)

62

Departures King/Queen

When the visitor is met with

Bishop

Holy water is given to him/ Holy water is her; the evangeliary is given to him; kissed and censed the evangeliary is kissed and censed Ecce vere Israelita Returning Ecce mitto angelum and Audi Israel with the meum (for a queen, the visitor antiphon Cum sederit flius hominis is sung when entering the church) Bells Two large bells sounded as All bells are rung procession leaves church; as they return all bells are rung as they to the church return to the church In the church Two cloths are placed, one Two cloths are placed, one in front of the altar of before the the holy cross and one principal altar in front of the greater and another altar; the abbot begins before the altar the antiphon he wishes; of the holy cross then he says a capitulum and two prayers: Omnipotens sempiterne deus qui caelestia simul et terrena moderaris and Omnipotens sempiterne deus miserere famulo tuo

Abbot Not specifed

Silence

No bells are rung

Not specifed

Immediately before these instructions for welcoming living persons, the Liber tramitis places the chapter titled: “Concerning the relics of the saints, in what way they are to be carried to a place where it is necessary they be carried processionally, and in what way they are to be received with praise.”44 By associating the special transportation of relics with these other entry processions, the Liber tramitis explicitly framed Cluny’s relics as personages who might also be expected to travel when and where necessary. The description of the relic departure and entry procedures are worth presenting in full: Whenever the relics are to be carried off somewhere, they should do it in this way: With the armarius, or whoever is in charge, signaling, or speaking if it is the time for speaking, everyone should be dressed in copes, the boys in albs. The relics are suitably placed. The secretaries of the church ring the bells. Two candles are carried out by conversi, [then] holy water, a cross, incense, [and] banners carried by famuli, and one bell toll is sent with them. The cantor begins the response Sancte Marcelle or another [response] according to what kind of relics they are, and they are censed, and all should go out together outside the doors of the

Liturgical frameworks 63 walls which circle the monastery. Then other brothers and famuli should be present who should take up the relics of the saints, so that they can be taken wherever necessary. And the brothers should begin the psalms Ad dominum cum tribularer and return into the choir. And they should undress and go each to his own business. At the time when they are about to return, they should manage to announce it ahead of time in the monastery, so that all the brothers can be in copes and the children in albs. The prior begins the psalms Miserere mei deus, Deus in nomine tuo, Deus in adiutorum meum, and Deus misereatu, and they go out into the path of the holy relics. The secretarii (or the famuli) ring the bells, until everything is completed. Then they begin the response Iste sanctus, the priest says the verse Magna est gloria eius or another according to what kind of relics they are, [and] the pertinent collect and prayers for them. Then they are censed. Going back they begin another response suitable to the holy relics. And with this done they go into the monastery and the relics are placed where they are to be placed. Then they are censed and everyone goes each to his own work.45 Bernard’s customary included two similar procedures: frst, a general method for moving relics, analogous to the version in the Liber tramitis, with a special variation for when the image of St. Peter was being moved; second, a procession “for tribulation” that also involved relic transportation.46 Thus, the Liber tramitis and Bernard’s customary both offer direct prescriptive parallels to the hagiographical descriptions of relic journeys, envisioning the departure and return of relics to the monastery on an ad hoc basis. The existence of these texts suggests that Cluny was moving its relics outside the monastery regularly enough in the course of the eleventh century that a written procedure made sense (alongside, say, instructions regarding abbatial elections and the care of the dead), despite the fact that to my knowledge, no narrative description of Cluny sending out its relics exists. A comparison of the different versions appearing in the Liber tramitis and Bernard’s customary reveals a procedure which remained fundamentally the same in its basic outline: during the relics’ departure, special dress codes applied (copes and/or albs), all the monastery’s bells were rung, the relics were censed and preceded in procession by liturgical paraphernalia (candles, processional crosses, holy water, banners, etc.), and the liturgical pieces pertaining to the saint being carried (antiphon and/or response) were sung en route until they reached the place where the relics were transferred to those who would accompany it on its travels. Psalms were sung as the procession returned to the church and the relics went where they needed to go. When the relics returned, the procession dressed up and went out to meet them again, either singing psalms (Liber tramitis) or in silence (Bernard’s customary); the bells were rung, the relics were censed, excerpts from the liturgy of the saint were said or sung, and the procession returned to the church. Looking back to the Liber tramitis’ prescriptions for kings, queens,

64

Departures

abbots, and bishops, the relic-welcoming procedure seems most closely related to royal and episcopal entries, since the entire community was dressed for the occasion, the bells were rung continuously, and an impressive display of liturgical items was brought out. Despite these broad similarities, there are variations between these texts which suggest how Cluny’s expectations about relic movement had evolved between the composition of the Liber tramitis and the composition of Bernard’s customary. In the frst place, though the procedure could theoretically be performed for the relics of any saint, different saints were used as examples, suggesting that they were considered the likeliest candidates for being moved. In providing examples of the liturgy of the saint matching the relics being transported, the Liber tramitis drew from the offce of Marcellus. Bernard simply noted that an “appropriate response” should be sung, but included a special variation on the return procession especially intended for the image of Peter: When, however, the image of the blessed Peter is taken up, frst an antiphon, which is Tu est Pastor ovium, is begun by the cantor, after whose beginning the whole convent, with hands lowered almost to the ground, bows deeply; then the versiculus Exaltent eum in ecclesia plebis is pronounced by the abbot or prior, and following that the collect Deus, qui apostolo tuo Petro is said. When that is fnished, the cantor begins a response, and it is carried in that order described above to the church.47 This suggests that Peter had perhaps replaced Marcellus as the saint whose relics were most likely to leave Cluny; at the very least, it emphasizes the special status of Peter’s image relative to Cluny’s other traveling relics. Second, Bernard’s customary offers us more clues than the Liber tramitis about what might justify a relic’s transportation away from Cluny. His inclusion of a separate and less detailed description of a procession of relics “for tribulation” suggests that he saw the movement of relics for general disaster (likely plague or weather issues) as a separate and less liturgically weighty procedure. It is also not apparent from the description of the tribulation procession that the relics would have left the confnes of the monastery; Bernard notes that the relics left the church, but this may have been a procession between churches within the enclosure of Cluny itself.48 In contrast, the opening line of the chapter that parallels the Liber tramitis’ description leaves no doubt that the relics left the space of Cluny: “when, out of some urgent necessity, the relics of the saints are to be carried somewhere outside the monastery, the offces should be performed in this way.” Though, as with the Liber tramitis, Bernard did not specify in that chapter what “urgent necessity” might entail, elsewhere in his customary (in a description of processions during the Trinity season) he writes: However a procession is done… as ought to be done on the fourth or sixth weekday, or when we need to bury some deceased person, or when

Liturgical frameworks 65 a personage of worth comes, for whom a procession should be done, or when the image of St. Peter, or other boxes with relics of the saints, are sent to some village of ours, for fear of plunders and robberies (as often happens), when everyone puts on albs, all the bells are sounded, they go out to the door of the castle, and they offer the same reverence when [the relics] are carried back.49 This is the only case in which a customary specifes a reason why the transportation of saints outside the monastery might be necessary: potential “robbery” facing one of the villages belonging to Cluny. As Barbara Rosenwein has shown, Cluny relied on the transfer of property as a social action which allowed donors and their families to become “the neighbors of St. Peter”—Bernard’s customary suggests that Peter’s image likely also traveled as part of these contentious relationships.50 While it is impossible to know if this was a change from the period of the Liber tramitis, it is worth noting that Bernard’s procedure remained fexible; while the defense of property was clearly uppermost in his mind as the most likely justifcation for relic travel, the methods he described for sending away and receiving relics could have been used in any conceivable “necessity.” Finally, there were some minor changes between the Liber tramitis and Bernard’s customary regarding the spatial nature of the procession and the personnel involved in the relic’s journey. The Liber tramitis’ description specifed that the relics would be turned over to “other brothers” and famuli for the duration of the trip at “the doors of the wall which circle the monastery.” Bernard’s customary was much more detailed; possibly as a result of his own position at Cluny, he spelled out instructions regarding the sacristan’s responsibility for preparing the relics for travel and what items would be necessary for the journey (two candelabras, a cross, a censer, a small jug of holy water, three fags, a curtain and a small bell to be carried by two men, a tapestry, and “the remaining things appropriate for ecclesiastical uses”).51 Like the Liber tramitis author, he indicated that famuli would receive the reliquary to take it on its travels, but also identifed two monks as specialists who would presumably also travel with the relics: a brother who was in charge of the trip and a senior brother entrusted with the care of the relics themselves.52 Bernard also identifed the location of the transfer as “the door of the castle,” marking the ritual boundary between Cluny and the outside world. Whether or not this was the same location the Liber tramitis author had in mind is diffcult to say, but in adaptations of Bernard’s customary, this phrase was changed to refect local physical realities. As Carolyn Malone noted, the copy of Bernard’s customary produced at St-Benigne-de-Dijon changed this phrase to “at the edge of the cemetery,” demonstrating that the monks of St-Benigne were suffciently engaged in this practice to have developed their own traditional boundary limit for the departure of relics and to have modifed their copy of Bernard’s customary accordingly.53

66

Departures

Afterlives and dead ends The Liber tramitis and Bernard’s customary demonstrate that major reliquaries regularly left Cluny and returned. But this close agreement between two of the four Cluniac customaries which were textually unrelated to each other leaves us with a puzzle: why not Ulrich?54 If relics were being carried so often from the monastery over the course of the eleventh century, why would Ulrich make no comment on the practice in his customary, which he was writing as a contemporary of (and perhaps even copying from) Bernard? This apparent omission was so surprising to the seventeenth-century editor Luc d’Achéry that he added the chapter regarding relic transportation from Bernard’s customary, along with two others that were “missing,” into his edition of Ulrich’s customary—a process of early modern cut-and-paste carefully recovered by Marc Saurette.55 D’Achéry’s choice has cast a long shadow; his edition of Ulrich, including the extra chapters from Bernard, was adopted by Jean-Paul Migne into the Patrologia Latina, which remains to date the most recent edition of Ulrich’s customary. The insertion of these chapters, propagated from edition to edition and citation to citation, has led to the still-widespread misconception that both Ulrich’s and Bernard’s customaries contain this text. But in reality, Ulrich wrote nothing about how the Cluniacs sent their relics out into the world. How to explain this apparent oversight? The answer will no doubt ultimately lie somewhere in the tangled knot that ties Ulrich’s work to Bernard’s. Without knowing if Ulrich copied from Bernard or vice versa (or both), it is impossible to decide whether or not this was a pointed omission on Ulrich’s part or an addition made by Bernard, who may have had a keener interest in these matters. However, if Ulrich consciously ignored this aspect of life at Cluny, he was certainly not the only customary author to do so. Besides the Liber tramitis and Bernard’s customary, only one other medieval customary includes an analogous procedure for extra-liturgical relic transportation: strangely enough, the thirteenth-century customary of Bec in Normandy. Though it has no textual relationships to the Cluniac customaries, the Bec customary’s description of relic processions also associates them with the receptions of persons: Concerning the procession for receiving relics: In the procession to receive relics, it should be done as when receiving a person. Holy water is not carried, but a cross, candelabra, and the remaining [items] [should be carried] as is said above. On a feast day they ought to be received after Tierce before the mass with everything done as we have said. When the abbot censes them, the cantor begins the response which pertains to this, and they should be brought back. And when they have been placed on the altar, a verse and prayer should be said which pertain to this, then they should be kissed by everyone and thus the mass should be sung.56

Liturgical frameworks 67 At late medieval Bec, different concerns seemed to have framed the transportation of relics; unlike the Cluniacs, the monks of Bec were not interested in special dress codes or coordinated bell-ringing, but in the liturgical time the relics should arrive (after Tierce, prior to mass) and formalized veneration by the entire community in the form of kisses. Curiously, the text describes only a reception procession: was Bec receiving traveling relics, but not necessarily sending out their own? The fact that this is the only parallel text to the Cluniac descriptions, but with apparently no direct links to them, suggests just how large the gaps in our knowledge of relic circulation might be. Houses which did circulate their relics (such as Fleury) did not have the fact refected in their contemporary customaries.57 In omitting a description of relic transportation practices from his customary, Ulrich was thus not the exception but the rule. Even more surprisingly, no general relic-carrying procedure appears in any of the three customaries considered successors to the Cluniac tradition: the Consuetudines Hirsaugiensis written by William of Hirsau, the Decreta of Lanfranc for the monks of Canterbury, and the customs of Fruttuaria, founded by the Cluniac William of Volpiano. Although none of these three customaries continue the tradition of the Liber tramitis and Bernard’s customary in envisioning relic movement happening outside of the liturgical cycle, all three do adapt and play on Cluniac versions of relic transportation within it. Relics were being circulated at these three monasteries, but their different visions of how and when that might happen emphasize the localized character of liturgical relic movement. William of Hirsau, the intended audience for Ulrich’s customary, painted a vivid picture of the sacristan as a kind of all-around procession specialist. Among many other duties, he was responsible for arranging relic transportation: on Palm Sunday, he needed to fnd suitably responsible conversi who knew how to bear reliquaries on their shoulders; for the mass procession, he should recruit “senior monks with no desire to sing” to do the relic-carrying.58 Palm Sunday was also an occasion for relic movement at Fruttuaria and Canterbury, though Lanfranc, perhaps foreshadowing the eventual importance of the Corpus Christi, indicated that the primary contents of the bier ( feretrum) carried on Palm Sunday was the Eucharist, possibly in addition to relics or possibly in place of them.59 As at Cluny, phylacteries were carried in the Rogations processions at Hirsau and Fruttuaria, though there are interesting discrepancies between the different manuscripts regarding the Fruttuarian practices. While the S manuscript follows the pattern of the Cluniac customaries, describing the distribution of phylacteries to individual monks, the L and O manuscripts specify that phylacteries would be hung on a cross to be carried or that larger reliquaries might be carried on a bier in case of drought, but not both at the same time.60 This meant that the Rogations procession, in theory a calendrical procession, might share elements of the non-calendrical procession for tribulation as described at Cluny. The Fruttuaria customaries and the Decreta also depicted relic transportation as a central activity for Ascension Day. They all describe a

68

Departures

procession around the monastery, either within the cloister or outside the walls, with relics carried by priests (Table 2.3).61 There are no indications why the decision might be made to perform the procession outside or inside the monastery, but it seems that a procession outside the cloister might be an exhausting undertaking; the L and O manuscripts from Fruttuaria describe how the monks might rest in the choir while the relics were removed from the bier and placed on the altar. Different dress codes and objects also corresponded to this choice between internal and external procession; albs rather than copes were appropriate for a procession outside the cloister, and banners were added to the processional lineup. This idea of formally circling the monastery resonates with the circumambulations of monastic property or a territory known from hagiography, intended to defne, protect, or assert control over the space.62 Overall, these Ascension Day processions demonstrate the latent ability of relic transportation to be adapted and used in new ways in different contexts; as a practice, the circulation of relics was charged with potential meaning and symbolic possibility. Table 2.3 Ascension Day relic processions at Fruttuaria and Canterbury Consuetudines Fructuarienses: L and O manuscripts

Consuetudines Fructuarienses: S manuscript

After Tierce, the After Tierce, the secretarius should cantor should give copes to all the brothers and arrange a the cantor should arrange the procession as on procession. Holy water should be Palm Sunday, carried, then two candelabras and two censers, a censer in the middle, afterwards two crosses, two a cross, and fnally the evangeliary. evangeliaries, And then two other candelabras two candelabras, follow, another censer, after that relics. another cross, and fnally an Afterwards, two evangeliary. After this, a feretrum priests wearing with the relics of the saints, and this copes, who carry should be carried by two priests relics. That day, wearing vestments… they should If however the procession is not done circle the whole through the cloister in copes but monastery. outside in a circuit of the monastery in albs, then when the antiphon is fnished, which is sung at the entrance to the church, the cantor should not begin the introit right away, but the convent should sit in the choir and pause for a little after so long a procession, while the secretary has extracted the relics of the saints from the bier and placed them on the altar.

Decreta Lanfranci

Concerning the procession on the day of Christ’s Ascension: on the day of the Ascension of Christ there should be a procession in white, either outside the cloister or around the curiam of the monastery, preceded by banners and relics with the remaining [objects], which ought to precede a festival procession, or through the cloister without banners. When the procession begins to go out two bells should be rung, as is said above.

Liturgical frameworks 69

Conclusion Customaries, like monastic rules, were consciously created to present an image of timelessness and immutability. Yet in viewing relic movement across customaries, we observe signifcant omissions, variations, and change, returning us in the end to the question of text and practice. Some customaries, like the Liber tramitis and Bernard’s customary, offer up vivid and detailed images of how and why relics were sent away from their monasteries and circulated within them, and the ideals of formal ritual activity that accompanied these occasions. Others, like Ulrich’s customary and the customaries of Hirsau, Fruttuaria, and Canterbury, remind us of the dangers of considering these texts as transparent windows into monastic life. What they choose to outline and emphasize must be read as active representations, which might be characterized as much by their omissions as their descriptions. These texts, despite all their prescriptive detail, tend to leave their readers with questions. And yet, the customaries map out a rich spectrum of idealized relic activity, showing us relics in different types of roles that highlighted the tensions between their material reality as things and their spiritual identities as physical avatars for the saints themselves. Relics could be treated as one kind of one liturgical object among many: banners, crosses, censers, holy water, bells. Seen in this light, they were pieces of religious paraphernalia, important but (at least as presented in these liturgical texts) often anonymous. At other times, relics could be carried in special and personal ways which projected their power onto their bearers. And certain exceptional “named” relics could be treated as active subjects, just as they were depicted in hagiography. As one would receive a queen or abbot, so too might one receive a saint in the form of their relics, and just as a queen or abbot might need to leave to carry on outside business, so too a saint might need to depart. The portability of relics enabled all these activities. However, the customaries’ interest in describing and framing relic movement ended at the walls of the monastery; if we wish to follow the relics and their companions as they traveled into the world beyond, we must turn back to hagiography.

Notes 1 “Circumvectio corporis sancti Taurini,” AASS Aug. II, 650. 2 Ibid. “monasterium Cluniacum, quo vix in terra pretiosius et speciosius inveniri potest…venerabilem conventum fratrum, quo vix usquam terrarum major vel religiosior videri potest.” This warm welcome was likely especially appreciated in the context of the recently ended dispute with Le Miroir. Though the fre at Gigny was not related to this confict (as far as we know), the anonymous hagiographer’s effusive praise for Cluny no doubt refected appreciation for the mother house’s frm support. 3 Peter Brown, The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity, The Haskell Lectures on History of Religions; New Series 2 (Chicago: University

70 Departures

4

5 6

7

8 9

of Chicago Press, 1981), 98–101. Caution is required regarding claims of longterm continuity in entry practices; Maureen Miller has questioned the narrative of antique origins for the Florentine bishop’s entry, linking it to contemporary papal developments rather than an uninterrupted tradition. Maureen C. Miller, “The Florentine Bishop’s Ritual Entry and the Origins of the Medieval Episcopal Adventus,” Revue d’Histoire Ecclésiastique 98, no. 1 (June 1, 2003): 5–28. On late medieval and early modern political entry traditions, Ernst Kantorowicz, “The ‘King’s Advent’: And the Enigmatic Panels in the Doors of Santa Sabina,” The Art Bulletin 26, no. 4 (December 1, 1944): 207–31; Lawrence M. Bryant and Jacqueline Falquevert, “La cérémonie de l’entrée a Paris au Moyen Age,” Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales 41, no. 3 (May 1, 1986): 513–42; James M. Murray, “The Liturgy of the Count’s Advent in Bruges, from Galbert to Van Eyck,” in City and Spectacle in Medieval Europe, ed. Barbara Hanawalt and Kathryn Reyerson, Medieval Studies at Minnesota 6 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994), 137–52; Teoflo F. Ruiz, A King Travels: Festive Traditions in Late Medieval and Early Modern Spain (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012). See Introduction on Victricius of Rouen. On the “joyful crowd” motif and relic entries, Chapter 5 and Kate M. Craig, “The Saint at the Gate: Giving Relics a ‘Royal Entry’ in Eleventh- to Twelfth-Century France,” in Authority and Spectacle in Medieval and Early Modern Europe: Essays in Honor of Teoflo F. Ruiz, ed. Yuen-Gen Liang and Jarbel Rodriguez (London; New York: Routledge, 2017), 121–33. The relative looseness of the genre is refected in the variety of terms used to label them: consuetudines, statuta, instituta. Kassius Hallinger, Initia consuetudinis Benedictinae: consuetudines saeculi octavi et noni, CCM 1 (Siegburg: F. Schmitt, 1963), XIII–XXXI; Gert Melville, “Action, Text, and Validity: On Re-Examining Cluny’s Consuetudines and Statutes,” in From Dead of Night to End of Day: The Medieval Customs of Cluny, ed. Susan Boynton and Isabelle Cochelin, Disciplina Monastica 3 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005). On ordines and ordinaries, Aimé Georges Martimort, Les “Ordines”, les ordinaires et les cérémoniaux, Typologie des sources du Moyen Age occidental, fasc. 56 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1991). Three of the eighth-century ordines romani discussed the displacement of relics as part of a church’s dedication ceremony: 41 (“Denuntiatio reliquiae sanctorum martyrum ponendae sunt / Ordo quomodo ecclesia debeat dedicari”), 42 (“Quomodo in sancta Romana ecclesia reliquiae conduntur”), and 43 (“Incipit ad reliquias levandas sive deducendas seu condendas”); Michel Andrieu, ed., Les ordines romani du haut Moyen âge, IV: Les textes (Ordines XXXV-XLIX) (Louvain: Spicilegium sacrum lovaniense, 1985), IV: 321–23, 397–402, 411–13. Ordo 43 is of particular interest since it seems intended for use in the translation of a new saint’s relics into an already-dedicated church. Since this text only appears in a single early ninth-century manuscript (Paris BNF lat. 974), its impact should not be overestimated; nevertheless, it is signifcant that at least one early medieval liturgist was thinking about how to describe a general way to move relics, and drew on dedication rituals to construct a new type of prescriptive text. On these ordines in the context of other Carolingian consecration rituals, Dana M. Polanichka, “Transforming Space, (Per)Forming Community: Church Consecration in Carolingian Europe,” Viator 43, no. 1 (January 1, 2012), 83. Sigal has compared the ritual described in Ordo 43 with central medieval descriptions of translation and elevation ceremonies, and found that they did not differ significantly: Pierre-André Sigal, “Le déroulement des translations de reliques principalement dans les régions entre Loire et Rhin aux XIe et XIIe siècles,” in Les

Liturgical frameworks 71

10 11

12

13 14 15

16

17 18

19 20 21

reliques: Objets, cultes, symboles, ed. Anne-Marie Helvétius and Edina Bozóky (Turnhout: Brepols, 1999), 213–27. Eric Palazzo, A History of Liturgical Books from the Beginning to the Thirteenth Century, trans. Madeleine Beaumont (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1998), 219–20. On these debates on the normative nature of customaries: Isabelle Cochelin, “Évolution des coutumiers monastiques dessinée à partir de l’étude de Bernard,” in From Dead of Night to End of Day: The Medieval Customs of Cluny, ed. Susan Boynton and Isabelle Cochelin, Disciplina monastica 3 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005), 29–66, particularly pp. 31–37. Isabelle Cochelin, “Customaries as Inspirational Sources,” in Consuetudines et Regulae: Sources for Monastic Life in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period, ed. Carolyn Malone and Clark Maines, Disciplina Monastica 10 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2014), 27–72. A recent case study of copies of Bernard’s customary in the Low Countries emphasizes the multiplicity of uses possible for even a single customary copy in a single house: Jay Diehl and Steven Vanderputten, “Cluniac Customs Beyond Cluny: Patterns of Use in the Southern Low Countries,” Journal of Religious History 41, no. 1 (2017): 40–41. Theodemar, “Theodemari epistula ad Theodoricum,” in Initia consuetudinis Benedictinae : consuetudines saeculi octavi et noni, ed. Kassius Hallinger, CCM 1 (Siegburg: F. Schmitt, 1963), 130. Kassius Hallinger, ed., Consuetudines cluniacensium antiquiores cum redactionibus derivatis, CCM 7.2 (Siegburg: F. Schmitt, 1983). Early editions of the Liber tramitis (then understood as the customs of Farfa) were produced by Marquard Herrgott and Bruno Albers; on its reevaluation as a refection of the customs of Cluny, Peter Dinter, ed., Liber tramitis aevi Odilonis abbatis, CCM 10 (Siegburg: F. Schmitt, 1980), XXI–XXIV. On the relationship between Cluny and Farfa in this period from a liturgical perspective, Susan Boynton, Shaping a Monastic Identity: Liturgy and History at the Imperial Abbey of Farfa, 1000–1125, Conjunctions of Religion and Power in the Medieval Past (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006), 106–43. On the question of Cluny’s ownership of copies of the four customaries, Cochelin, “Évolution des coutumiers,” 38–39. For an edition and translations of Bernard’s letter and preface, Susan Boynton and Isabelle Cochelin, eds., From Dead of Night to End of Day: The Medieval Customs of Cluny, Disciplina Monastica 3 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005), 329–47. Burkhardt Tutsch, “Zur Rezeptionsgeschichte der Consuetudines Bernhards und Ulrichs von Cluny,” in Schriftlichkeit und Lebenspraxis im Mittelalter: Erfassen, Bewahren, Verändern, ed. Hagen Keller, Christel Meier, and Thomas Scharff, Münsterche Mittelalter-Schriften 76 (München: W. Fink, 1999), 79–94. For a detailed treatment of all surviving manuscripts of Ulrich’s customary, Burkhardt Tutsch, Studien zur Rezeptionsgeschichte der “Consuetudines” Ulrichs von Cluny, Vita regularis 6 (München: Lit, 1998). Cochelin, “Évolution des coutumiers,” 29–30 note 3, where she also reviews the dating arguments of Joachim Wollasch and Burkhardt Tutsch. The relative dating of Ulrich and Bernard’s customaries depends on their relationship to each other. Most of the solutions proposed involve multiple versions of one or both texts. A modern critical edition of both texts will be essential to deciphering their histories, and until these editions are produced there will likely be no conclusive answer. For discussions of these questions, Scott G. Bruce, “Monastic Sign Language in the Cluniac Customaries,” in From Dead of Night to End of Day: The Medieval Customs of Cluny, ed. Susan Boynton and Isabelle Cochelin, Disciplina Monastica 3 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005), 9; William of Hirsau, Willehelmi

72

22 23 24 25

26

27

Departures Abbatis Constitutiones Hirsaugienses, ed. Candida Elvert and Pius Engelbert, CCM 15 (Siegburg: F. Schmitt, 2010), L–LVIII; Cochelin, “Évolution des coutumiers,” 63–66. Scott Bruce, “The Relics of Cluny,” in A Companion to the Abbey of Cluny in the Middle Ages, ed. Scott G. Bruce and Steven Vanderputten (Leiden: Brill, forthcoming). Processions in which reliquias minores appear in the Liber tramitis: “De processione festiva et de missa maiore,” “De processione cereorum,” and “De missa matutinali cum processione.” Liber tramitis, 22–23, 41, 89. Joyce Hill, “The Litaniae Maiores and Minores in Rome, Francia and AngloSaxon England: Terminology, Texts and Traditions,” Early Medieval Europe 9, no. 2 (July 1, 2000): 211–46. As in Javier Martín-Vide and Mariano Barriendos Vallvé, “The Use of Rogation Ceremony Records in Climatic Reconstruction: A Case Study from Catalonia (Spain),” Climatic Change 30, no. 2 (1995): 201–21. Arras BM ms. 864, a copy of Bernard’s customary, also identifes a procession to be used in times of trouble (in other manuscripts, “in tribulatione”) as a procession “in rogationibus.” Rita Tekippe, “Pilgrimage and Procession: Correlations of Meaning, Practice, and Effects,” 711–12. The standard history of Rogations as a feast holds that it was instituted in the fourth century by St. Mamert, bishop of Vienne, as a penitential procession around the city; it came to be a fxed feast on the three days prior to Ascension Day referred to in modern sources as the “minor litanies” as opposed to the “major litanies” held on April 25. Some have argued that the roots of rogation celebrations lie in pagan or Indo-European festivals, as in: Geoffrey Nathan, “The Rogation Ceremonies of Late Antique Gaul. Creation, Transmission and the Role of the Bishop,” Classica et Mediaevalia: Revue danoise de philologie et d’histoire 49 (1998): 275–303. Bernard of Cluny, “Ordo cluniacensis,” in Vetus disciplina monastica, ed. Marquard Herrgott (Paris: Osmont, 1726), 328. …duo autem secretariorum, alter in dextro choro, alter in sinistro, in scutellis argenteis tenent philacteria ministrantes ipsa duobus aliis, qui dividunt ea fratribus. Infantibus vero, neque his, quibus tale quid in nocte contigerit, minime dantur. Interim vero dum hoc totum ft, tacetur in choro ab omnibus; deinde priusquam exeant, pulsantur omnia signa… ad quam ecclesiam cum pervenerint, quisque sicut intrat ponit suum philacterium super altare et posito, petit veniam. Dexter chorus ad dextrum cornu, et similiter ad sinistrum, et illi qui ea distribuerunt, aptant ea super altare; et cum post fnem missae eadem repetunt fratres, non debet quis nisi suum accipere; et tunc non petitur venia.

Similar descriptions are given in several redactions of the Consuetudines antiquiores, the Liber tramitis, and Ulrich’s customary: Consuetudines antiquiores, 100; Liber tramitis, 103–4; Ulrich of Zell, “Consuetudines antiquiores cluniacenses,” PL 149, 670. 28 Liber tramitis, 108. “vascula aurea minoris vel phylacterias.” Ulrich of Zell, “Consuetudines antiquiores cluniacenses,” PL 149, 670. “Sanctorum reliquiae cruciculis, capsulis, et nuxis [nuscis] inclusae” On phylacteries, Cynthia J. Hahn, Strange Beauty: Issues in the Making and Meaning of Reliquaries, 400 - circa 1204 (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2012), 83–84. The connection between the textual amulets that the term phylacteria referred to in the Jewish tradition and the use of phylacteria to describe reliquary necklaces is intriguing, because the use of textual amulets had been condemned by Jerome and others: Don C. Skemer, Binding Words: Textual Amulets in the Middle Ages (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006), 36–37.

Liturgical frameworks 73 29 On lay uses of reliquary necklaces, brooches, belts, and other wearables, “Miracula s. Gengulf,” AASS May II, 180; Julia Smith, “Portable Christianity: Relics in the Medieval West (c.700-c.1200),” Proceedings of the British Academy Volume 181, 2010–2011 Lectures, October 1, 2012, 157; Pierre-André Sigal, L’homme et le miracle dans la France médiévale (XIe-XIIe siècle) (Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 1985), 41–42; Robert Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things?: Saints and Worshippers from the Martyrs to the Reformation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013), 275. 30 James Robinson, “From Altar to Amulet: Relics, Portability, and Devotion,” in Treasures of Heaven: Saints, Relics, and Devotion in Medieval Europe, ed. Martina Bagnoli et al. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), 113. 31 Scott Bruce, “The Relics of Cluny”, forthcoming. 32 The Palm Sunday processions held by late medieval cathedrals show signifcant local variation, depending on the urban topography and local history. Some included the transportation of relics: Craig Wright, “The Palm Sunday Procession in Medieval Chartres,” in The Divine Offce in the Latin Middle Ages, ed. Ruth Steiner, Margot Elsbeth Fassler, and Rebecca A. Baltzer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 346. 33 The Palm Sunday table is given in Liber tramitis, 68. The other processions of relics discussed in the Liber tramitis suggest that liturgical objects were always intended to precede the relics, and that the banners would have led the procession. Thus, we might read Table 2.1 right-to-left and bottom-to-top, such that the order would be banners, banners, evangeliary, candelabra, holy water, cross, relics of the holy fathers, scepter, etc. Several of the other liturgical processions described in the Liber tramitis have these processional tables (e.g., Liber tramitis, 151, 242), but nowhere besides the Palm Sunday procession and the fnal relic catalogue do “named” relics appear. 34 On “ranking” the saints and its infuence on processional order, Chapter 4. 35 On Maur’s eleventh-century cult at Cluny, J. B. Wickstrom, “Cluny, Cîteaux, and Blessed Maurus of Glanfeuil,” Revue bénédictine 113, no. 1 (2003): 124–34; Dominique Iogna-Prat, “La geste des origines dans l’historiographie clunisienne des XIe-XIIe siècles,” Revue bénédictine 102, no. 1–2 (January 1, 1992): 141–45. 36 The fact that Maur’s arm is not included in the relic inventory but appears in the Palm Sunday procession is the basis for this dating. Iogna-Prat, “La geste des origines,” 142. 37 On Cluny’s evolving relationship to Maiolus as abbot-saint, Scott G. Bruce, Cluny and the Muslims of La Garde-Freinet: Hagiography and the Problem of Islam in Medieval Europe (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2016). 38 Consuetudines antiquiores, 63–64. (B / B1 redactions): “Then two conversi come, who carry candles, another who carries holy water, another who carries a censer, and another who carries a cross; two or four brothers carry two evangeliaries. Then also two carry the large reliquary [cassam majorem], and two others take up the image of St. Peter.” (C redaction): “Conversi are prepared to carry holy water, a cross, and a censer. After them, the evangeliary should be carried and two candles here and there. Then the box [arca], in which the relics of the saints are kept.” 39 Scott Bruce, “The Relics of Cluny,” forthcoming. 40 This object is also known as the majesty of St. Peter, after the term maiestas used to describe reliquary busts or statues like that of St. Faith. However, the customaries exclusively refer to this object as an image and I have kept that terminology here. On the Peter image: Joan Evans, Cluniac Art of the Romanesque Period (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1950), 12–13; Alain Guerreau, “Espace social, espace symbolique: à Cluny au XIe siécle,” in L’ogre historien:

74

41 42 43 44

Departures autour de Jacques Le Goff, ed. Jacques Revel and Jean-Claude Schmitt (Paris: Gallimard, 1998), 171–76. Consuetudines antiquiores, 63–64. Scott Bruce, “The Relics of Cluny,” forthcoming. The instructions for receiving kings, queens, bishops, and abbots are given in Liber tramitis, 242–43. Liber tramitis, 241–42. The Liber tramitis actually contains two separate descriptions within the same chapter (168); the initial detailed description of the departure and return processions given above is followed by a shorter description labeled “Concerning the same” (Item de eodem). Peter Dinter has interpreted this addition as an older text that was copied over into the Liber tramitis after the “modernized” version, since it offers less detail but outlines the same general order of events. Dinter, Liber tramitis, LII–LVI. The Item de eodem description reads: Item de eodem: Quando corpus sanctum foris portandum est, in albis debent esse vestiti et de ipso sancto cuius portantur reliquiae vel responsorium vel antiphonam cantent, donec revertendi prior signum faciat. In revertendo psalmos dicant. Cum vero reliquie reportantur, in cappis vestiti debent fratres occurrere. Et cum exituri sunt, in choro debet prior incipere Miserere mei deus, Deus in nomine tuo, Miserere mei deus miserere mei, Deus misereatur, Deus in adiuitorium meum et. Ad dominum cum tribularer clamavi, donec ad reliquias perveniant. Post missum incensum de ipso sancto dicatur oratio, deinde de ipso sancto cantum armarius incipiat et sic in monasterium pergant.

45 Liber tramitis, 240–41. De sanctorum reliquiis qualiter deferatur ad locum ubi necesse sunt deportandae processionaliter aut qualiter recipiatur cum laude. Quando reliquie deportande sunt alicubi, hoc modo faciant: Annuente armario vel loquente si tempus fuerit loquendi vel illo qui ordinem tenuerit, revestiantur cuncti in cappis, pueris in albis. Reliquiae sint congrue collocate. Secretarii ecclesie pulsent signa. Candelabri duo deportentur a conversis, aquam sanctam, crux, incensum, phanones a famulis deportentur et unum signum cum eis mittatur. Cantor incipiat responsorium Sancte Marcelle vel secundum quales reliquie sunt et incensentur exeantque omnes pariter extra portas murorum quibus circumdatum est monasterium. Tunc sint praesentes alii fratres qui suscipiant sanctorum reliquias et famuli, ut deportentur ubi necesse fuerint. Et fratres inchoent psalmos Ad dominum cum tribularer et revertantur in chorum. Et exuant se et pergant unusquisque ad offcia sua. Illo tunc tempore quando reversuri sunt, procurentur antea nuntiare in coenobium, ut sint omnes fratres in cappis, infantes in albis. Prior incipiat psalmos Miserere mei deus, Deus in nomine tuo, Deus in adiutorium meum, Deus misereatur et eant in obviam sanctis reliquiis. Secretarii pulsent signa (vel famuli) usquedum sint omnia peracta. Tunc inchoent responsorium Iste sanctus, dicat sacerdos versus Magna est gloria eius vel secundum quales reliquiae fuerint, ad ipsas pertinentem collectam et praeces. Deinde incensentur. Rursum inchoent aliud responsorium congruum sanctis reliquiis. Et ita peractis eant in monasterium et ponantur reliquie ubi ponende sunt. Denua incensentur et pergant unusquisque ad opus suum. 46 Bernard places the procession “for tribulation” alongside other processions, including the processions for receiving persons, as in the Liber tramitis. His

Liturgical frameworks 75 description of the general relic-moving procedure (Chapter 56), however, appears in a section devoted to duties of the sacristan/apocrisarius: Whenever because of some urgent necessity the relics of the saints are to be carried out of the monastery someplace, the offces are to be performed in this way: First therefore the sacrista places [the relics] on a decorated bier [ feretrum]. Then to the brother by whose responsibility they are to be carried, and to another senior to whom the care of these relics is especially entrusted by the prior, he supplies all the necessary things; that is, two candelabra, a cross, a censer, a small jug of holy water, three fags, also a curtain and a small bell which is carried by two men, a tapestry, and the remaining things appropriate for ecclesiastical uses. When they are to be brought out from the church, everyone puts on albs; then the holy body, having been censed by the prior, is entrusted to two cantors wearing albs to be carried up to the doors of the castle. All the bells are rung; an appropriate response is begun by the cantor. With the procession going ahead, the porters of the holy relic follow, then the children, next the cantors, and at the end the conversi. When the procession has come to the doors, laypeople receive the entrusted [reliquary] and with the response fnished, and with the prior beginning the psalm Ad dominum cum tribularer, that same procession goes back by rank. And when it is brought back, frst all the brothers put on white, and the two large bells are sounded, and then with the procession going ahead, that is, with holy water, a censer, a cross, and candelabras, in a similar manner in everything, they go out to the doors of the castle with everyone silent. There fnally the prior, having taken the censer, censes the holy relics, and with a response started by the cantor, and all the bells sounding, the same way in which it had left, it is received. Quoties aliqua urgente necessitate reliquiae sanctorum extra monasterium alicubi sunt ferendae, hujusmodi offciis sunt prosequendae. Primum denique sacrista in ornato eas feretro componit. Deinde fratri ad cujus obedientiam sunt portandae, alii etiam seniori, cui a priore earumdem custodia reliquiarum specialiter committitur, omnia necessaria, id est candelabra duo, crucem, turibulum, urceolum aquae benedictae, vexilla tria, cortinam quoque et tintinabulum, quod a duobus fertur hominibus, vestimentum, et reliqua ecclesiasticis usibus accommoda praebet. Cum ab ecclesia fuerint producendae, omnes albis induuntur. Deinde sanctum corpus a priore incensatum, duobus albatis cantoribus committitur, usque ad portas castelli ferendum. Omnia signa pulsantur, responsorium competens a cantore incipitur. Precedente processione secuntur bajuli pigneris sacri: deinde infantes, postremo cantores, ad ultimum conversi. Cum ventum fuerit ad portas, laici suscipiunt commendatum, fnitoque responsorio, et incipiente priore psalmum Ad Dominum cum tribularer: processio eodem revertitur ordine. Item quando reducitur, primum cuncti fratres albis induuntur, et duo signa majora pulsantur, ac deinde procedente processione, id est, aqua benedicta, turibulo, cruce et candelabris, simili per omnia modo, usque ad portas castelli, cum omni silentio progredituntur; ibi denique prior accepto turibulo, sanctas incensas reliquias, impositoque a cantore responsorio, cunctisque resonantibus signis, eodem quo exierat, suscipitur modo. Bernard of Cluny, “Ordo cluniacensis,” 251–52; Paris BNF lat. 13875, ff. 99v–100r. 47 Ibid. Imago autem beate Petre quando suscipitur antiphona primum, id est, Tu es Pastor ovium, a cantore incipitur, ad cuius initium omnis conventus submissis

76

Departures usque ad terram manibus, altius inclinat; deinde ab abbate vel priore versiculus, Exaltent eum in Ecclesia plebis, pronuntiatur, et subsequitur collecta, Deus qui apostolo tuo Petro; qua completa, incipiente cantore reponsorium, eo quo supra dictum est ordine, defertur ad ecclesiam.

48 Bernard of Cluny, “Ordo cluniacensis,” 216–17. Whenever a procession is done for some tribulation, if the reliquary of some saint is being carried, there is a prayer, as is the custom, and with it fnished, the antiphon Exurge and the psalm Deus in adjutorum or Deus misereatur. First the reliquary should be censed. Then, having begun some song concerning the saint whose relics are being carried, the brothers exit the choir. In the frst place [there is a] procession with holy water, a cross, candelabras, and the reliquary, as is the custom when relics are being carried. The children with the masters follow, after whom all the conversi, and then the cantors according to their rank. All the bells are rung, as when the brothers carry phylacteria, because of the relics, before they leave the church. Similarly when they return to the entrance of the church. Quando ft processio per qualibet tribulatione. si portatur feretrum alicuius sancti. facta sicut mos est oratione. et fnita. A. Exurge. et psalmo Deus in adiutorium meum. Sive Deus misereatur. debet ipsum feretrum incensari in primis. deinde incepto aliquo cantu de sancto cuius reliquiae feruntur egrediuntur fratres chorum. primitus processio cum aqua benedicta. et cruce. et candelabris. et feretro. sicut mos est cum portantur reliquiae. secuntur infantes cum magistris. post quos conversi omnes. et deinde cantores sicut est ordo eorum. Signa autem omnia pulsantur. sicut cum fratres flacteria portant. antequam egrediantur aecclesiam. propter reliquias. Similiter cum redeunt ad introitum aecclesiae. 49 Bernard of Cluny, 336. Alia autem processio pro qua ipsa, quae in quarta vel sexta feria feri solet, remanet, ft vel quando defunctum aliquem sepelimus, et huic conventus debet interesse totus; quia pro ipsa remanet alia, cui omnes interessent, vel quando persona illius dignitatis advenit, cui processio facienda sit, vel quando imago s. petri, vel aliae capsae cum reliquiis sanctorum, ad aliquam villam nostram mittuntur, pro timore praedarum et rapinarum (ut saepe contingit) cum quibus omnes induti albis, pulsatis omnibus signis, usque ad portam castelli exeunt, et eandem reverentiam, quando reportantur, deferunt. 50 On relic movement as an aspect of property “defense,” Chapter 6. 51 Bernard of Cluny, “Ordo cluniacensis,” 251. “et reliqua ecclesiasticis usibus accommoda praebet.” 52 Ibid. “Deinde fratri ad cujus obedientiam sunt portandae, alii etiam seniori, cui a priore earumdem custodia reliquiarum specialiter committitur.” 53 Caroline Marino Malone, “Interprétation des pratiques liturgiques à SaintBénigne de Dijon d’après ses coutumiers d’inspiration clunisienne,” in From dead of night to end of day: the medieval customs of Cluny, ed. Susan Boynton and Isabelle Cochelin, Disciplina monastica 3 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005), 226–27. 54 It is not surprising that the Consuetudines antiquiores do not include a parallel procedure, since they exclusively treat the practices of the liturgical year. 55 Marc Saurette, “Excavating and Renovating Ancient Texts: Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Editions of Bernard of Cluny’s Consuetudines and EarlyModern Monastic Scholarship,” in From Dead of Night to End of Day: The

Liturgical frameworks 77 Medieval Customs of Cluny, ed. Susan Boynton and Isabelle Cochelin, Disciplina Monastica 3 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005), 85–107. 56 Marie-Pascal Dickson, ed., Consuetudines Beccenses, CCM 4 (Siegburg: F. Schmitt, 1967), 12. De processione ad suscipiendas reliquias: In processione ad suscipiendas reliquias ft sicut ad suscipiendam personam. Aqua benedicta non fertur sed crux et candelabra et reliqua sicut praedictum est. Die festo debent recipi post Tertiam ante missam omnibus peractis ut diximus. Cum eas incensaverit abbas, cantor incipit responsorium quod ad hoc pertinet et revertantur. Cumque super altare fuerint positae, dicatur versus et oratio quae ad hoc pertinet, deinde osculentur ab omnibus et sic cantetur missa.

57

58 59

60

61

On the uniqueness of the customs of Bec, and particularly their non-Cluniac character, Dickson, XXX. Relic journeys performed by Fleury are described in multiple places in the miracles of Benedict: Eugène de Certain, ed., “Les miracles de Saint Benôit” (Paris: Jules Renouard, 1858), 162, 319. Customaries of Fleury exist for both the tenth and thirteenth centuries: Anselm Davril, ed., “Consuetudines Floriacenses Antiquiores,” in Consuetudinum saeculi X/X/XII monumenta non-Cluniacensia, CCM 7.3 (Siegburg: F. Schmitt, 1984), 3–60. Constitutiones Hirsaugienses, 169, 172–73. “Deinde cruciculae, capsulae, ceteraque minora ornamenta, novissime autem sanctorum reliquiae a quibusdam senioribus minus cantare valentibus portantur.” Lanfranc, Decreta Lanfranci monachis Cantuariensibus transmissa, ed. David Knowles, 2nd ed., CCM 3–4 (Siegburg: F. Schmitt, 1989), 24 and note to line 11. The terminology used by Lanfranc suggests the possibility that either relics were replaced by the sacrament or that they were carried in the same bier: “in this feretrum, the body of Christ should also be hidden.” Elsewhere, reliquias is used where feretrum is meant. Knowles suggests that this is either the result of a holdover from an earlier version, in which only relics were carried on the bier, or an indication that both relics and the corpus Christi were carried together on the bier. The variations on Palm Sunday processions in monastic customaries deserve further attention; the appearance of an object called an osanna in the B/B1 redactions of the Consuetudines antiquiores and across the Fruttuaria customaries suggests that there was a portable “station” that would be transported outside the monastery and then used as a destination for the procession. On the local variations of late medieval cathedral Palm Sunday processions: Anne Heath, “Secular Power, Sacred Authority, and Urban Topography in the Palm Sunday Procession in Late Medieval Auxerre, France,” Viator 41, no. 1 (2010): 199–230. Luchesius G. Spätling and Peter Dinter, eds., Consuetudines FructuariensesSanblasianae, 2 vols., CCM 12 (Siegburg: F. Schmitt, 1985), 218–19. The L manuscript is the Redactio Lambacensis, the O manuscript is the Redactio Ochsenhusana, and the S manuscript is the Redactio Sigiberti. The texts translated in Table 2.3 read as follows: “Post Terciam det secretarius cappas omnibus fratribus et cantor ordinet processionem. Deferatur aqua benedicta ac deinde duo candelabra et thuribulum in medio et postea crux et demum textus. Sequunturque alia duo candelabra atque aliud thuribulum ac post illud alia crux ac demum textus. Post hunc feretrum cum reliquiis sanctorum et illud portetur a duobus sacerdotibus indutis casullis… Si autem processio non per claustrum in cappis sed foris in circuitu monasterii in albis facta est, tunc fnita antiphona, quae ad ingressum templi inchoata est, non debet

78

Departures

canto statim introitum incipere, sed conventus sedeat in choro et post tam longam processionem parum repauset, donec secretarius / reliquias sanctorum de feretro habeat extractas et positas super altare,” Consuetudines Fructuarienses, 218–19; “Post Terciam cantor ordinet processionem sicut in Ramis Palmarum, duo thuribula, duo cruces, duo texti, duo candelabra, reliquiae. Postea duo sacerdotes induti cappis, qui portent reliquias. Ipso die debent circuire totum monasterium,” Consuetudines Fructuarienses, 218; “Die Ascensionis Christi fat processio in albis uel extra claustrum circa curiam monasterii praecedentibus uexillis et reliquiis cum reliquis, quae ad festiuam processionem praecedere solent, uel per claustrum sine uexillis. Ex quo incipit processio exire pulsentur duo signa, sicut superius dictum est.” Lanfranc, Decreta Lanfranci monachis Cantuariensibus transmissa, 53. 62 On circumambulations, Sigal, L’homme et le miracle, 160.

Part two

En route

3

Relics and their companions as travelers

As the company carrying the relics of St. Evermar approached the town of Herstal, the reliquary suddenly became too heavy to carry and fell to the ground, as if the saint had suddenly gotten tired. All the living members of the group—“those going ahead, those carrying [the reliquary], and those going behind”—were shocked by the sudden immobility of their saintly co-traveler (conviator).1 They rested alongside the reliquary for a while before trying to lift it again, but repeated and energetic attempts failed to make it budge. Realizing that force was ineffectual, they then attempted to reason with the saint, pointing out to him that he hadn’t refused to visit the other villages they had been to and that Herstal was both rich and populous. If he would only get up and go to Herstal, they pleaded, he would be well compensated—“not just with oblations, but with great riches!”—and they themselves would be able to enjoy a spacious guesthouse. This pleasant prospect was denied to them; Evermar remained literally unmoved until Herstal was dropped from the tour.2 This story, taken from the miracles of Evermar, was clearly dramatized to represent a dispute between the inhabitants of Herstal and the interests of the saint, though without offering the reader any clarity as to the nature of the disagreement. The hagiographer wrote that he did not want to guess at the motives for the saints’ actions, but added (with perhaps a hint of menace) that “the saint knows, what offense stands between him and that villa.”3 Despite this ambiguity, the dynamics of this episode suggest some of the rewards and hardships of a journey as shared by a reliquary and its companions. The emphasis on physicality is hard to miss: the porters are overcome by the relics’ suddenly unnatural weight; the group heaves at it until they are forced to stop, panting from the effort; they argue in evocative language regarding the material comforts awaiting them in Herstal, with an urgent desire familiar to anyone who has hoped for a nice bed at the end of a long day of travel. The saint is depicted both as object and fellow traveler, simultaneously the most important and the most capricious of the party: an obstinate leader who might suddenly refuse to go a step further. The story invites us to envision Evermar and his entourage as a somewhat unimpressive sight: a box watched over by exhausted humans, sitting together in the dust by the side of the road.

82

En route

For a modern traveler, tales of delays, discomforts, and missed connections are essential pieces of a travel narrative, but medieval hagiographical accounts often minimize or elide the actual process of traveling with relics. Their purpose was not to recount the journey for its own sake, but rather as a narrative frame for the miracles that took place en route. They are therefore not true “travelogues,” which center a journey as an entity in its own right. Travel and its hardships were often implied, but not often celebrated.4 On the one hand, details do emerge across accounts that give their readers a sense of the practical considerations involved for those traveling with relics. Using the reported dates of departure and estimated distances of the most informative relic journey accounts, Pierre-André Sigal calculated that these groups traveled on average 9–14 kilometers a day. The late spring and summer seem to have been, understandably, the preferred seasons for making longer journeys, especially since certain groups brought along tents in case no suitable lodging for the relics could be found.5 Reasonably, Sigal proposed that itineraries were planned and carried out according to the intersections of the goal of the journey, the monastery’s connections, and to some extent, ad hoc decisions made on the road.6 Yet these logistical realities do not fully encompass the implications of the journey for those who participated in it. As relics passed over the threshold into the secular world, they lost some part of the controlled religious atmosphere they normally inhabited. The relative invisibility of the realities of travel in relic journey accounts might be read as a retroactive fght against this uncomfortable state of liminality. While the act of movement meant that the saints could “express themselves” through immobilizing their relics, in doing so they also became more fully part of the physical world.7 Travel, for better or worse, emphasized the relics’ materiality as things. Evermar was a saint, but he was also (in the form of his relics) a heavy box. Similarly, those who carried and accompanied relics across that threshold found their fates even more tightly linked to the saint; their experiences as a companion of the saint could be onerous, dangerous, or simply annoying, but also offered the promise of spiritual and material beneft for their hardship. Their bodies (especially the bodies of those tasked with physically carrying the saint) became a connecting bridge which linked the tangible and portable to the divine, and thus were subject to intense scrutiny.8 From energetic leaders whose charisma and diplomacy propelled a journey forward to the more invisible members of the company, the custodians of a mobile relic themselves partially replaced the ritual frames which were lost in the process of displacement. Caught between the saint and the world, in a sense, these people also found themselves entangled in the liminality of being a traveler.

The mobile relic It is by now a common observation that a relic does not interpret itself; to be powerful or meaningful, it had to be encased or embedded in symbolic and

Relics and their companions as travelers 83 physical layers of meaning, what Cynthia Hahn has termed “the reliquary effect”.9 At home in a church, a medieval relic was nested not only in a reliquary, but also in several additional zones of sacred space that provided a frame for its display and veneration and which amplifed its power. This embedding process was not limited to the tangible and physical; Robyn Malo has argued that for twelfth-century English relics, language and text (“relic discourse”) and the people who interpreted them for viewers (“relic custodians”) were essential to a relic’s enshrinement in a physical location.10 These carefully constructed shells provided the lens for viewers to understand and interpret the meaning of a relic as well as a channel to guide their behavior toward it; yet this guidance was altered or lost entirely when it was taken out of the space of the church. Understanding a traveling relic, then, means tracking the frames that replaced or adapted its typical enclosures while it was on the road. Artistic representations of relic journeys strictly understood (rather than translations) for the central Middle Ages are extremely rare, and are perhaps limited to two English examples: the fight of St. Cuthbert’s relics depicted in University College Oxford ms. 165, fol. 82r (Figure 3.1), and the movement of St. Edmund’s relics via cart from Bury-St-Edmund’s to London ca. 1010 depicted in Pierpont Morgan Library ms. M.736, fol. 20r.11 However, multiple scholars have argued that images which theoretically depict saints’ funerals, relic translations, and the transportation of the Ark of the Covenant were clearly also proxies for the visual experience of relic journeys.12 For example, Cecilia Gaposchkin has shown the resonance between the registers showing the translations of saints Firminus and Honoratus appearing on the late medieval portals of the cathedral of Amiens and the processions that took place in the city; Kelly Holbert has pointed out the unmistakable resemblance between the forms of contemporary reliquaries and the Ark of the Covenant as depicted in the thirteenth-century Morgan Picture Bible.13 Most signifcantly for this study, Barbara Abou-el-Haj noted that the miniature showing St. Amandus’ funeral (Figure 3.2) included two lay fgures being healed, events not reported during his burial but which took place during the travels of his relics in 1066 and 1107, as described in the same manuscript.14 The eleventh-century illustrator, who naturally would not have been present for Amandus’ seventh-century burial, likely drew on his experiences of seeing or hearing about the more recent transportations of Amandus’ relics and visually elided funeral with relic journey. Thus, depictions of these other types of relic transportation events can contribute to our understanding of how a mobile relic was imagined and represented. These images tend to support Sigal’s observation and the suggestion of the customaries discussed in Chapter 2 that the typical mode of relic transportation during the central Middle Ages was to place the reliquary on a bier carried on the shoulders of two or four bearers; the term feretrum was

84

En route

Figure 3.1 St. Cuthbert’s relics carried through the sea to Lindisfarne. Oxford, University College ms. 165, fol. 82r. Image © The Master and Fellows of University College Oxford.

Figure 3.2 The funeral of St. Amandus at Elnone. Valenciennes, Bibliothèque municipale ms. 502, fol. 30v. Image © Médiathèque Simone Veil de Valenciennes.

fuid, and could refer to the bier proper, to the bier-and-reliquary composite object, and to reliquaries themselves whether being transported or not.15 Pierre Héliot and Marie-Laure Chastang suggested that wheeled carts were the standard form of transportation for a mobile relic; the iconographic program of Edmund’s relics does show the saint’s reliquary traveling via cart,

Relics and their companions as travelers 85 but as Sigal noted, there is little textual evidence for saints being put on wheels prior to the thirteenth century.16 This meant that two or four people were in close physical proximity to a reliquary in motion, acting as its support and means of movement; their experiences are discussed in the second half of this chapter. This mode of transportation also opened up the space beneath the reliquary in transit as a potent feld of action and representation. At times, it was depicted as a space of healing; in some traveling Ark/coffn/reliquary images, such as the portal commemorating the translations of saints Benedict and Scholastica at Fleury or the portal of Honoratus at Amiens, fgures of supplicants appear underneath the mobile reliquaries and reaching up toward them.17 These depictions resonate with texts which describe people lying down in order to receive healing as a reliquary was carried over them or diving underneath it as it was moved.18 This form of action was not limited to reliquaries in motion; reliquaries might be placed on special temporary constructions or raised on columns within a church to allow people to pass or sleep under them, and the decorations of the undersides of certain reliquaries suggest that they were also meant to be viewed from below.19 Depictions of people underneath a mobile reliquary, then, suggested the spatial opportunities offered by its motion, but also replicated a common form of interaction with stationary relics in a church. A more puzzling occupant of the space under the reliquary was the cloth depicted draped over the bier, under the Ark/coffn/reliquary but not covering it, as in the Eadwine Psalter (Figure 3.3) and the image of the escape of Cuthbert’s relics to Lindisfarne (Figure 3.1).20 The idea that the Ark of the Covenant would be represented covered wholly or partially covered with

Figure 3.3 The transportation of the Ark of the Covenant accompanying Psalm 131 in the Eadwine Psalter. Cambridge, Trinity College ms. R.17.1, fol. 237r. Image © The Master and Fellows of Trinity College Cambridge.

86

En route

Figure 3.4 The translation of the relics of St. Stephen on a historiated capital at Lubersac, Eglise Saint-Gervais. Image © Centre d’études supérieures de civilisation médiévale (CESCM), Photothèque du CESCM, 1957.

a cloth is unsurprising; the Old Testament described a cloth covering the Ark when it was transported, and unauthorized viewing or touching was clearly proscribed. A similar impulse to cover the object itself could also apply to coffns or reliquaries, as in the embroidered cloth depicted covering the reliquary of St. Stephen during its translation in a historiated capital at Lubersac (Figure 3.4).21 But what purpose could a cloth hanging below the reliquary serve? One possibility is that it mimicked the appearance of a reliquary resting on an altar.22 The cloth might then have served as a way to visually represent a reliquary in motion as if it was immobile and resting in the church, recovering an echo of that fxed and stable sacred space. Comparing the image of Cuthbert’s reliquary being carried (Figure 3.1) in UC Oxford ms. 165 to images of it resting on an altar in a church lends weight to this idea.23 The hanging draped cloth of the mobile reliquary takes on the same form and folds as the cloth that covers the altar on which the immobile reliquary rests, carrying the visual language of the relics’ enshrinement with it into the secular world.24 One of the reliquaries appearing in the scene of Harold’s oath on the Bayeux Tapestry also suggests this confation; though clearly equipped for travel (it has two carrying poles), it is nonetheless resting on an altar which is almost completely covered by a green cloth.25 These images emphasize the hanging cloth’s potential as altar-signifer, partially mimicking the normal visuals of relic display. The desire to give a mobile reliquary this kind of visually elevated status in artistic representations may have stemmed in part from the fact that its actual physical experiences, as refected in hagiographical texts, could

Relics and their companions as travelers 87 potentially involve serious indignities. When the servants of a duke were forcibly taking the grain carts of the monastery of Ninove, the reliquary of St. Cornelius was placed on the road in the path of the carts. The hope was obviously to stop the thieves and the carts literally in their tracks, but instead one of the servants “moved the reliquary from the road with his foot.”26 Although naturally the text claims that the offender didn’t live long after the incident, it must have been a shock for the monks to see their saint more or less kicked out of the way. Much further south, during a heated encounter between a local lord and the monks of Mauriac, a frustrated knight named Girbald aimed a blow at the reliquary of Marius which had been brought along. As Girbald struck the reliquary, the surrounding people supposedly heard the voice of the saint himself ask: “Who hit me?”27 While reliquaries might be most usefully carried out during highly charged situations, this came with the risk that they themselves might not be safe from physical attack, and that their very visibility and importance might make them a target. These kinds of surprising physical encounters with relics-as-objects were not limited to human interactions. During another journey of Marius’ relics (also related to property), a naïve rooster few up and perched on the reliquary. The hagiographer frst drew on the established trope that unauthorized touching would be punished: the poor bird supposedly lost both its ability to crow and to fy. Yet more interpretation was required to appropriately and seriously frame what might otherwise have been an alarmingly humorous situation; the author suggested that this incident signifed the eventual triumph of the humble monks over their proud opponents.28 Whether or not the incident was fabricated in the service of the larger narrative, a scenario in which a reliquary was outdoors and among the fauna of everyday life provided the possibility for unique forms of interaction. Another reliquary-bird incident was reported by Adso of Montier-en-Der; when the monks of Luxeuil rested the relics of Waldebert and Eustasius (in a shared reliquary) on top of a fallen oak tree in a meadow, a dove few down and “familiarly” circled the object: an obvious sign of divine favor and holy power.29 Stories about the bad ends of animals who desecrated a saint’s sanctuary by their presence were always popular among hagiographers, but when relics were carried out of an indoor environment the possibility of more direct interactions likely increased.30 Moving a relic outside thus tended to highlight its character as an object, which could be kicked or perched upon (despite the consequences for those doing the kicking and perching). This prospect helps explain why those who represented relic journeys in image might have sought to present them in ways that echoed their contexts of display at home, visually immobilizing the mobile, and why the installation of relics in churches along the way was often seen as critically important.31 However, there is an elision here that requires further attention—these tactile and physical moments were not experienced directly by a relic, but by their reliquary.

88

En route

Relics and their reliquaries on the road Relic and reliquary were usually spoken of by medieval hagiographers as a single object, a pattern so ingrained that it is hard to avoid when writing about them.32 Elevation and translation ceremonies that took place when a relic was transferred into a reliquary were designed to marry the two into a single unit. However, mobility placed a unique form of stress on the relic/reliquary relationship, in part because the authority that guaranteed that there was “something in the box” diminished with distance from the cult center, and in part because those traveling with relics might themselves fnd it necessary or desirable to separate the two and leave either relics or reliquary behind. Movement into secular space not only brought the physicality of the relic/reliquary object to the fore, it also challenged the assumed equivalence between the two.33 This was a risk, because relics needed their reliquaries. Whether mobile or stationary, a reliquary functioned as an advertisement for the saint, marking through its beauty and wealth the power of the relics inside, in addition to its more subtle meanings as container/signifer.34 Yet a reliquary’s beauty and desirability, taken out of the (relative) security of the church, could be a liability as well as a billboard: as the glittering reliquary-statue of St. Faith traveled past him, a man supposedly wished privately that it would fall to the ground and smash so that he could scavenge the gold and gems.35 Moreover, reliquaries might act as direct refections of the fnancial and spiritual success (or failure) of the saint’s travels. St. Valentine demanded through several nighttime visions that his reliquary be carried around to stop a plague of rodents; the donations that poured in after his success were enough to gild both it and the bier it traveled on in silver.36 St. Berlinda’s relics were brought on tour specifcally so that people could donate to give her a new, more ftting (i.e., impressive) reliquary.37 Items could also be affxed to the reliquary (or perhaps, the bier) while it traveled, as with the numerous belts that women attached to the reliquary of Marculf as it traveled, visibly demonstrating the success of the journey.38 Conversely, when the monks of Marchiennes brought the relics of St. Eusebia to England in the hopes of donations, their journey was so unsuccessful that they had to strip the silver off the reliquary to pay for their passage home, in a striking and rare account of failure.39 A reliquary provided a relic with a visual identity while acting as a proxy for direct contact with the relics themselves.40 Central medieval reliquaries were opaque, both concealing their contents and becoming their avatar; only later would transparent materials be used to reveal the relic itself to the viewer.41 However, this substitution rested on the assumption that the relics of the saint were actually inside the reliquary. Empty (or theoretically empty) reliquaries were at times politically useful, given their use in oath-taking—a promise sworn on an empty reliquary was not a divinely enforceable promise.42 However, monks or canons preparing for a relic

Relics and their companions as travelers 89 journey also had incentives not to take important relics along. Following the logic of saintly presence, removing the relics from the community could be understood to mean the temporary loss of that saint’s protection. While St. Winnoc’s relics were traveling, a severe illness spread through the monastery and the relics had to be quickly carried back so that the saint could deal with the crisis.43 Given this risk, it might be much more convenient not to let the relics (at least in their entirety) leave in the frst place. In the ninth century, the canons carrying the relics of St. Balderic had to beat a hasty retreat back to Montfaucon; they had falsely claimed to be carrying the full and complete body of the saint, and a hostile local abbot had asked the bishop to investigate. Miraculously, they were able to go back and get the full body in record time before they were offcially found out.44 In 1102, the monks of Mont-d’Or hedged their bets even further. Having run out of capital for the new portal they were building, the sacristan decided a fundraising trip with relics was in order. Though they claimed to be carrying the relics of St. Theoderic, the monastery’s founder and primary patron, other saints’ relics were substituted in a consciously deceptive sleight-of-hand: Thus a reliquary was prepared with precious relics of the saints, which was carried around so that the work begun could be completed with the devoted gifts of the faithful. Suitably made up of saints of good reputation, it was carried around under the name of the blessed Theoderic, nevertheless it did not contain his body, which was kept intact with us in his own reliquary…45 This was acceptable, the hagiographer explained, because saints often performed their greatest miracles in places where they were not bodily present, falling back on broad and vague concepts of praesentia. The people who were told that they were in the presence of Theoderic’s actual relics might have had a different opinion of the situation had they known the truth, and it is somewhat surprising that the hagiographer was willing to acknowledge the ruse. Based on these ecclesiastical admissions, contemporary lay suspicions that a traveling reliquary might not actually contain what it was said to contain seem entirely justifed. These fears about a mobile relic’s presence and identity were not easily laid to rest. The monks of Andage resolved uncertainty by the most obvious method: they cracked Hubert’s reliquary open while on the road to demonstrate to onlookers the saint’s body was inside and intact.46 But this was a drastic measure. Reliquaries were generally never opened except during a formal translation or elevation and with much ceremony involved.47 Without this option, validating a reliquary’s contents on the road sight unseen posed a challenge. The canons of Laon had a stroke of (perhaps unbelievable) good luck on that front in their journey in 1113. As they entered Arras, an elderly goldsmith who had been blind

90

En route

for 12 years asked those around him to describe the form, nature, and size of the reliquary. On hearing their descriptions, he let out a deep sigh, began to cry, and announced that he himself had made that reliquary as a young man on the order of bishop Elinand of Laon. He went on to testify that the bishop had indeed placed “precious relics” inside, including the heads of St. Walaricus and St. Montanus. The bishop had also told him the story of this latter saint, who had been cured of his blindness after predicting the birth of St. Remigius to his mother and washing his eyes with her milk. The goldsmith’s impromptu speech ended with a petition to Mary to grant him a parallel miracle so that he could see his workmanship once more. After water washed over the relics was touched to his eyes, he drank it and spent the night in vigil next to the reliquary, and in the morning received the healing he sought.48 While this was primarily intended to be an affecting miracle story, the incident had also conveniently provided on-the-spot validation for the traveling relics by giving an eyewitness confrmation of the reliquary’s contents, without the necessity of actually opening it up. The goldsmith’s personal knowledge of the reliquary and speech to this effect acted as oral authentication that it was neither empty nor dubious: that appearances, in this case, were not deceiving. As the goldsmith’s tale suggests, the recognizable form of a reliquary could be used to vouch for its contents.49 This meant that as relics and their reliquary traveled together, assurances of the bond between them were especially important. At the same time, the dangers of the road made that bond susceptible to being broken—traveling relics might not come home in the same state that they left. Between 1071 and 1079, according to the miracles of St. Adelard, the monks of Corbie (11 miles east of Amiens) supposedly took the saint’s relics to petition Count Robert I of Flanders to return property to them.50 On their way back from seeing the count, they stopped at the comital seat of Lille. Unfortunately for them, Robert’s mother, the countess Adèle, was also there and anxious to take advantage of the opportunity which presented itself to her. The monks had placed their relics in the church of St. Stephen; Adèle went to them and informed them that since Adelard was a blood relation, she intended to keep his relics.51 According to the hagiographer, her plan was either to build a new church and found a new community of monks to house the relics, or to give them to the monastery of St-Peter’s in Ghent. Neither of these projects involved the monks of Corbie, and she concluded by telling them to go back to their monastery, sans saint; she then locked the doors of the church and set guards. The monks decided that their only option was to wait till the middle of the night, crack the silver reliquary open, remove the relics, stuff them into a deerskin sack, and have a monk named Everard smuggle them out of the city and back to Corbie. The plan came off perfectly (with some narrow escapes for Everard), but what about the lost reliquary? The author claims that the monks were unconcerned: the reliquary was replaceable, but the relics were not.

Relics and their companions as travelers 91 However, Adelard’s reliquary did return to Corbie, and the story of its homecoming illuminates the centrality of the relationship between the two objects. The countess, learning of the monks’ trick and supposedly recognizing the force of divine will behind it, allowed the reliquary to leave Lille. And for being supposedly unconcerned about its loss, the monks did not let it come back to Corbie quietly. They organized an elaborate dual procession: the reliquary returning would be met by a festive procession coming out to meet it, including candles, processional crosses, and the (detached) arm of the saint himself. The moment was framed in terms of two sweeping Old Testament analogies: the Exodus from Egypt (i.e., Lille) and the return of the Ark of the Covenant after its capture by the Philistines: In this manner they, as if leaving Egypt, where now they had been detained as if captives, with the cloud of heavenly defense protecting them lest they be burned by the sun of tribulation, they came with our new Moses as leader into the land of peace and security. And when now they had come near to Corbie, sending messengers ahead they ordered their brothers to run out quickly to the reliquary of saint Adelard with the arm of that same confessor. Immediately new joy was added on top of their recent joy; all the bells were rung, the church was adorned with tapestries and coverings, and it was illuminated with many lit candles. Finally, with an assembly of the people having been convened, a festive procession began, and it advanced in the way with the arm of saint Adelard preceded by candles and crosses. Then the children of Israel, taking it up as if it was the ark of the Lord returned from the Philistines, carried it back into the tabernacle of God, and they went before with David in a voice of exultation and confession singing psalms, with various types of musical instruments sounding all around to increase the joy.52 These comparisons wrote Adèle into the roles of both Pharaoh and the Philistines; one wonders what her reaction to this text might have been.53 Regardless, the sheer celebratory force behind the reunifcation of Adelard’s relics and his reliquary contradicts the hagiographer’s assertion that the loss of the reliquary would have been inconsequential. This impression is underscored by the claim that the empty reliquary also performed a miracle on its way home. Even though “the presence of his body was absent, God showed such [power] in the vessel of his body,” the hagiographer wrote as he compared the relic-less reliquary to the apostle Peter’s shadow, which itself had performed a miracle as a proxy for the saint.54 Though theoretically replaceable, this particular object was clearly perceived as important both to the saint and the community. So that the reliquary could serve once more as Adelard’s public face, before being replaced the relics were exhibited to remove any doubt that they had actually returned. Adelard’s identity as the saintly occupant of his reliquary had to be reestablished, so that relics and reliquary could once again be considered inseparable after their challenging journey.

92

En route

The story of Adelard’s reliquary lost and regained not only suggests some of the dangers (exaggerated or not) an itinerant relic might face, but the peculiar stress mobility might place on the relic/reliquary object. Without the space of the church to surround it, the reliquary took on increased signifcance as the only physical shell enclosing and concealing the relic, potentially in the face of doubt that its contents were as advertised. However, the reliquary was not the only mobile frame that traveled with the relic. The strain that travel placed on the relics/reliquary as an object extended to those who physically supported and accompanied it; they are the other travelers of this chapter.

Carrying the saint The role of relic porter was not a simple one. Several texts refect a concern for the personal merit and spiritual health of those who physically supported the weight of the relics, and warn of the consequences of failing to measure up. The miracles of St. Landeric suggested in dramatic fashion that a willing and eager spirit was not all that was required: This also I think should not be omitted: when on that same day the body of kind Landeric was to be transferred to the aforementioned village for the purpose of legal action, as it was being carried out from the temple, a certain man named Willebert ran up to the porters on the threshold, and he persuaded one of them that that he himself should support the burden. But the feretrum sprang back from the shoulders of the approaching [man] and hung in the air without anyone holding it up. He fell headlong onto the ground, stupefed by the power which had been demonstrated, until fnally with hymns and praises having been sung by the brothers he could get up. These things were done, I think, because he had not previously weighed the merit of his conscience in the scales, whether he should consider himself worthy to support the members of so holy a patron.55 The text implies that had Willebert perhaps been a little more refective and a little less hasty, he might well have been able to carry the saint. This concern for preparedness is mirrored in other texts which indicate that porters might undergo a careful selection and preparation process; when the relics of St. Genevieve were to be brought around Paris in an attempt to stop a plague, “the better people of the familia of the sacred virgin were elected” to carry the saint. In preparation, they not only purifed themselves with fasting and prayers, they also took a bath.56 Landeric’s hovering reliquary was something of an anomaly; more frequently, saints tended to “express themselves,” as Evermar did, by manipulating the weight of their reliquary. A happy saint being carried by a worthy team supposedly weighed almost nothing; when St. Benedict was being

Relics and their companions as travelers 93 returned to Fleury, for the porters he was “a burden without weight.”57 An enemy of the saint would, in theory, fnd things tougher going. When the relics of St. Agilus were brought to a convocation of the relics of Rebais and Jouarre, the praepositus Roger of Jouarre wanted to help carry them back afterwards. The saint, however “did not allow [himself] to be raised to the neck of an enemy” and the reliquary became so heavy that Roger groaned under the weight. Helpfully reminded by the people that he was illegitimately holding several properties which belonged to the saint, Roger recognized his error (earning him a complimentary description as a vir moderatissimus) and gave it all back; the saint’s reliquary then became so light that Roger had the impression that rather than him carrying it, it was carrying him.58 Though certainly scripted, the incident reinforced the expectation that the act of carrying a saint’s relics afforded that saint the opportunity to weigh in on the personal merit of their porter.59 These implied porter-saint relationships were useful in political and legal contexts. Successfully carrying the saint’s relics confrmed that the saint was pleased with their bearer(s), in addition to providing a politically effective tableau of humility and piety. A charter of Baldwin VII, done at Lille in 1117, indicates that the count carried Amandus’ relics as a ritual action which paralleled the witness of the charter itself: That same day, I [Baldwin] ordered that the body of St. Amandus, the glorious priest of Christ, be carried to the wood that was to be divided; where, in testimony of this division, I myself, though unworthy, carried the most holy body of that same saint.60 Here, the act of portation took on both a legal and spiritual character. The inclusion of the count’s ritual role as porter in the charter reaffrmed his status as someone who was indeed worthy of carrying a saint as well as the saint’s tacit approval of the proceedings.61 By carrying Amandus’ relics, the count opened a moment of direct dialogue between himself and the holy. These expectations regarding the roles and personal merit of a reliquary’s porters found perhaps their boldest expression in the account of the second “translation” of St. Bavo, in reality a relic journey undertaken in 1058 in the context of the rivalry between St-Bavo’s and St-Peter’s of Ghent. In the course of this account, which is marked by both literary ambition and intense bitterness toward St-Peter’s, the hagiographer compared Bavo’s reliquary to the Ark of the Covenant on its travels back from captivity by the Philistines. He addressed the porters of the reliquary directly, and emphasized the spiritual value of their work: Listen, you who are carrying the ark of God, going on to Bethsames, that is to the ‘house of the sun,’ participate in the joy over this and a thousand other proofs in the vestibule of [your] mind, certain that if you carry the ark, turning neither to the right or left, when you see the God

94

En route of gods with pious Bavo, you will be gods. Whence that psalm: ‘I said, you are gods and all sons of the Most High’…62

The depth of this reference to the Ark makes the analogy a bit obscure. Bethsames was the frst city the Ark encountered once it had been released by the Philistines on a cart pulled by two oxen, who turned “neither to the right or left” but headed directly for Israelite territory. While the comparison of porters to oxen may seem uncomplimentary, the author’s point was that carrying the reliquary on its travels was a distinct type of privilege that would translate into heavenly rewards. The Ark was used in this passage to connect the wonder and power of Bavo’s reliquary with the positive implications of that power for those physically responsible for it. If the task of porter was so fraught, both with risk and reward, was it a privilege the church reserved to its own? Nicole Herrmann-Mascard concluded that the question of lay portation of sacred objects was defned by a gap between ideals of strict hierarchy and more egalitarian realities. From the sixth century onward, church councils and legal scholars indicated that the touching and carrying of sacred objects should be reserved to religious personnel; equally clearly, these restrictions were almost entirely ignored in practice.63 The texts regarding relic journeys support this determination. The suggestion in the Cluniac customaries that once the relics had been escorted to the walls, they might be carried by either brothers or laymen is paralleled in hagiographical texts, which describe relics being loaned out to the lay population so that they and not the monks themselves might carry them around. For example, the miracles of St. Vitonus (Vanne) report that in response to a summer drought, a crowd of laypeople came knocking on the door of the monastery demanding that they be given the body of the saint. The priests were responsible for raising the body and bringing it outside the monastery, where the crowd was waiting with gifts and kisses for the saint. At that point, they became the saint’s bearers, “as sons of the most desired father,” carrying him around and calling for his help before returning to the monastery.64 Another loan occurred during the journey of the canons of Laon through France, when a castellan borrowed a Marian reliquary in order to carry it barefoot with his knights to a rival’s castle as a peacemaking gesture.65 Despite the fact that lay portation of relics is described in many central medieval texts, the texts regarding the fight of St. Cuthbert’s relics do suggest that there may have been tensions surrounding the implications of relic-carrying for lay porters. The text accompanying the illustration of the reliquary being moved (Figure 3.1) is one of the later additions to Bede’s Life of St. Cuthbert. Known as “Miracle 6,” it describes the transportation of Cuthbert’s relics to Lindisfarne to escape a putative attack by William the Conqueror in 1069.66 The bishop and congregation of Durham, along with others, thought it best to fee before the arrival of the army, but found the tide was too high to cross to Lindisfarne as they intended. Miraculously, the relics parted the sea and allowed everyone to be able to cross without wetting

Relics and their companions as travelers 95 their feet, giving the anonymous author the opportunity to compare the episode to the crossing of the Red Sea during the Exodus. In the image, the waters part dramatically as they touch the leading porter, also evoking the description in Joshua 3 that the Jordan parted when it touched the feet of the priests carrying the Ark. Yet Cuthbert’s porters are clearly depicted as laymen, not monks or priests. As Malcolm Baker has noted, the illustrator of ms. 165 paid careful attention to the details of the text itself, and indeed Miracle 6 specifes that the reliquary was carried by (noble) laymen as it crossed to Lindisfarne.67 The text also claims that the experience of carrying the reliquary was so powerful that afterwards these men became monks at Durham, where they continued to share their memories of that day with their fellow monks: But also the delight of the brothers, who also in life [were] nobles and more noble in seriousness of behavior, at that time carried the feretrum in military habit, now however with us in the monastery of that father, that is having professed in Durham, are true monks in act and habit. [They] are accustomed to attest often to us with great compunction of heart and with the sweetest narration, in what way the waves of the sea preceding them followed continuously in their footsteps, so that [the waves] neither went before [them] when they were proceeding little by little, nor remained behind for a long time when they were moving on quickly.68 The imagery and text of Miracle 6 work together to paint relic-carrying as a transformative experience that could prompt the conversion of lay porters to a monastic life.69 However, the later history of Miracle 6 suggests that this image of lay portation leading to conversion may not have been altogether desirable. When Simeon of Durham compiled his well-known Historia Dunelmensis Ecclesiae in the early twelfth century, he had access to the text of Miracle 6 and borrowed much of its content for the description of the miracle itself. However, Simeon left out the subsequent monastic profession of the porters of the reliquary. Anne Lawrence-Mathers has identifed this as a pointed omission, suggesting that there may have been some ambiguity about the identity of these porters and their conversion, an unwillingness to condone the carrying of relics by the laity, or perhaps, mere disinterest in their fate as irrelevant to the miracle.70 Whether Simeon’s omission should be interpreted as erasure or not, it is clear that legal and conciliar disapproval of relic-carrying by laymen did not translate to practical restrictions during the central Middle Ages.

Accompanying the saint Beyond the question of who would be able to shoulder the literal and spiritual burden of carrying relics, all those traveling with relics faced challenges.

96

En route

Relic companions do not ft neatly into any of the conventional models for medieval travelers: should they be classifed as pilgrims? preachers? merchants? lords?71 And in the frst place, who were they? References to the composition of the team that would travel with an itinerant relic are rare. Twenty-four laypeople and six clerics accompanied the relics of St. Berlinda; the crowd offered the saint the opportunity to perform a christological miracle and make fve barley loaves enough to go around.72 At times, people for whom a miracle had been performed would join the traveling group in order to end up at the monastery with the saint, indicating that the group might return much larger than it had departed.73 Women also traveled with their relics; a text produced at the monastery of St-Martin at Tournai noted that the nuns of St-Fare visited with both the body of St. Fare and the head of St. Agnes in 1141 to raise funds to rebuild their monastery. The list of those who witnessed the miracles accomplished on this occasion may reveal the names of at least three of these women: Elisabeth, Berta, and Lamberga.74 More explicit lists of travelers are given in Hermann of Tournai’s accounts of the journeys of the canons and relics of Laon. For the 1112 journey through France, Hermann listed as the participants seven canons (Boso, Robert, Anselm, Herbert, a second Robert, Boneface, Amisard the priest, and Odo, later abbot of Bona-Spes) and six townsmen (Richard, John Piot, Odo, Lambert, Boso, and Theoderic of Brueriius).75 The list for the 1113 journey to England included only canons, and the reappearance of several names from the 1112 roster suggests that prior experience may have been a factor in the selection process: Boso the priest, his nephew Robert, Radulph the priest, Matthew, his relative Boneface, Robert an Englishman, Helinand, John the priest of the parish of St. Martin, and Amisard the cleric.76 However, we also learn from Hermann’s text that men of less elevated status who were not included in the offcial list were also along for the trip. Haganellus, “one of our servants… who was from the familia of the lord archdeacon Guido of Laon,” appears in the narrative because he got into a fght in Bodmin.77 A young deaf man and a man with a disabled hand, both British, had come to sleep by the reliquary in the hope of receiving healing; they began to tease Haganellus, who had been stationed there, by telling him that King Arthur was still alive. This seems to have been a sensitive topic; Hermann noted that “the British are accustomed to dispute with the French regarding King Arthur.”78 Things got out of hand, an armed crowd rushed into the church, and the uproar was only brought to a bloodless conclusion through the intervention of Algard, the canons’ host. Hermann, apparently laying none of the blame for the incident on the offended Haganellus, noted that the man who had started the trouble did not receive healing because of Mary’s displeasure at having such a scene happen next to her reliquary.79 Haganellus did not reappear in Hermann’s text; he became once again an invisible traveler. Though the members of the relic companies were not quite pilgrims and not quite merchants, they faced challenges and choices that would have been familiar to both groups. They needed to draw on their knowledge and

Relics and their companions as travelers 97 expertise as religious professionals and curators of relics, but travel also challenged them to use that experience in new contexts. In Hermann’s account of the trip to England, the canon Boso emerges as a central and enterprising fgure; he was the person “to whom the care of serving the relics was committed” and he also heard confessions in his capacity as a priest.80 When the relics made a special side journey to see a wealthy patient in her bed, Boso (along with Robert and Boniface) was part of the visitation party. However, Boso’s most spectacular moment as a traveler was his dramatic use of the phylactery containing Marian relics on the crossing from France to England. Pirates were chasing down the ship carrying the canons and the merchants traveling with them; at the urging of the ship’s captain Coldistannus, Boso took the phylactery, climbed the mast with Coldistannus’ help, and held it up to forbid the pirates to come any closer. A prevailing wind then pushed the pirate ship away, and the canons and their fellow travelers were saved.81 Boso’s sense of initiative and possible leadership of the group has a parallel in the account of the trip of St. Marculf’s relics from Corbeny, which is dominated by the fgure of the prior Andreas. Andreas emerges in the text as an energetic go-getter; he had taken charge of Corbeny (a priory of St-Remi of Reims) after the previous prior had quit, overwhelmed by the fnancial diffculties of the struggling house. After only three months at the helm, Andreas came back to Reims to confront the mother community with the uncomfortable fact that Corbeny was insolvent. This caused an awkward silence in the chapter—the author notes delicately that St-Remi itself was experiencing some diffculty at the time—and this blunt fnancial pronouncement must have been unwelcome news. Andreas, however, immediately proposed the solution: a relic journey to raise funds. After all, he insisted, the highly respectable communities of St-Quentin and St-Martin of Tours had recently done the same, and this had often happened during his time in France, implying that he was already an experienced traveler.82 With the necessary permission received, the journey clearly became a project conceived and driven by Andreas, who went along himself. He chose the traveling party, was in charge of arrangements made en route (“it was his [task] to take care of all these things”), and once traveled ahead of the relics to personally negotiate a stay at Arras, taking it upon himself to point out to the bishop of that city that St-Remi had done the same for the relics of Arras when they were traveling—a favor to be called in.83 The journey of Marculf’s relics was also, unusually, actively recalled; John, a monk of St-Remi, was sent out to fnd the team from Corbeny and tell them that they had been on the road long enough and that they had to go home; he caught up with them at Homblières.84 It is easy to suspect that Andreas’ personal energy as a traveler and organizer of relic tours was a source of concern to his superiors. These skills and qualities were not those generally associated with a medieval monk or canon—Boso and Andreas were both individuals capable of

98

En route

action far from their respective houses, with what seems to have been a special gift for the art of traveling with relics.85 They engaged in making special visits to wealthy patrons, climbing masts, pressuring bishops, and implicitly keeping their traveling group alive and safe. Another monk who seems to have shared this aptitude for organizing relic excursions was Gallebert of Fleury, who, having run out of money for his architectural projects, assembled a group of traveling relics and preachers to raise funds. His activities were summarized by Rodulfus Tortarius: One of the brothers, named Gallebert, who was overseer to the masons pursuing the abovementioned work, at length overfowing with too little money, went around many places, and leading with him preachers [seminiverbios], by whose admonition the hearts of men and women, entangled in the business of the world, were stirred, that they might lighten his penury by some assistance, however small. While he roamed all around, he came to Vitry-aux-Loges…86 The text continues by echoing the kind of rhetoric Gallebert and his preachers employed to convince their audiences: the present life is feeting, the future one eternal—why not part with a few coins for a good cause? Stephen Murray has interpreted one recorded vernacular sermon as the type of speech that might be made on these occasions—a rhetorical web connecting architecture, theology, and crowd appeal.87 Overall, Tortarius presented Gallebert’s actions as admirably enterprising; as for Boso and Andreas, no aspersions were cast on his goals or methods as an organizer for relic circulation. Yet the activities and personal character of those traveling with relics, like Boso, Andreas, and Gallebert, have attracted intense and particular scrutiny both medieval and modern. In the early twelfth century, Guibert of Nogent mounted a scathing critique of certain aspects of the cult of relics.88 In a memorable episode, he was recognized by a preacher (possibly from Laon) exhibiting relics in the square who, to Guibert’s horror, called on him to support his claims. This embarrassing experience prompted Guibert to single out those who traveled with relics as particularly disgraceful: Frequently we observe these [miracles] to be worn out by whispering, and made laughable by the carrying-around of reliquaries, and we see daily the depths of another person’s purse stripped clean by the lies of those whom Jerome calls rabulos by the madness of their speechmaking. We are shaken so much by the scurrilities of these persons, we are so struck by the debasement of divine things, that as the aforementioned doctor [says], they surpass clowns, gluttons, and catellanos in licking-up, and outdo ravens and magpies in annoying garrulousness.89

Relics and their companions as travelers 99 Pious relic companions or silver-tongued hucksters? It is not hard to see parallels between the man whose “rabid eloquence” fustered and enraged Guibert and the “fattering persuasions” of Gallebert and company. These contrasting medieval representations refect the modern discomfort that has dogged discussions of central medieval relic journeys, particularly those with the explicit goal of raising funds. Thus, to Pierre Héliot and Marie-Laure Chastang, Andreas and the other monks of Corbeny who carried Marculf formed an “honor guard” for the saint, while the preachers who had accompanied Gallebert 20 years prior were an early hint of the degradation to come.90 It is worth challenging this dichotomy between saintly amateur relic companions and scandalous professional ones, not only because of the moral weight involved (as discussed in the Introduction) but also because of the diffculty in defning the chronology of such a shift. By the time that Guibert wrote, the portrayal of those accompanying traveling relics as profteers who made a mockery of the saint was nothing new; it dated back to at least the early eleventh century. An addition to the second Vita sancti Gisleni, composed before 1035, excoriated the canons who supposedly lived at Celle (St-Ghislain) before they were evicted in favor of monks in 931: [The canons], rejoicing to live in an enormous fashion, were keeping wives, implicating themselves in secular business, and dishonoring the service of the kind confessor, whom they ought to have served with religiosity, because they had greater concern for the feeding of their families than for the glory of the church. Also they carried the body of the holy confessor Ghislain through certain places, and whatever the abundance of the faithful conferred to his reliquary as it stayed around, they did not give to the use of the church, but kept secretly for their own use. This business often offended the dignity of the aforementioned confessor in an extraordinary manner, nor did he approve the habit in this way of those serving him.91 These high-living canons never existed. The putative tenth-century crisis was entirely fabricated in the service of the eleventh-century reform narrative, a historiographical theme ably tracked by Steven Vanderputten.92 Thus, this text does not prove that a group of tenth-century canons were carrying relics around to raise funds; rather, it indicates that an eleventh-century monastic author saw relic journeys (even if he did not necessarily condemn the practice outright) as a believable by-product of the secular concerns that marked, in his mind, the sad inferiority of worldly canons to holy monks.93 In other words, questions and suspicions regarding the personal worth, motives, and respectability of those accompanying relics are by now an almost 1,000-year-old tradition. Even the groups held up as the models of pious relic-companions faced these kinds of accusations in person at the time

100

En route

of their travels: Boso and the other Laonnois canons were denounced as magicians on their England voyage and as fraudsters in France.94 As for Andreas and the monks of Corbeny, once they had gotten Marculf’s relics set up in the church of St-Fursey at Péronne they had one member of the group (chosen for this purpose) give a sermon evoking the fnancial need of Corbeny and asking for the help of the faithful.95 Some donated, others jeered. Had their activities been described by someone antagonistic to Corbeny, they might have been framed very differently. Thus, I would suggest that whether or not relic companions were praised or condemned for their more “commercial” activities was more a question of perspective than a moral collapse into greed over time.

Traveling with relics as pilgrimage Those accompanying relics were not only confronted with suspicions about their morality and trustworthiness, they also faced the very practical dangers of medieval travel. Even those traveling with a saint literally in hand could expect diffculties on land, river, or sea. However, within these challenges lay the potential for them to valorize their hardships; as Shayne Legassie notes, “the inevitable hazards of travel endowed it with a heroic aura.”96 For the travelers, regardless of how they were viewed by others, adversities could give their travels the spiritual qualities of a pilgrimage. Nowhere is the experience of relic-travel painted more evocatively than in the accounts written by Hermann of Tournai regarding the two relic journeys of the canons of Laon. Hermann was the only author of a relic journey account who decided to write using an explicitly frst-person perspective (for the 1113 trip to England), despite the fact that he himself was not a participant on the trip or even a formal member of the Laon chapter.97 This conscious stylistic choice gave his text a vividness and an affective quality that emphasizes the canons’ own roles as travelers as a secondary theme to the sanctity and power of Mary’s relics. Though Hermann’s account was certainly intended to present a positive vision of Mary’s power and the strength of Marian devotion in England, it also idealized the experience of traveling with relics and interpreted the canons’ displacement and return as an act of devotion toward their religious community.98 The theme of physical danger was already present in Hermann’s account of the 1112 trip through France; he devoted an entire chapter to the miracle of a diffcult journey accomplished. The group from Laon was attempting to get to the castle of Montguerre (Château de Garde) from Le Mans; they got a late start (perhaps a universal travel experience) and were told by everyone they met that it would be impossible to reach the castle safely. Night fell, it started to rain, and they began to get desperate; Hermann summarized the mood by quoting Psalm 106: “They cried out to the Lord when they were in tribulation…”99 They made it through successfully, to the astonishment of the knights who came out to welcome them. Returning to Le Mans the next

Relics and their companions as travelers 101 day, the diffculties they experienced made them certain that their journey the night before had only been accomplished through Mary’s miraculous protection. However, according to Hermann, the most signifcant dangers were faced by the canons on the trip to England in 1113. Beginning with the story of the pirate-infested Channel crossing and Boso’s dramatic climb up the mast, Hermann constructed England as a narrative space of adventure. The canons (in theory) narrowly avoided being kidnapped by Irishmen in Bristol— tempted by the opportunity for new clothes and fascinated by the variety of wares available, they visited ships docked in the harbor to inspect their cargo. Seeing their interest, their hosts in Bristol warned them not to go onboard, because Irish merchants were in the habit of tempting unwary visitors onto their ships, then suddenly setting sail in order to sell them as slaves on foreign shores. Nevertheless, the canons continued to frequent the ships until their hosts, prodded by Mary, insisted on the reality of the danger and swore to that effect, at which point the canons fnally put an end to their curiosity and praised Mary that she had seen ft to warn them.100 As with the pirates, this was a tale of travel disaster averted, and while Hermann’s hagiographical goal was to establish Mary as a protector, such an argument relied on emphasizing the real threat to the canons’ safety. If their sustained interest in the Irish ships and their cargo suggests an image of the canons acting as somewhat credulous tourists, the rest of their journey as refected in Hermann’s text does little to dispel that impression.101 At Wilton Abbey, they were shown the tombs of Bede (oddly, since he was entombed in Durham) and “the poetess Murier.”102 Near Bodmin they viewed the throne and furnace of King Arthur.103 More prosaically, upon reaching Christchurch they “were pushed down by an inundation of rain so great and so strong that none of us could remember having seen anything like it before.”104 Viewed in this imaginative, quasi-mythical light, the appearance of the fve-headed fre-breathing dragon that capped off their sojourn in Christchurch feels a fttingly spectacular end to a memorable adventure. The dragon was not a danger to the canons themselves, since it was sent by God to punish their enemies, but they left their relics and hurried back on horse to see the (then dead) creature, motivated only by “human curiosity to see such a great prodigy.”105 Here more than anywhere, we see how the England journey was actively built up by Hermann (or possibly the canons themselves) as a story of epic wonder; in Guibert of Nogent’s account of this trip, there was no dragon, and it was only a lightning strike that burned up the town.106 Hermann’s choice to dramatize the experiences of the canons in this fashion might be due to his lack of personal involvement in the trip and sense of creative license; it might also be due to a process of storytelling and embellishment over time on the part of the traveling canons themselves. Regardless of its origins, the focus on the canons’ perspective in Hermann’s account demonstrates that accompanying relics not only presented the travelers with

102

En route

new and potentially dangerous experiences, but that those experiences could ultimately be interpreted as acts of devotion. This penitential framework for those performing a relic journey found its clearest expression at the end of Hermann’s text, when he had “the canons” address a heartfelt appeal to their brothers who had stayed at home: Now indeed we beg you as fathers and lords, and our co-canons, by whose command we went over the sea, [and] underwent many struggles on the journey, that you commit our souls to the Lord and his pious mother, who sent donations to you through us, and that you allow us to be participants in all the good things which are done or which will be done in the church of Laon.107 This fnal request specifcally pointed to the diffculties of the journey, as well as its fnancial success, as evidence that this was a meritorious act on the part of the travelers. Their trials had earned them a claim on formal praise and commemoration by the community at Laon, rebuilt in part through their efforts in crossing land and sea. Hermann’s account thus privileged and glorifed the troubles faced by the humans traveling with relics, which many other texts only mentioned in passing: fear, physical exhaustion, diffcult weather, and frustration with the powers that be. It also made explicit the earthly praise and heavenly reward that such travelers might have hoped was waiting for them at the journey’s end.

Conclusion Compared to the canon of late medieval travelers—Marco Polo, William of Rubruck, John Mandeville—relics and their companions may seem unremarkable. As Elka Weber noted, many studies of medieval travel have been interested in establishing their subjects as precursors to early modern travel, and long-distance travel accounts like those produced by Polo or the Mandeville author align most closely to those produced by the European colonizers who followed them.108 Accounts of relic journeys, furthermore, do not align well with expectations about medieval travel writing as a genre: they are not generally written by their participants, they have a goal (reporting miracles) that is only tangentially related to geography and displacement, and they have only superfcial interest in observation, particularly the observation of an imagined “other” that has attracted the majority of scholarly studies of medieval travel.109 Nor do they easily compare to pilgrimage accounts; there was no holy destination or spiritual apotheosis for a relic journey, inasmuch as the holy and the spiritual was what was doing the traveling. Yet those who participated in relic journeys deserve to be taken seriously as medieval travelers. They provide a counterweight to the classic archetypes of merchants and pilgrims, because the lack of standardized models

Relics and their companions as travelers 103 for their journeys created an uneasy relationship with their own movement. If the saint’s protection was needed at home, and the goal of a monk was to live a holy life separate from the world, the very fact of their travel was destabilizing. For the relics, their power as objects lay partly in their ability to transcend the material world and symbolize the ineffable, an ability which was actively created by their reliquaries and the performances around them. The effect of travel was to threaten these meaning-making processes, even to endanger the basic equivalence between relic and reliquary. For the relics’ human companions, the saint was both their source of protection and potentially their worst critic, and the people they encountered were also prepared to question their legitimacy and motives. Given these discomforts, their urge to recover or replicate a “sensation of rootedness” while on the road must have been strong.110 But challenges brought rewards, and not only economic ones. For relics and those who traveled with them, the most depressing and diffcult situations were those best suited to show off the merits of the saint and the abilities of their companions to suitably wield and praise that divine power. Their stories may prompt us to expand our views of the genre of medieval travel literature to include accounts of the travel of these men, women, and objects.

Notes 1 “Miracula s. Evermari,” AASS May I, 136–37; Brussels KBR ms. 18644–18652, fol. 49v. “Qui praecedebant, qui portabant, qui sequebantur, obstupefacti cum suo conviatore, sancto scilicet Evermaro.” Evermar’s relics were held at Rutten, Belgium; Herstal lies along the Meuse a few kilometers north of Liège. Evermar’s relics were also circulated for a drought and regularly on Rogations. 2 Ibid. “non oblationes, sed magnas accipe impensas.” 3 Ibid. “Noverit sanctus, quid offensae sibi et isti villae intercesserit.” 4 Assumptions about clear differences between early medieval travelers, their goals, and experiences have been challenged by Courtney Luckhardt, The Charisma of Distant Places: Religious Travel in the Early Middle Ages (New York: Routledge, 2019). As I argue elsewhere, the theoretical boundaries between medieval travel, tourism, pilgrimage, migration, and other types of movement deserve careful scrutiny; Kate M. Craig, “Medieval Tourism,” in The Oxford Handbook of Travel and Tourism History, ed. Kevin James and Eric Zuelow (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming). 5 For example, the tent (papilio) used to house Verolus’ relics at a peace council. “Vita, translatio, et miracula s. Veroli,” AASS June III, 385. 6 Pierre-André Sigal, “Les voyages de reliques aux onzième et douzième siècles,” in Voyage, quête, pèlerinage dans la littérature et la civilisation médiévales (Aix-en-Provence; Paris: Presses universitaires de Provence; Champion, 1976), 82, 87. 7 The immobility of the reliquary on the ground, which so shocked the company, mirrored the ritual of humiliation. Patrick Geary, “L’humiliation des saints,” Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales 34, no. 1 (1979): 27–42. 8 Here I use “body” in the sense of the physical human touching/carrying relics rather than as a synonym for personhood or other metaphorical uses: Caroline Walker Bynum, Christian Materiality: An Essay on Religion in Late Medieval Europe (New York: Zone Books, 2011), 32.

104 En route 9 Cynthia J. Hahn, The Reliquary Effect: Enshrining the Sacred Object (London: Reaktion Books, 2017), 57: “…in addition to the micro-environment of the portable reliquary, the power network of the relic is successively ‘increased’ through various layers: the sharing of space with other relics, and placement in altars, chapels, and the larger environment of the church.” 10 Robyn Malo, Relics and Writing in Late Medieval England (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013), 7, 58. Though late medieval Westminster existed in a very different context than central medieval French monasteries I discuss, Julian Luxford’s study of Westminster’s relics in the ffteenth century highlights how a specifc and special relic collection might be curated and displayed within a chapel: Julian Luxford, “Recording and Curating Relics at Westminster Abbey in the Late Middle Ages,” Journal of Medieval History 45, no. 2 (March 15, 2019): 204–30. 11 For Edmund, New York Pierpont Morgan Library ms. 736, fol. 20r; Cynthia J. Hahn, “Peregrinatio et Natio: The Illustrated Life of Edmund, King and Martyr,” Gesta 30, no. 2 (January 1, 1991): 124–25. For Cuthbert, Oxford University College ms.165, fol.159r; Malcolm Baker, “Medieval Illustrations of Bede’s Life of St. Cuthbert,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 41 (January 1, 1978): 16–49. 12 Rita Tekippe, “Pilgrimage and Procession: Correlations of Meaning, Practice, and Effects,” in Art and Architecture of Late Medieval Pilgrimage in Northern Europe and the British Isles, ed. Sarah Blick and Rita Tekippe, Studies in Medieval and Reformation Traditions (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 705; Robert Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things?: Saints and Worshippers from the Martyrs to the Reformation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013), fg. 8.5. On the specifc association between reliquaries in motion and the Ark: Cynthia J. Hahn, Strange Beauty: Issues in the Making and Meaning of Reliquaries, 400 circa 1204 (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2012), 149. 13 M. Cecilia Gaposchkin, “Portals, Processions, Pilgrimage, and Piety: Saints Firmin and Honoré at Amiens,” in Art and Architecture of Late Medieval Pilgrimage in Northern Europe and the British Isles, ed. Sarah Blick and Rita Tekippe (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 217–42; Kelly Holbert, “Picturing the World in the Thirteenth Century,” in The Book of Kings: Art, War, and the Morgan Library’s Medieval Picture Bible, ed. William Noel and Daniel Weiss (London; Baltimore: Third Millennium Publishing; Walters Art Museum, 2002), 65. 14 Valenciennes BM ms. 502, fol. 30v; Barbara F. Abou-El-Haj, The Medieval Cult of Saints: Formations and Transformations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 91: “In the miniature, past funeral and present cult are combined…” 15 Sigal, “Les voyages de reliques,” 83–84. As noted in Chapter 1, the bier used to carry Philibert’s reliquary was referred to as a scala rather than a feretrum. 16 Pierre Héliot and Marie-Laure Chastang, “Quêtes et voyages de reliques au proft des églises françaises du moyen âge,” Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique 59 (1964): 819. The discrepancies in interpretation are perhaps the result of changes in practice over time. The span of time (till 1500) addressed in Héliot and Chastang’s study meant that late medieval practice was highlighted as normative. This explains their claim that wheeled carts were typical, while Sigal, focusing on eleventh- and twelfth-century texts, could fnd no textual evidence for them. Carts specifcally used to transport reliquaries are indicated primarily in later documents, when line items show up in cathedral expense accounts for their maintenance and repair, as at Arras in 1333: Georges Durand, Monographie de l’église Notre-Dame, cathédrale d’Amiens, vol. I (Paris: A. Picard et fls, 1901), 115. Carts also seem to be associated with small traveling parties, as in the case of Edmund’s relics, which were accompanied by a single monk.

Relics and their companions as travelers 105 17 On the Fleury portal, Rita Tekippe, “Pilgrimage and Procession,” 705. On the Honoratus portal, Gaposchkin, “Portals, Processions, Pilgrimage, and Piety,” 228. 18 “Vita s. Hiltrudis,” AASS Sept. VII, 499; “Miracula s. Hilarii,” CCH Paris, vol. II (Paris: Picard, 1890), 115. 19 “Gesta abbatum Sancti Bertini,” MGH SS XIII: 631; Pierre-André Sigal, L’homme et le miracle dans la France médiévale (XIe-XIIe siècle) (Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 1985), 38–40, 142. 20 The cloth depicted in the Eadwine Psalter’s illustration of Psalm 131 is an addition that does not appear in its model, the Utrecht Psalter; the Ark itself also gains additional details (such as side panels) that even more clearly suggest that its depiction was infuenced by contemporary reliquaries. Eadwine Psalter, Cambridge, Trinity College, R.17.1, fol. 237r. For comparison, Utrecht Psalter (Utrecht, Universiteitsbibliotheek, ms. 32), fol. 75r. The Utrecht Psalter also depicts the Ark being carried on fol. 66r, in an illustration of Psalm 113; again, there is no cloth. 21 The Ark is shown wholly or partially covered by a cloth in the Pantheon Bible (Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, vat. lat. 12958), fol. 60v and the Hortus deliciarum (now lost; Herrad von Landberg, Hortus Deliciarum, ed. Rosalie Green et al. (London: Warburg Institute; University of London, 1979), plate 31. The Warmund Sacramentary suggests that coffns were at times covered with a cloth: Ivrea, Bibl. capit. cod. 86, fol. 203v. 22 I am grateful to John Howe for this suggestion. 23 For example, Oxford University College 165, fol. 157r. 24 Other central medieval depictions which show a cloth hanging below the Ark include: the Souvigny Bible (Moulins BM ms. 1, fol. 73r), the Michaelbeuern Bible (Michaelbeuern Stiftsbib. cod. perg. 1, fol. 74r), the Old English Hexateuch (London, BL, Cotton MS. Claud. B. IV., ff. 142v, 143r), the Lambeth Bible (London, Lambeth Palace, MS 3 & Maidstone, Maidstone Museum, MS P.5, fol. 66v), and a historiated capital at Saint-Georges-de-Boscherville. 25 Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things?, fg. 8.6. 26 Liber miraculorum s. Cornelli Ninivensis, ed. William Rockwell (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1914), 74. “Plaustra nostrea segetibus onerata tempore messis violenter abstulerunt et ad castrum duci fecerunt, nec pro reverentia scrinii sancti Corneli, a fratribus ante plaustra in via positi, dimittere voluerunt. Tunc unus servorum scrinium pede suo a via dimovit; nec diu supervixit.” On this incident, Arnoud-Jan A. Bijsterveld, Do ut Des: Gift Giving, “Memoria”, and Confict Management in the Medieval Low Countries (Hilversum: Verloren, 2007), 244. 27 “Vita et miracula s. Marii (Liber II),” AASS Jun. II, 123. 28 Ibid. 29 Adso of Montier-en-Der, “Vita Walberti,” in Adsonis Dervensis Opera hagiographica, ed. Monique Goullet, CC 198 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2003), 91–92. 30 Thomas Head, Hagiography and the Cult of Saints: The Diocese of Orléans, 800-1200 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 178. 31 On the importance of occupying churches to the progress of a relic, Chapter 4. In other cases, temporary “homes away from home” might be constructed for saints: Kathleen Ashley and Pamela Sheingorn, “Sainte Foy on the Loose, Or, The Possibilities of Procession,” in Moving Subjects: Processional Performance in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, ed. Kathleen Ashley and Wim Hüsken (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2001), 56. 32 Thiofrid of Echternach’s treatise was most emphatic statement of this view. Cynthia Hahn, “What Do Reliquaries Do for Relics?,” Numen 57, no. 3/4 (January 1, 2010): 307.

106 En route 33 Malo has argued for late medieval England that “the relationship between the container [reliquary] and contained [relics] depends largely upon individual points of view.” Malo, Relics and Writing in Late Medieval England, 58. It is thus all the more notable that it seemed so important in the course of central medieval journeys to assert the reality/authenticity of the contained; that in fact, the question of praesentia seemed reducible to a confrmation of the actual enclosure of an “occluded relic” by the reliquary. 34 Hahn, “What Do Reliquaries Do for Relics?,” 309–11. Conversely, the magnifcence of a reliquary might also attract accusations of greed, moralizing on the contrast between a beautiful exterior and a worthless interior, or parody: “not everyone regarded with measured seriousness the use of gold, silver, and gems in conveying a saint’s holy power:” Malo, Relics and Writing in Late Medieval England, 82. 35 Auguste Bouillet, ed., “Liber miraculorum sancte Fidis,” in Collection de textes pour servir à l’étude et à l’enseignement de l’histoire, vol. 21 (Paris: Alphonse Picard et fls, 1897), 49–50. Being in a church was, of course, not a failsafe protection from this kind of sentiment; thieves could always break in and target reliquaries for their material rather than spiritual value; for example, Les miracles de Saint Privat, ed. Clovis Brunel (Paris: A. Picard et fls, 1912), 17–18. 36 “Translatio capitis s. Valentini Gemmeticum et miracula,” AASS Feb. II, 759. The bier is here referred to with the term apparatus rather than feretrum. 37 “Miracula s. Berlindis,” AASS Feb. I, 382. 38 “Miracula s. Marculf Peronae facta,” AASS May VII, 539. The attachment of the belts, possibly made by the women themselves, to the bier as the reliquary traveled may have been a way for the women to continue to “touch” the reliquary, much as the creation and donation of liturgical textiles and vestments allowed women to be present at the altar. Maureen C. Miller, Clothing the Clergy: Virtue and Power in Medieval Europe, c. 800–1200 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2014), 144. 39 “Miracula s. Rictrudis,” ed. A. Poncelet, Analecta Bollandiana 20 (1901): 456. 40 Hahn, Strange Beauty, 232–33. 41 The move to make the relic itself visible was an innovation of the thirteenth century, as part of a larger shift “from materiality to visuality:” Martina Bagnoli, “The Stuff of Heaven: Materials and Craftsmanship in Medieval Reliquaries,” in Treasures of Heaven: Saints, Relics, and Devotion in Medieval Europe, ed. Martina Bagnoli et al. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), 142. 42 Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things?, 313. 43 “Miracula s. Winnoci,” AASS Nov. III, 283. 44 Flodoard of Reims, “Flodoardi Historia Remensis Ecclesiae. Lib. IV,” MGH SS XIII: 582. 45 “Miracula s. Theodorici,” AASS Jul. I, 79. …ut loculus aptaretur pretiosis sanctorum reliquiis, qui circumcirca deferretur, quatenus devota fdelium oblatione coeptum opus perfceretur. Qui decenter compositus, sanctorum nonnullorum memoriae, quaquaversum sub nomine beatissimi Theoderici ferebatur, nec tamen corpus eius continebat: quippe quod integerrimum, id est sine aliqua diminutione sui, loculo suo conditum apud nos servatur. 46 See Chapter 1. 47 Translations were generally performed with the approval and under the guidance of a bishop, and carefully scripted: Pierre-André Sigal, “Le déroulement des translations de reliques principalement dans les régions entre Loire et Rhin aux XIe et XIIe siècles,” in Les reliques: Objets, cultes, symboles, ed. Anne-Marie Helvétius and Edina Bozóky (Turnhout: Brepols, 1999), 219–20. In the course of a translation, relic authentications/labels might be consulted to reconfrm their

Relics and their companions as travelers 107

48 49 50

51

52

identity and veracity. On relic labels, Julia M. H. Smith, “One Site, Many More Meanings: The Community of Saint-Maurice d’Agaune and Its Relic Collection,” in Emotions, Communities, and Difference in Medieval Europe: Essays in Honor of Barbara H. Rosenwein, ed. Maureen C. Miller and Edward Wheatley (London: Routledge, 2017), 64–69. Hermann of Tournai, “Miracula s. Mariae Laudunensis,” PL 156, 975. However, a relic could also be misidentifed by spectators based on its reliquary; Chapter 5, note 78. The text presents the situation as follows: Corbie had initially come under Flemish control as part of the dowry of Adèle of France given to her by her father Robert II of France when she married Baldwin V, count of Flanders; but her brother Philip I had taken it back by forcing the inhabitants to swear fealty to him. This incited Robert the Frisian, who had seized the countship from his young nephew Arnulf III (killed in battle) in 1071, to pillage Corbie’s properties in revenge. The abbot of Corbie (Fulco, d. 1095) had initially petitioned Philip regarding this situation, but the king refused to help and the abbey lost two years’ worth of rents; thus, he orchestrated the transportation of Adelard’s relics to Robert. However, this depiction of Corbie’s changing legal situation as a result of the confict between Philip and Robert is inaccurate: a diploma of Philip I, done at Corbie between 1071 and 1079, explains that Corbie was ceded to Philip by Arnulf to secure his help against Robert, but that after 1071, Robert confrmed Philip’s control of the abbey and placed the charter on the altar of St. Peter at Corbie himself. Charles Verlinden, Robert 1er, le Frison, comte de Flandre: étude d’histoire politique (Antwerp: De Sikkel, 1935), 74–75. This does not necessarily mean that the journey of Adelard’s relics to Robert did not take place, only that it could not have happened as part of an extended confict with Philip. The hagiographer’s revision of these events to paint Robert as an enemy won over to penitence by the power of the mobile relics suggests that Corbie may have wanted to assert its own agency in “converting” Robert to peace. Robert’s accession to the countship through the killing of his nephew (after having renounced the countship with an oath taken on relics) was an uneasy historical subject; Jeff Rider, “Vice, Tyranny, Violence, and the Usurpation of Flanders (1071) in Flemish Historiography from 1093 to 1294,” in Violence and the Writing of History in the Medieval Francophone World, ed. Noah D. Guynn and Zrinka Stahuljak, Gallica, 29 (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2013), 55–70. Adèle of France (d. 1079), sister of Robert II “the Pious” of France, wife of Baldwin V. Her claim (according to the text) that Adelard was a relative (“communis generis consanguinitate mihi esse proximum”) is interesting; Adelard was a Carolingian abbot of Corbie and a member of the Carolingian family tree, so it is unclear what genealogical connection she (or perhaps the hagiographer) saw. However, Corbie was indeed part of her dowry (see previous note), and so these claims of kinship with Adelard may be intended to disguise the history of her relationship to the abbey or her authority over it. “Miracula s. Adelardi,” AASS Jan. I, 122. “Miracula s. Adelardi,” 123. Taliter illi, quasi de Aegypto egressi, ubi iam quasi captivi fuerant detenti, protegente eos caelestis defensionis nube, ne urerentur a sole tribulationis, pervenerunt, duce novo Moyse nostro, in terram pacis et securitatis. Cumque iam facti fuissent proximi Corbeiae, praemittentes nuntios mandaverunt fratribus suis, ut scrinio s. Adalardi mature occurrerent cum brachio eiusdem confessoris. Illico gaudium novum adhuc recenti gaudio superadditur: classica pulsantur: ecclesia tapetibus et palliis adornatur; accensis etiam luminaribus plurimis illuminatur: denique facto populi conventu festiva processio orditur: et cum brachio s. Adalardi praecedentibus cereis et crucibus

108 En route obviam proceditur. Tunc flii Israel quasi arcam Domini de philistaeis reductam suscipientes, in tabernaculo dei referebant: et cum David in voce exultationis et confessionis psallentes praecedebant, variis musicorum instrumentorum generibus ad augendam laetitiam circumquaque sonantibus. 53 On the active political uses of relics and translations by the Flemish counts and countesses, Edina Bozóky, “La politique des reliques des premiers comtes de Flandre (fn du IXe - fn du XIe siècle),” in Les reliques. Objets, cultes, symboles: Actes du colloque international de l’Université du Littoral-Côte d’Opale (Boulogne-sur-Mer) 4– 6 septembre 1997, ed. Edina Bozóky and Anne-Marie Helvétius, Hagiologia (Turnhout: Brepols, 1999), 271–92. 54 “Miracula s. Adelardi,” 123. “Praesentia corporis eius aberat, et tanta in vase corporis eius dominus ostendebat.” 55 “Vita s. Landerici,” AASS Apr. II, 491. Hoc etiam non praetermittendum coniicio, quod quadam die advocationis causa ad suprafatam villam transferendum corpus almi Landrici, cum efferretur de templo; quidam in limine, nomine Willebertus, portitoribus occurrit; de quibus unum ut ipse onus subiret admonuit. Sed ab humeris taliter accedentis feretrum resiliit, et absque sustentatoris ope in aere pependit. Ille autem virtute, quae febat, stupefactus, corruit in terram cernuus, donec ad ultimum resurgeret decantatis a fratribus hymnis et laudibus. Haec, ut reor, ideo sunt gesta, quia non prius meritum conscientiae suae ille ponderavit in trutina, quam dignum se consideraret ad subeunda tam sacri praesulis membra. 56 “Miracula s. Genovefae ardentium,” AASS Jan. I, 152. “meliores de familia sacrae virginis eliguntur, quorum submissioribus humeris ipsa quoque familiari dominio sedere dignetur; ieiuniis et orationibus sanctifcantur, balneis lauantur, lotis vestibus induuntur, sicut decet virginis puritatem.” The porters of St. Valentine are also described as taking up their work “from God.” “Translatio capitis s. Valentini Gemmeticum et miracula,” AASS Feb. II, 759. 57 Jean Mabillon, ed., “Liber de illatione redituque corporis s. Benedicti Aurelianis Floriacum,” AASSOSB 4.2., 354. “sine pondere pondus.” 58 “Miracula s. Agili,” AASS Aug. VI, 588. 59 The saints might also take a more active approach toward making their bearers more worthy. In one of the exempla of Caesarius of Heisterbach, a monk had a small reliquary of John and Paul hanging at his side; whenever he felt amorous, the reliquary would whack against him. As justifcation, the saints paraphrased Isaiah 52:11 to him: “Mundare, qui fers vasa Domini.” Caesarius of Heisterbach, Caesarii Heisterbacensis monachi ordinis Cisterciensis Dialogus miraculorum, ed. Josephus Strange (Cologne, Bonn, Brussels, 1851), 138. 60 Fernand Vercauteren, ed., Actes des comtes de Flandre, 1071–1128 (Brussels: Palais des Académies, 1938), 190–92. “Constituta itaque die, jussi ad ipsam silvam dividendam deferri corpus gloriosi pontifcis Christi Amandi; ubi, in testimonium ipsius divisionis, ego ipse, quamvis indignus, deZportavi sacrosanctum corpus eiusdem [sic] sancti.” 61 The miracles of Adelard also claimed that Robert the Frisian personally carried the relics of Adelard in his entry procession to demonstrate his humility. “Miracula s. Adelardi,” AASS Jan. I, 122. 62 “Translatio secunda s. Bavoni,” ed. Maurice Coens, Analecta Bollandiana 86 (1968): 58–59. Eia, vos qui Bethsamis, id est ad domum solis, pergentes, archam Dei portatis, in mentis vestibulo super hoc aliisque millenis argumentis participate gaudio, certi [quod] si, dum archam defertis, nec ad dexteram nec ad sinistram declinetis, cum pio Bavone Deum deorum videbitis, immo dii eritis. Unde illud decacordi: ‘Ego dixi, dii estics et flli Excelsi omnes.’

Relics and their companions as travelers 109 63 Nicole Herrmann-Mascard, Les reliques des saints: formation coutumière d’un droit. Collection d’histoire institutionnelle et sociale (Paris: Klincksieck, 1975), 203–5. 64 “Miracula s. Vitoni,” ed. Hubert Dauphin, in Le bienheureux Richard abbé de Saint-Vanne (Louvain: Bibliothèque de l’Université; Paris: Desclée, 1946), 376. “…illum tamquam flii desiderantissimum patrem et amantissimum pastorem exultantibus animis susceperunt: ilico summa cum devotione et honore, ad loca destinata studuerunt gestare.” 65 Hermann of Tournai, “Miracula s. Mariae Laudunensis,” 969; HerrmannMascard, Les reliques des saints, 303. 66 Miracle 6 is one of the frst group of seven “post-Bedan” miracles (not written by Simeon of Durham) identifed by Bertram Colgrave. Oxford University College 165 is the earliest manuscript it appears in. Bertram Colgrave, “The Post-Bedan Miracles and Translations of St. Cuthbert,” in The Early Cultures of North-West Europe (H. M. Chadwick Memorial Studies), ed. Cyril Fox and Bruce Dickins (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1950), 312. The other illustrated twelfth-century Cuthbert cycle (British Library, Yates Thompson ms. 26) does not include illustrations of these later miracles. Baker suggests that both cycles may have been based on an earlier model, produced c. 1083–1090; this would make the UC Oxford 165 illustrations of the later miracles an innovation: Malcolm Baker, “Medieval Illustrations of Bede’s Life of St. Cuthbert,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 41 (January 1, 1978): 29. 67 Ibid. 68 Simeon of Durham, Symeonis Dunelmensis Opera et collectanea (Durham: Andrews and Co., 1868), 171–72. Sed et dilectio fratrum, qui et ad saeculum nobiles et morum gravitate nobiliores in militari habitu tunc feretrum portabant, nunc autem nobiscum in eiusdem patris monasterio, hoc est in Dunelmo professi, veri sunt actu et habitu monachi: dulcissima nobis relatione magnaque cordis compunctione saepius solet attestari, quomodo se praecedentes fuctus marini post vestigia continuo sequerentur, ita ut nec paulatim euntibus praecurrerent, nec concitae pergentibus diutius remanerent. 69 As indicated by Reginald of Durham’s late twelfth-century collection of Cuthbert’s miracles, the Libellus de admirandis beati Cuthberti virtutibus, the monks of Durham were engaged in actively circulating Cuthbert’s relics at the time: Sally Crumplin, “Modernizing St Cuthbert: Reginald of Durham’s Miracle Collection,” Studies in Church History 41 (2005): 190. 70 Colgrave, “The Post-Bedan Miracles and Translations of St. Cuthbert,” 325; Anne Lawrence-Mathers, Manuscripts in Northumbria in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Woodbridge, Suffolk; Rochester: D.S. Brewer, 2002), 95–96. 71 Herrmann-Mascard, Les reliques des saints, 301–2. 72 Miracula s. Berlindis, AASS Feb. I, 382. On the question of the size of the groups involved, Sigal, “Les voyages de reliques,” 78; Héliot and Chastang, “Quêtes et voyages de reliques,” 1964, 814. 73 Hermann of Tournai, “Miracula s. Mariae Laudunensis,” 968, 970. 74 Toussaints du Plessis, Histoire de l’église de Meaux, vol. II (Paris: Gandouin, Giffart, 1731), 36–39. These three women are not explicitly identifed as nuns of St-Fare, but as those in whose presence the miracles were completed (along with two men, Ogerius and Simon the priest). 75 Hermann of Tournai, “Miracula s. Mariae Laudunensis,” 968. 76 Ibid., 973. 77 Ibid., 983. “uno ex famulis nostris, nomine Haganello, qui erat ex familia domni Guidonis Laudunensis archidiaconi.” Gabriela Signori, Maria zwischen Kathedrale, Kloster und Welt: Hagiographische und historiographische Annäherungen an eine hochmittelalterliche Wunderpredigt (Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, 1995), 102.

110 78 79 80 81

82 83 84 85

86

En route Ibid. “Sed sicut Britones solent jurgari cum Francis pro rege Arturo.” Hermann of Tournai, “Miracula s. Mariae Laudunensis,” 983. Ibid., 977, 979. Ibid., 976. This exciting tale of Boso (also Buesard or Buesars) and his exploits, along with other stories from the Laon journeys, was adapted by Gautier de Coincy and included in his popular vernacular compilation of Marian miracles. Gautier de Coinci, Les miracles de Nostre Dame, ed. V. Frederic Koenig, vol. 4, Textes littéraires français (Geneva: Droz, 1970), 76–94. “Miracula s. Marculf Peronae facta,” 533–34. Ibid., 535. Ibid., 538–39. The Rule of St. Benedict condemned wandering monks as “gyrovagues,” and even authorized monastic travel was often viewed with apprehension. On the conficts between ideals of monastic stability and pilgrimage, Giles Constable, “Monachisme et pèlerinage au Moyen Age,” Revue historique 258, no. 1:523 (1977): 3–27; Jean-Marie Sansterre, “Attitudes à l’égard de l’errance monastique en Occident du VIe au XIe siècle,” in Voyages et voyageurs à Byzance et en Occident du VI au XIe siècle, ed. Alain Dierkens and Jean-Marie Sansterre, Bibliothèque de la faculté de philosophie et lettres de l’Université de Liège 278 (Geneva: Droz, 2000), 215–34. Eugène de Certain, ed., “Les miracles de Saint Benôit” (Paris: Jules Renouard, 1858), 319–20. Unus ex fratribus, cognomento Gallebertus, qui caementariis fuerat praefectus praetaxato operi insistentibus, pecuniis minus aliquando abundans, ibat circumiens loca plurima, et ducens secum seminiverbios, quorum admonitione excitata virorum et mulierum corda, saeculi negotiis irretita, aliquo suffragio, etsi modico, penuriam ipsius sublevarent. Dum ergo circumquaque discurreret, Vitriacum advenit…

For a discussion and translation of the continuation, Head, Hagiography and the Cult of Saints, 173–74. 87 Stephen Murray, A Gothic Sermon: Making a Contract with the Mother of God, Saint Mary of Amiens (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004). 88 As several authors have noted, Guibert’s critique must be taken within the context of his personal history, and it is worth remembering how isolated Guibert was as a thinker. Among others, Henri Platelle, “Guibert de Nogent et le De pignoribus sanctorum. Richesses et limites d’une critique médiévale des reliques,” in Les reliques: Objets, cultes, symboles, ed. Anne-Marie Helvétius and Edina Bozóky (Turnhout: Brepols, 1999), 109–21. 89 Guibert of Nogent, “De sanctis et eorum pigneribus,” in Quo ordine sermo feri debeat; De bucella Iudae data et de veritate Dominici corporis; De sanctis et eorum pigneribus, ed. R. B. C Huygens, CCCM 127 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1993), 97–98. Crebro teri perspicimus ista susurro et facta feretrorum circumlatione ridicula et eorum, quos a rabie declamandi rabulos Ieronimus vocat, mendaciis cotidie cernimus alieni marsupii profunda nudari. Quorum tanta nebulonitate concutimur, tanta divinorum adulteratione ferimur, ut iuxta prefatum doctorem scurras, elluones, et catellanos ligurriendo exuperent, corvos ac picas importuna garrulitate precedant. Huygens notes that catellanos is nonsensical, because Guibert is here closely following a letter of Jerome and is copying words (in this case, a corruption of Atellanus) without comprehension. His antipathy in this passage is all the more intriguing because Guibert also produced a version of the miracles produced in the

Relics and their companions as travelers 111 course of the relic journeys of the canons of Laon in 1112 and 1113. On this text and Guibert’s views, Signori, Maria zwischen Kathedrale, Kloster und Welt, 105–14. 90 Héliot and Chastang, “Quêtes et voyages de reliques,” 1964, 811. 91 “Vita et miracula s. Gisleni,” ed. Albert Poncelet, Analecta Bollandiana 5 (1886): 274. Qui enormi more vivere gaudentes, coniugiis adherentes, saecularibus negotiis sese implicantes, famulatum almi confessoris, quem cum religiositate gerere debuissent, erant dehonestantes, quia maiorem sollicitudinem capiebant de sua familia nutrienda quam de dominica aecclesia decoranda. Ipsum etiam corpus sancti confessoris Gysleni per quaeque loca deportabant, et quicquid pro oblatione ad feretrum eius circum manentium fdelium largitas conferebat, non aecclesiae instrumentis dabant, sed ad proprios usus furtim retinebant. Quae res saepe miris modis dignitatem praedicti confessoris offendebat, nec taliter famulantium consuetudinem approbabat. 92 Steven Vanderputten agrees with Anne-Marie Helvétius that Gerard of Brogne in fact founded the monastery of Celle (as opposed to evicting a prior community of canons in the process of “reforming” it) after the discovery of Ghislain’s relics between 928 and 931. The text containing the description of the canons’ habit of carrying the relics of Ghislain (chapter 25) was not included in the original version (Version A) of Ghislain’s miracles, which were written by Regnier, a monk of Elnone, around 1000–1013. It was likely inserted in the reworked version (Version B) by an unknown monk sometime before 1035. It appears only in two of the seven manuscripts of the text (one a mid-eleventh-century manuscript, the other a thirteenth-century copy of it) and is omitted from a manuscript copied from these, which is missing only the chapter in question (25) and 32–37. Steven Vanderputten, Monastic Reform as Process: Realities and Representations in Medieval Flanders, 900-1100 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2013), 32–36; Anne-Marie Helvétius, Abbayes, évêques et laïques: une politique du pouvoir en Hainaut au Moyen Age (VIIe-XIe siècle), Collection Historie in-8o, no 92 (Brussels: Crédit communal, 1994), 219; Karine Ugé, Creating the Monastic Past in Medieval Flanders (Woodbridge: York Medieval Press, 2005), 5. This reevaluation resolves the chronological diffculties faced by Héliot and Chastang, who were forced to read the circulation of Ghislain’s relics as an oddly early but isolated tenth-century example of a relic journey explicitly for the purposes of fundraising: Héliot and Chastang, “Quêtes et voyages de reliques,” 1964, 804–5. 93 The author of the Ghislain text was not the last to use relic journeys to argue for a moral gap between monks and secular clergy. Caesarius of Heisterbach told a story in his thirteenth-century Dialogus miraculorum in which the monks of Brulwire hired a group of secular priests to carry around their tooth of St. Nicholas enclosed in crystal. These men were “dishonest in their behavior” (what form this dishonesty took is not specifed) and as a result, the crystal cracked. The monks, seeing this miracle expressing the displeasure of the saint, recalled the relic and never engaged in the practice again. This exemplum suggests sustained monastic interest in relic circulation, but reiterates the impression that it was a morally dubious activity more suited to those who more actively engaged with the secular world. Caesarius of Heisterbach, Dialogus miraculorum, 138–39. 94 Hermann of Tournai, “Miracula s. Mariae Laudunensis,” 985; Reinhold Kaiser, “Quêtes itinérantes avec reliques pour fnancer la construction des églises (XIe-XIIe siècles),” Le Moyen Âge 101, no. 2 (1995): 222. 95 “Miracula s. Marculf Peronae facta,” 534–35. It is interesting to note the pecuniary themes of the sermon in this context: Et quia eo loci multus occurrerat populi conventus, facto ad eos sermone qui ad hoc ipsum fuerat electus, tandem tragoediam, quae eos perurgebat,

112 En route calamitatis exposuit; desolationem cellae s. Marculf aperuit; adjiciens quod nullum ex circumstantibus credebat ignorare, ad hoc electi dei corpus illuc advectum, ut a fdelibus dei loco suo impetraret auxilium. 96 Shayne Legassie, The Medieval Invention of Travel (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2017), 7. 97 On Hermann and his account, see Introduction and Alain Saint-Denis, “Hermannus Monachus. Qui était vraiment l’auteur du livre des Miracles de NotreDame de Laon?,” Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres: Comptes-rendus des séances 3 (2006): 1611–47; Alain Saint-Denis, ed., Les miracles de sainte Marie de Laon, Sources d’histoire médiévale 36 (Paris: CNRS Editions, 2008); Signori, Maria zwischen Kathedrale, Kloster und Welt, 114–16; Simon Yarrow, Saints and Their Communities: Miracle Stories in Twelfth Century England, Oxford Historical Monographs (Oxford; New York: Clarendon Press; Oxford University Press, 2006), 75–81. 98 Yarrow, 84–87. 99 Hermann of Tournai, “Miracula s. Mariae Laudunensis,” 971. “Interea dies in noctem vertitur, pluviae quoque nimietas exorta, jam pene de salute cogit eos desperare. ‘Clamaverunt ergo ad Dominum cum tribularentur, et de necessitatibus eorum eduxit eos.’” 100 Hermann of Tournai, 985–86. The perception of danger was not unfounded; Bristol had an active slave trade. Yarrow, 93–94. 101 Signori has also noticed the narrative qualities of Hermann’s text, posing the question of whether this is truly a text about a relic journey or an example of travel literature. I would suggest that the two are not mutually exclusive. Signori, Maria zwischen Kathedrale, Kloster und Welt, 115–17. 102 Hermann of Tournai, “Miracula s. Mariae Laudunensis,” 983. These “touristy” stops suggest that the boundaries between religious and secular medieval travel were often blurred. Legassie, The Medieval Invention of Travel, 141–43, 165. 103 Hermann of Tournai, “Miracula s. Mariae Laudunensis,” 983. 104 Hermann of Tournai, 979. “tanta subito tamque vehementi depressi sumus inundatione pluviae, ut nunquam antea nos similem vidisse meminerimus.” 105 Hermann of Tournai, 981. “audientes et humana curiositate tantum prodigium videre sitientes.” 106 Guibert of Nogent, De vita sua, PL 156: 940. 107 Hermann of Tournai, 986. Nunc vero rogamus vos sicut fratres et dominos, atque concanonicos nostros, quorum praecepto mare transeuntes, plurimos in itinere labores pertulimus, ut eorum animas, qui vobis per nos suas transmiserunt eleemosynas domino piaeque genitrici ejus commendetis, et omnium bonorum quae in ecclesia Laudunensi funt, vel deinceps feri contigerit, eos participes esse concedatis. 108 Elka Weber, Traveling through Text: Message and Method in Late Medieval Pilgrimage Accounts, Studies in Medieval History and Culture (New York: Routledge, 2005), 2. 109 On the question of the “other” as a defning feature of medieval travel writing, Mary B. Campbell, The Witness and the Other World: Exotic European Travel Writing, 400-1600 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988); Felipe FernándezArmesto, Before Columbus: Exploration and Colonization from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, 1229–1492, Middle Ages Series (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1987), 223–52. 110 Stephen Greenblatt, “A Mobility Studies Manifesto,” in Cultural Mobility: A Manifesto, ed. Stephen Greenblatt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 252.

4

Traveling relics and ecclesiastical competition1

In the late eleventh century, the prior and clerics of St-Donatian’s collegiate church in Bruges faced a diffcult challenge to their saint’s reputation. They had moved the relics of St. Donatian outside the church to the adjoining square in an effort to suppress some of the general discord following the departure of Count Robert II on crusade in 1096. The event attracted a large crowd, afforded an opportunity to preach against the unrest, and convinced disputing parties to make a public pact of peace.2 To demonstrate and seal the success of the peace pact, a disabled boy was placed next to the reliquary. This boy said that he had seen in a dream that he would be healed by Donatian, and after praying received a miraculous cure. At this point, however, things went awry for the clergy, because not everyone agreed that this miracle should be attributed to Donatian. A majority of the population of Bruges insisted instead that a different saint, “Ilherus”, had performed the miracle because the boy had moved closer to Ilherus’ reliquary at the time he was healed.3 Although the clergy begged Donatian to show another sign, after hours spent fruitlessly in prayer they gave up and brought the relics back into the church as the crowd dispersed. Only then did Donatian redeem himself by performing a second miracle. Since moving Donatian’s relics into physical proximity with another reliquary had caused unwelcome ambiguity and dissent, replacing them in their normal context was the frst step towards resolving the issue.4 This confict had its origins in the perceptions of the sacred space surrounding relics and the implications of moving relics into each other’s vicinity. For the crowd at Bruges, the critical question was whether the boy had been closer to the reliquary of Donatian or the reliquary of Ilherus at the time he was healed, since this would serve as an indication of the saint responsible.5 In theory, the powers of the saints were not constrained to a sphere of infuence surrounding their relics; saints were portrayed as acting across vast distances. In practice, the praesentia of the saint was generally perceived as located in their relics, and thus the saint’s power might be expected to fall off the further one was from their relics.6 Where multiple saints’ relics were housed in the same church, some amount of space between them was considered desirable so that any miracles done could be

114

En route

associated with the correct saint.7 However, as Eric Palazzo has shown in his study of the portable altar, a traveling sacred object carried its sacred space with it.8 To move a relic, then, was to sacrifce the neat separation and controlled environment available within the church and to run the risk of creating overlap between the sacred space of multiple relics. As at Bruges, this overlap of sacred space could transform the physical space around the reliquaries, typically constructed as a space of power and healing, into a space of contention.9 This potential for spatial overlap meant that for a relic, movement created the possibility of competition. No place was “saint-less”—a mobile relic navigated a landscape of preexisting cults, and this movement could force issues of ranking and miracle attribution, often left vague or glossed over, to be resolved in a highly visible and potentially uncomfortable manner. Relics might encounter each other in a number of contexts, and often these events were explicitly designed to emphasize Christian, regional, or institutional unity. Assembling relics, whether during a mass gathering or a local meeting, supported these collaborative goals but also posed challenges to individual saint’s reputations. Perceptions of rank among saints not only had a liturgical basis, but also might affect both clerical and lay treatment of relics on the ground. Moving a relic into the presence of another thus created a fertile ground for immediate and bitter confict, and it was often up to those traveling with the relics (as well as those writing about these events) to decide how to address the situation. In other words, the very situations which could most effectively demonstrate friendship and collaboration between saints and the institutions that housed them could also provide material for rivalry and condemnation. This stimulated new attempts to control, downplay, or promote the idea that certain saints were more powerful and worthy of honor than others. This potential for rivalry also invited active participation from other interested parties. The challenge to St. Donatian and his clergy came from the laypeople of Bruges. When relic mobility led to open dispute between ecclesiastical parties, the sources tend to present the lay onlookers in more active and participatory roles. At Bruges this activity took the form of rejecting the claim of St. Donatian to the miracle, but laypeople also emerged as vocal allies and supporters of mobile relics. When faced with adversity, those traveling with relics might rely on this type of lay involvement to affrm their status against their ecclesiastical competitors.

Assembling the saints In the late tenth and eleventh centuries, the potential of mass relic gatherings to make powerful statements of unity and collaboration began to be exploited more regularly and systematically.10 The most well-known and well-documented of these relic assemblies were the ones that occurred in conjunction with the Peace of God councils. The congregation of relics

Traveling relic and ecclesiastic competition 115 was envisioned as a key element that would guarantee lay interest and attendance, but an additional beneft was the idea that the saints themselves would be present as witnesses.11 This would not only help bring consensus at the council itself, but would intimidate anyone later tempted to break any oaths sworn, since they had given their word in the physical presence of the saints.12 Because their relics had witnessed the event “in person,” the success of a council was perceived as a result of the unity and combined powers of the saints, who had been assembled on earth as they were in heaven. By describing the transportation of their saints’ relics to these gatherings, hagiographers were not only explaining the context for the miracles the saint individually performed there, but also writing their saint into that joint success. Letaldus of Micy’s description of the transportation of St. Junian’s relics to the council of Charroux in 989 imagined the assembled relics as a holy group, working together to fght evil, before moving on to describe the special effects of Junian’s individual transportation.13 This combination, elaborating on the worthy purposes for bringing relics together while claiming their own participation, explicitly associated the individual relics and their monastic community with the joint project of the council. Through their involvement, communities saw themselves as active members of a unifed group, physically and mentally aligned with the other representatives bringing relics. The mass transportation of relics forged, if only temporarily, a sense of the saints and their keepers as a collective. This perception of the unifying power of bringing relics together was also expressed through the mass gatherings of relics for church dedications or high-profle relic elevations, although the involvement of “visiting” relics was not part of the formal liturgy for either event.14 Failure to participate could be considered a serious slight: the monks of Marchiennes did not ultimately refuse to bring the relics of St. Rictrude to the dedication of the church at Anchin in 1086, despite their stated reservations about moving any of their saints except in times of imminent danger.15 Yet as with the Peace of God councils, there were strong incentives to willingly transport relics to these events. Participation in relic gatherings meant public recognition (or re-recognition) of a relic’s status as well as an opportunity for highly visible devotion and miracle-working.16 The usefulness of this type of legitimization was especially apparent in situations such as the elevation of the head of St. John the Baptist at Angély in 1016, where the physical presence and miracles of well-known and accepted relics bolstered the potentially tenuous status of the newly “discovered” relic.17 In addition to these mass gatherings for dedications, elevations, and councils, monasteries and churches could also develop local traditions of bringing their relics together on an as-needed or regularly recurring basis. As in other contexts, multiple relics in proximity to each other meant an increase in available spiritual power. Two early incidents reported about St. Balderic’s relics in Flodoard’s Historia Remensis Ecclesiae demonstrate the types of local events in which relics might encounter their neighbors.18 In the frst

116

En route

description, around the late ninth or early tenth century Balderic’s relics were carried in a procession from Montfaucon to meet the relics of St. Jovin to obtain rain during a drought.19 As soon as the two processions met, a heavy rain began. This emphasis on the immediacy of the rain signaled the importance of the proximity of the two relics; their physical meeting created a moment of power in which the miracle was performed. In a second event, Dado the bishop of Verdun (880–923) established an annual meeting of the relics of the saints of three local houses. The relics of Balderic were carried from Montfaucon, St. Roduique from Wasler, and Sts. Victor and Ageric from the episcopal seat in Verdun. Dado chose Jouy-en-Argonne as the point of the meeting, because it was equidistant from the three places. This specifcation was almost certainly intended to assert the equality of the saints involved, by ensuring that no saint had to travel further than the others, and the text notes that many miracles were performed on these occasions.20 At the same time, in these local, organized, and collaborative encounters each saint stood to be promoted as the most powerful and most soughtafter. Although the annual meeting in Jouy was clearly a time for powerful miracle-working, “mostly those who were seen to seek the protection of blessed Balderic [were healed].”21 The saints might also insist on accurate scorekeeping. After Balderic healed a mute man, the people of Verdun claimed the miracle for their own saints by leading him away with them, and in protest Balderic’s reliquary became suddenly and miraculously too heavy to carry. Only when the healed man returned to the meeting site were the relics once again “able” to be moved. This form of expression had precedent: when Balderic and Jovin’s relics were returning together to Montfaucon after the miraculous rainstorm, Balderic’s reliquary became immobile just outside the doors. In this case, Balderic only allowed his relics to be moved again once the relics of Jovin had entered the monastery frst. It is not diffcult to explain these incidents in terms of competition between religious communities. The representatives from Verdun had made an active and public claim to the miracle by physically taking the healed man with them, and to dispute this attribution, the canons of Montfaucon needed to make a competing and equally visible counterclaim. The return of the lay crowd to the immobile relics indicates that this new miracle was instantly broadcast, in order to reverse the departure and refocus attention on Balderic’s relics over those from Verdun. Likewise, through forcing Jovin’s relics to enter Montfaucon frst, the canons were making a point about Balderic’s status relative to Jovin. The linear format of a procession into the church forced one saint’s relics to lay claim to precedence and prestige over the other relics present, much as Cluny’s relics were arranged by their relative importance in the Palm Sunday procession in the eleventh century.22 The collaborative strength and collective purpose which made relic encounters desirable were implicitly at odds with perceptions of different ranks and powers among the saints.

Traveling relic and ecclesiastic competition 117

“Ranking” the saints Although no single method of “ranking” saints existed, litanies organized the names of saints into categorized lists that implied hierarchy.23 Male saints preceded female ones (with the exception of Mary, who was frst), and the order was generally angels, apostles, martyrs, confessors, and virgins (an almost exclusively female category) last.24 Thus, when bishop Gerard of Cambrai assembled the relics of his diocese for a dedication in 1027, he was able to arrange the reliquaries by rank into a kind of saintly tableau—the relics of St. Gaugericus (Géry) were placed on the bishop’s seat, the relics of the priests Autbert, Vindician, and Hadulf to the sides near the altar, the staff and relics of Vedast in the middle, and “he placed the others, namely the martyrs, confessors, and virgins, each according to their proper rank in a circle just as was ftting.”25 Even though this form of dramatization was not explicitly intended to establish or reinforce a hierarchy of the saints, it clearly drew on the idea that all the saints of the diocese were not equal in death any more than they had been in life. When a monastery’s prestige and income depended on the status of one or more of these fgures, these categories might be bitterly challenged or defended. The long fght to have St. Martial of Limoges recognized as an apostle, and not only a bishop-confessor, underscores the very real sense of rank underlying the medieval theological understanding of sainthood. One of the tactics employed was to include Martial’s name with the apostles in the litany of the saints recited during a celebration of the anniversary of the basilica.26 The impact of relic mobility on these problems was highlighted in a situation faced by bishop Jocelin of Soissons in the mid-eleventh century.27 The relics of St. Gregory (the Great) had been removed from Soissons to journey through the countryside to stop the overabundant rains threatening the harvest. Jocelin sent a message to the brothers of the church of Sts. Crispin and Crispinian (also in Soissons), asking them to bring the relics of these two martyrs out to meet the relics of Gregory at the bridge as they returned to the city.28 This request was met with indignant anger on the part of the brothers, who were offended because of the perceived disparities between the saints: while Crispin and Crispinian were martyrs, Gregory was only a confessor!29 Martyrs were more prestigious than confessors, and to demand that their relics travel so far to meet Gregory’s violated liturgical etiquette (and likely their own sense of independence from episcopal domination). Thus, they argued, it would not be appropriate to carry their relics any further than the city itself. Jocelin’s response to this refusal reveals the tension between harmonious ideals of saintly equality and practical perceptions of saintly rank. He began by berating the monks for their unseemly attention to the status of their martyrs, which he denounced as evidence of a worldliness that the saints themselves would condemn. At the same time, he also advanced a

118

En route

counterargument that Gregory, as a pope and thus a successor to the Apostolic See, actually did “outrank” Crispin and Crispinian: While you think you are honoring your martyrs, you do what is neither pleasing to them, nor advantageous to you in the future. Did they not leave an example of humility for you, when walking in the path of humility they struggled for it up to death? And if your words come from these considerations, certainly apostles are older and more distinguished by honor of position than the martyrs. And surely you know that the Roman Apostolics [i.e. the popes] obtained the place of the apostles: and that one of them, sending his workers into his harvest, directed your martyrs into this valley. But is it possible that you think that any envy of temporal fame on earth is in the saints, whom the unity of love joins together imperishably in heaven?30 Jocelin’s choice to reply by claiming Gregory’s superiority to Crispin and Crispinian, while simultaneously denying that it should matter at all, indicates how unresolved (and perhaps, unresolvable) an issue this was. The saints existed in heaven in a perfect “unity of love,” but their temporal reputations had signifcant implications for their cults and the men and women who made their livings off of them.31 Moving the relics of the saints brought this delicate problem forcefully into the spotlight. The issue of the relative rank of these three saints does not seem to have been at issue until Jocelin proposed the movement of Crispin and Crispinian’s relics to the bridge, which was perceived as a request to publicly indicate Gregory’s precedence over the two martyrs. Lists of saints present at relic gatherings also suggest how these considerations of individual status might underlie even events intended to express the most complete ecclesiastical unity. The council and church dedication called at Hasnon in 1070 by Count Baldwin VI imagined the gathering of regional relics as a natural extension of the infux of (living) ecclesiastical fgures, expressing the power available through such an assembly of relics, bishops, abbots, and monks, “all together friendly and devoted in the service of God.”32 At the same time, a separate list giving the names of the relics (as well as abbots and abbesses) present at the Hasnon dedication followed the organizing principles of the litany of saints. This list appeared in the Hasnon addition to the chronicle of Sigibert of Gembloux (the Auctarium Hasnoniense) and a copy was added to the book recording the restoration of Hasnon (the Tomelli Historia Monasterii Hasnoniensis), which gave the names of the same saints but in a slightly different ordering.33 The ordering in the Tomelli version closely follows the pattern of the litany, giving frst the name of the pope-saint Marcellus of Hautmont, followed by male martyrs, then male confessors, then female saints. The earlier version in the Auctarium is less strict, interspersing male confessors and martyrs, but preserving Marcellus at the top of the list and placing female saints after male ones.

Traveling relic and ecclesiastic competition 119 Similarly, both lists give the names of the 15 male abbots before the two female abbesses. This list in both its versions can be interpreted as a kind of roll call, assembling the relics as a collective on the page, in addition to signaling the prestige of the dedication and the infuence of Baldwin VI. While the narrative sources emphasized the aggregated sanctity provided by the Hasnon relic assembly, the lists of participants reveal a parallel sense of hierarchy. The evolution of another list of relics present at a dedication helps track these images of what relic encounters as a result of travel meant for the saints as individuals and as a collective. In 1064, bishop Lietbert dedicated the church of Cambrai and relics from all over the diocese were assembled for the event. The author of the vita of Lietbert, Rodulph (Raoul) of StSepulchre, interpreted this gathering of relics as an indication of the exceptional holiness of the place and Lietbert’s own saintly qualities.34 Although Rodulph noted that 22 saints’ bodies were present at the gathering, he decided to omit their names “lest my wordiness provoke disgust.” He excused this lacuna by saying that if anyone wanted to know the saints’ names, they would be able to collect them for themselves.35 For Rodulph, the exact number of relics present was key to demonstrating Lietbert’s sanctity, but their names were not important enough to include (though he anticipated that others would wish to know them). This expectation was confrmed; the omission of the saints’ names in Rodulph’s text was in fact considered a critical faw by later readers. The author of the text later attached to the Vita Lietberti, a Cistercian monk of Vaucelles writing in 1131, gave a list of saints specifcally to correct this omission. While acknowledging Rodulph’s work, he expanded Rodulph’s count from 22 saints to 28, and in doing so made his project somewhat ambiguous: was it supposed to be a list of saints present at the dedication or a list of the saints of the diocese? …the describer [Rodulph] of the deeds of this holy pontiff [Lietbert] asserts that 22 bodies of the saints of the diocese of Cambrai were carried to the dedication of the basilica of the Holy Sepulcher, nevertheless he declares that he does not designate them in writing on account of boredom, but that those desiring to know can collect them themselves. I however, knowing some of those saints, whose bodies were brought, and not knowing others, on that account note the names of the saints, not only of the twenty-two, but also of others, who either are, or were, in the bishopric of Cambrai, which I learned about either through reading or hearing.36 For this later author, not only were the names and identities of the saints at this assembly important, it was better to be as inclusive as possible than keep strictly to the numerical limit given by Rodulph. No saint, in effect, could be retroactively left off the guest list. This approach underlines the

120

En route

greater purpose of listing the saints explicitly: to present a holistic, unifying image of the local saints around Cambrai (and their institutions) rather than one narrowly tied to the eleventh-century dedication event.37 Yet, as in the list from Hasnon, the monk of Vaucelles organized the saints carefully and even more rigidly according to rank, showing preoccupations with gender (men before women), type of saint (martyr, confessor, virgin), and church offce held (pope, archbishop, bishop, abbot). Marcellus again headed the list, followed by an archbishop-martyr, three bishop-martyrs, two martyrs, two bishop-confessors, one abbot-confessor, nine confessors, one virginmartyr, and fnally eight virgins. These perceptions of rank among the saints were not restricted to ecclesiastics. The people of Dijon were supposedly unwilling to give up Prudentius’ relics after they had sheltered in the city for fear of Vikings, so they secretly swapped his relics for the less-prestigious relics of St. Silvinus: “a confessor having been traded for a martyr, Silvinus for Prudentius.”38 At Arras in 1025, Gerard of Cambrai interviewed several “heretics” who, among other concerns, claimed that only apostles and martyrs should be venerated. Since confessors had no gift of special power, they asserted, they should not be treated as the equals of these more prestigious types of saints.39 As Robert Bartlett notes, this was a more cautious version of the refusal of the “heretics” at Orléans in 1022 to venerate any saints at all, but their claim of a distinction between apostles, martyrs, and confessors is notable.40 In making this assertion, these laypeople were drawing their own conclusions from the impressions of saintly hierarchy created and maintained by the church itself. These concerns might have been easy to scoff at in a theological discussion, but grew thornier when multiple saints and communities were physically assembled. Bringing relics together prompted comparison.

“Friendly” relic encounters These diffculties, however, were not necessarily fatal or even openly acknowledged. A variety of tactics might be used to brush away questions of competition between saints and turn relic encounters into expressions of friendship, both between the saints and the institutions that housed their relics. One approach was to frame the encounter of relics in terms of the close relationship between the two saints while they (or at least one of them) had been alive. When the relics of Amandus were brought to Noyon as part of the 1066 journey, two reliquaries of St. Eligius were brought out to meet them.41 When depicting this meeting of their relics, the hagiographer Gislebert described Eligius as “a very close friend to saint Amandus when each was alive.”42 These memories of a personal connection seem to be something of an extrapolation; though they were seventh-century contemporaries, neither saint’s vita tradition mentions a particularly close friendship between the two men.43 However, as the living Eligius might have been expected to

Traveling relic and ecclesiastic competition 121 meet his fellow bishop Amandus in order to welcome him, the relics of the two saints could be used to perform this entry procession centuries after their deaths.44 Ursio of Hautmont, the author of the miracles of St. Marcellus of Hautmont, also used a narrative of the personal relationship between two saints to strategically highlight friendship over competition when their relics met one another. During a journey of Marcellus’ relics, they were brought to Soignies where the relics of St. Vincent Madelgaire were kept. Madelgaire (when alive in the seventh century) had apocryphally been responsible for translating Marcellus’ relics from Rome to Hautmont, and Ursio reported that Marcellus was overjoyed to be received by his “translator,” while Madelgaire rejoiced to be able to host the martyr.45 He remarked explicitly on the positive aspect of this meeting, saying that the gift of hospitality was made even more beautiful when it was shared between such great men (though the explicit identifcation of Marcellus as a martyr and Madelgaire as a confessor might have been a subtle assertion of Marcellus’ superiority). In this way, the meeting of the two saints’ relics could represent an important opportunity to affrm a positive relationship. Although processions in general lent themselves to public displays of joy and laudatory liturgical activity that refected well on the groups involved, a relic encounter provided additional opportunities to assign these sentiments of celebration and friendship to the saints themselves.46 Yet not all saints had personal connections to one other. How else could problems of competition be dealt with delicately? An account of a customary annual meeting of the relics of Corbie and Amiens demonstrates how thin the line might be.47 One year, Richard the abbot of Corbie (post1016–1048) decided to withhold the monastery’s saints from the meeting, supposedly upset by the lay dances and games which had become part of the event. The protest of the brothers of Corbie against this decision highlights the expectations created by such a meeting of saints and the potential hazards of failing to meet them. They claimed that the delegation from Amiens, coming with their own relics, would judge them as prideful if they did not do the same. These fears were realized. Even though the abbot allowed them to bring the relics of one saint (the recently elevated St. Adelard) to the meeting, they were openly criticized for not bringing the relics of St. Peter and St. Gentian as well. Though the hagiographer attempts to remind readers that it was only in protest for the irreverent atmosphere and not Corbie’s pride that led to this situation, it came with serious repercussions. While the canons of Amiens and their relics of St. Firmin enjoyed the prayers and gifts of the people attending the meeting, Adelard’s relics were ignored, refecting the perceived inferiority of the Corbie delegation and their lone saint. All was not lost, however, and this competitive situation was transformed into an opportunity for claiming Adelard’s power, saving face for Corbie, and depicting a resolution to the damaged relationship between Amiens

122 En route and Corbie. Adelard demonstrated his power through the performance of a dramatic miracle, and signifcantly the delegation from Amiens helped in the effort to spread the news of Corbie’s newfound success by announcing the miracle to the crowds.48 The people responded by overwhelming the reliquary with prayers and donations. On the one hand, this annual relic gathering intended to affrm a friendship between monastery and cathedral carried strong undertones of competition; the monks were well aware that failing to bring Corbie’s “best” relics would be interpreted badly and would allow Amiens to garner the most lay attention and donations. At the same time, the text claims that the canons of Amiens were willing, rather than pressing their advantage, to acknowledge this miracle as performed by Adelard and to take an active role in celebrating it.49 This positive presentation is particularly signifcant, since the account of Adelard’s miracles in which this story appears was composed shortly after 1051 following a period of severe tension between the bishop of Amiens (Fulk II) and the abbot of Corbie that resulted in the bishop’s excommunication by the pope in 1049.50 This text, looking back to events in the late 1030s/1040s, seems to suggest that the relationship of Amiens and Corbie, while not always smooth, could weather misunderstandings. With the memories of recent hostility intervening between these events and the composition of the text, the hagiographer seems to have chosen to end on a note which stressed the mutual benefts possible when houses brought their relics together in collaboration and friendship.

Miracle attribution While the Amiens canons supposedly helped to promote the miracles of a saint who was not their own, this was not the only possible choice. Other groups chose to advocate for their own saint’s reputation when the tensions created by the proximity of multiple relics bubbled over into open debate. As with the troubles of St-Donatian’s that began this chapter, these conficts often hinged on the attribution of miracles. Another example, worth exploring at length, describes a particularly problematic moment in eleventhcentury Poitiers.51 The situation seems to have been especially contentious because these relics inhabited the same city, but were housed at different institutions (the cathedral of St-Peter’s and the basilica of St-Hilary’s). The description, which appears in a text added to the miracles of Hilary, describes a customary procession of Peter’s relics into Hilary’s church. The critical moment came when a disabled man, who had been staying in the church for some time in the hope of being healed, lay down in the middle of the aisle so that Peter’s relics would pass over him on their way to the altar. Miraculously and problematically, he was healed at the very moment Peter’s relics were above him. The clergy of St-Hilary’s claimed the miracle by singing the Te Deum and ringing the bells, only to be immediately contradicted by the clergy of St-Peter’s, who logically argued it must have been Peter who

Traveling relic and ecclesiastic competition 123 performed the miracle, since the man had been in Hilary’s church without being healed and was only cured when they had arrived with Peter’s relics.52 The situation devolved into a heated argument. Relic movement was at the heart of the trouble, because the act of moving Peter’s relics brought two understandings of the sacred space of relics into direct contradiction. On the one hand, the miracle had happened in the church consecrated to Hilary and which contained his relics. At any other time, any miracle performed in the church would have been incontestably attributed to his power. The disabled man himself clearly believed in the power of this type of sacred space, since he had been coming to the church in search of a cure for some time. Yet Peter’s relics projected their own sphere of infuence that, within a short range, overlapped and competed with Hilary’s. The man’s action, lying down so that the reliquary could pass over him, was intended to tap into the power of this new sacred space in the most effective way possible, suggesting that he saw the mobile relics as a more focused and immediate opportunity for a cure.53 But this behavior caught him in the same problem as the boy at St-Donatian’s: when multiple saints were physically present, to whom did the sacred space, and thus the miracle, “belong”? These were not new problems. In the ninth century, Einhard had worried about miracle attribution to the point of near-obsession, as he moved the relics of Marcellinus and Peter he had brought from Rome around and tried to determine which miracles the two saints should be given partial or full credit for and why. Since all the saints were equal, Einhard reasoned, collaborative miracles were entirely possible.54 But much like Jocelin of Soissons, Einhard undermined his own arguments for saintly equality by attempting to scrape together as much glory as possible for his own saints. When no other relics were physically present, it was easy to say that Marcellinus and Peter alone deserved all of the honor as a matched pair of saints. But when other relics had been present, Einhard took his readers through his rationales like a logic puzzle: miracles were worked in the church where Marcellinus and Peter’s relics were resting, but one of them occurred on the day that St. Protius and St. Hyacinth’s relics arrived and near their relics. Another happened in the entrance above which Einhard had placed St. Hermes’ fnger bone and on his feast day, but again it was Marcellinus and Peter’s church. Were these miracles exclusively worked by Marcellinus and Peter, did they help, or were they not involved at all? Einhard concluded that Marcellinus and Peter should have all the glory of the frst miracle, effectively cutting out Protius and Hyacinth, but hesitated on the second. Eventually, he concluded that, while the miracle should be attributed to Hermes, Marcellinus and Peter still deserved some credit because it was their church and the woman who was healed had called on them.55 It was a diffcult problem, but at least there were no other parties on the spot who had an interest in defending the reputations of Protius, Hyacinth, and Hermes against the holy encroachment of Marcellinus and Peter.

124

En route

This was not the case at Poitiers. It may seem surprising that such a contentious episode was recorded in the miracles of Hilary, but a compromise was successfully brokered—with some suitably miraculous intervention. The text reports that as the two groups of clergy bickered in the church, the miracle was reversed and the man (unfortunately for him) was “un-healed.” However, Hilary appeared to him that night in a dream to conveniently clarify that Peter had performed the miracle, and that if the man were to visit Peter’s relics, in Peter’s church, he would be healed a second time.56 This supernatural “solution” emphasized that the initial problem was caused by the overlap of the two relics’ sacred space. The miracle had to be undone and re-performed in a less spatially ambiguous context: the man had to visit Peter’s relics within their own permanent sacred space, in order to sidestep any question of whether or not the presence of Peter’s relics nullifed or replaced Hilary’s power within Hilary’s church. The miracle story ended with the statement that even though Peter should be given the credit for both miracles, the fact that the frst miracle occurred in Hilary’s church and that he provided the information for obtaining the second miracle meant that some of the glory was his. Hilary’s right to his own sacred space was thus carefully acknowledged, transforming the narrative as a whole into a story of unseemly confict overcome through Hilary’s divine power. We might suspect that this version of the outcome was carefully constructed to patch over the embarrassing incident; although Peter’s power was ultimately credited, it did not come at Hilary’s expense.57 Another incident from the description of the journey of Taurinus’ relics from Gigny in 1158 suggests how far clergy might be willing to go when there was a miracle to be attributed. A blind woman had been following a different group of relics and their companions traveling from Sens (carrying an arm of St. Donatus, among other relics) for a few days to no effect. The hagiographer says that this group from Sens claimed to be carrying relics of “those saints, who were most favorable to the multitude of rustics and common people,” somewhat snidely implying that the popularity of these rivals was due to their clever marketing.58 However, the woman abandoned the saints from Sens to seek out the Taurinus group, and before she even reached the reliquary (perhaps implying some spatial ambiguity of the type seen in other episodes) she was healed. The clergy of Sens responded (inspired, as the hagiographer thought, by the devil) by bribing her to claim that the miracle had been performed by Donatus rather than Taurinus and thus to steal the glory. This story of a “stolen” miracle highlights how much the outcome of these situations depended on the willingness of the groups involved to actively press their saint’s claim against another’s, but it also introduces new kinds of arbiters. On the one hand, the fght over attribution was ultimately resolved with saintly assistance. As at Poitiers, the miracle was reversed and then re-performed with no spatial ambiguity; the woman confessed that she had lied, and explicitly entered Taurinus’ sacred space

Traveling relic and ecclesiastic competition 125 by approaching his reliquary to get her second repeat of the miracle. The punishment of the scandalous group from Sens, however, did not come from a divine source: “the people of the village, admiring what was done miraculously by the saint of God, harassing the clerics [from Sens] with many insults, made them leave that place.”59 The spectators, in the end, took on the responsibility for acting on what they had witnessed to favor one group traveling with relics over another. As susceptible to bribes and other enticements as they were depicted to be, the laity were also portrayed as one key to the success of a traveling relic (and those accompanying it) in a competitive situation.

Controlling space and making allies With these tensions at play, the space of the church especially became a contested ground for mobile relics. Churches were more than preferred stopping places; exclusion from churches was perceived as an effective tactic to block a relic’s travel altogether. When Adelard’s relics were being brought to Count Robert the Frisian, the count supposedly reacted to the news that the monks were on their way by ordering that no churches should receive the relics, believing (according to the text) that this could prevent them from reaching him.60 A priest at the village of Curba attempted to follow the count’s orders and ran away with the keys to the church; but while they were looking for him, the doors burst open by divine power and not, the hagiographer felt the need to specify, “by magic or mechanical arts.”61 This claim of a miraculous break-in demonstrates the symbolic importance of gaining access to churches en route. Successfully occupying the sacred space of a church against opposition was one sign of the just purposes for the journey and of the saint’s power.62 This desire for a traveling relic to be temporarily housed in a church, however, could also mean confict with its keepers. An account from the frst journey of the canons of Laon (1112) in France with their relics of the Virgin provides an example. Leaving Tours, the canons had come to St-Laurentius of Cala on that saint’s feast day. The monk living there refused to allow them to place Mary’s reliquary on the major altar, fearing to lose the customary offering given to Laurentius on his feast. Instead, he insisted that they place it on a lesser altar in a different part of the church, intending to spatially marginalize Mary’s relics in relationship to Laurentius’. This tactic to maintain Laurentius’ control over the sacred space of his church, however, was unsuccessful. The people who had followed the relics from Tours spoke about the miracles that they had seen, which encouraged all the pilgrims to abandon the major altar of Laurentius and offer their gifts to Mary instead. The monk, spiteful and envious, then ordered that Mary and all the other relics from Laon be ejected from the church. Despite this setback, the fortunes of the Laon party held frm; the prior of the castle, reproaching the monk, prepared a spacious tent for them. Local women then brought

126

En route

curtains to decorate it and lights were hung to make it glow throughout the night, creating a visually appealing alternative sacred space for Mary’s relics to exclusively inhabit.63 The canons of Laon thus won their battle for control of sacred space, but not through the miraculous intervention of Mary. The people accompanying them from Tours had allowed them to overcome marginalization within the church, and local allies (the prior of the castle and the women) had aided them to set up a rival space to compete with the church once they had been thrown out. The conclusion of their experience dovetails their salvation by the people with divine vengeance; at Vespers that evening, the monk fell to the ground sick in front of the people, the great bell of the church fell from its tower and broke, and the bell tower itself collapsed. Regretting his actions in the wake of these events, the monk-antagonist came barefoot to Mary’s reliquary and prostrated himself in front of it, begging that she be carried to the major altar. The canons, however, did not agree to his request; their alternative sacred space had triumphed over the sacred space of the church that had been denied to them (indeed, by partially destroying it), and they had no further need of it. In the miracles of St. Gerulph, the support of the laypeople was even more literal. The monks of Drongen (just to the west of Ghent) had been denied access to the church at Suivenghem by the custodian, who “angry from some unknown cause, or perverted by some advice, responded haughtily to their requests, swearing and cursing, that the way would never be open to the one with St. Gerulph.”64 He then went into the church and barred the doors against them. A large crowd of people, both men and women, then came and physically hoisted Gerulph’s reliquary on their shoulders (evoking the penitential/curative properties of carrying the saint discussed in Chapter 3). A little while later, a girl placed on top of the relics was healed, and the miracle softened the custodian enough to let them inside the church. In this case, the people’s own bodies were an alternative to the sacred space of the church. The lay supporters of St. Omer in the tenth century adopted a more active approach, according to the author of his third Vita (written in the twelfth or thirteenth century). Omer’s relics were being carried by the canons of St-Omer to Emperor Otto I as he assembled a council at Nimwegen to protest the alienation of their property. When they reached Tiel, however, the custodian of the church not only barred the door against them, but blasphemed the relics, rebuked the servants and companions of the saint, said that everything they were doing was superstition and delusion, and left to go to the bath. The crowd then forced the doors open in order to place the relics on the altar.65 Another kind of active response to this type of competitive situation, fscal rather than violent, was taken by the merchants of Christchurch during the second relic journey of the canons of Laon to England in 1113. The canons arrived on Pentecost, a time of assembly for the merchants. It was raining heavily, and so they sought out the deacon of the church to gain

Traveling relic and ecclesiastic competition 127 entry. In a sequence of events similar to their experience at St-Laurentius in France a year earlier, they were grudgingly admitted to the church but only allowed to place Mary’s reliquary “on a minor altar, in a remote part of the church, only until the rain let up.”66 This situation had an analogous outcome: when the deacon saw Mary’s relics drawing crowds and gifts (again in part due to the testimony of merchants who were familiar with the miracles done at a prior stop), he became concerned about losing the donations needed to rebuild his own church and threw them out into the rain. The misery of the canons at this new development was palpable—the whole village was full of merchants, no shelter was available, and it was raining harder than ever. At this point, a merchant’s wife heard about their troubles and convinced her husband to evict a group of (unlucky) renters and use the house to shelter the canons and relics instead. The canons, having dried out, had a portable altar with them and so were able to celebrate mass in the guesthouse. More importantly, their situation drew further support from a nonecclesiastical faction in the town, the merchants who had gathered for Pentecost: One of the merchants hung up three bells which he had for sale on the roof of this house, and using them called together his associates. Getting up onto a high place, he told them how the deacon ejected the reliquary from his church, and urged that none of them should go to that church, but rather come together at our [the canons’] guesthouse to hear the divine offce. After this, they all together unanimously passed a proclamation that, if any of the merchants should go into the church, they should pay 5 solidi to their associates.67 Rather than forcing an entry into the church, the merchants set up a trade embargo, protesting the deacon’s control of the church’s space with their money rather than their physical strength. As in the previous year, the canons accompanying the relics had found allies in local secular groups who helped them oppose their ecclesiastical competitors and enemies. Thus, creating alternative sacred spaces, boycotting the traditional sacred space of churches, and even physically taking over churches themselves were ways in which laypeople could show their support for outside groups traveling with relics. For this support, according to the hagiographers, they could expect to be rewarded. In Hermann of Tournai’s version of the canons’ experience at Christchurch, after they departed a fre-breathing dragon rose out of the sea and burned up the town. The deacon’s church, for which he had been so anxious to gather donations, was so completely destroyed (according to the text) that the very stones were burnt and the altar itself reduced to a pile of ashes. Meanwhile, the house of their hosts remained safe, along with the neighboring house where they kept their sheep. As for the merchants, they lost nothing to the dragon, having packed up their goods prior to its arrival.68

128

En route

Conclusion Bringing relics together provided an image of the saints acting as a collective, similar to that envisioned in heaven itself. Relic gatherings, in this sense, replicated a kind of divine assembly on earth and alerted the ecclesiastical world to the power of putting the saints on the road. Even small-scale events, such as the meeting of the saints of Amiens and Corbie, tasted of divine peace; not only the ideal of peace in society as a whole, but also collaborative respect and cooperation between the churches and monasteries that added their relics to the collection. This respect, however, operated best at a distance. The intricate ritual frameworks constructed around relics, combined with ambiguities about the relative rank of saints, made them exclusionary by nature. This dependence on a certain understanding of sacred space, riskily combined with relics’ new level of mobility, could lead to the hostile situations described here. In the end, however, both the power and the danger of moving relics stemmed from the fact that they had a watchful and participatory audience waiting beyond the walls of the church. As Richard Landes remarked on the early eleventh-century crowd listening to arguments for and against St. Martial’s apostolicity, “we fnd [them] behaving in ways historians rarely consider when thinking about the ‘silent majority’: actively listening, rejecting claims, choosing (changing) sides.”69 Although the crowds present at the Peace councils have attracted much attention as the monolithic allies of bishops and monks against the peace-breakers, their active roles on less harmonious occasions have been overlooked. When the reputation of an individual saint was at stake against a competitor, monks, canons and hagiographers did not allow the “silent majority” to stay silent, transforming them instead into a new type of vocal, or even violent, ally for the saint’s cause. Yet laypeople did not always say things the travelers wanted to hear, and the next chapter turns to their opinions and agency.

Notes 1 An earlier version of this chapter has appeared as Kate M. Craig, “Fighting for Sacred Space: Relic Mobility and Confict in Tenth-Eleventh-Century France,” Viator 48, no. 1 (2017): 17–37. 2 On the peacemaking aspects of relic transportation in this period, Geoffrey Koziol, “Monks, Feuds and the Making of Peace in Eleventh-Century Flanders,” in The Peace of God: Social Violence and Religious Response, ed. Thomas Head and Richard Landes (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992), 239–59. 3 “Miracula s. Donatiani,” AASS Oct. VI, 503–4. Ilherus’ exact identity has been a subject of discussion, especially since the text gives no additional information about this saint beyond the name itself. The Bollandists believed that Ilherus was a saint venerated in Bruges itself: AASS Oct. VI, 398. Sigal read Ilherus as a version of “Hilary”: Pierre-André Sigal, L’homme et le miracle dans la France médiévale (XIe-XIIe siècle) (Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 1985), 216. Holweck, however, identifed “Ilerus” as the tenth bishop of Mende, possibly identical to the seventh bishop Illier/Hilary: Frederick G. Holweck, A Biographical

Traveling relic and ecclesiastic competition 129

4

5

6

7

8 9 10 11

12

Dictionary of the Saints (Detroit: Gale Research Co., 1969), 503, 484. If the reliquary of Ilherus placed alongside Donatian’s did indeed come from Mende, it had traveled a remarkable distance to reach Bruges; I suspect that this was indeed a local relic. In the late fourteenth century, the clergy of St-Donatian’s attempted to emphasize their saint’s status over other saints of Bruges by exalting and limiting his relics’ movement; they insisted that his feast day procession follow a unique route, and attempted to withhold his relics from general processions: Andrew Brown, Civic Ceremony and Religion in Medieval Bruges c.1300–1520 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 197. A similar story appears in a twelfth-century account regarding the removal of St. Martin’s relics due to Viking attacks; in this account (which creatively reimagines the forced translations of the ninth century), the relics of St. Martin were temporarily housed in the church of St. Germanus in Auxerre. To fgure out which saint was the one performing miracles, a man with leprosy was placed equidistant between the two reliquaries. His body itself became a kind of imprint of the boundary between the two saints’ sacred spaces, as the “St. Martin half” was healed but the “St. Germanus half” was not. This test was presented as the result of the greed of the competitive clergy of Auxerre, who resented the donations Martin’s relics were receiving in Germanus’ church— a recurring theme. “De reversione beati Martini a Burgundia tractatus,” Supplément aux chroniques de Touraine, ed. André Salmon (Tours: Guilland-Verger, 1856), 24–25. On this story and this text, Sharon A. Farmer, Communities of Saint Martin: Legend and Ritual in Medieval Tours (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991), 57–60, 305–6. On the conficting ideas surrounding the relationship between the power of the saint and the proximity of their relics, Robert Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things?: Saints and Worshippers from the Martyrs to the Reformation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013), 105–6. In eleventh-century Limoges, the relics of Valeria were moved away from those of Martial within the church in order to better distinguish and attribute miracles performed by each: Richard Landes, “Popular Participation in the Limousin Peace of God,” in The Peace of God: Social Violence and Religious Response, ed. Thomas Head and Richard Landes (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992), 191. Eric Palazzo, L’espace rituel et le sacré dans le Christianisme: la liturgie de l’autel portatif dans l’Antiquité et au Moyen Âge (Turnhout: Brepols, 2008). On the trip of the canons of Laon to England in 1113, the Virgin was reportedly offended by the nonchalant atmosphere around her reliquary: Hermann of Tournai, “Miracula s. Mariae Laudunensis,” PL 156, 961–1018. Edina Bozóky, “Voyage de reliques et démonstration du pouvoir aux temps féodaux,” in Voyages et voyageurs au moyen âge (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 1996), 269–74. As in “Vita, translatio, et miracula s. Veroli,” AASS Jun. III, 385; Bernhard Töpfer, “The Cult of Relics and Pilgrimage in Burgundy and Aquitaine at the Time of the Monastic Reform,” in The Peace of God: Social Violence and Religious Response, ed. Thomas Head and Richard Landes (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992), 56: “the assembly of relics at these gatherings served the same dual purpose as recorded above: to draw the greatest possible public and secure the widest publicity and supernatural sanction to the Peace regulations issued by the hierarchy.” For other examples, Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things?, 299–300. Swearing on relics as part of a judicial proceeding was a subject of legislation during the Carolingian period; the oaths taken during the Peace conferences were a collective variation of this practice. Daniel Callahan, “The Peace of God

130

13 14

15

16

17

18

En route

and the Cult of the Saints in Aquitaine in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries,” in The Peace of God: Social Violence and Religious Response, ed. Thomas Head and Richard Landes (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992), 176–78. “Delatio corporis s. Juniani ad synodem Karoffensem,” PL 137, 825. The eighth- and ninth-century ordines for a church dedication make no mention of the relics of other saints being transported to the church to be dedicated. Although any saints buried in the church had to be temporarily removed before being reintegrated into the sacralized space of the new church, the involvement of “visiting” relics in this process is not mentioned in any liturgical source. See Ordines 41, 42, and 43 given in Michel Andrieu, ed., Les ordines romani du haut Moyen âge, IV: Les textes Ordines XXXV-XLIX, vol. 4, Les ordines romani du haut Moyen âge (Louvain: Spicilegium sacrum lovaniense, 1985). Other examples of relic gatherings for church dedications include: “De miraculis s. Autberti Cameracensis episcopi,” ed. Albert Poncelet, Analecta Bollandiana 19 (1900): 212; “Translatio s. Lifardi,” AASS June I, 303; “Passio et translatio s. Romanae anno 1069,” AASS Oct. II, 139; “Vita s. Lietberti episcopi Cameracensis,” AASS June IV, 606; “Vita s. Macarii secunda, miracula, elevatio anno 1067,” AASS Apr. I, 890; “Miracula s. Audoeni,” AASS Aug. IV, 836. The elevation ritual resembled that of a dedication ceremony; the relics were brought outside the church to a “neutral” area, where they might be inspected, washed, or installed in a new reliquary before being reassociated with the sacred space of the church. Pierre-André Sigal, “Le déroulement des translations de reliques principalement dans les régions entre Loire et Rhin aux XIe et XIIe siècles,” in Les reliques: Objets, cultes, symboles, ed. Anne-Marie Helvétius and Edina Bozóky (Turnhout: Brepols, 1999), 213–27. If Marchiennes had refused to transport its saints, this might have been considered particularly poor etiquette, because neighboring relics had been transported to the dedication of their own church in 1026: “De miraculis s. Autberti Cameracensis episcopi,” 198–212; Karine Ugé, Creating the Monastic Past in Medieval Flanders (Woodbridge: York Medieval Press, 2005), 133. The hesitation about moving relics from Marchiennes supposedly came from their experience of a failed fundraising relic trip to England with the relics of Eusebia, but the close proximity of Anchin seems to have been a deciding factor in this case. “Miracula s. Rictrudis,” ed. Albert Poncelet, Analecta Bollandiana 20 (1901): 456; Vanderputten, “Itinerant Lordship,” 150–51. Both Rictrude and Eusebia’s relics are also listed as being present at the dedication of Hasnon in 1070: “Tomelli Historia Monasterii Hasnoniensis,” MGH SS XIV, 157; Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things?, 299. Steven Vanderputten, “Itinerant Lordship. Relic Translations and Social Change in Eleventh- and Twelfth-Century Flanders,” French History 25, no. 2 (June 1, 2011): 150–51: “The rewards for the monks [in participating in these relic assemblies] consisted of little more than a confrmation of their status among the ecclesiastical institutions of the region.” I would suggest that this kind of reward was perhaps not insignifcant, given the highly competitive situations for donations and prestige described here. “Miracula s. Leonardi Liber I,” AASS Nov. III, 155–59. This event was also described by Ademar of Chabannes; based on Ademar’s description, Richard Landes has also pointed to the collective, reciprocal nature of the “relic jamboree” at Angély: “as they [the other relics] confrmed the Baptist’s presence, so did he, theirs…” Richard Landes, “Popular Participation in the Limousin Peace of God,” 199. According to the short section on Balderic’s life, he was a son of Sigebert I who founded one of the two convents in the city of Reims with his sister Bova, where she became abbess. Then, guided by a falcon, he discovered the site of Montfaucon and established a regular community there. On a trip to visit his sister, he

Traveling relic and ecclesiastic competition 131

19

20 21 22 23

24

25 26

27

28 29 30

died in Reims and was buried there. This led, many years later, to a relic theft performed by the canons of Montfaucon to regain his body, the frst of a series of movements of his relics for various causes. Flodoard of Reims, “Flodoardi Historia Remensis Ecclesiae. Lib. IV,” MGH SS XIII, 591. Flodoard, 592–93. It is not clear where Jovin’s relics were transported from or whose custody they were in. According to the Bollandists, Jovinus or Juvinus was born in Reims. After death, his body was transported to several potential burial sites in the area, but became immovable until brought to the oratory he himself had constructed: AASS Oct. III, pp. 217–18. The village of Saint-Juvin (dépt. Ardennes) is a candidate for the site of the oratory (20 km from Montfaucon). Flodoard, 593. Ibid. “in qua non aliquis infrmorum fuerit sospitate redintegratus, maxime tamen illi qui patrocinia beati Balderici sunt expetere visi.” Chapter 2 and Table 2.1. During late medieval civic processions, litanies were used when a procession of monks or clergy, at times bearing their own relics, traveled to other churches. Before entering each statio, they would pray to the patrons of the church and recite the appropriate litany. For example, these litanies are given by statio for Lyons in Paris BNF lat. 1017, ff. 63v–70v. On these Lyonnais processions as seen through liturgical manuscripts, Pascal Collomb, “Les processions dans les livres liturgiques du diocèse de Lyon dans la seconde moitié du Moyen Âge (XIIeXVIe siècle). Recherches préliminaires pour une histoire des rituels ambulatoires médiévaux” (Université Lumière-Lyon II, 1997). Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things?, 150. The laudes regiae meshed the litany sequences of the saints with ruler acclamation: Ernst Kantorowicz, Laudes Regiae; a Study in Liturgical Acclamations and Mediaeval Ruler Worship, University of California Publications in History, v. 33 (Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1946), 31–53. See also Ernst Kantorowicz, “Ivories and Litanies,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 5 (January 1, 1942): 56–81. “Gesta episcoporum Cameracensium,” MGH SS VII, 483–84. “Deinde vero ceteros, id est martires confessores ac virgines, unumquemque iuxta ordinem suum, in circuitu prout decebat conposuit.” Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio, ed. Philippe Labbe, Gabriel Cossart, and Gian Domenico Mansi, vol. 19 (Florence: A. Zatta, 1901), 532; Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things?, 172. Ademar of Chabannes was responsible for the series of liturgical forgeries that styled Martial as an apostle; his process and approach has been studied in depth by Richard Allen Landes, Relics, Apocalypse, and the Deceits of History: Ademar of Chabannes, 989–1034, Harvard Historical Studies 117 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995). Miracula s. Gregorii et s. Sebastiani,” AASS Mar. II, 751. Jocelin (also Gauzlin, Joscelin, and Josselin) is most often discussed for his opposition to Abelard at the council of Soissons, but has also been studied for his episcopal activities: John S. Ott, “Educating the Bishop: Models of Episcopal Authority and Conduct in the Hagiography of Early Twelfth-Century Soissons,” in Teaching and Learning in Northern Europe, 1000-1200, ed. Jay Rubenstein and Sally Vaughn, Studies in the Early Middle Ages 8 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2006), 211–53. On relic entry processions, Chapters 2 and 5. The issue of the relative status of martyrs and confessors was particularly fraught: Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things?, 185–86. “Miracula s. Gregorii et s. Sebastiani,” AASS Mar. II, 751. Dum vos martyres vestros creditis honorare, agitis utique quod eis non placet, nec vobis proderit in futurum. Nonne illi vobis humilitatis exempla

132 En route reliquerunt, dum in via humilitatis gradientes pro ea usque ad mortem decertarunt? Et si pensentur verba ex rebus, certe apostoli martyribus antiquiores et distinctione graduum excellentiores sunt. Et scitis profecto quod romani apostolici apostolorum locum obtinent: et eorum unus martyres vestros operarios suos mittens in messem suam, in hanc vallem direxit. Sed numquid putatis inesse sanctis inuidiam aliquam disparis claritatis in terra, quos unitas caritatis inviolabiliter connectit in caelo? 31 On competition between saints’ cults and the supposed distaste of the saints for these conficts, Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things?, 187, 234; Sigal, L’homme et le miracle, 216–23. 32 “Miracula s. Donatiani,” MGH SS XV.2: 857. On the Hasnon dedication, including a map of the churches participating, Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things?, 298–99. 33 “Auctarium Hasnoniense,” MGH SS VI: 441–42. The editor of the Auctarium, L. C. Bethmann, believed that this part of the text was taken from the Tomelli Historia. Oswald Holder-Egger, the editor of the Tomelli, argued that rather the main text of the Tomelli was composed between 1070 and 1084, that chapter 18 (on the death of abbot Roland) was added after this event, and that the second part of chapter 17 (the list of relics and abbots present at the dedication) was added much later from the Hasnon version of Sigebert’s chronicle. The text in the Tomelli itself indicates that the list of abbots was taken from Sigebert’s chronicle (“Quindecim abbates etiam adfuerunt, quorum nomina ex Sigeberti chronica deprompta habentur”), but this specifcation is made only for the abbots/abbesses and not for the preceding list of relics. Although Holder-Egger’s belief that this implies that this part of the Tomelli postdates the Auctarium seems correct, it may be possible to suggest that the list of saints derives from a different source than Sigebert’s chronicle, especially since the ordering of the saints is changed slightly in the Tomelli, while the ordering of the abbots remains identical. Oswald Holder-Egger, “Tomelli Historia Monasterii Hasnoniensis,” 148, 157. For a table comparing the two lists, Craig, “Fighting for Sacred Space,” 36–37. 34 The vita was composed ca. 1100. On Lietbert’s episcopal career and the vita, John Ott, Bishops, Authority and Community in Northwestern Europe, c.1050–1150, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought, Fourth Series 102 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 200–21. 35 “Vita Lietberti episcopi Cameracensis auctore Rodolfo monacho s. Sepulchri Cameracensis,” MGH SS XXX.2: 860. Quod congregatis totius diocesis suae sanctorum corporibus martyrum, confessorum ac virginum in honore et nomine domini nostri Iesu Christi et memoria sancti sepulchri eius… Per totum noctis spacium, quae sanctae benedictionis precedebat diem, super ipsum monasterium spera lucis in modum coronae caelitus emissa pependit, profecto iam signifcante Deo pro hoc laboris impendio Lietbertum pontifcem misericordiae coronam accepturum… Unde credimus ibi non defuisse Patris honorem, ubi tot sanctorum corpora convecta fuerant. Viginti et duo dicuntur affuisse. Quorum nomina, ne prolixitas fastidium gigneret, omittimus scribere. Ceterum scire volentes a se ipsis possunt colligere. 36 “Vita Lietberti,” 867. Quia vero descriptor gestorum hujus sancti pontifcis asserit, ad dedicandam Dominici Sepulcri basilicam XXII corpora Sanctorum diocesis Cameracensis fuisse allata, nec tamen ea propter taedium scripto designasse, sed scire volenti per se colligere posse asseverat; nos quidem, quinam fuerint illi

Traveling relic and ecclesiastic competition 133 Sancti, quorum corpora sunt advecta, ex parte scientes, et ex parte nescientes; idcirco hic annotare libet nomina Sanctorum, non solum viginti et duorum, set etiam aliorum; quod scilicet in Episcopatu Cameracensi vel esse, vel fuisse, sive legendo, sive audiendo didicimus. 37 Informal lists of saints present also appear in some descriptions of Peace of God councils. For example, Bernard’s frst book of St. Faith’s miracles lists Marius, Amans, Saturninus, the Virgin Mary, and Faith as the especially memorable relics brought to the council held outside Rodez around 1012: Auguste Bouillet, ed., “Liber miraculorum sancte Fidis,” in Collection de textes pour servir à l’étude et à l’enseignement de l’histoire, vol. 21 (Paris: Alphonse Picard et fls, 1897), 72. The following chapter relates a kind of “poaching” of people waiting to be healed by Marius to come to Faith’s tent, suggesting the competitiveness of these events. 38 “Passio, translationes, miracula s. Prudentii,” AASS Oct. III, 361–62. “dato confessore pro martyre, Silvino pro Prudentio” The story is ahistorical but refects a sentiment about the relative “value” of these saints. 39 Mansi, Sacrorum conciliorum, vol. 19, 423. 40 Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things?, 591–92. 41 The reference to two reliquaries of Eligius, one accompanied by monks and the other by canons, may have been related to the confict between the cathedral and monastery of Noyon over Eligius’ relics; by the thirteenth century, both the canons and monks claimed to have the one true body of the saint and bitterly disputed the other institution’s claim. The course of this dispute has been tracked by Erika Laquer, who used it to show the competing uses of ritual and documentary claims about the authenticity of relics over the course of the confict. If the exact ownership of the body of Eligius was already contested between the monks and canons of Noyon in 1066, this may suggest that both parties saw Amandus’ visit as an opportunity to legitimize their own claim to Eligius by bringing their relics out. Alternatively, the existence of two “offcial” reliquaries at this early date may help explain the genesis of these rival claims to the saint. It is intriguing that the date of Amandus’ visit, 1066, coincides with one of the authentications (though likely backdated) found in the reliquary of Eligius. Erika Laquer, “Ritual, Literacy and Documentary Evidence: Archbishop Eudes Rigaud and the Relics of St. Eloi,” Francia 13 (1985): 625–37. The Carmen de incendio does not mention the transportation of Eligius’ relics during the entry procession performed at Noyon. 42 “Miracula s. Amandi corpore per Franciam deportato,” AASS Feb. I, 898. “Dehinc Noviomum, quo ire pergebamus, pervenimus, ibique sancti Eligii quondam sancto Amando, dum uterque adviveret, familiarissimi loculos geminos, alterum cum monachis, alterum vero cum clericis obviam habuimus.” 43 The life of Amandus written by Baudemond mentions Eligius being summoned to Dagobert’s court once Amandus refused to involve himself with worldly business, but without elaborating on any particular friendship. Baudemond, “Vita Amandi,” AASS Feb. I, 851. 44 Even mass relic gatherings could include special demonstrations of welcome and hospitality for individual saints in this manner. When the relics of St. Privat arrived at the Le Puy peace council, they were met outside the city by all the inhabitants, along with the bishops who had come to the council and the entire clergy of the city, who brought other relics of saints with them: Clovis Brunel, ed., Les miracles de Saint Privat (Paris: A. Picard et fls, 1912), 14–15. 45 Ursio of Hautmont, “Miracula s. Marcelli,” MGH SS XV.2: 802. “hospitalitatis autem gratia, inter tantos hospites, martyrem scilicet et confessorem provenit pulcherrima. Gaudebat sanctus Marcellus sui quondam translatoris condigna susceptione.”

134

En route

46 Another example of saints being portrayed as anxious to meet up with a friend was St. Remaclus’ perceived eagerness (represented through the supernatural “propulsion” of his reliquary as it traveled) to reach Liège and visit the relics of St. Lambert. Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things?, 318–19. Welcoming one saint’s relics in warm and spectacular fashion could also serve as a way to compete with rivals, as Koziol interprets the warm welcome Ursmar received at St-Bavo’s as an act of one-upmanship in light of its ongoing rivalry with St-Peter’s in Ghent: Geoffrey Koziol, “The Miracles of St. Ursmer on His Journey through Flanders,” in Medieval Hagiography: An Anthology, Garland Reference Library of the Humanities, vol. 1942 (New York: Garland Pub, 2000), 358, note 38. 47 “Miracula s. Adelardi,” AASS Jan. I, 120. These annual meetings were presented as a new custom resulting from a newly good relationship between Corbie and Amiens, taking place during Rogations each year (“Adoleverat etiam inter Ambianenses et Corbeienses nova quaedam religio, et ex religione pullulaverat consuetudo, quae etiam reciprocabatur omni anno octavis denique rogationum, ab utrisque partibus conveniebatur in unum: ibique conferebantur corpora sanctorum”). They should not be confated with the joint transportation of relics that had happened on the feast day of St. Firminus (February 25) in response to a series of regional calamities (fre, bad harvests, plague) that also took on the aspect of a Peace of God council (the “Peace of Amiens-Corbie”). On the Peace meeting and this text, David C. Van Meter, “The Peace of Amiens-Corbie and Gerard of Cambrai’s Oration on the Three Functional Orders: The Date, the Context, the Rhetoric,” Revue belge de philologie et d’histoire 74, no. 3–4 (1996): 633–57; T.M. Riches, “Bishop Gerard I of Cambrai-Arras, the Three Orders, and the Problem of Human Weakness,” in The Bishop Reformed: Studies of Episcopal Power and Culture in the Central Middle Ages, ed. John S. Ott and Anna Trumbore Jones, Church, Faith, and Culture in the Medieval West (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), 125–26. 48 Sigal, L’homme et le miracle, 187. 49 The text’s graphic insistence on the healed man’s blood spattering Adelard’s reliquary might also be read as a tactic to make the saint’s claim to the miracle indisputable, removing any concerns about which saint was responsible. The blood was left as a “sign”: “Deus etiam qui fecerat miraculum, reliquerat evidens credendi signum: et sanguis qui resperserat feretrum ab omnium cordibus extergebat infdelitatis venenum.” “Miracula s. Adelardi,” 121. 50 Riches, “Bishop Gerard I of Cambrai-Arras,” 125–26. 51 Miracula s. Hilarii,” CCH Paris, vol. II (Paris: Picard, 1890), 115–16. This text appears as an addition to Paris BNF lat. 5316 (ffteenth century), but it is an eleventh-century text. 52 Miracula s. Hilarii,” 115. The argument for Peter’s performance of the miracle took on an almost scientifc tone: Quo audito, clerici ecclesiae beati Hilarii prae gaudio miraculi signa pulsant et Te Deum laudamus, ut ft in huiusmodi, pariter excelsa voca cantant. Quibus alii clerici, qui cum reliquiis illo venerant ecclesiae, unanimiter contradicunt, et principis apostolorum rationabiliter fuisse miraculum, pro eo quod antea paralyticus, in eadem commoratus ecclesia, donec in adventu suo cum reliquiis minime sit curatus. 53 Being beneath a reliquary was considered particularly effcacious: Sigal, L’homme et le miracle, 134–44. 54 Einhard, “Translatio et miracula ss. Marcellini et Petri,” MGH SS XV.1, 262. 55 Einhard, 264. 56 Miracula s. Hilarii,” 115–16.

Traveling relic and ecclesiastic competition 135 57 This is not the only miracle in this series which Hilary is presented working in tandem with another saint. A previous miracle in the same text has Hilary curing a deaf and mute man of his deafness, but then telling him to go to Martin of Tours to have his speech returned. The hagiographer portrays this situation as Hilary sending the man to “his disciple” Martin (“sancto Martino discipulo suo”) to fnish what he had begun, because even though he could have done the entire miracle himself, he wanted to share the honor with his old friend. “Miracula s. Hilarii,” 112–13. 58 “Circumvectio corporis sancti Taurini,” AASS Aug. II, 651. “quae referta esse dicebant reliquiis sanctorum illorum, qui magis favori sunt rusticanae multitudini et plebeiae.” 59 Ibid. “Populus villae admirans quod mirabiliter factum fuerat a sancto Dei, multi injuriis clericos lacessens, loco eos cedere fecit.” 60 This was not actually the case; Chapter 3, note 50. 61 “Miracula s. Adelardi,” 121. “Non magica, non ars ibi operata est mechanica…” 62 Ghislain’s relics also forced an entry into a closed church during a journey in 1030; “Vita et miracula s. Gisleni,” ed. Albert Poncelet, Analecta Bollandiana 5 (1886): 286–87; Herwig Wolfram, Conrad II, 990-1039: Emperor of Three Kingdoms (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006), 304–5. 63 Hermann of Tournai, “Miracula s. Mariae Laudunensis,” 970. 64 “Circumlatio s. Gerulphi,” AASS Sept.VI, 266–67. “Ille autem custos, nescio unde iratus, vel cujus consilio depravatus, petitionibus eorum superbe respondit, conjurans ac detestans, illi cum s. Gerulpho numquam patere ingressum.” The journey from Drongen took place c. 1088, and was orchestrated to raise donations for the rebuilding of the church. 65 “Miracula s. Audomari,” AASS Sept. III, 406–17. A different version of this story is given by Folcuin in the Gesta abbatum s. Bertini. In Folcuin’s version, the custodian of the church denies access to the canons, blaspheming and cursing the relics, as in the story from the Vita. However, there is nothing said about the crowd forcing their way into the church; rather, it goes directly to the monks receiving word through a messenger that the custodian had been taken suddenly ill at the bath and without their intercession would soon be dead. One monk takes up the Eucharist and another the relics, but then a second messenger arrives with the news that the custodian is dead because of his blasphemy to Omer. Hearing this, the people then come to the church and honor the relics. The conclusion of the story given in the Vita is that the furious custodian (now referred to as an aedilis) returned to the church as the priest was performing mass, comes to the altar, takes the donations given to the saint, and extinguishes all the candles. He dies in his bed that night, but the brothers return good for his evil and take care of his funeral before proceeding to Nimwegen. The Bollandists believed that the version in the Miracula was feshed out from Folcuin’s account, with embellishment. Folcuin, “Gesta abbatum Sancti Bertini,” MGH SS XIII, 631. 66 Hermann of Tournai, “Miracula s. Mariae Laudunensis,” PL 156, 979–80. “Vix tamen nobis concessit ut, donec nimietas pluviae cessaret, feretrum Dominae nostrae super quoddam minus altare poneretur, in remota ejusdem ecclesiae parte.” On these events, Simon Yarrow, Saints and Their Communities: Miracle Stories in Twelfth Century England, Oxford Historical Monographs (Oxford; New York: Clarendon Press; Oxford University Press, 2006), 92–93. 67 Hermann of Tournai, 980. Unus ex negotiatoribus tres campanas, quas venales habebat, ad domus ejusdem laquearia suspendit, earumque sonitu convocat socios, et locum ascendens eminentiorem, quomodo decanus feretrum nostrum de ecclesia

136 En route sua ejecerit refert, et ut nullus eorum ad ipsam ecclesiam eat, sed omnes potius ad hospitium nostrum divinum offcium audituri conveniant exhortatur. Postremo cuncti, pariter congregati, unanimiter edictum proponunt ut, si quis negotiatorum ecclesiam ingrederetur, quinque solidos sociis persolveret. 68 Hermann of Tournai, “Miracula s. Mariae Laudunensis,” 981. On the dragon as part of Hermann’s portrayal of England as a space of adventure, Chapter 3. 69 Richard Landes, “Popular Participation in the Limousin Peace of God,” 215.

5

Lay responses to traveling relics

In the mid-eleventh century, a team of monks from Hautmont arrived at Soignies with their relics of St. Marcellus, where they were met with a very satisfactory welcome. There was only one minor inconvenience to mar the occasion: after the long journey, there was no wine “which, by relieving roughness and driving out worries, is accustomed to cheer the heart of man.”1 The thirsty monks, however, knew where they might get some. The tavern keeper was away and only his daughter remained at his house, but his storeroom doors were locked and barred. The young woman attempted to resist the men, but to no avail—one of the company named Baldwin, “paying no attention to her objection,” wanted to break down the doors by force. Happily (for the monks) this proved unnecessary, as Marcellus miraculously burst open the doors, thus giving the wine to “his people.” They had dinner, went to sleep, woke up early, celebrated matins, and resumed their journey.2 For the tavern keeper’s daughter, the arrival of a prestigious relic in town was not an occasion for miracles, but for the violent seizure of her family’s property, supposedly aided and abetted by the saint. Would she have thought of Marcellus as a protector? Her ultimately futile resistance, reported by those who saw her as an inconvenience to be overcome, hints at the spectrum of lay relationships with religious houses and their relics, but underscores the diffculty of recovering those lay perspectives. Mobile relics were, as Steven Vanderputten has phrased it, “itinerant lords” as much as holy healers and protectors, and promises of miraculous help were always entwined with the obligations of economic and political domination.3 Attempting to recover some sense of what lay audiences thought and did when encountering traveling relics makes the challenges of hagiographical texts even more visible. The motif of universal “popular” enthusiasm for relics is omnipresent within accounts of miracles, translations, and relic journeys, yet these texts were produced by the religious elites whose livelihoods and prestige depended on creating and maintaining a widespread recognition of the power of their saint. Thus, the resistance of the tavern keeper’s daughter receives only a passing mention in a text bursting with claims about intense lay fervor for Marcellus’ relics. It was written by abbot Ursio of Hautmont, who himself had performed Marcellus’ translation into a new reliquary and declared that the

138 En route attendees at the event had been so numerous that the relics had had to be moved outside and set up on a table to allow more people to approach, venerate, and donate to the saint. The excitement of the translation had done such wonders for Marcellus’ reputation, Ursio claimed, that people living at a distance who were unable to come to the monastery themselves had requested that his relics might be carried to them instead. Hence the saint had been sent off in a “monastic, clerical, and popular procession… like an imperial expedition”—the journey which had brought the relics, Baldwin, and the rest to the doors of the tavern storeroom in Soignies.4 Since a saint’s fama was their currency, positive lay responses to their relics were essential to the survival and success of their professional curators. It is thus entirely unsurprising that claims about a jubilant population desperate for access to relics recur again and again in hagiographical texts written by those curators. The impression that pious laypeople were generally eager for any and all relics was also used by ecclesiastics (more numerous in the late Middle Ages) who argued that they were being exploited as a result. As noted in Chapter 3, relic companions could easily be portrayed by critics as cynical tricksters seeking to make an easy proft off the faith of the people, especially when they engaged in preaching. These attacks, generally launched by elite literate men, relied on a vision of the lay audience as essentially naïve and thus easily seduced into opening their purses by a clever turn of phrase and a suffciently glittering relic collection.5 Though writing much later, Jacques de Vitry epitomized this kind of critique in his condemnation of “pseudopreachers,” including those displaying relics as part of their technique. In this formulation, some types of laypeople were especially easy marks: “these men, as if foxes craftily breeding and spreading out on earth, lie in ambush for the birds of the house, that is for the laypeople, both the ignorant and exceedingly gullible women.”6 Ecclesiastical restrictions on these practices, from this perspective, rescued the vulnerable and ignorant laity both from hearing the wrong messages and from wasting their money on spurious causes: a necessary crackdown on “abuse.” These ecclesiastical dichotomies have carried over into modern analyses. The question of central medieval lay attitudes towards relics has often been caught between two older historiographical patterns: the tendency to read early medieval relic culture as a Christian substitute for the material aspects of Roman or “pagan” religion, and the tendency to read late medieval relic culture as a venal, bureaucratic system set up to charge admission to the spiritual. The former casts the laity in the role of the imperfectly Christianized; the latter in the role of the exploited faithful. Both assume that laypeople, in a general sense, wanted relics; that there was always a tide of lay desire propelling them towards these objects, which was then restricted or permitted depending on the church’s interests. These historiographical models have been signifcantly revised to better refect the complexities of the religious transformations of Late Antiquity and the Reformation period; yet it is also worth challenging the basic assumptions about lay desire for

Lay responses to traveling relics

139

relics that we have inherited from hagiographical texts. Broad stereotypes of laypeople as either pious or gullible, devotees or pigeons, give very little agency to the vast majority of the population on whom the cult of saints and its curators depended economically. This chapter emphasizes that laypeople were thoughtful and aware participants in relic culture. While joy and enthusiasm were certainly the responses adopted by some, these should not be taken as evidence of passive and static devotion but as one part of a spectrum of possible reactions. As Robert Bartlett memorably described it, alongside the more formal theological and polemical objections of “heretics” to the cult of saints, there existed “a bubbling broth of mockery, disrespect, doubt, disbelief, disdain, and derision.”7 Laypeople actively accessed, authenticated, venerated, questioned, criticized, and attacked relics. This was true when relics were at home as well as when they were traveling; central medieval hagiographical accounts are full of stories of the terrible consequences of apathy or contempt for their saint as well as promises of the miraculous rewards of devotion. Yet the act of moving relics changed their contexts in ways which both invited lay input and made their responses more likely to be recorded by hagiographers. As Chapter 4 concluded, the potential of relic mobility to fan the fames of competition between cults meant that lay support of a traveling relic could be gratefully commemorated as part of the narrative of the saint’s triumph over rivals. Even outside an intensely competitive situation, traveling relics encountered different kinds of audiences, were at times more physically accessible, and prompted situations of heightened visibility (as with entry processions). Though these conditions did not necessarily alter lay responses, they could make them more visible, as hagiographers describing relic journeys worked with motifs of lay devotion or critique to address the vulnerability of a traveling relic.

Did laypeople oppose relic movement? The diffculties of recovering lay perspectives on relic movement, especially regarding issues surrounding the saint’s presence and authority, are suggested by two hagiographical accounts of relic departures which were actively disputed. In both cases, the laity were presented as active agents, but only to the extent of supporting the goals of the author and the curators of the relics. These episodes should call into question the extent to which the opinions voiced by “the people” in these kinds of texts can be taken as refections of lay concerns. The frst is the report of Hariulf of Centule (St-Riquier) regarding the prevented departure of the relics of St. Richarius (Riquier) from the monastery in the late eleventh or early twelfth century. According to Hariulf, it was lay opposition to the relics’ movement which prevented their travel. Richarius’ relics were supposed to be moved through neighboring towns to defray expenses for rebuilding the tower of St. Salvator and the basilica on which the tower had fallen during a fre. A huge crowd assembled for the event, but the monks began a formal lament as they

140 En route lifted the saint’s body to carry it off. Hariulf changed from prose to verse to report these events: The greatest sadness, the most terrible dread of the monks, Exceeded their voices, and joy left the voice, The chant ceased, and soon a lamentation began to rise; The monks were consternated, they remembered the time of the Daci Who burned up, and took away anything unburned That seemed to them better than to take the saint anywhere.8 Thus, the monks specifcally drew on the motif of forced relic translation (“the Daci”) as a comparison to denounce the contemporary movement of the relics, or rather the lack of funds for ecclesiastical building projects that was “forcing” the relics to be moved. Their formal lament inverted the normal ritual script for a relic’s departure by replacing the liturgy of celebration and acclamation with mourning. According to Hariulf, this prompted a welcome response from the lay audience: The people also were consternated, and then many made a clamor: ‘See! What are we doing, for what great crime do we endure this? This, our celebrated lord, our kind and best father, Who always had been a rich man and not a wanderer [peregrinus], Leaves his seat, and will leave the cloister and altar widowed, And will beg, and will inhabit foreign properties? This is his land, this remains with us, The dear nurturing patron who protects everything; And we will send him away by not giving whatever we have?9 The people then promised to make up the necessary costs themselves and took the relics back into the church.10 Reinhold Kaiser has interpreted this episode as evidence for a grassroots concern among the laity about using the relics of the saints to solicit money because it was a form of begging and diminished the reputations of the saints involved.11 Hariulf clearly expresses this sentiment and attributes it to the laity, but there are reasons to be hesitant about using this story as an uncomplicated description of events. In the frst place, Hariulf represents the prevented departure of the relics as a spontaneous and sudden communal reaction. Yet the departure of the relics had been planned and preannounced to the extent that local nobility (including the count) and people from the entire area were able to come to view the spectacle on the appointed day. Presumably, the actual physical movement of the saint’s relics and the monks’ lamentations were unnecessary to alert the audience to the fact that the relics were actually departing from Centule. It seems more likely that the dramatic recall of the relics by the laity was at least partially prearranged, as many medieval ritual performances relied on the

Lay responses to traveling relics 12

141

appearance of spontaneity. And of course, any words spoken by the people of Centule were not in the versifed Latin set down by Hariulf. Additionally, Hariulf’s claim that the people’s concern was the solicitation of donations using relics, which would turn the saint from a rich man into a vagabond, is undermined by the fact that the relics actually did leave Centule to “beg.” They were carried nine kilometers to the city of Abbeville where they received many donations, but were returned after just one day. Once again, the lay population was identifed as the force limiting the saint’s movement, “judging that it would be a source of reproach if the saint were carried further.”13 This shortened relic journey, to which the laity supposedly agreed only under pressure, suggests that the anxieties surrounding the movement of Richarius’ relics were as much a question of distance and time away as of the effects begging would have on the saint’s reputation. A tightly circumscribed journey that would not take the saint far away for long was portrayed as acceptable, even though the goals and justifcations were the same. Perhaps most signifcantly, the story of the prevented relic journey appears in an addition that Hariulf made to his chronicle in 1104/5, in part to provide a scathing critique of the abbot Gervin II (1071–1096/7). Among other outrages, Hariulf accused the abbot of bankrupting Centule to support his own bid to become bishop of Amiens; in this light, we might interpret the rhetoric surrounding the saint’s proposed “abandonment” of Centule, and its connection to the fnancial diffculties of the house, as a direct criticism of the abbot’s own absences and economic mismanagement.14 Though there may indeed have been lay concern about the departure of Richarius’ relics, it was likely not the sole factor involved in limiting their travel. A similar incident at Leuconay (St-Valéry-sur-Somme, dépt. Somme), quite close to Centule, provides an interesting contrast to Hariulf’s account. At Leuconay the moral categories were exactly the opposite of Hariulf’s: the laity were portrayed as piously demanding the relics’ departure, in defance of a lay advocate who attempted to prevent it. Land management, not fundraising, was the motivation for the relics’ departure: the monks of Leuconay had won a contested property in the area of Faucourt from a knight named Gislebert, and the brothers and prior decided to move the relics of Walaricus (Valéry) to solidify their claim.15 However, the lay advocate of the monastery, Rainald, opposed this project, telling his followers that it was “not ftting that the monks perpetrate something illicitly, and remove their patron unwisely from his own seat.”16 It is remarkable that these sentiments regarding relic departure, which echo the concerns Hariulf ascribed to the laity of Centule, instead made Rainald the villain in the anonymous hagiographer’s story at Leuconay. The monks’ counterargument was that Rainald had no right to impede an action which would be useful to them. At Leuconay, then, the problem of relic movement was linked to questions of authority and monastic independence, as expressed through a contest over the legitimacy of moving relics. Whether he was moved more by a desire to assert his power over the house or by a true ideological objection

142 En route to relic travel, Rainald had a straightforward solution to the problem: he locked the doors of the city and hid the keys in his castle to prevent the relics’ departure. Here the text introduces the wishes of “the people” as a pious force in support of the monks’ desires; as at Centule, collective lay desire for relics was used as a narrative device. Supposedly, the people who had come to Leuconay to view the relics’ exit were annoyed to have made the trip for nothing. They complained that it was unbeftting for the saint to have needlessly troubled so many people and accused the abbot of having cooked up a faux relic journey only for the sake of donations!17 The monks held a chapter meeting, and the text claims that they were stuck between two different forms of lay expectations regarding relic mobility: a lay population who insisted that the relics move as promised and as they themselves wished, and an advocate who viewed such a movement as both negligent and presumptuous. Caught between accusations of greed and disobedience, the monks decided to bow to Rainald’s demands and not move the saint. However, the story ended with an emphatic assertion of the right of the monks to move their relics without permission, and in the process framed that right in terms of lay desire and demand for relics. Frustrated by the chapter’s resolution, two young monks named John and Walter left the chapter and encountered the elderly treasurer of the monastery, Evrard, who seems to have been a somewhat colorful character. The two young monks reported the chapter’s decision not to move the relics, and Evrard declared that this was contrary to the custom of Leuconay. He then compared the saint to a donkey that needed to be beaten into performing a miracle and took matters into his own hands, ordering the two young monks to pick up Walaricus’ relics. This rebellious relic journey nevertheless followed liturgical protocol: the three of them sang the response of the saint while removing the relics, and then exposed them on the altar to the people inside the walls. Then they picked up the relics again and headed for the locked gates, while Evrard shouted threats at the saint and waved his cane: “beware, beware, Walaricus—unless you demonstrate your lordship today over this town, you will be subjected to beating by this very stick!”18 They were joined by the people and the monks, who poured out of the chapter at the sound of Evrard’s exclamations. They crossed the town and came to the barred doors, which (after one fnal threat from Evrard) sprang open simultaneously with all the other gates of the city, allowing the people outside to engage with the spectacle they had come to see, the people inside to follow the relics out in an exit procession, and the monks to assert their right to move their relics as they wished. At both Centule and Leuconay, laypeople were portrayed as having an interest in the question of whether relics should or should not be moved, but the form this interest took was presented quite differently. In both cases, an anonymous collective of laypeople was depicted as preventing (at Centule) or demanding (at Leuconay) the movement of relics. Yet these representations of the laity ultimately aligned with the interests of both the relics’ curators and the hagiographers, in keeping with the hagiographical tendency

Lay responses to traveling relics

143

to contrast and isolate the “bad” behavior of an individual (Rainald) with a pious majority. These texts might be taken not as evidence for a baseline lay aversion to relic movement, but as indications of the different ways in which relic circulation could intersect with narratives about the saint’s presence, absence, reputation, and lordship.

Relic entries, exits, and the carnivalesque In telling their stories of contested departures, both Hariulf and the anonymous hagiographer of Leuconay give a sense of the drama and anticipation of the moments at which relics entered or exited a monastic or urban space. As described in Chapter 2, these exit/entry processions were the focus of signifcant ritual attention. As a special kind of event, the arrival, presence, and exit of a traveling relic could create an almost carnivalesque atmosphere.19 Hagiographers relied on tropes of inverted social behavior to communicate the sense of festive disruption surrounding a traveling relic’s arrival in a new place and the performance of miracles, as when Taurinus healed a group of fve women in the church of St-Nicetius in Lyon: At the story of such great miracles the entire city was transformed; those who before were absorbed by excessive sadness were made cheerful. The matrons, forgetting their sex and maturity, threw off their cloaks and hurried to the church; the young women, disregarding the tenderness of their age and virginal modesty, dropped their headdresses from their heads and ran quickly before the young men; the old men, exposing the defects of their hair, supported by their own and not another’s help, abandoned the weakness of their feet; the men and youths ran into each other, in vain they were overtaken in the street; monks and clerics clothed in different habits were seized by a similar desire. Taurinus was proclaimed by all, Taurinus was praised by each person.20 While meant to show lay enthusiasm and formal acclamation of Taurinus’ power to heal, these rhetorical images of a world turned upside down also suggest the excuses that might be made for normally transgressive social behavior in the atmosphere of intense emotion prompted by a relic’s visit. The most dramatic form of this inversion, from a male ecclesiastical perspective, was the recurring motif of women behaving as men. When an invalid woman heard the chaotic noise signaling that Amandus’ relics were going past and was suddenly healed, “not content to walk, as is the custom for women, running with rapid step she grabbed hold of the reliquary.”21 Similarly, when news arrived that Marculf’s relics had healed her young ward, the castellan Adelaide sprang out of bed and hurried to the church “with a manly spirit rather than a feminine step.”22 Even venerable and elderly abbots were supposedly not immune from the norm-breaking potential of a visiting relic. When Taurinus started performing miracles at Cluny,

144

En route

Abbot Hugh “faster of devotion than foot, prevented from running by monastic censure and personal maturity, nevertheless was not able to restrain himself, and ran a little bit.”23 In this sense, social chaos was a sign of success for traveling relics, since the impact of their activities had been enough to disrupt the normal order of things. At a Peace of God council, when a huge commotion was heard and everyone wondered what it could be, the countess Bertha quipped that it couldn’t be anything besides St. Faith “joking around,” that is, performing miracles.24 The line between pious celebration and other forms of communal disorder might be diffcult to discern. At Péronne, the outcry over Marculf’s miracles was so much like that of a riot (seditio) breaking out that the other half of the town came running to see what was going on. The saints themselves might actively support this level of world-turned-upsidedown disruption. After Ursmar’s relics arrived in Lille, a stepmother beat her stepdaughter severely for going out to meet them. She accused the girl of using the relic entry to pursue a romantic encounter with a young man under cover of devotion to the saint, suggesting that the turbulence of the occasion could have provided the necessary camoufage for such actions.25 But not in this case: the girl called on the saint to witness that she had been truly interested in seeing his relics, and the stepmother’s arm was paralyzed as she raised it to hit her, subverting their power dynamic and making Ursmar into a protector fgure. During such an extraordinary and celebratory time, the saints were not above inverting the norms of social hierarchy.26 Though genuine excitement and interest were doubtless a part of these events, hagiographers also actively promoted enthusiastic welcome of traveling relics as a means through which laypeople could particularly be rewarded for their devotion.27 The entry of Amandus’ relics into Tournai in 1107 was identifed as the critical restorative moment for one deaf layman.28 He had traveled to the city from a nearby village along with his neighbors to see the spectacle, and, because there was some delay in the relics’ arrival, had begun to eat lunch with them. Suddenly, the bells of the church rang to announce the entry, and he found that he could hear the sound as well as his companions. During the translation of Hiltrude’s relics, a sick man was informed in a dream that the relics were about to pass through his village and that he would receive healing by announcing them. Upon waking up, he demanded that his friends (who thought he was insane) lead him out to meet the relics. As they left the house, they heard the bells which were carried before the reliquary; he ran across the felds, lay underneath the relics, and was healed. As a result, both he and all the inhabitants of the village visited Hiltrude’s relics every year on the anniversary of their installation into the church with prayers and vows (and presumably donations).29 Other hagiographers, however, suggested that the entry of a saint’s relics might also be a time of danger for those unwilling to participate or who had somehow offended the saint. A girl in Conques whose hands had previously been healed by St. Faith was “unhealed” when she refused to stand up as

Lay responses to traveling relics

145

30

Faith’s reliquary exited the monastery to leave on a journey. When Amandus’ relics arrived in Douai, a woman who tried to leave her house to welcome them was suddenly paralyzed; the hagiographer Gislebert claimed that he did not know why “she was not found worthy to run out to the saint,” but speculated that she may have blasphemed against him without performing appropriate penance.31 Furthermore, the lay decision to assemble as a joyful crowd was not detached from social and political control. Despite the extensive descriptions of lay ecstasy accompanying Marculf’s sojourn in Péronne, the participation of the citizens in the procession to send the relics off out of the city was explicitly required by ecclesiastical and secular authorities: Therefore through the entire city, by the order of the nobles and of the canons [of St-Fursey] it was proclaimed by a crier in a loud voice that all the people should prepare to accompany the return of the generous patron the next day.32 Were other joyous crowds assembled in response to a formal order? Other texts do not mention a similar mandate, but the approach of relics was generally expected and announced ahead of time.33 Although the fact that their participation was required does not necessarily imply unwillingness on the part of the people of Péronne to honor Marculf, it does call into question the picture of “spontaneous” lay enthusiasm for traveling relics. The arrival of a relic thus offered a spectrum of possibilities to the lay inhabitants—the opportunity for chaotic, temporary release from social constraints, but matched with an expectation of submission to earthly and saintly authority. As Geoffrey Koziol noted, creating this special feld of action was key to the peacemaking activities of the monks of Lobbes who traveled with the relics of Ursmar. As “experts… in using ritual and ceremony to create the right atmosphere,” the monks drew on their status as outsiders to construct dramatic liturgical scenes in which they could actively promote peace oaths and the resolution of feuds in the communities they visited.34 Yet their activities were not unilateral; the relics’ arrival opened opportunities for dramatic action on the part of laypeople, as with the young man at Lissewege who threw himself at the feet of the lord whose brothers he had killed.35 His actions provoked a three-hour standoff that only came to an end when Ursmar’s reliquary, placed on the ground, began to levitate and smoke. The theatrics of this moment strike to the heart of what a mobile relic (and its companions) had to offer to laypeople in the locations it visited: the chance to make use of the special moment for their own purposes.

Access and opportunity Relic movement was often justifed as a gift of access to the laity; a special concession that allowed more people to view and touch the reliquary in a crowded situation. As Sigal showed, the transportation of a reliquary to a nearby feld

146

En route

or open space was generally part of a central medieval translation/elevation ceremony in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. While the initial phase was held indoors and restricted to a few clerical and lay elite participants (the justifcations for the exclusion of the public at large at this stage included outright hostility to the idea of “casting pearls before swine”), in the second phase of the translation ceremony the relics were exposed to the people, at times in the church or, more frequently, outside.36 As Ursio of Hautmont did for his translation of St. Marcellus, medieval hagiographers used images of overwhelming attendance at translations to signify universal enthusiasm for the saint; during the translation of St. Lazare, lay lords used violence to clear a path through the crowd of people to allow the relics to get outside.37 These stories were intended to reinforce the impression that laypeople were eager, even desperate, for the temporary increased access that these occasions provided and would travel to a translation hoping to gain a good look or even a piece of the relics themselves. Some saints were portrayed as sympathetic to these pious desires; a woman who wanted a piece of St. Wigbert of Gembloux but was unable to fght her way forward through the crowd miraculously found a tooth of the saint deposited in her hand.38 But even in these apparently unrestricted situations, the saints were supposed to maintain some level of control—during the same elevation, another woman was unable to see the relics like everyone else until she confessed her sins; visual access, like physical access, theoretically rested within the saint’s power to withhold or confer.39 Despite these supernatural safeguards, practical realities meant that removing relics from an interior space made them more accessible. Within a church, the experience of a medieval layperson encountering a reliquary was mediated and controlled. It was also contingent on being allowed access to the interior space in the frst place. Women in particular were excluded from some male monasteries and cathedrals (or certain spaces within them), most famously in the case of St. Cuthbert at Durham, and embittered or lazy custodians might unilaterally decide to restrict lay access to shrines.40 While certain concessions might be made—Fleury built a special wooden structure outside the monastery so that Benedict’s relics could be moved outside on Sundays for women to visit—a relic inside could be partially protected from the eyes, lips, and fngers of the laity, especially laywomen.41 A relic outside, on the other hand, could be approached and touched relatively freely, as descriptions of crowds swarming around traveling reliquaries suggest. As Amandus’ relics returned home to Elnone, the crowd was so thick that those further away were reduced to kissing their hands and placing them on the reliquary in lieu of planting their lips directly.42 In some depictions of mobile relics, lay fgures lie underneath the reliquary but reach up as it passes over them, as in the image of Amandus’ funeral (Figure 3.3), emphasizing the openness of the reliquary to physical contact.43 The image of the supplicant reaching up to touch a traveling reliquary also had a late medieval vitriolic counterpart: anti-Semitic depictions of the Funeral of the Virgin at times

Lay responses to traveling relics

147

depicted the fgure of a Jewish man or men who had supposedly attempted to overturn the Virgin’s bier, but whose hands were then frozen onto the object.44 The iconographies of healing and attack aligned with each other in emphasizing that a sacred object carried outdoors was open to touch. Laypeople took advantage of these opportunities for physical interaction even when not expressly invited to do so. The carrying of Lewinna’s reliquary by lay devotees, both women and men, is a recurring theme in Drogo’s descriptions of the miracles worked on her journey. The frst person to receive a miracle during the trip, a woman named Bodera, carried the reliquary as she celebrated her healing.45 A man called Boldred at Leffnghe ran to the reliquary, took hold of it, and raised it aloft while calling out that others should “come, come, lift [it] with me, carry [it] with me.”46 A girl at Walacra held onto the reliquary as she formally swore her life to Lewinna; her death the following day was interpreted as the saint calling her to herself.47 These intimate, tactile experiences placed these laypeople into the position of personally elevating and celebrating the saint, and Drogo seemed interested in praising this familiar physical contact with the reliquary. The author of the miracles of St. Prudentius, Teobald, was more ambivalent about this possibility of direct and unrestricted lay (female) access. At Besançon, a woman dashed into the tent of the monks of Bèze and “irreverently but most devotedly” snatched up the arm reliquary of “Prudentius” (it was not actually his reliquary, as discussed below). Clutching it tightly, she cried and kissed it. The monks, fustered, asked who she was, where she was from, and why she was behaving this way. Stopping her husband from speaking for her, she insisted on telling her own story about being healed from a four-year-long illness while en route from her village, Membrey, to see Prudentius. This miraculous healing, she claimed, was her rationale for her boldness in “impudently” grabbing the reliquary. Her only sin was an excess of devotion! Perhaps recognizing that this was likely her last chance to do so, she took the opportunity to kiss the arm reliquary three or four times more before relinquishing it.48 Her impulse to seize the moment (and the reliquary) was not exceptional. Across accounts of relic journeys, we fnd laypeople engaging with mobile relics in both orthodox and innovative ways, and actively requesting or taking physical access. In one village a woman was able to handle Ursmar’s staff; she dipped it in holy water which she gave her sick son to drink after circling the reliquary with him three times.49 Amandus’ pastoral staff and his tooth were touched to a blind boy’s eyes at his mother’s request.50 As noted in Chapter 3, a castellan borrowed a reliquary from the canons of Laon in order to carry it, barefoot along with his knights, to a rival’s castle as a peacemaking gesture.51 And in a dramatic display of the possibilities of direct access, a laywoman threw her daughter into the path of St. Basolus’ relics during their annual movement to Reims. The porters were abruptly frozen in their tracks, to general shock, while the girl was miraculously healed. She then danced in front of the relics, like David welcoming the Ark to Jerusalem, as they continued on their way.52 Relic displacement lent

148 En route itself to different forms of access and public action, and laity both recognized that fact and capitalized on it. Temporary structures for relic display helped encourage these kinds of activities; because too many people wanted to be near to Amandus’ reliquary on its passage through Herlinkhove, it was taken out of the church to a nearby feld and put on a wooden structure with hanging curtains. This construction must have been table-like, since a woman was able to be placed underneath it.53 After the relics of saints Bertin, Richarius, and Walaricus were transported to the monastery of StOmer in response to terrifying omens, they were placed on stilts so that the population could pass under them as they entered the church.54 People also used relics’ movement to enable their own travel. Traveling relics acted as a draw for pilgrims to come to the locations where they were staying; a common claim was that not only the people of the town, but those of the neighboring villages fowed in to see the saint. Special group tours might even be organized: a priest led his entire congregation to Mâcon to encounter the relics of Taurinus.55 For some individuals, however, the journeys of relics offered them the chance to become travelers themselves and to take on new roles as a kind of witness for the saint. People who had received miracles might join the relic company, either temporarily or following them back to become permanent or semi-permanent members of the community. The theme is particularly evident in Hermann’s account of the trip from Laon in 1112. Two men asked to be carried to the relics of the Virgin as they rested in Issoudun; when they received the healing they wanted, they joined the group and came back to Laon, where they “daily [exhorted] the people to carry stones, bring water, and prepare cement for the work of the church.”56 After the church was fnished, one returned to Issoudun, the other remained in Laon and served in the hospital until his death 12 years later. At Tours, the company gained yet another member: a young man who followed them back to Laon and stayed for seven years.57 Ursmar’s company was joined by a young girl who followed them back to Lobbes, though it is uncertain whether or not she was able to stay attached to the male monastery or in what capacity. Her experience suggests why such activities were likely welcomed—because her prior illness had been so severe, her health was a silent witness to the saint’s power.58 But these lay individuals had made life-altering decisions as a result of the relic’s travel, leveraging the saint’s “inverse pilgrimage” into a pilgrimage of their own. At the same time, these decisions to join the traveling party were not always welcome; as the canons of Laon headed north on their second journey in order to embark for England, a young man named John was healed at the castle of Nesle. He followed them to the coast and wanted to cross with them, but the canons convinced him to go back.59 Another woman used the threat of joining Marculf’s trip to insist that the saint heal her. After keeping vigil by the reliquary for days unsuccessfully, as the relics left the city she began to cry out and insist that she would never leave him until he helped her and followed the reliquary out of town. Marculf, apparently not enthusiastic

Lay responses to traveling relics

149

about this prospect, gave her the desired miracle and she went back with the others.60 Marculf’s willingness to perform miracles while traveling also inspired some resentment in those left behind; a servant of Marculf named Robert traveled to meet the relics en route, complaining that the saint was performing all these miracles on his journey while ignoring his own people. Robert was not only healed, he joined the company as it traveled home, so that he walked before the reliquary on their return.61 A traveling relic could inspire and justify a cascade of other travels.

Saint who? Questioning and defance “Who is this ‘Marculf’?” asked a group of young men, wrinkling their noses in derision, as his relics entered the church of St-Fursey at Péronne.62 The fact that the hagiographer refers to them as “sons of Belial” makes his sentiments regarding their skepticism clear, but lay questioning regarding the identity and validity of specifc saints was not always discouraged or viewed in a negative light. Many saints’ cults were highly localized; only a very few saints could claim to be universally acknowledged and venerated.63 Moving a relic any signifcant distance created the problem that it might travel beyond the area within which the saint was known. The theme of doubt overcome was a powerful one; hagiographers wanted to tell stories in which competitors or antagonists were exposed and any lingering doubts about the saint’s identity and power laid to rest. This meant that lay questioning of relics might be presented as legitimate, warranted, and necessary rather than reprehensible, when relics were at home as well as when they were traveling. This was the case for the laymen who appear in the account of the translation of St. Sigibert at St-Martin’s of Metz in 1063. Sigibert’s sanctity was a subject of some doubt within the monastery itself; his name had been erased from the book of litanies by a dubious brother named Hugo, who was punished by the saint until he reinscribed him into the holy list.64 After the translation, a young monk prone to making jokes was questioned by a group of laymen; they asked him which of the events of the translation he had seen and what miracles had been performed by the saint in the monastery since. He responded “not without derision, that that same holy man was lying in the grave as if dead, with open mouth and bared teeth, and that he himself was thoroughly unaware, if he had done anything of virtue.”65 He then went insane and had to be carried to the saint’s tomb to confess and be healed. The moral of the story was that the saint would not tolerate mockery (a point reinforced by the closing Biblical citation: “he who spurns you, spurns me”), but the text presents the laymen’s requests for some kind of confrmation of Sigibert’s merits as entirely natural and expected. Laypeople were entitled to ask and be told: just who was the saint and what were they capable of? This indication that the onus was on a saint to prove their merit to a legitimately skeptical audience explains why lay doubt regarding relics on the road was not always condemned. The monks of St-Quentin of Beauvais, traveling

150 En route with the relics of St. Romana after 1073, requested that a group of local fshermen near Argenteuil either give or sell them fsh. Assistance, it turned out, was dependent on their relics’ identity and legitimacy, since “the fshermen frst questioned from where, and of what merit that holy body might be, and by which name it was called, then at length responded that that they had no fsh.”66 The scene implies that the monks of St-Quentin expected questions regarding their saint and that if they were not able to adequately establish Romana’s sanctity, no lay help could be expected. The account of Lewinna’s journey made this expectation explicit. When her reliquary reached the town of Leffnghe, “it was neither taken up nor honored by the inhabitants, because as they said, no one had heard of the name of this [saint] before in that place.”67 This embarrassing lack of an entry reception was blamed on the saint’s defcient reputation rather than the citizens’ unwillingness to honor her. After the relics had been placed in the church without the beneft of a welcome, one of the monks warned Lewinna that if she did not prove herself by performing miracles, she would be carried back to the monastery in dishonor. Though these stories were told in the service of narratives of redemption (eventually, Romana provided fsh and Lewinna performed miracles), the laypeople involved were presented as justifed in their skepticism—only powerful saints deserved honor and donations. At the same time, Ursmar’s hagiographer praised the people at Blaringhem who were respectful of his reliquary despite not yet knowing the saint’s identity: “they knew clearly enough who lay on the ground among them, even if they did not know him.”68 Respect for the saint could hopefully precede an exact identifcation. Reliquaries provided a visual means for laypeople who recognized them to vouch for their identity and validity, as with the blind goldsmith of Arras who testifed to the contents of the reliquary he had constructed, as discussed in Chapter 3.69 The expectation that laypeople would pay attention to the physical form and location of a reliquary as a means to equate it with a saint, and then use that knowledge to authenticate it to others, is perhaps clearest in an episode where that process failed. The monks of Bèze carried an icon of St. Peter along with numerous other reliquaries to a council at Besançon in 1124. While they were there, one of their reliquaries (a silver arm) was “recognized” by the laypeople who visited their tent as a reliquary of Prudentius, since they had seen it hanging in his church in Bèze. In reality, the monks had not brought any relics of Prudentius along, supposedly for fear they would be stolen. Despite this fact, they did not bother to inform the groups who came to view the reliquary of “Prudentius” of their mistake and had no qualms about both encouraging veneration of Prudentius and attributing the miracles performed to him.70 The woman who grabbed and kissed the arm reliquary, as described above, fully believed herself to be honoring Prudentius as the saint who had healed her. The cleric who attested to the veracity of her healing seems to have been more cautious, quite justifably given the circumstances: he said that he could confrm that the woman was healed,

Lay responses to traveling relics

151

71

but cautioned that he did not know either the monks or their saint. The monks’ lack of candor aside, this case of mistaken identity suggests that laypeople actively viewed, identifed, and authenticated relics and reliquaries for one another based on their own experiences and knowledge. One could not be too sure in “a world of trickery and scepticism” acknowledged by clergy and laity alike.72 These forms of lay inquiry about relics must be understood as a background to more dramatic hagiographical stories of mockery and defance. Some members of the laity, given the same possibilities for access and public action as those who chose to engage in veneration, instead decided to express doubt or unwillingness to participate. Some attacked the validity of the relics themselves, claiming that they were not authentic or that the miracles they performed were false. Others chose to actively resist the economic and political power of the saint (and their representatives) by openly refusing them service or veneration, though without denying their identity or the authenticity of their relics. Although lay critique could and did exist when relics were stationary, the movement of a relic might prompt these public or private reactions. Just as the acceptance and welcome of a visiting relic might be performed communally or individually, so too rejection might be presented as one person’s expressed opinion or a unifed front. A man in Mâcon, chided by his neighbor for using candles to study at night that should have been given to Taurinus, cried out that the miracles done by the saint were not true miracles.73 An entire village (Lehenna) criticized Taurinus as unworthy of attention; when the monks arrived with their relics, the inhabitants ran them out of town on a rail: The sons of Belial, having hearts hardened in evil, not only did not want to show due reverence to the saint of God, but expelled him ignominiously from their boundaries. They afficted the brothers who were carrying him, flled with honesty, with every kind of insult. And threatening the brothers that they should not have entered their territory with impunity, and that they would justly pay the penalty, [the villagers] wanted to make good on their words by their actions.74 These stories were told, of course, as cautionary tales: the night-reader’s throat swelled up so much he was unable to drink consecrated wine and died; the inhabitants of Lehenna were punished with a hailstorm and begged the saint for forgiveness. But they illuminate the very real danger from the monks’ perspective that laypeople simply would not care about their relics or, even worse, openly mock and attack them. These were problems exacerbated by being on the road; like tourists caught with the wrong currency, if the saint’s name and validity were not accepted by the local inhabitants the situation could become diffcult, as with the monks of Marchiennes who stripped the silver off Eusebia’s reliquary to pay for their passage home.75

152 En route The fear of those organizing a relic’s journey, who had invested time and effort into the event as a key moment for access and acclaim, was that lay reactions would instead be similar to that of one farmer. Encouraged by his wife to come see the procession of Vivianus’ relics to Figeac, he scoffed that it was a better idea to keep working than to go see the “the bones of some dead person, which have been collected together and which foolish opinion venerates.”76 If the assembly of a lay crowd consumed with desire to venerate the saint was the hoped-for outcome of a relic’s displacement, apathy and disdain were the responses most feared. Perhaps the most telling moments of lay critique, however, are the situations like that faced by the tavern keeper’s daughter with which this chapter began. In these cases, the saint’s identity or power were not necessarily at issue; rather, it was the saint’s lordship and their economic as well as their spiritual prerogatives that came under fre. As a (living) lord might demand reverence, so too might the saints insist upon the obedience of their subordinates: Another time that same body [of Marius] was carried by the same monks to a place of his possession called Glenat. It happened there that a certain rustic, ignorant of the reverence and fear of the saint that it is necessary to have, began to deride the transportation of the holy body, and to complain of the veneration that should be exhibited to it, with stupid and impudent words. But immediately he gouged out his own eye with his sickle, which he held in his hand, and too late he realized what reverence he ought to have for St. Marius, and that the veneration exhibited to that saint is not to be derided.77 Joy at a saint’s arrival was again presented as not optional, and the “fear” of the saint was perhaps not simply a synonym for devotion. It is signifcant that the unfortunate man seems to have questioned not only Marius’ veneration, but his transportation; it indicates that the relic’s movement was perceived as linked to a demand for devotion. The appearance of a saint’s relics in a village, often presented as a concession in response to lay desire, here takes on the character of an imposition and a veiled threat. Given these undertones of authority and domination, what better moment could there be to publicly and dramatically denounce a saint than during the transportation of their relics? The same expansion of access and ritual possibilities that enabled creative lay activities in celebration of the saint, like the woman who threw her daughter in the path of Basolus’ relics, also opened the door to those with very different projects in mind. During the same procession of Basolus’ relics (though a different year), a man named Dominicus denied his subservience to the saint in spectacular fashion: Between the groups preceding and following [the reliquary], those in the middle were speaking together about the virtues of the holy man, but Satan was present among them. For when certain people (a not

Lay responses to traveling relics

153

insignifcant number) celebrated victory, because in that place they had remained from the beginning on the side of the great protector, a certain fag-bearer of insanity broke in among us, a Lotharingian, a lover of fckleness and pride, named Dominicus, but certainly diabolical in this case. When he had made himself higher than our men, he proclaimed that he did not want to ever serve or be subject to the saint…78 Dominicus’ declaration that he would not serve Basolus was not the kind of pronouncement that medieval saints or their representatives looked kindly on, and the text claims that he was suddenly stricken by a demonic attack and unable to move his hands or feet. Dominicus’ actions were different from those who questioned traveling relics’ identity or the validity of the saint’s miracles; he challenged the saint without denying his power. But in choosing a moment in which the relics were both outside their normal context and highly public to mount his act of resistance, Dominicus was acknowledging the vulnerability that accompanied such occasions. The same processes that exposed relics to spectacular demonstrations of veneration also exposed them to the spectacle of revolt against the saints’ authority.

Conclusion Relics and their curators needed the validation and economic support that lay acknowledgment and devotion provided, a fact that could become more immediate when they were on the road. Those who came on pilgrimage to view relics “at home” were to some extent a self-selected audience; conversely, a traveling relic encountered those who might have had little or no prior interest in it. The hagiographical praise of the laymen and women who took advantage of a traveling saint’s vulnerability to express their loyalty (or at least, willingness to be convinced of their sanctity), and the vindictive abuse of those who did not, should be understood not as an indication of the absolute power of the cult of relics over the lay imagination but as an admission of its weaknesses. Relic movement invited increased lay attention to relics, but their authority as sacred objects did not always hold up under that scrutiny. Surely many of the people who gathered to welcome and venerate traveling relics were motivated by religious sentiment and (for those seeking miracles) the hope of supernatural assistance. Yet devotion was not the only possible response, nor was apathy or resistance. The emotions and thoughts of those who publicly participated in the cult of relics were as complicated as the cult of relics itself, and we can see their ideas and impressions only imperfectly through the lens of texts that they did not produce. The movement of a relic, however, seems to have opened up different felds for lay action around a mobile reliquary and, given the potential for confict, increased the likelihood that lay agency would be acknowledged and commemorated.

154

En route

Notes 1 Ursio of Hautmont, “Miracula s. Marcelli,” MGH SS XV.2, 802. “provenerunt omnia plenissime, excepta vini libatione, quae salebras relevando et curas expellendo hominum solet corda laetifcare.” 2 Ibid. “Sed Balduinus quidam parvipendens contradictionem eius, cum vim foribus inferre vellet laetabundus…” 3 Steven Vanderputten, “Itinerant Lordship. Relic Translations and Social Change in Eleventh- and Twelfth-Century Flanders,” French History 25, no. 2 (June 1, 2011): 143–63. 4 Ursio of Hautmont, “Miracula s. Marcelli,” 801. “monachalis, clericalis et popularis processio… quasi imperatoria expeditio.” 5 Though the laity also noticed and criticized the clear relationship between promotion of saints’ cults and economic gain. Robert Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things?: Saints and Worshippers from the Martyrs to the Reformation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013), 598–99. 6 Jacques de Vitry, Historia occidentalis, ed. John Frederick Hinnebusch, Spicilegium Friburgense 17 (Fribourg: The University Press, 1972), 105. “Isti enim, velut vulpes dolose et fetantes et fodientes in terra, domesticus avibus insidiabantur, laicis scilicet et ydiotis et nimis credulis mulieribus.” 7 Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things?, 596. 8 Hariulf, Chronique de l’abbaye de Saint Riquier (Ve siècle-1104), ed. Ferdinand Lot (Paris: A. Picard et fls, 1894), 277. “Maximus ille dolor, monachorum pessimus horror, / Vocibus excessit, vox laetitiaque recessit, / Conticuit cantus, mox coepit surgere planctus; / Sternuntur monachi, memorantur tempora Daci / Qui combusserunt, qui non combusta tulerunt / Esse sibi melius quam quoquam tollere sanctum.” 9 Ibid. “Eheu! quid facimus, scelus hoc per quanta subimus? / Hic noster dominus caelebs Pater almus opimus,/ Qui semper fuerat sic dives nec peregrinus, Dimittit sedem, viduabit claustra et aedem / Et mendicabit, alienas res habitabit? / Haec sua stat tellus, nobis manet ipse novellus / Carior almifuus qui protegit omne patronus;/ Et dimittemus non dando quidquid habemus?” 10 In a similar story, in 1137 the relics of St. Firminus (martyr) of Amiens were miraculously immobilized as they were sent out of the city. The citizens’ supposed outcry on this occasion also expressed the belief that the relics’ departure would deprive the city of the saint’s protection: “Cur nos pater, deseris, aut cui nos desolatos relinquis? Heu! de tua absentia major erit nobis molestia, quam de bonis, quae juste nobis divina abstulit sententia.” Amiens BM 112, fol. 290; AASS Sep. VII, 40; Durand, Monographie de l’église Notre-Dame, cathédrale d’Amiens, I:11. As at Centule, the incident was only “resolved” when the inhabitants of the city promised to make up the budget shortfall themselves. 11 Reinhold Kaiser, “Quêtes itinérantes avec reliques pour fnancer la construction des églises (XIe-XIIe siècles),” Le Moyen Âge 101, no. 2 (1995): 224. “Une autre critique fondamentale de cette coutume était d’y voir un forme de mendicité. Les habitants de Saint-Riquier trouverent insupportable que les patron du monastére et de la ville soit transporté à travers le pays pour mendier.” 12 Geoffrey Koziol, Begging Pardon and Favor: Ritual and Political Order in Early Medieval France (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992); Gerd Althoff, Family, Friends and Followers: Political and Social Bonds in Medieval Europe (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004). 13 Hariulf, Chronique, 277–78. “aeternum opprobrium reputantes si sanctus longius efferretur.” 14 Thomas Ledru, “Hariulf de Saint-Riquier: un moine historien de la fn du XIe siècle,” Questes. Revue pluridisciplinaire d’études médiévales, no. 36 (June 20, 2017): 23; John Ott, Bishops, Authority and Community in Northwestern Europe,

Lay responses to traveling relics

15

16

17 18

19 20

155

c.1050–1150, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought, Fourth Series 102 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 229–30. Hariulf’s transition from full-throated condemnation of the abbot to the story of the prevented relic journey is abrupt: Hariulf, Chronique, 276. “Miracula s. Walarici,” AASS Apr. I, 29–30. I have been unable to trace the manuscript used by the Bollandists; this text stands as a peculiar addition to Walaricus’ hagiographical tradition. I have found no reference to Faucourt in the charters of St-Valéry, but the monks of St-Valéry were also notorious forgers (to the extent of having Roland and Olivier listed as witnesses to a faux charter from Charlemagne). “Miracula s. Walarici,” 29. “…non decere monachos aliquid illicite perpetrare, suumque patronum minus discrete a sede propria removere.” The dating of the text depends on who, exactly, this Rainald actually was. The language of the text and particularly the specifcations that the town of St-Valéry had a wall surrounding it that could be effectively locked, and that Rainald had a castle to hide the keys in, suggests that this was not the tenth-century Renauld but the crusader Renauld of St-Valéry. The fact that a journey “for” property management also carried the expectations of donations further suggests that the commercial outcomes of a relic journey were not reducible to its stated motivations. Ibid. “Cave, inquit, cave tibi, Walarice, nisi hodie tuum in hac villa ostenderis dominium, huic verberandus baculo subiacebis.” The hagiographer clearly intended this to be humorous, as Evrard himself calls attention to his physical weakness as he brandishes his cane at the saint; the Bollandists were a bit taken aback by these physical threats and concluded that Everard, in his simple but frm faith, was engaging in hyperbole. St. Faith’s reliquary was also threatened with physical punishment by her faithful: Auguste Bouillet, ed., “Liber miraculorum sancte Fidis,” in Collection de textes pour servir à l’étude et à l’enseignement de l’histoire, vol. 21 (Paris: Alphonse Picard et fls, 1897), 67. As Bartlett describes for the fourteenth-century annual procession of St. Amalberga: Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things?, 297. “Circumvectio corporis sancti Taurini,” AASS Aug. II, 654. Ad relationem tantorum miraculorum civitas tota permutatur: funt alacres, quos antea nimia tristitia sorbuerat: matronae, sexus et maturitatis suae oblitae, rejectis palliis, ad ecclesiam properant: adolescentulae teneritudinem aetatis et virgineum pudorem postponentes, demissis discriminalibus capitis sui, citius adolescentibus praecurrunt: senes vitia capillorum suorum detegentes, proprio, non alieno, adminiculo roborati, pedum suorum segnitiem abjiciunt: viri et juvenes in semetipsos impingentes, viam ab invicem frustra occupari causantur: monachi et clerici dissimili induti cultu, simili rapiuntur desiderio: ab omnibus Taurinus praedicatur, a singulis Taurinus laudatur.

21 “Miracula s. Amandi corpore per Franciam deportato,” AASS Feb. I, 896. “inde non contenta incedere, ut est mos mulieribus, rapto cursu accurrens arripit feretrum.” 22 “Miracula s. Marculf Peronae facta,” AASS May VII, 536. “magis virili animo quam incessu femineo.” 23 “Circumvectio corporis sancti Taurini,” 651. “licet censura monastica et personalis maturitas cursum prohibeat, tamen non potuit sibi imperare, quin aliquantulum curreret.” 24 Bouillet, “Liber miraculorum sancte Fidis,” 72–73. 25 “Miracula s. Ursmari in circumlatione per Flandriam.” AASS Apr. II, 574. 26 Though the abbot of Corbie denounced the secular dances and chaotic fun that accompanied the traditional Amiens-Corbie meeting; Chapter 4.

156

En route

27 An earlier version of this material has been published as Kate M. Craig, “The Saint at the Gate: Giving Relics a ‘Royal Entry’ in Eleventh- to Twelfth-Century France,” in Authority and Spectacle in Medieval and Early Modern Europe: Essays in Honor of Teoflo F. Ruiz, ed. Yuen-Gen Liang and Jarbel Rodriguez (New York: Routledge, 2017), 124–28. 28 “Miracula s. Amandi in itinere bragbantino,” AASS Feb. I, 900–1. 29 “Vita s. Hiltrudis,” AASS Sept. VII, 499. 30 Bouillet, “Liber miraculorum sancte Fidis,” 50–51. 31 “Miracula s. Amandi corpore per Franciam deportato,” 898. “nescio cui reatui obnoxia, nonest inuenta sancto occurrere digna.” 32 “Miracula s. Marculf Peronae facta,” 538. “Per totum ergo oppidum, jussu principis et canonicorum, magna voce praeconis edicitur, ut plebs universa ad deducendum patroni tam liberalis in crastino reditum accingatur…” 33 Hugh of Cluny did order the villagers of Cluny to run out to welcome the relics of Taurinus; Chapter 2. 34 Geoffrey Koziol, “Monks, Feuds and the Making of Peace in Eleventh-Century Flanders,” in The Peace of God: Social Violence and Religious Response, ed. Thomas Head and Richard Landes (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992), 245. 35 “Miracula s. Ursmari in circumlatione per Flandriam,” 577. 36 Pierre-André Sigal, “Le déroulement des translations de reliques principalement dans les régions entre Loire et Rhin aux XIe et XIIe siècles,” in Les reliques: Objets, cultes, symboles, ed. Anne-Marie Helvétius and Edina Bozóky (Turnhout: Brepols, 1999), 225. 37 Ibid., 224 note 25. 38 “Elevatio s. Wigberti Abbatis Gemblacensis,” MGH SS VIII, 518. 39 Ibid. These motifs of visibility/invisibility of the relics themselves foreshadow the development of transparent reliquaries through which the relics could be seen. In contrast, nighttime exhumations in England “protected” relics from being viewed too openly: Robyn Malo, Relics and Writing in Late Medieval England (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013), 61–68. 40 On restrictions of access to relics, particularly based on gender: Anne E. Bailey, “Modern and Medieval Approaches to Pilgrimage, Gender and Sacred Space,” History and Anthropology 24, no. 4 (December 1, 2013): 493–512; Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things?, 261–62; Robyn Malo, “The Pardoner’s Relics (and Why They Matter the Most),” The Chaucer Review 43, no. 1 (July 16, 2008): 87; Jane Tibbetts Schulenburg, “Gender, Celibacy, and Proscriptions of Sacred Space,” in Women’s Space: Patronage, Place and Gender in the Medieval Church, ed. Virginia Chieffo Raguin and Sarah Stanbury (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005), 185–205; Julia Smith, “L’accès des femmes aux saintes reliques durant le haut Moyen Âge,” trans. Stéphane Lebecq and Dominique Iogna-Prat, Médiévales, no. 40 (2001): 83–100. On the specifc case of St. Cuthbert at Durham as a “misogynist” saint: Bill Aird, “The Boundaries of Medieval Misogyny: Gendered Urban Space in Medieval Durham,” in Frontiers and Identities: Cities in Regions and Nations, ed. Lud’a Klusáková and Laure Teulières (Pisa: Edizioni Plus; Pisa University Press, 2008, 49–73; Victoria Tudor, “The Misogyny of St Cuthbert,” Archaeologia Aeliana, 5, no. 12 (1984): 157–67. 41 Eugène de Certain, ed., “Les miracles de Saint Benôit” (Paris: Jules Renouard, 1858), 65. 42 Gislebert, “Carmen de incendio s. Amandi Elnonensis,” MGH SS XI, 427. 43 Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things?, 243. 44 Carlee A. Bradbury, “Dehumanizing the Jew at the Funeral of the Virgin Mary in the Thirteenth Century (c. 1170–c. 1350),” in Christians and Jews in Angevin England: The York Massacre of 1190, Narratives and Contexts, ed. Sarah Rees Jones and Sethina Watson (Rochester: Boydell & Brewer, 2013). 45 “Translatio s. Lewinnae,” AASS Jul. V, 623.

Lay responses to traveling relics

157

46 Ibid., 624. “Venite, venite, mecum sustollite, una mecum portate.” 47 Ibid., 624–25. 48 “Passio, translationes, miracula s. Prudentii,” AASS Oct. III, 371. “haec tota ratio, qua gloriosum illud tam impudenter expetivi brachium; venialis temeritas; non nimium grave ducitur, quod devotione peccatur.” 49 “Miracula s. Ursmari in itinere per Flandriam facta,” AASS Apr. II, 577. 50 “Miracula s. Amandi corpore per Franciam deportato,” 898. Only Amandus’ reliquary (loculum) is referenced elsewhere in the text; apparently the monks were carrying multiple objects related to Amandus, though the text gives the impression overall that a single reliquary was being carried. 51 Hermann of Tournai, “Miracula s. Mariae Laudunensis,” 969. 52 “Miracula s. Basoli,” CCH Paris, vol. III (Paris: Picard, 1893), 219–20. Sigal, L’homme et le miracle, 39. 53 “Miracula s. Amandi in itinere bragbantino,” 901. “ac sub aere nudo, lignea structura cortinis circumpendentibus decenter aptata, super collocatum.” This access also created an opportunity for a special open-air miracle, as a bright white ring of light appeared above the saint. 54 “Gesta abbatum sancti Bertini,” MGH SS XIII: 631. “Post hoc sanctorum corpora ad Sancti Audomari monasterium sunt delata atque in introitu eccelesiae ad hominis staturam trabibus superelevata, sub ea populorum in ecclesia subintrabant agmina.” 55 “Circumvectio corporis sancti Taurini,” 652. 56 Hermann of Tournai, “Miracula s. Mariae Laudunensis,” PL 156, 968. “fratres nostros subsecuti sunt redeuntes usque Laudunum, et ad ecclesiae opus ad lapides portandos, ad aquam deferendam, ad caementum praeparandum quotidie exhortabantur populum.” 57 Ibid., 970. St. Romana also gained a lifelong servant as a result of her relics’ movement: “Passio et translatio s. Romanae anno 1069,” AASS Oct. II, 139. 58 “Miracula s. Ursmari in circumlatione per Flandriam,” 578. 59 Hermann of Tournai, “Miracula s. Mariae Laudunensis,” 974. 60 “Miracula s. Marculf Peronae facta,” 538. 61 Ibid. 62 “Miracula s. Marculf Peronae facta,” 535. “Nonnulli vero juvenum, flii Belial, levitatis turbine et vecordiae scurrilitate agitati, garrulis vocibus insultando ac rugosis naribus alterutrum irridendo subsannabant; quisnam fuerit iste Marculfus, ludibrio inquirentes” 63 Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things?, 129–32. 64 On litanies and the ranks of the saints, Chapter 4. 65 “Translatio s. Sigeberti anno 1063 et miracula,” AASS Feb. I, 237–38. Ille ad haec (quoniam, sicut ait apostolus, animalis homo non percipit quae sunt Domini Spiritus: spiritualis autem omnia, etiam secreta ventris, inuestigare dignoscitur) respondit non sine irrisionibus, quod idem sanctus vir ita iaceret in tumulo, sicut mortuus, aperto ore et nudatis dentibus, seseque ignorare penitus, si aliquando quidquam virtutis fuisset operatus. Doubts regarding Sigibert’s sanctity were an ongoing theme of accounts of his translations, both this initial one in 1063 and a second in 1170. 66 “Passio et translatio s. Romanae anno 1069,” AASS Oct. II, 139–40. Cum autem alumnos sanctae virginis et extensum iter, et prolixius jejunium indulgere sibi largiore refectione admonerent, egressi ad vicini fuminis ripam piscatores, quos de navicula egredientes conspiciunt, ut sibi pisces pro amore sancti corporis, quod secum deferebant, tribuerent aut venderent, postulabant. Qui prius sciscitantes unde, et cujus meriti esset sanctum illud corpus, et quo nomine diceretur; tandem responderunt, se neque pisces habere…

158 En route 67 “Translatio s. Lewinnae,” AASS Jul. V, 623–24. “Venitur ad ecclesiam, ubi ab incolis nec suscipitur nec honoratur, quippe cujus nomen ante hac ne quidem, ut dicebant, illic audiebatur.” 68 “Miracula s. Ursmari in circumlatione per Flandriam,” AASS Apr. II, 575. Translation here is from Geoffrey Koziol, “The Miracles of St. Ursmer on His Journey through Flanders,” in Medieval Hagiography: An Anthology, Garland Reference Library of the Humanities, vol. 1942 (New York: Garland Pub, 2000), 347.”Stupuerunt, oculos humiliter omnes demiserunt, et quis inter eos delatus fuerit, etiamsi nescirent satis patenter ipsa sua continentia ostenderunt.” 69 Chapter 3, note 45. 70 “Passio, translationes, miracula s. Prudentii,” 371. Videntes autem, qui confuxerant, argenteum brachium, quod saepenumero apud Besuam in ecclesia Prudentiana viderant, arbitrati sunt, adventasse Prudentium; et ob id conglobatim ad nostrum proruebant tentorium: sed ibi profecto nichil ejusdem Sancti, nisi nomen et virtus erat: non ob aliud tamen, nisi uti ne violenter nobis auferrentur beatae reliquiae, sicut olim factum constat. Nam fama est, illum quondam a Besuensibus, ad ipsum locum pro re simili delatum, multisque ibidem virtutibus declaratum, Chrisopolitanos vi detinuisse, sed postmodum, Deo volente, coactos reddidisse. 71 Ibid. “non novi monachos istos, nescio Sanctum eorum, sed hanc certissime hodie sanatam perspicio.” 72 Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things?, 599. 73 “Circumvectio corporis sancti Taurini,” 652. “non esse vera miracula, quae ab eo febant.” 74 “Circumvectio corporis sancti Taurini,” 653. tamquam flii Belial, corda in malum indurata habentes, non solum Sancto Dei debitam reverentiam exhibere noluerunt, sed eum ignominiose a fnibus suis exterminarunt: Fratres, honestate refertos, qui eum deferebant, omni genere contumeliarum affecerunt; et comminantes eis, quod non impune fnes suos intrassent, et quod poenas eis juste daturi essent, verbis facta compensare voluerunt. 75 Chapter 3, note 39. 76 Translation from Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things?, 600. 77 “Vita et miracula s. Marii (Liber II),” AASS Jun. II, 123–24. Alia vice idem corpus ab eisdem monachis est delatum in locum suae possessionis vocabulo Glenadum. Accidit illic ut quidam rusticus, reverentiae sanctis habendae ac timoris ignarus, deportationem illam sacri corporis, atque expostulationis exhibendae illi venerationis, stultis deridere coepisset ac procacibus verbis; sed hic continuo falce, quam gerebat manu, oculum sibimet evulsit; et quae s. Mario reverentia esset habenda, quodque exhibita illi veneratio non deridenda, sero cognovit. 78 “Miracula s. Basoli,” CCH Paris, vol. III (Paris: Picard, 1893), 219. inter praecedentium et subsequentium turmas medii de virtutibus sancti viri colloquerentur, affuit inter eos etiam satan. Nam cum quidam, quorum non parva erat multitudo, triumpharent, eo quod ab origine sub tanti protectoris parte consisterent, inrupit inter nos insaniae signifer quidam, genere Lotharingus, levitatis et arrogantiae gloriator, nomine quidem Dominicus, re autem vera diabolicus. Qui dum excelsiorem nostris hominibus se faceret, se autem nec velle umquam servire sanctis proclameret nec subici…

Part three

Afterlives

6

Relic circulation and the landscape

Fields, houses, pastures, cities, villages, ridges, valleys And the entire region for this reason, remain full with gifts. Thus what we read concerning Christ, is restored in [Amandus]: Mountains and hills will chant praise to you And the trees of the woods applaud at your coming. [Isaiah 55:12]1

Central medieval monasteries and their inhabitants had intense economic interest in the land surrounding them, and relic journeys were part of their toolbox of strategies to pursue that interest. Multiple monastic houses engaged in repeated relic journeys as an apparently effective practice through which to assert their property claims against their lay neighbors—for example, Stephen Vanderputten has tracked how the dispute-related relic-moving activities at Marchiennes and greater Flanders waxed and waned with their ability to pursue legal cases through other means.2 Relic movement clearly linked the persona of the saint to the economic world as a possessor and lord. Yet strident monastic claims about the depredation and theft of church property have increasingly been recognized as social strategies performed in the context of larger economic relationships with lay landholders, though these strategies varied depending on the house and the context.3 While hagiographers and chroniclers presented central medieval property as ownable, alienable, and thus constantly under threat of “depredation,” transfers of property and their documentation functioned as constantly renegotiated links between monasteries, the saints, and their donor networks. Land, in this sense, was not valuable for its economic value alone but also for its role in defning the relationships a monastery might develop with its neighbors. This more nuanced view of central medieval monastic property invites us to take a broader approach to the question of the relationship between a saint and the landscape as refected and reinforced by relic journeys. As the stanza above from Gislebert’s verse description of the 1066 journey of Amandus’ relics suggests, the relationship between a saint’s relics and the world they passed through was not reducible to simple domination and

162 Afterlives possession. The verse immediately preceding Gislebert’s quotation is Isaiah 55:11, which promises that the “word” being sent out will not return empty, but prosper. Perhaps Gislebert did have in mind the fact that Amandus’ relics had also not returned to Elnone empty-handed, but had “prospered” by receiving donations and acclaim. Yet at the same time he also imagined the traveling relics being welcomed by the landscape itself, human and natural features alike. In return, the saint’s spiritual power imbued the places his relics moved through. These two visions of the saint in the world—of relic movement as an economic act tied to the monastery’s fnancial interest, and relic movement as a spiritual act which injected the world with the saint’s presence—do not need to be considered separately from one another. Relic movement, whatever its goal, could inscribe signifcance onto the landscape. Physical landmarks might be created in the wake of a relic’s journey, but meaning-making also happened through the promotion of ideas about sacred territory and holy geographies that were created and reinforced through relic movement, as Karen Overbey has shown in the case of certain portable Irish objects.4 Landscape was a cultural product as much a physical reality.5 As archaeologists have long argued, it is human stories and experiences that make places subjective and meaningful, which in fact transform them from “spaces” to “places,” as Christopher Tilley wrote: Spatial experience is not innocent and neutral, but invested with power relating to age, gender, social position and relationships with other. Because space is differentially understood and experienced it forms a contradictory and confict-ridden medium through which individuals act and are acted upon. The experience of space is always shot through with temporalities, as spaces are always created, reproduced, and transformed in relation to previously constructed spaces provided and established from the past. Spaces are intimately related to the formation of biographies and social relationships.6 Thinking in terms of landscape means that texts describing relic journeys should not be taken only as simple itineraries, but also as arguments about places and their relationships to the people and objects moving through them. Moving relics through the world “created, reproduced, and transformed” spaces, in ways which served to bond the saints to the areas they traveled through posthumously and to map out a topography of past and present sanctity. While it is easy to envision a central medieval world passively dotted with communities retelling stories of miracles performed by a saint’s relics and crosses marking the locations of those miracles, projects of commemoration (whether texts or physical markers) were active strategies that worked to use the saint, their personal history, and their relics’ movement to write meaning onto the physical world. In the process, they blurred or erased the supposed boundaries between the legal, the economic, and the spiritual.

Relic circulation and the landscape 163

Marking passage Perhaps the most obvious imprint of a saint’s passage through the landscape was the creation of secondary sacred sites where the relics had visited or rested. The logic underlying this possibility was the ability of relics to create other relics through physical contact, which would “contaminate” the new object with some of the saint’s power.7 While many contact relics were objects that had been physically close to the saint while they were alive (tunics, staffs, shoes, beds, etc.), in theory any object which had touched the saint, living or dead, could obtain some sacred power. As with the bier on which Philibert’s sarcophagus was carried, these objects could then become mobile themselves.8 A relic’s travels moved this infectious power into the larger world, and so trees, pools, and the ground itself could become contact relics. The creation of these kinds of sites is a recurring feature of both translation and journey accounts.9 After Taurinus’ relics performed an open-air miracle under an oak tree, the onlookers stripped the branches off the tree, apparently understanding the tree itself to have become a kind of contact relic.10 The translation of saints Quirinus, Nicasius, and Scubiculus to Malmedy resulted in the creation of three separate sacred sites: a holy well where the relics cured a woman, a patch of feld which remained eternally green where the relics and the people surrounding them had rested, and a cross which was erected on a mountain after a vision of three candles appeared to mark yet another place where the relics had rested.11 These moments, as Ellen Arnold put it, “created [locations] in the miraculous landscape where the presence and power of the saint would remain part of local memory.”12 Stories like these invite us to imagine a dot-by-dot pattern of holy sites marking out a traveling relic’s trail, like pinpoints of light across the felds and valleys. This is particularly true for texts regarding relic movements in response to a plague or weather-related disaster (generally, too much rain or not enough), which were anxious to establish that the movement of relics could create a broadly territorial miracle. Though these processional responses to calamity date back to the early Middle Ages, the regular transportation of relics for these purposes began in earnest in the tenth century.13 These texts often suggested that traveling relics were always surrounded by a vaguely defned, numinous aura that trailed behind them as they moved.14 The Ursmar hagiographer claimed that as the saint’s relics moved through Brabant, which was experiencing a plague, “wherever the holy confessor had his passage through them, he left such a great trace of his health, that none of them afterwards was in danger of death from this pestilence.”15 The devil was depicted cursing that the circumambulation of the relics of St. Trudo had created a holy bubble that had frustrated his plans to kill the inhabitants with a plague.16 Even without a plague to worry about, a saint’s purity could purify the space their relics moved through, as the Taurinus hagiographer explained: the most glorious confessor was selected by God and the Lamb as a virgin, so that wherever he will have gone, it would follow… that all

164

Afterlives dirtiness and flthiness always might be erased. From this it follows, that, whenever small and annoying dirty little animals, that is fies, land on his silver image, they always fall dead to the ground.17

These stories presented the miraculous properties of the saint’s presence as passive and constant, such that their relics’ movement purifed and sanctifed space. Yet this impression of lingering power did not mean that all stops on a relic journey automatically became special locations. Physical contact of the relics with the earth was often portrayed as a necessary frst step. In the translation of Quirinus, Nicasius, and Scubiculus, two of the secondary holy places created were associated with placement of the relics on the ground; the language of resting and deposition (requiesco and depono) was used in each case.18 The clergy and inhabitants of Péronne specifcally requested “that the reliquary [of St. Marculf] be placed on the ground for a short time,” so that a cross might be erected on the spot.19 Certain places could also be denied the possibility of becoming a holy site if the saint rebuffed them; in the case of Quirinus, by immobilizing his relics the saint refused to enter the walls of Lyon despite the desire of the bishop to carry them in. Ellen Arnold suggests this was a conscious choice to show that the saint himself “decided” what places would be marked by his passage—if the saint did not physically enter the city in the form of his relics, Lyon could not make a claim to have inherited his power.20 For a site to truly become a secondary sacred site, however, simple contact was not suffcient; it needed further development and curation as a place of memory and power. As the relics of St. Junian of Nouaille traveled to the peace council at Charroux, two new holy sites were created. The frst was not far from the monastery, when people erected a cross to commemorate a place where the relics had rested; this cross continued to cure fevers.21 The second was at the village of Ruffac, where the villagers erected a fence around the location where the relics had rested to prevent direct access. The spot was further modifed by damming runoff water using a tile to create a pool. A bull attacking the fence died suddenly, and the water of the pool cured a woman.22 Although the saint’s power was the force perceived to be at work in the miracles, the man-made features that marked the sites as special (the cross, the fence, and the pool) were the elements that permanently associated the place with the saint’s power and enabled continued spiritual activity. Miracles were contingent upon construction, upkeep, and memory. These requirements meant that the act of creating a holy site as a result of a relic journey connected the past (the relics’ temporary presence) to both the present (the location was holy and therefore remained powerful/dangerous) and the future (miracles would likely continue to be performed there). A story regarding the construction of a cross for St. Berchar demonstrates how the memory of a relic’s passage might be effectively linked to both the contemporary physical aspects of the site and the expectation of future

Relic circulation and the landscape 165 miracles. Berchar’s relics had been transported through the area around Montier-en-Der in the mid-eleventh century to ward off a plague, accomplishing various other miracles along the way. After the return of his body to the monastery, one village decided to put up what seems to have been an extraordinarily massive cross as a type of ex voto; the hagiographer reported that ten oxen were needed to transport the material to the site. But once the cross had gone up it was askew, resulting in general dismay. One of the workers then made a dramatic prayer: “if indeed the body of the great father was carried to this place, let me straighten the wood of this cross!”23 He was then able to singlehandedly fx it. The wording of the worker’s prayer suggests that the essential aspect of the site was not the commemoration of the saint’s act of protection, but the actual presence and contact of his body with the physical space of the village. The straightening miracle testifed to a further expectation that the cross would act as a kind of lightning rod for future miraculous events, grounded as it was on a place sacralized by the relics’ passage. It secured the site’s status as an active place: not only a place where the relics had visited and a miracle had happened, but where miracles would (in theory) continue to happen. Although the initiative in creating these markers might be taken by the local inhabitants, the active inscription of a saint’s passage on a landscape could also be a technique of monastic possession. In the early tenth century, the relics of St. Urban of Langres were carried out multiple times from the monastery of St-Benigne of Dijon to assert their rights over certain vineyards at Marcennay and Canabis (Urban remains a saint associated with the wine harvest).24 These repeated journeys in the service of monastic control of the wine-producing landscape were then transformed into permanent features of that landscape as a result of the saint’s explicit demands. Urban materialized in two separate visions, one experienced by the abbot and the other by a man named Bonflius, to complain that on these trips his relics had spent the night in the open air. He demanded that the monks build oratories to house him suitably when they brought his relics out of the monastery (presumably anticipating that his fghts over these properties were not fnished), giving him a series of permanent “hotels.”25 Even without the presence of the relics themselves, these oratories must have functioned yearround as visual reminders of possession. They gave a physical presence to the memory of the saint’s travels, but also to the promise of continued relic circulation, vigilance, and control. Even a single journey could result in this kind of possessive marking. In 929, the abbot and monks of Bobbio carved crosses into trees at each place they stopped while carrying the relics of St. Columbanus to a council in Pavia. These signs, as Alexander O’Hara and Faye Taylor note, mimicked the crosses and iron nails that were used to demarcate the boundaries of the monastery’s territory. 26 Columbanus’ movement was actively logged in order to demonstrate his authority and support the monastery’s goal of advancing its claims to property. Whether produced by the travelers, their

166

Afterlives

audiences, or both, these physical traces of the relic’s travels were the result of specifc desires to commemorate the fact that the saint had visited in person, albeit posthumously.

The saint’s land The repossession of land through the intimidation of opponents was the stated rationale for many relic journeys. As noted in the introduction, Baudoin de Gaiffer’s interpretation of relic journeys to contested properties as a tactic of last resort in the absence of public justice represents an older vision of the central Middle Ages as a time of near-anarchy. Yet de Gaiffer’s conclusions refected the arguments of monastic authors themselves. Adso of Montier-en-Der wrote that after the death of Robert of Burgundy in 921, local “tyrants” began to take over monastic property, and thus: because there was no king or judge, who would be able to offer resistance to the depravity of these impious people by the consideration of true justice, many of the clergy were compelled to carry around the relics of the saints against the bold audacity of their pillaging, so that, those whom human power could not restrain, holy strength on display could curb.27 The monks of Conques in southern France rationalized their habit of regularly taking the reliquary-image of St. Faith on the road in similar terms, as reported by Bernard of Angers in the early eleventh century.28 The four books of Faith’s miracles report a minimum of eight such journeys. A story from the frst book illuminates how hagiographers like Bernard framed this as an effective practice. A farm called Alos had supposedly been alienated from the monastery by a woman named Doda, who returned it to the monastery on her deathbed.29 Her grandson Hildegaire, believing the farm to be part of his inheritance, took control of it, and the monks decided that the appropriate response was to travel with the reliquary to the property. Learning of the relic journey, one of Hildegaire’s men boasted at a dinner that he would not be intimidated by these methods; his roof then collapsed, killing him, his wife, and fve servants.30 The seven bodies were thrown away from the house as proof, according to Bernard, that this was the work of divine judgment rather than a simple accident and that anyone threatening monastic property could expect a similarly grim fate. Though Bernard framed Faith’s role in these proceedings as a “witness,” it is clear that the monks thought (or hoped their opponents would believe) that she would act as defendant, judge, and executioner. These stories of intimidation could draw on the same concepts of a relic’s effect on the landscape as when the relics were moved for apotropaic purposes. Much as a relic’s journey might create a protective/purifying space against plague, so too could the presence of a relic supposedly erect

Relic circulation and the landscape 167 an invisible wall of defense. Thus, the anonymous author of the third book of Faith’s miracles claimed that Reinfroi, a lay lord contesting one of the properties claimed by Conques, had been struck blind along with his 50 horsemen as soon as they passed the boundary into the disputed property where Faith’s relics had been carried the day before.31 While Reinfroi’s story suggests that bringing the relics to the exact place in contention was the key to activating the saint’s protection, in other cases the monks’ actions looked more like a variation on the clamor. When threatened by a man named Siger, the monks carried the image of Faith to the public square rather than a property. There they displayed the relics, along with a banner and cross, and agitated for public opinion to call on the wrath of the saint.32 The movement of Faith’s relics, in this case, was not intended to sacralize a particular space but to broadcast the monastery’s grievances against Siger, as much to the community as to the divine powers, as during a clamor. As with the movements of relics for other territorial miracles, the exact nature of the movement (circular, to the affected/disputed location, a long or short distance, simply bringing the reliquary outdoors) was fexible. These incidents would seem to reinforce the impression that relic journeys pressed the cult of saints into the service of the legal and economic desires of the monastery.33 However, the straightforward morals emphasized by the hagiographers—that bringing a relic to a property allowed the saint to miraculously punish or intimidate the aggressor—gloss over two aspects of these events that are relevant to explaining their commemoration on the landscape and larger signifcance. First, these journeys, even if they were carried out for the purpose of intimidation, participated in other aspects of relic movement as well—lay access, healing miracles, and exposure to extreme devotion and critique—that could nuance their legacies over time. Second, relic movement to and around property was often undertaken in the context of donation rather than the resolution of a particular confict, indicating that it was part of a process of establishing a connection between saint and land that could transcend any individual dispute. Once again Faith’s miracles offer an interesting example. In the evolution of narratives regarding a dispute over a saltworks called Pallas. According to Bernard’s frst book of miracles, a woman named Grassenda claimed ownership of Pallas based on her frst marriage to Raymond of Carcassone; she contested Conques’ counterclaim on behalf of her son from that marriage, William. The monks claimed the property had been given to them by Count Raymond II.34 The monks of Conques came to a meeting with Grassenda, her second husband Bernard the Hairy, and their retainers at Pallas itself in 1013 to try to resolve the dispute. But just when it seemed that Grassenda was about to agree to a cash payment in return for relinquishing her claim, a young man named Pons jumped between the two parties and offered to settle the matter with trial by combat rather than see his lord (William, Grassenda’s son) lose the rights to his inheritance. This call to arms led his companions to run for their swords and the monks to make an

168 Afterlives undignifed retreat to Conques. Pons rode to intercept them on the road, but on the way he was struck by lightning and instantly killed; Bernard spent a long time happily gloating over this outcome in both prose and in verse. Pons’ death supposedly convinced Grassenda, out of fear, to give up her claim to Pallas. This initial version of the story made no mention of Faith’s relics being transported as part of this dispute; however, these events were retold with a different emphasis in subsequent books. In Book II, Bernard recalled these events, but added that Faith’s relics had been brought to Pallas and that this journey had resulted in the performance of miracles.35 In Book III, the fght over Pallas, Grassenda, Pons, and the lightning strike were completely omitted from the story. The hagiographer (now no longer Bernard) only said that the senior monks had decided that Faith’s reliquary should be carried to Pallas; he assured his readers that so many miracles were worked during this procession it would impossible to tell all of them, but described one example (the resurrection from death of a small boy) in detail.36 Thus, over the course of three books of Faith’s miracles, the perceived signifcance of the story of the Pallas journey shifted radically. By the time the relics’ movement to Pallas was retold for the third time, the property dispute that had motivated the journey was entirely overshadowed by the miracles performed on the road. The evolution of the story of the journey of Pallas suggests that there were a range of possible meanings and outcomes inherent in every relic journey, and authors could choose how to emphasize the presence of the saint and the operation of their power. Like living owners of property, the saints had a variety of options in dealing with rivals, and the movement of their relics was not necessarily a tool only of intimidation and threat. The circulation of relics offered a range of ways for the saint to be “present” at the proceedings and fexibility to authors in negotiating, through text, the meaning of the holy object’s travel. This blurring of the different possible meanings of a relic journey was further complicated by the fact that moving relics to a property was not always a response to confict, but could also be part of the initial donation process. St. Hubert’s relics were moved to Chauvency following a donation by count Stephen in 955 and at the request of other witnesses, including Archbishop Bruno of Cologne.37 Around 70 years later (before 1026/7), when the monastery’s claim to Chauvency was threatened by Frederic, brother of Duke Thierry, Hubert’s relics were carried back to the village.38 The initial journey had established Hubert’s presence and connection to the site; his second journey replayed and reinforced it. Similarly, the miracles of St. Cornelius of Ninove reveal that the saint’s relics were taken on an annual tour (circumambulatio) of the monastery’s possessions on his feast day. This served to refresh the idea of the sacred and legal space of monastic holdings on a regular basis.39 The idea that relic movement was more than a tactic of defense is also suggested by the complicated history between the monastery of Mont-d’Or and a property called Harlebeke. St. Theoderic’s relics were moved at least once

Relic circulation and the landscape 169 and possibly twice to Harlebeke as part of establishing possession, though there are discrepancies between the hagiographical narrative of events and the charter evidence. The Miracula s. Theoderici report that Count Robert II of Flanders donated Harlebeke to Mont d’Or as he passed through while accompanying his sister, Queen Adèle, on her journey to her second marriage. The count then advised the abbot, Rodulph, to transport Theoderic’s relics to Harlebeke in order to place it under the monastery’s possession.40 The abbot did so as soon as the royal company departed, frst procuring a sealed letter from the archbishop vouching for the respect due to the saint wherever he traveled.41 The abbot reached Harlebeke (now, strangely, described as donated by both the count and queen) with no trouble, and the healing of a priest named Egard en route fnished the story. The cartulary of the monastery tells a somewhat different tale—that Adèle herself, in fact, gave Harlebeke to Mont d’Or in 1090 and that the relics of the saint traveled to meet her at Harlebeke to complete the donation. Then, after Adèle’s departure, Robert usurped the property, but redonated it on his way to Jerusalem in 1096.42 Though the cartulary’s version of events is more plausible in acknowledging Adèle’s role as patroness, both hagiography and cartulary envisioned the movement of the saint’s relics not as an act of intimidation taken against an aggressor, but as a means to bind place, saint, donor, and monastery through the travels of relics during and after the donation process. This suggests that we need to understand relic movement through the rural world in terms of broader narrative strategies of linking the saint’s power and identity to certain locations. The goal was not only to establish legal ownership of certain properties as the saint’s land, but also to rewrite the geographical world outside the monastery’s walls as the land of the saint.

The land of the saint Tilley’s conception of the production of space suggests one of the most powerful strategies used to give meaning to the saint’s travels outside the walls of the monastery: the “formation of biographies”— in this case, invoking and elaborating the biography of the saint. Stories about the activities and travels of a saint in life promoted a vision of the landscape itself as personally meaningful and linked to the history of that saint and their house, a vision which could be reenacted through the travels of their relics after their death. St. Landeric, for example, was the son of Sts. Vincent Madelgaire and Waldetrude. When a property donated by his father to the collegial church of Soignies had provisions stolen from it, Landeric’s relics were brought there “for the purpose of revenge.” As a good son and saint, Landeric punished the “invaders of his paternal inheritance” by causing any man (or horse) who ate the goods to become violently ill.43 When Ursmar’s relics traveled to restore the economic losses of Lobbes, he moved through territory that was explicitly commemorated as his feld of activity as a missionary: “where, when St. Ursmar had converted the Menapenses, Wasiacenses, and other

170 Afterlives Flandrensians to the Lord from the error of paganism, he acquired many lands for St. Peter by the grace of his teachings.”44 While the movement of the relics in these situations was presented in economic terms, it was also part of a larger program of creating textual, physical, and ritual bonds between saint and landscape. The saint’s putative personal connections to a place in life, whether as an heir or missionary, could form the basis for a narrative that supported the travels of their relics to and through those same places. Perhaps the most telling example of this was the work done by Adso of Montier-en-Der in weaving together geographical stories about the life of St. Waldebert as a personalized road map for some of the travels of his relics after death. As quoted above, Adso specifcally named the defense of Luxeuil’s property as the motivation for a tenth-century journey of Waldebert’s relics. However, he devoted almost no time to actually discussing the accomplishment of this goal. We are told only that the unjust usurpers: …rose up, wanting to expel [Waldebert and the monks] from their borders, because they realized that they had come to their loss. But the power of the holy man conquered by terror the minds of the wicked and restored the domestic lands, which had been plundered by the factions of strangers, to his own people.45 No details were offered on the miraculous and apparently violent process by which Waldebert accomplished these goals. What Adso did discuss in depth was the progress of the relic journey itself, and in particular, Waldebert’s personal connections in life to the land he traveled through after death. The journey of relics, over the course of the narrative, became a kind of reunion between the saint and the places that were supposedly meaningful to him in life. Adso’s narrative used two particular places, the villages of Nant and Herly, to connect stories of Waldebert’s life to his relics’ travels and attach the saint to the landscape.46 Nant was described as the place of Waldebert’s birth and happy childhood: it was not only part of his family inheritance, it was there that as a teenager he learned to fght and where he worked a boyhood miracle to protect the felds from a fock of destructive geese. Adso carefully mentioned that when Waldebert entered into the abbacy of Luxeuil and became actively engaged in expanding the monastery’s property holdings, Nant, the saint’s “native soil,” was part of his donation to Luxeuil. Here the language of the text becomes quasi-legal, mimicking the penalty clauses of contemporary charters in condemning anyone who threatened Luxeuil’s possession of Nant to eternal punishment: [Waldebert] also brought many villas and estates which had been made public by tradition into the use of the monastery. Among these he also gave that village called Nant which I mentioned above, his

Relic circulation and the landscape 171 native soil, with the neighboring sections, under the threat that whoever snatched away that [village] from the place would succumb to eternal punishment.47 This legal tone was also present in Adso’s description of Waldebert’s donation of Herly: He also bestowed a village named Herly in the pagus of Tarnensus, with everything pertaining to it (and the villa Wandonne), or whatever he had possessed by frm law in Pontivus, and he made the blessed apostle Peter the heir of all his properties in perpetuity.48 The manuscript tradition bears out the impression that this part of Adso’s text blurred the line between legal document and biographical narrative: a later writer added the phrase “and the villa Wandonne” as a gloss, presumably to make the hagiography match Luxeuil’s contemporary property claims.49 Establishing the importance of Nant and Herly to the living seventhcentury Waldebert allowed Adso to present the tenth-century visits of Waldebert’s relics to these locations as a kind of saintly homecoming. In describing and justifying the journey of Waldebert’s relics to these two places, Adso explicitly reminded his readers that these were the two places he had mentioned before in the vita and where (in the case of Nant) Waldebert had already performed miracles.50 The villages had not forgotten the saint; more than three centuries after his death, Nant was supposedly still celebrated for its connection to Waldebert and the inhabitants believed that a holy well dedicated in his name brought safety to their town.51 The relic journey to recover Herly from the “tyrants” thus also became a journey into the past of the saint; Waldebert was personally charged (posthumously) with recovering his property and renewing his associations with these places.52 As Adso constructed it, Waldebert’s interest in Luxeuil’s possessions was not abstract; rather, the topography itself was bound up in his history as a man and as a saint. The “proof” of Luxeuil’s right to own these properties was centered as much on these memories of the saint as it was on documents (though the legal language used in describing Waldebert’s acquisitions suggests that this text might have either drawn on charters or substituted for them). The goal of reestablishing Herly as Luxeuil’s property was part of the larger process of strengthening Waldebert’s personal and spiritual connection to both Herly and Nant as their native son and patron.53

Relic circulation as “inverse translation” The power in this kind of personal narrative is evident from the houses which associated traditions of carrying a saint’s relics with memories of the

172

Afterlives

saint’s activities at certain signifcant places. At Hautvilliers, the inhabitants of the village of Alsuntia had the customary right to carry the relics of St. Sindulph outside the monastery, because the saint had passed his life as a hermit and performed miracles among them.54 These kinds of traditions could also be founded on the saint’s movement after death; thus, St. Gerulph’s relics were moved annually from Drongen to Merendree, where they had originally been interred, as a kind of “inverse translation.”55 This practice was perhaps most attractive when the saint had a clear association with a subordinate location nearby a powerful monastery, such that the relics could be annually retranslated out and back each year, without the concern that the former location might make a claim on them and with the advantage of attracting crowds and allowing the saint to regularly produce miracles in a festive atmosphere. The relics of St. Winnoc were carried each year from St-Winnoc to Wormhout, where the saint had been a prior and was originally buried: “the place of his former rest.”56 Although at frst this happened on the feast day of John the Baptist, it eventually shifted to Pentecost; no reason for the shift is given, but both occasions were easy to associate with the descent of grace from heaven.57 Both the second vita of Winnoc and his miracles (written by Drogo of St-Winnoc) claim that the annual event was a highly charged miracle-generating occasion.58 Even before the day of the journey came, people stuffed into the churches hoping to receive healing, and once the procession was underway the crowds became so immense that people had trouble making their way close enough to interact with the reliquary. Although these were not the only occasions on which Winnoc performed miracles or had his relics transported elsewhere, the development of this custom seems to have been a very effective method by which the monks of St-Winnoc could both reaffrm their saint’s connection to Wormhout (while keeping his relics) and generate a pilgrimage event. And miracles were not the only advantage of developing an annual inverse translation tradition. The initial translation of Winnoc’s relics from Wormhout to St-Winnoc had coincided with several donations of property in the area of Wormhout; in other words, the processes which led to the monastery’s acquisition of the saint’s relics in the frst place had also associated that land economically with the monastery. Traversing the landscape to bring the saint back to his former “home” each year meant renewing a thread of association and possession that tied the destination and the property to the monastery, much as Waldebert’s travels had tied Nant and Herly to Luxeuil. These kinds of trips reinscribed the saint’s translation history on the land, while providing a tradition of relic movement that could be adapted to more immediate concerns if the need should arise. In 1007, abbot Erembold of St-Bavo’s in Ghent decided to translate the relics of St. Livinus from their resting place in Holthem (St-Liévins-Houtem) “back” to St-Bavo’s (they had supposedly been moved for fear of Vikings in the ninth century). The relics were removed successfully from the church, but the saint soon showed his

Relic circulation and the landscape 173 displeasure: while the reliquary was being carried under an apple tree, it suddenly became too heavy to carry. It remained immobile under the tree for a day and a night, at which point the abbot came up with a clever plan. Swearing a public oath, he promised the saint that every year on the same day (June 28), his relics would be carried back to Holthem. This did the trick, and the saint allowed himself to be carried on. The apple tree became known as the Apple Tree of St. Livinus, and a hill the saint rested on within Ghent also came to carry the saint’s name: two sites that presumably became stops on the saint’s yearly reunion with Holthem. Nevertheless, according to the text, after the abbot’s death in 1017 his oath failed to be carried out. The yearly procession to Holthem supposedly lapsed until the accession of abbot Folpert (1039) who reinstated it, once again allowing the monks of St-Bavo’s to replay the memories of these events every year.59 The advantage of doing so was clear in 1067, when the occasion provided an opportunity for the monks to confront a local lord, Arnold of Oosterzele, regarding a piece of property. Even though the inverse translation was a recurring event, in this case it took on the character of a journey meant to assert property rights by marking out the saint’s territory in defance of Arnold’s claims: But [Arnold] did not want to be present on the established day for the determining of the bounds of the land which he had seized. Then the brothers who were present went all through the land of St. Bavo, so as to demonstrate it to the powerful and noble men of the land, with St. Livinus as leader. While they established his boundary as defned by the judgement of many, they bound his transgressor with the sword of the Holy Spirit. This done, St. Livinus was carried back to Ghent. Having been carried back honorably he was taken up by all the clergy and people simultaneously, and thus taken up with appropriate reverence he was placed within the holy of holies.60 Despite the militaristic tone of this passage, the tactic was ineffective in the short term—Arnold held onto the land until his death, at which point his relatives gave it to the monastery. Yet the annual movement of Livinus’ relics through the area, in theory as part of a recurring and neutral tradition, could evidently be adapted to the goal of defning and claiming territorial boundaries. An inverse translation was also a highly visible event that, much like a clamor, offered an opportunity to attempt a public shaming of the monastery’s opponents and force a reconciliation. The monks of Centule saw just such an opportunity with their relics of St. Madelgisus. As with Livinus, it had become customary for Madelgisus’ relics to be carried annually from Centule back to the location where he had spent his fnal years as a hermit— Monstrelet—on his feast day (May 30). The solemnity of the occasion was emphasized by a common processional miracle; despite the wind and the

174

Afterlives

rain, the two candles carried before the relics did not go out. As the saint’s bier was being carried out, it just so happened that the route passed through a feld which had supposedly been appropriated by a neighbor. Predictably, as soon as the porters set foot onto the contested ground, the reliquary suddenly became too heavy to move. This prompted “those who knew that that land had formerly been unjustly taken from that saint” to recognize that the saint was claiming the land, to call the offender to the scene, and to exhort him to give it back to the saint. The stage was too perfectly set to allow resistance, and the intimidated man, “dreading that the earth might swallow him alive,” gave back the feld.61 While this fnal moment of intimidation may seem to recall us to a vision of mobile relics as spiritual cudgels, this aggressive moment was part of a larger pattern of recurring relic movement. Repeated movements of relics to certain special places, while certainly connected to the assertion of monastic rights, also served to project a much broader and more ambitious vision of the saint’s roles and active presence outside of the monastic enclosure. Recurring movements limited the saint’s exposure and vulnerability, since they generally targeted areas near enough to be visited very briefy, and they provided a regular window of opportunity for lay access and miracles; from a monastic perspective, almost a perfect combination.

Mountains as destinations While inverse translations targeted locations drawn from the saint’s own history, natural features could also become destinations for repeated relic movements. Mountains in particular seem to have been a draw. Certain houses developed traditions of visiting nearby hills with their saints, either on a particular day or simply because that was the location the saint’s relics should be transported to, if they were being transported. Once again, the monastery of St-Bavo’s was notably active on this front during its period of competition with St-Peter’s. They brought the relics of Bavo in 1010, 1058, and 1067 to a hill near Ghent known either as the mountain of the Holy Cross or the mountain of St. Pancratius.62 The mountain served as a highly visible site for dramatic miracles which served to validate Bavo’s power. The monks of Mauriac made their relationship with a nearby mountain more permanent and offcial. Their relics of St. Marius were exceptionally mobile, and the saint might remain away for several days on these occasions. During one such stopover in a village, thieves plotted to steal the relics from what was likely a less secure location. Fortunately, the custodian of the church was warned in two visions (he didn’t believe the frst one) to take the saint home without delay.63 Perhaps it was partially this threat as well as the desire to produce miracles through regular movement that inspired the monks to designate a single location to which Marius’ relics could be transported. They constructed and consecrated a church to Marius on a nearby mountain, which then became the customary destination for Marius’ relics

Relic circulation and the landscape 175 to be carried if there were droughts or foods. During its dedication, a celestial light shone from the church, suggesting that the mountain in a sense could bring the monks and devotees closer to heaven.64 This establishment of the mountain as a permanent destination may have allowed relic circulation to happen even more frequently. The text presented the carrying of Marius’ relics as an opportunity for the porters to have their desires fulflled: “whoever will have worked in the carrying [of the saint], when it is carried for some necessity, on no occasion will those men be defrauded from whatever his wish.”65 Marius’ trips to the mountain may have provided people with just such an opportunity. There might be diffculties, however, if the draw of the target mountain came to upstage the attraction of the relics themselves. In his account of the miracles of St. Ouen, Fulbert described a recurring movement of Ouen’s relics to a church dedicated to Michael on a nearby mountain. The journey typically took place on the Thursday before Ascension Day (i.e., during Rogations), but could also be performed “to gladden the people,” suggesting that such trips could happen with some frequency.66 On one occasion the shadow of the reliquary, in a duplication of one of Peter’s miracles, healed a young boy as it passed over him.67 But another trip had a less celebratory character: the monks, upon arriving at the Michael chapel, found that it was simply too full of people for them to enter. Finding themselves marginalized in this way, they moved away from the entrance, spread a cloth on the ground, put the reliquary on top of it, and sat around it “in the manner of a crown” to wait. As the crowds cleared out and there was fnally room for them to enter, they prepared to move the reliquary only to fnd that it would not budge. Confused by this turn of events, they resolved to sleep outside with the reliquary. An hour passed, the people left, and an old man (later revealed to be the saint himself) appeared to explain to the monks that the saints would naturally refuse to enter a church as long as it was made “a vile pigsty” by the violent evildoers in attendance. Ouen’s speech denounced (at length) those who violated the right of sanctuary, killed, and plundered the poor—echoing the concerns of the peace council his relics were transported to at Caen in 1047.68 Now that everyone had gone, the saint explained, the relics could safely enter the church—and so the monks found after he had disappeared. Despite the use of the episode to have the saint “boycott” the church to restate his commitment to peace, the fact remained that the relics had not initially been able to enter the church. The appeal of Michael and the mountain seems to have cast a shadow over the monastery below, reminding the monks of St-Ouen that the spiritual landscape was not theirs alone.

Conclusion In the late ninth century, the monks of Corbie supposedly stole the relics of St. Gentian from Amiens. Discovered before they could make a clean getaway, they were hurrying cross-country with the citizens of Amiens in

176

Afterlives

hot pursuit when a miraculous fog descended to allow them to escape. In the eleventh century, relics from both Corbie and Amiens were brought together, frst in response to a plague, and later as part of an annual meeting.69 Later still, a processional tradition associated with papal indulgences developed, again involving the road between Corbie and Amiens. All these memories have since come to be attached to a single location roughly halfway between Corbie and Amiens; it is now marked by a thin iron cross, known as the “Cross of the Indict,” standing just to the side of the D1 autoroute but almost entirely hidden within a small copse of trees. Only the latest of a series of crosses, it was knocked over in the Revolution, set up again in 1818, knocked over in 1901, set up again in 1902, and the current cross at the site was only erected in 2004 after a 20-year-long campaign.70 It has now taken on a further locational identity as a geocaching site. The evolutions of the Cross of the Indict suggest the accumulations of meaning and memory that the movement of relics through the landscape could provoke. Journeys are ephemeral—the passage of a human (or a relic) may leave very few noticeable traces, and so giving travel a long-term presence on the landscape requires activity, whether it takes the form of modern hikers leaving stone cairns or medieval villagers erecting a wood cross. Yet the processes of commemorating travel are also multifaceted; relic movement did not have a single kind of effect on the landscape, and it is too reductive to think about the relationship of relic circulation to space only in terms of what it “accomplished,” particularly regarding movements related to monastic property. A range of processes of historical memory— texts, stories, and physical markers—were used to draw connections between the saint and the land through relic movement, and none of them fossilized a single interpretation of the relics’ journey that excluded other possibilities.

Notes 1 Gislebert, “Carmen de incendio s. Amandi Elnonensis,” MGH SS XI, 419. “Arva, domus, calles, urbes, vici, iuga, valles, / Et locus hinc omnis, remanent plenissima donis. / Sic quod de Christo legimus, renovatur in isto: / ‘Montes et colles decantabunt sibi laudem, / Lignaque silvarum plaudent manibus venienti.’” The MGH editor, Ludwig Bethmann, seems to have misidentifed the verse as Isaiah 25:12; it is 55:12. 2 Steven Vanderputten, “Itinerant Lordship. Relic Translations and Social Change in Eleventh- and Twelfth-Century Flanders,” French History 25, no. 2 (June 1, 2011): 157, 161. 3 Barbara H. Rosenwein, Thomas Head, and Sharon Farmer, “Monks and Their Enemies: A Comparative Approach,” Speculum 66, no. 4 (1991): 764–96; Barbara H. Rosenwein, To Be the Neighbor of Saint Peter: The Social Meaning of Cluny’s Property, 909-1049 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989). 4 Certain Irish sacred objects like St. Manchán’s Shrine were similarly carried to mark out the saint’s territory: Karen Eileen Overbey, Sacral Geographies: Saints, Shrines and Territory in Medieval Ireland, Studies in the Visual Cultures of the Middle Ages, v. 2 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2012), 49.

Relic circulation and the landscape 177 5 In this, I follow Ellen Arnold’s conception of the monastic landscape as an active creation of the “environmental imagination,” produced as much through text and religious interpretation as through economic use: Ellen F. Arnold, Negotiating the Landscape: Environment and Monastic Identity in the Medieval Ardennes (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), 3. 6 Christopher Y. Tilley, A Phenomenology of Landscape: Places, Paths, and Monuments, Explorations in Anthropology (Oxford; Providence: Berg, 1994), 11. 7 On the semantics and origins of contact relics, Robert Wiśniewski, The Beginnings of the Cult of Relics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), 3, 137–38. 8 Robert Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things?: Saints and Worshippers from the Martyrs to the Reformation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013), 244–50. 9 They are a notable feature of Einhard’s translation of Marcellinus and Peter; in one example, a cross that had been erected where the relics of the two saints had rested miraculously helped lost servants with baggage fnd their way through a fog. Einhard, “Translatio et miracula ss. Marcellini et Petri,” MGH SS XV.1, 255. 10 “Circumvectio corporis sancti Taurini,” AASS Aug. II, 652. 11 Arnold, Negotiating the Landscape, 198–99. 12 Ibid., 197. 13 Pierre-André Sigal, L’homme et le miracle dans la France médiévale (XIe-XIIe siècle) (Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 1985), 156. 14 Despite these descriptions of “enclosing” an area through the relics’ movement, short displacements to nearby churches that did not encircle any signifcant territory were also considered effective. Sigal tentatively identifed two modes of thought: one, claiming that the relics’ itinerary created a kind of protective circle which the diabolical power harassing the people could not penetrate; the other, indicating that the movement itself was the important aspect regardless of its destination or itinerary. He suggested that plague-related movements favored circumambulation and weather issues led to out-and-back movements, but acknowledged that counterexamples could easily be found. Ibid., 158–60. 15 “Miracula s. Ursmari in itinere per Flandriam facta,” MGH XV.2, 838. “ubicumque enim sanctus confessor per eos habuit progressionis suae transitum, tanta reliquit vestigia suae salutis, ut nemo eorum postea incurreret ex ea pestilentia periculum mortis.” 16 Stephen of Saint-Trond, “Miracula s. Trudonis,” MGH SS XV.2, 824. 17 “Circumvectio corporis sancti Taurini,” 655. Quod gloriosissimus confessor virgo sit electus a domino et agnum, quocumque ierit, sequatur, in hoc probari potest, quod omnem immunditiam et spurcitiam semper deleverit. Inde est, quod, quoties immunda animalia parva et importuna, scilicet muscae, argenteae imagini ejus insidebant, toties ad terram mortua corruebant. 18 “Translatio Malmundarium et miracula ss. Quirini, Nigasii, et. al.,” AASS Oct. V, 554–55. “locus ille, ubi sanctorum requievere corpora… viriditatem sui perpetuo conservat gramine”; “ubi die eadem fratres fessi feretrum deposuerant.” 19 “Miracula s. Marculf Peronae facta,” AASS May VII, 538. “…religiosi et honestissimi clerici, omnes etiam sanctum corpus sequentes, unanimiter petierunt, ut feretrum humi paulisper deponeretur; quatenus ad eius venerationis memoriam crux affgeretur…” A similar petition was made at Lille for the relics of Ursmar to be placed on the ground: “Quorum petitione cum in trivio corpus sancti extra villam deposuissemus, notaverunt diligenter sibi locum, ut ibi erigerent crucem in honorem eius.” “Miracula s. Ursmari in circumlatione per Flandriam,” AASS Apr. II, 574.

178

Afterlives

20 “Translatio Malmundarium et miracula ss. Quirini, Nigasii, et. al.,” AASS Oct. V, 553; Arnold, Negotiating the Landscape, 197–98. The Bollandists believed Lyon to be an error for Laon. 21 Letaldus of Micy, Delatio corporis s. Juniani ad synodem Karofensem, PL 137, 825. On this text, Thomas Head, “Letaldus of Micy and the Hagiographic Traditions of the Abbey of Nouaille: The Context of the Delatio corporis s. Juniani,” Analecta Bollandiana 115 (1997): 253–67. 22 Letaldus of Micy, Delatio corporis s. Juniani, 826. 23 “De diversis casibus Dervensis coenobii et miraculis s. Bercharii,” AASS Oct. VII, 1029. “Quod cernentes rustica manus ingemuit et eorum unus magna voce intonuit: Si vere tanti patris huc fuit corpus delatum, istius crucis dirigam lignum; sicque directum est, et quod omnes nitebantur, ille solus constituit.” 24 “Vita s. Urbani episcopi Lingonensis,” AASS Jan. II, 492. 25 Ibid. 26 Alexander O’Hara and Faye Taylor, “Aristocratic and Monastic Confict in Tenth-Century Italy: The Case of Bobbio and the Miracula Sancti Columbani,” Viator 44, no. 3 (2013): 51. As O’Hara and Taylor suggest, this seems to be one of the earliest continental cases of transportation of a saint’s relics with the explicit goal of property defense, and a Columbanian connection may explain Luxeuil’s similar tenth-century transportation of St. Waldebert’s relics, discussed in the following section. 27 Adso of Montier-en-Der, “Vita Walberti,” in Adsonis Dervensis Opera hagiographica, ed. Monique Goullet, CC 198 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2003), 88. “Cumque rex non esset et iudex, qui verae intuitu iusticiae huic impiorum pravitati vellet ex toto resistere, compulsi sunt quam plurimi clericorum contra temeratam audatiam diripientium suorum pignora circumferre sanctorum, ut, quos potestas humana non compesceret, virtus ostensa divina coherceret.” 28 Auguste Bouillet, ed., “Liber miraculorum sancte Fidis,” in Collection de textes pour servir à l’étude et à l’enseignement de l’histoire, vol. 21 (Paris: Alphonse Picard et fls, 1897), 100–4; Kathleen Ashley and Pamela Sheingorn, “Sainte Foy on the Loose, Or, The Possibilities of Procession,” in Moving Subjects: Processional Performance in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, ed. Kathleen Ashley and Wim Hüsken (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2001), 53–54. 29 Doda’s charter of donation is preserved in the cartulary of Conques: Gustave Desjardins, Cartulaire de l’abbaye de Conques en Rouergue, Documents historiques publiés par la Société de l’École des chartes (Paris: Alphonse Picard, 1879), 348. 30 Bouillet, “Liber miraculorum sancte Fidis,” 40–41. 31 Ibid., 152–53. Another example of boundary-crossing as the trigger for miraculous punitive action is found in the miracles of St. Autbert, where a knight who had supposedly taken property from the monastery was struck blind on entering the church. “De miraculis s. Autberti Cameracensis episcopi,” ed. A. Poncelet, Analecta Bollandiana 19 (1900): 270. 32 Bouillet, “Liber miraculorum sancte Fidis,” 156–58. 33 Edina Bozóky, “Voyage de reliques et démonstration du pouvoir aux temps féodaux,” in Voyages et voyageurs au moyen âge (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 1996), 275–78. 34 Count Raymond II’s charter survives in the Conques cartulary (no. 17). Desjardins, Cartulaire de l’abbaye de Conques en Rouergue, 22. The larger collection of documents regarding Pallas in the cartulary is peculiar. Not only did the monks have Count Raymond II’s charter, but also charters regarding a dispute between Grassenda and her sister Senegund over Pallas (which did not involve Conques; likely these documents were inherited by the monastery after the fnal success of its claim against Grassenda) and the grant of Pallas in precaria between Grassenda’s grandson Peter Bermund and the abbot of Conques.

Relic circulation and the landscape 179 35 Bouillet, “Liber miraculorum sancte Fidis,” 104. 36 Ibid., 160–62. 37 Though other sources elaborate on the story of Stephen’s donation, no charter is extant. The relic journey is not mentioned in any other source besides the Miracula. Godefroid Kurth, ed., Chartes de l’abbaye de Saint-Hubert en Ardenne (Brussels: Kiessling, P. Imbrechts, 1903), 9–10; “Chronicon sancti Huberti Andaginensis,” MGH SS XIII, 571. 38 Godefroid Kurth (supra) suggested that Frederic was Frédéric de Bar; however, there seems to have been no brother of Duke Thierry I (978–1026/27) named Frederic. His son and grandson were named Frederic, so perhaps the frater was a mistake. 39 Liber miraculorum s. Cornelli Ninivensis, ed. William Rockwell (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1914), 77. “Contigit autem in brevie, in die scilicet anniversario, quo possessiones ecclesie cum parrochianis nostris in nos etiam furentibus perambulaverant, ut venirent tres fratres, comini scilicet de Sotengem, cum suis sequacibus ad pugnandum contra Ninivenses…” This kind of annual circulation activity is not often described in central medieval texts, but is likely connected to the late medieval practices of croix banales and, in England, the beating of the bounds. Rita Tekippe, “Pilgrimage and Procession: Correlations of Meaning, Practice, and Effects,” in Art and Architecture of Late Medieval Pilgrimage in Northern Europe and the British Isles, ed. Sarah Blick and Rita Tekippe, Studies in Medieval and Reformation Traditions (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 716–24. 40 “Miracula s. Theodorici,” AASS Jul. I, 78. “Comes juris sui fundum, quod Harlebeccae villae proximum est, viro dei suppliciter attribuit. Quo facto, ut quantocius ad eumdem sibi sortiendum et jure perenni possidendum, sanctus in loculo suo veheretur, benigne prudenterque consuluit.” 41 Although other accounts mention getting permission from the bishop, this letter specifcally vouches for the authenticity of the relics, suggesting that the abbot may have expected to encounter suspicion and questioning of his relics (as discussed in Chapters 4 and 5). 42 Nicholas Huyghebaert suggests the following interpretation to bring both versions of the story in line with one another: Robert and Adèle did stop at Mont d’Or during her marriage-journey, at which point Robert did advise a trip of the relics to the property. Adèle then met Rodulph at Harlebeke (how she got there frst is unclear) to create the 1090 charter. After her departure and marriage around 1091 (not to the Duke of Sicily, as the hagiographer would have it, but to Robert Guiscard of Apulia), Robert violated her gift and took possession of Harlebeke. Repenting of this on his way to take the cross in 1096, he created the second charter. The hagiographer of the Miracula then confated the two events, writing Adèle out of the story to make Robert the primary donor in 1091 (erasing his transgression of his sister’s gift). This interpretation would mean that Theoderic’s relics traveled to Harlebeke only once, to meet Adèle, and that the relics’ journey to take possession of the village after Robert’s donation as reported by the hagiographer is a fabricated version of this earlier journey. If so, the report in the Miracula that Rodulph acquired letters from the archbishop to vouch for the relics is an interesting addition. Alternatively, there may yet have been two relic journeys if the relics traveled frst to meet Adèle during her 1090 donation and again to reestablish possession after Robert’s charter in 1096; the two are not mutually exclusive. Nicholas Huyghebaert, “Les Miracula sancti Theoderici et leurs auteurs,” in Saint-Thierry: une abbaye du VIe au XXe siècle: Actes du colloque international d’histoire monastique, ed. Michel Bur (Saint-Thierry: Association des Amis de l’Abbaye de Saint-Thierry, 1979).

180 Afterlives 43 “Vita s. Landerici,” AASS Apr. II, 491. “paternae hereditatis pervasores.” The composition of this text and the performance of these relic movements cannot be dated by internal textual evidence. It was likely written in the late tenth or eleventh century, during the development of the cult of Vincent Madelgaire (possibly coinciding with the construction of the church at Soignies). 44 “Miracula s. Ursmari in circumlatione per Flandriam.” AASS Apr. II, 574. “ubi cum Menapenses, Wasiacenses et ipsos Flandrenses sanctus Ursmarus convertisset ad dominum ab errore gentilitatis, multas terras acquisivit sancto Petro gratia suae praedicationis.” Ursmar’s activities here have a double sense: he acquired the land for Peter by converting the inhabitants to Christian territory, but also by adding them to the possessions of Lobbes which was dedicated to Peter. References to the missionary activities and founding history of St. Remaclus were also used to justify Stavelot’s control of Malmedy: Arnold, Negotiating the Landscape, 203. 45 Adso of Montier-en-Der, “Vita Walberti,” 89. Insurgunt undique iniusti pervasores, volentes eos a fnibus repellere, quos sui dispendio cernebant advenisse. Sed sancti viri virtus terrore mentes edomat impiorum et suis reformat domestica predia, quae alienorum factionibus fuerant direpta. Ita, licet cum labore, rebus compositus, cum sacris pignoribus monachi obsequentes, letiores redduntur propriis laribus. 46 “Miracula ss. Waldeberti et Eustasii,” MGH SS XV.2, 1173. The MGH editor, Oswald Holder-Egger, follows a prior identifcation of Herlieum with modern Herly (dép. Pas-de-Calais, arr. Montreuil). Monique Goullet suggests that Herlin-le-Sec (dép. Pas-de-Calais, arr. Arras) is also a possibility, but that Herly is more likely: Monique Goullet, Adsonis Dervensis Opera hagiographica, CC 198 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2003), 98. Regardless of the precise location of Herlieum, it must have been close to the sea given its description in Adso’s text; this means that the journey was a more than 500-mile round trip, a serious undertaking. 47 Adso of Montier-en-Der, “Vita Walberti,” 84. “Villas quoque et predia copiosa traditione publicae facta in usus monasterii contulit; inter quae vicum quoque, quem superius Nant vocatum diximus, genuinum videlicet eius solum, cum membris adiacentibus sub interminatione tradidit, ut, qui eum a loco auferret, eternae maledictioni succumberet.” 48 Ibid. “In pago quoque Tarnensi vicum Herlieum nomine cum omnibus ad se pertinentibus [et Wandanam villam], seu quicquid in Pontivo solido iure possederat, obtulit et omnium rerum suarum beatum Petrum apostolum in perpetuum heredum esse contulit.” 49 The addition “et Wandanam villam” appears only in Goullet’s manuscript M: Münich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Clm 2546, a legendary from the Cistercian abbey of Alderspach transcribed during the frst half of the twelfth century. She suggests that this may have been an interlinear gloss incorporated into the text, originally written in by someone familiar with the region or who had access to diplomatic texts. Goullet, Adsonis Dervensis Opera hagiographica, 71. Wandana is modern Wandonne, and lends credence to the identifcation of Herly with Herlieum because of its proximity. 50 Adso of Montier-en-Der, “Vita Walberti,” 88. 51 Ibid., 82. 52 These textual links suggest an interesting possibility: were Adso’s claims regarding Waldebert’s seventh-century connections with these places exaggerated or even fabricated in service of the tenth-century legal needs of the

Relic circulation and the landscape 181

53

54 55

56 57 58 59

60

monastery? There is reason for suspicion: a forged privilege from Charlemagne, supposedly documenting all the properties held by Luxeuil, places Nant and Herly prominently in its lists. Gilles Cugnier dated this privilege to the end of the tenth or beginning of the eleventh century, and suspected that Adso himself may have been responsible for its creation because of the close stylistic parallels between it and the Vita Walberti. Gilles Cugnier, Histoire du monastère de Luxeuil à travers ses abbés, 590–1790 (Langres: D. Guéniot, 2003), 268–84. The same tactic of connecting the saint personally to properties owned by the monastery appears in the vitae of St. Hiltrude and St. Gudule. Both were composed within the context of reclaiming property. Baudouin de Gaiffer, “Les revendications de biens dans quelques documents hagiographiques du XIe siècle,” Analecta Bollandiana 50 (1932): 127–29. “Miracula patronorum Altivillarensium saeculo XI,” AASS Aug. III, 618. Brigitte Meijns, “The Policy on Relic Translations of Baldwin II of Flanders (879–918), Edward of Wessex (899–924) and Æthelfaed of Mercia (d. 924): A Key to Anglo-Flemish Relations?,” in England and the Continent in the Tenth Century: Studies in Honour of Wilhelm Levison (1876–1947), ed. David Rollason, Conrad Leyser, and Hannah Williams, Studies in the Early Middle Ages, 37 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010), 485. See also the relatio of St. Martial: “Miracula s. Martialis,” AASS Jun. V, 532–35. David Defries, “The Making of a Minor Saint in Drogo of Saint-Winnoc’s Historia Translationis s. Lewinnae,” Early Medieval Europe 16, no. 4 (2008): 425, 437. “Vita secunda s. Winnoci,” AASS Nov. III, 273–74. Ibid.; “Miracula s. Winnoci,” 276,8; Meijns, “The Policy on Relic Translations,” 482. There was also an “inverse translation” tradition associated with St. Bavo dating to the second half of the tenth century. In general, St-Bavo’s was keenly interested in this period in moving their relics as part of their competition with their neighbor in Ghent, St-Peter’s. Christoph Maier, “Saints, Tradition and Monastic Identity: The Ghent Relics, 850–1100,” Revue Belge de Philologie et d’histoire 85, no. 2 (2007): 262–63. “Miracula s. Bavonis,” MGH SS XV.2:598. Statuto autem die decernendi fnes terre, quam rapuit, presens esse noluit. Tunc fratres qui aderant terram sancti Bavonis perlustravere, veluti potentes patrie et nobiles docuere, sancto Livino ductore. Terminum autem eius multorum iudicio diffnitum statuere, cuius trangressorem gladio Spiritus sancti constrixere. Quo facto, sanctus Livinus Gandavum reportatur, reportatus honorifce ab omni clero simul et populo suscipitur, susceptus digna cum reverentia intra sancta sanctorum collocatur.

61 62 63 64

“Vita s. Madelgisili (Supplementum),” AASS May VII, 269. Christoph Maier, “Saints, Tradition and Monastic Identity,” 263. “Vita et miracula s. Marii (Liber II),” AASS Jun. II, 124. As Sigal notes, the construction of this chapel speaks to the systematization of these types of processions and the importance of the processional act itself rather than the choice of destination. Sigal, L’homme et le miracle, 159–60. 65 “Vita et miracula s. Marii (Liber II),” 124. “…quod nusquam pro aliqua delatum fuerit necessitate, et suo illos quocumque fraudaverit voto, quicumque in eo laboraverint deportando.” On the act of relic-carrying, Chapter 3. 66 “Miracula s. Audoeni,” AASS Aug. IV, 834. 67 A similar claim appears in the miracles of St. Adelard; see Chapter 3, note.

182 Afterlives 68 “Miracula s. Audoeni,” 832–33. 69 See Chapter 4. 70 On the cross and the accumulation of these memories, Roger Caron, Corbie en Picardie: de la fondation de l’abbaye (662) à l’instauration de la commune (1124) et à l’adoption de la réforme de Cluny (1142) (Amiens: Editions Corps Puce, 1994), 143–45.

Conclusion

The “Portail des Marmousets” of the abbatial church of St-Ouen in Rouen presents its audience with many images of relic movement—on the pillars around the doors, easily viewed from the ground, are carved multiple reliefs of St. Ouen’s reliquary traveling on a bier carried by two porters. These depict several central medieval journeys of Ouen’s relics, particularly a journey in 1047 to recover the property of Rôts from William the Conqueror.1 The procession to Rôts, during which a drawbridge was supposed to have miraculously lowered to give the monks and relics access to the unwilling count, is depicted in three separate reliefs that give a scene-by-scene impression of the relics “traveling” to confront William.2 Though the portal presents these travels as a central feature of Ouen’s hagiographical cycle, by the time it was created in the fourteenth century Ouen’s relics were no longer being carried on these kinds of open-ended journeys. As with the portals of Firminus and Honoratus at the cathedral of Amiens, these images may have evoked the experience of contemporary civic processions, but taking a patron saint’s relics far from their home on an ad hoc basis was the stuff of memory rather than practice.3 By the end of the twelfth century, the cult of relics in the Latin West was being rapidly transformed in ways that would change both the documentation and character of relic movement. Hagiographical accounts of relic journeys become scarce after 1150, and the evidence for relic circulation to raise funds is increasingly found in cathedral inventories, administrative documents, and letters of permission and safe-conduct.4 While I have argued that these changes are not simply attributable to a moral difference on the part of the relic-movers (accusations of greed and disrespect to the saint were as much an aspect of moving relics in the eleventh century as the fourteenth), the change is signifcant: rural monasteries like Elnone, Corbie, and Marchiennes seem to have no longer been interested in writing hagiographical texts describing the miracles produced when and if they sent their saints out into the world. As this book has suggested, regardless of the reasons for any specifc relic movement there were real risks involved—the possibility of competition with other relics, exposure of the saint to apathy or questioning, potential dissociation of the bond between relic and reliquary, and the

184 Afterlives hazards of travel itself. These risks meant that the loss of interest in circulating relics could be partly a practical question; when a monastery could fnd other means to pursue its interests (whether economic or spiritual), the relative value of putting the saint on the road “in person” might decrease.5 But perhaps more signifcantly, relic culture itself changed as a result of the Byzantine relics fowing into West after 1204; the Fourth Lateran Council’s prohibitions on the circulation and sale of unauthenticated relics are best understood in this light.6 With these developments, and with the structures of authority and power changing rapidly across the twelfth century, the patron saints of the rural monasteries seem to have been more and more often content to stay at home. This is not to claim that religious houses stopped moving their relics altogether; the late Middle Ages saw a signifcant rise of civic processional cultures in which urban cathedral relics were often participants.7 These events, following fxed routes, asserted the saint’s authority and relationship with the city by means of repeated movement through the urban space, as Ellen Shortell has remarked regarding St. Quentin: “…the town itself became a locus for stational liturgy, and in this way the clergy marked St. Quentin’s patronage of civic as well as religious spaces.”8 This modality of relic movement—the annual procession of relics on a fxed day and following a fxed route—is practiced today in many major cities of northern France and the Low Countries. In 2018, Tournai proudly celebrated its 926th procession of the statue of the Virgin that liberated the town from plague in 1027; Valenciennes does the same each year with the Notre Dame de la Cordon, commemorating their own miracle in 1108. For modern participants, these events draw their power and meaning from a strong sense of continuity with the central medieval past. As one woman in Valenciennes described it to me in 2017, the twelfth-century citizens had made a promise to the Virgin in return for her miraculous protection—and the gratitude of their successors and the procession would continue forever. Yet these modern visions of relic procession as a timeless, changeless, and fundamentally communal activity cannot be projected backwards to the relic circulations of the central Middle Ages.9 As I hope this book has demonstrated, these events were characterized by fuidity, experimentation, and often confict. The core ambiguities surrounding relics—their embodiment of a saint’s presence, their indeterminate nature as subjects/objects, and their position on the boundary between the human and the divine— meant that the signifcance of their movement was not simply a question of the justifcations for their departure. Nor was it unilateral. Throughout the accounts of these movements, what is striking is just how precarious they were: the curators of relics, their porters, their companions, and their audiences all engaged in active discussions about what exactly the displacement of a relic was supposed to mean and for whom. In this sense, the narratives constructed around relic journeys were indeed “images of encounter,” much

Conclusion 185 like other forms of travel literature, which attempted to interpret and stabilize these confrontations.10 In treating them as such, we open up new visions of a mobile central Middle Ages, in which the saints themselves could be found taking to the road.

Notes 1 Franck Thénard-Duvivier, “Construction et fonctions d’un récit hagiographique sculpté: le portail méridional de Saint-Ouen de Rouen (XIVe siècle),” in L’image médiévale: fonctions dans l’espace sacré et structuration de l’espace culturel, ed. Cécile Voyer and Éric Sparhubert, Culture et société médiévales 22 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2012), 239–98. For the dating of the portal, 242–45. The portal has also been studied by Alexandra Blaise, “Les représentations hagiographiques à Rouen à la fn du Moyen Age (vers 1280 – vers 1530)”, Paris-Sorbonne 2009. Blaise dated the portal to the early ffteenth century, an argument addressed by Thénard-Duvivier. 2 The journey to Rôts is described in the Livre noir of St-Ouen; Rouen BM 1406 (Y 041), ff. 209v–211r. 3 The St. Firmin portal (left portal, west façade) depicts that saint’s translation, and the south transept portal depicts a miracle in which a sculpture of Christ bowed to the reliquary of St. Honoré as it was transported annually to the parish church where the saint’s relics had rested before being moved to the cathedral. As Cecilia Gaposchkin has shown, these representations of “historic” relic movements were meant to evoke the many processions of these reliquaries that were taking place within the urban space of thirteenth-century Amiens. M. Cecilia Gaposchkin, “Portals, Processions, Pilgrimage, and Piety: Saints Firmin and Honoré at Amiens,” in Art and Architecture of Late Medieval Pilgrimage in Northern Europe and the British Isles, ed. Sarah Blick and Rita Tekippe (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 217–42. Paris BN NAL 946, a ffteenth-century ordinary of St-Ouen, presents interesting possibilities for tracking the movement of processions through late medieval Rouen. 4 Pierre Héliot and Marie-Laure Chastang, “Quêtes et voyages de reliques au proft des églises françaises du moyen âge,” Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique 59 (1964): 797–99. For example, Pierre Héliot, “Les anciennes cathédrales d’Arras,” Bulletin de la Commission royale des Monuments et des Sites 4 (1953): 14; Amiens BM ms. 563, fol. 223; Georges Durand, Monographie de l’église Notre-Dame, cathédrale d’Amiens, vol. I (Paris: Picard et fls, 1901), 114–16; Peter of Celles, “Epistola XVI,” PL 202, 417. 5 Steven Vanderputten, “Itinerant Lordship. Relic Translations and Social Change in Eleventh- and Twelfth-Century Flanders,” French History 25, no. 2 (June 1, 2011): 157,161. 6 Holger A. Klein, “Eastern Objects and Western Desires: Relics and Reliquaries between Byzantium and the West,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 58 (2004): 305. 7 As in Bruges, where a culture of “civic Christianity” developed: Andrew Brown, Civic Ceremony and Religion in Medieval Bruges c.1300-1520 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 197. On the processions of Lyon, Pascal Collomb, “Les processions dans les livres liturgiques du diocèse de Lyon dans la seconde moitié du Moyen Âge (XIIe-XVIe siècle). Recherches préliminaires pour une histoire des rituels ambulatoires médiévaux.” (Université Lumière-Lyon II, 1997). 8 Ellen M. Shortell, “Dismembering Saint Quentin: Gothic Architecture and the Display of Relics,” Gesta 36, no. 1 (1997): 32–47.

186 Afterlives 9 As Ashley and Sheingorn noted, the idea of commmunitas that Victor Turner associated with the liminal is much more applicable to late medieval urban procession than to eleventh-century relic circulation. Kathleen Ashley and Pamela Sheingorn, “Sainte Foy on the Loose, Or, The Possibilities of Procession,” in Moving Subjects: Processional Performance in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, ed. Kathleen Ashley and Wim Hüsken (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2001), 62–63. 10 Jehangir Y. Malegam, “No Peace for the Wicked: Conficting Visions of Peacemaking in an Eleventh-Century Monastic Narrative,” Viator 39, no. 1 (January 1, 2008): 49.

Bibliography

Manuscripts Amiens, Bibliothèque municipale ms. 112 ms. 563 Arras, Bibliothèque municipale ms. 864 Brussels, KBR ms.18644–18652 Cambridge, Trinity College, ms. R.17.1 (Eadwine Psalter) Ivrea, Biblioteca capitolare cod. 86 (Warmund Sacramentary) London British Library, Cotton MS. Claud. B. IV. London, Lambeth Palace, MS 3 & Maidstone, Maidstone Museum, ms. P.5 (Lambeth Bible) Michaelbeuern, Stiftsbibliothek cod. perg. 1 (Michaelbeuern Bible) Moulins, Bibliothèque municipale ms. 1 New York, Pierpont Morgan Library ms. 736 Oxford, University College ms. 165 Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France lat. 1017 lat. 4339 lat. 13875 lat. 15034 Rouen, Bibliothèque municipale ms.1406 (Y 041) Tours, Bibliothèque municipale ms. 339B Valenciennes, Bibliothèque municipale ms. 500 ms. 502 Vatican City, Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana, vat. lat. 12958 (Pantheon Bible) Printed Primary Sources Adso of Montier-en-Der. “Vita Walberti.” In Adsonis Dervensis Opera hagiographica, edited by Monique Goullet. Corpus Christianorum 198. Turnhout: Brepols, 2003. Aimoin. “Miracula s. Germani.” AASS May VI, 796–805. Andrieu, Michel, ed. Les ordines romani du haut Moyen âge, IV: Les textes Ordines XXXV–XLIX, vol. 4, Les ordines romani du haut Moyen âge. Louvain: Spicilegium sacrum lovaniense, 1985.

188

Bibliography

“Auctarium Hasnoniense.” MGH SS VI, edited by Ludwig Bethmann, 441–42. Baudemond. “Vita Amandi.” AASS Feb. I, 848–54. Bernard of Cluny. “Ordo cluniacensis.” In Vetus disciplina monastica, edited by Marquard Herrgott, 136–364. Paris: Osmont, 1726. Brunel, Clovis, ed. Les miracles de Saint Privat. Paris: Picard et fls, 1912. Caesarius of Heisterbach. Caesarii Heisterbacensis monachi ordinis Cisterciensis Dialogus miraculorum. Edited by Josephus Strange. 2 vols. Cologne, Bonn, Brussels, 1851. Calvin, Jean. Traité des reliques. Edited by Albert Autin. Paris: Bossard, 1921. de Certain, Eugène, ed. Les miracles de Saint Benôit. Paris: Jules Renouard, 1858. “Chronicon sancti Huberti Andaginensis.” MGH SS VIII, edited by Ludwig Bethmann and Wilhelm Wattenbach, 565–630. “Circumlatio s. Gerulphi.” AASS Sept. VI, 266–67. “Circumvectio corporis sancti Taurini.” AASS Aug. II, 650–55. Consuetudines Beccenses. Edited by Marie-Pascal Dickson. Corpus consuetudinum monasticarum 4. Siegburg: F. Schmitt, 1967. Consuetudines cluniacensium antiquiores cum redactionibus derivatis. Edited by Kassius Hallinger. Corpus consuetudinum monasticarum 7.2. Siegburg: F. Schmitt, 1983. “Consuetudines Floriacenses antiquiores.” In Consuetudinum saeculi X/X/XII monumenta non-Cluniacensia, edited by Anselm Davril, 3–60. Corpus consuetudinum monasticarum 7.3. Siegburg: F. Schmitt, 1984. Consuetudines Fructuarienses-Sanblasianae. Edited by Luchesius G. Spätling and Peter Dinter. 2 vols. Corpus consuetudinum monasticarum 12. Siegburg: F. Schmitt, 1985. “De diversis casibus Dervensis coenobii et miraculis s. Bercharii.” AASS Oct. VII, 1011–30. “De miraculis s. Autberti Cameracensis episcopi.” Edited by Albert Poncelet. Analecta Bollandiana 19 (1900): 198–212. “Delatio corporis s. Juniani ad synodem Karoffensem,” PL 137: 823–26. Einhard. “Translatio et miracula ss. Marcellini et Petri.” MGH SS XV.1, edited by Georg Waitz, 239–64. “Elevatio s. Wigberti abbatis Gemblacensis.” MGH SS VIII, 516–18. Ermentarius. “Translationes et miracula s. Filiberti.” In Monuments de l’histoire des abbayes de Saint-Philibert, edited by René Poupardin. Paris: Picard et fls, 1905. “Ex miraculis et translatione s. Bertae,” MGH SS XV.1, 564–66. “Ex miraculis s. Amandi in itinere Bragbantino factis.” MGH SS XV.2, edited by Oswald Holder-Egger, 852–53. “Ex miraculis s. Amandi in itinere Gallico factis.” MGH SS XV.2, edited by Oswald Holder-Egger, 848–51. Falco. “Chronicon Trenorchiense.” In Monuments de l’histoire des abbayes de Saint-Philibert, edited by René Poupardin. Paris: Picard et fls, 1905. Flodoard of Reims. “Flodoardi Historia Remensis ecclesiae.” MGH SS XIII, edited by Johannes Heller and Georg Waitz, 405–599. Gautier de Coinci. Les miracles de Nostre Dame. Edited by V. Frederic Koenig. Vol. 4. Textes littéraires français. Geneva: Droz, 1970. Guibert of Nogent, De vita sua. PL 156: 837–962. Folcuin. “Gesta abbatum Sancti Bertini.” MGH SS XIII, edited by Oswald HolderEgger, 607–35.

Bibliography 189 “Gesta episcoporum Cameracensium.” MGH SS VII, edited by Ludwig Bethmann, 393–525. Gislebert. “Carmen de incendio s. Amandi Elnonensis.” MGH SS XI, edited by Ludwig Bethmann, 409–32. Hariulf. Chronique de l’abbaye de Saint Riquier (Ve siècle-1104). Edited by Ferdinand Lot. Paris: Picard et fls, 1894. Hermann of Tournai. “Miracula s. Mariae Laudunensis.” PL 156, 961–1018. “Inventio et miracula s. Wulframni,” AASS Mar. III, 148–50. Jacques de Vitry. Historia Occidentalis. Edited by John Frederick Hinnebusch. Spicilegium Friburgense 17. Fribourg: The University Press, 1972. Kurth, Godefroid, ed. Chartes de l’abbaye de Saint-Hubert en Ardenne. Brussels: Kiessling, P. Imbrechts, 1903. Labbe, Philippe, Gabriel Cossart, and Giovanni Domenico Mansi, eds. Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio. Vol. 19. Florence: A. Zatta, 1901. Lanfranc. Decreta Lanfranci monachis Cantuariensibus transmissa. Edited by David Knowles. 2nd ed. Corpus consuetudinum monasticarum 3–4. Siegburg: F. Schmitt, 1989. “Liber de illatione redituque corporis s. Benedicti Aurelianis Floriacum.” AASSOSB 4.2, edited by Jean Mabillon, 350–55. Liber miraculorum s. Cornelli Ninivensis. Edited by William Rockwell. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1914. “Liber miraculorum sancte Fidis.” In Collection de textes pour servir à l’étude et à l’enseignement de l’histoire, edited by Auguste Bouillet, 21:1–291. Paris: Alphonse Picard et fls, 1897. Liber tramitis aevi Odilonis abbatis. Edited by Peter Dinter. Corpus consuetudinum monasticarum 10. Siegburg: F. Schmitt, 1980. “Miracula patronorum Altivillarensium saeculo XI.” AASS Aug. III, 618–22. “Miracula s. Adelardi.” AASS Jan. I, 121–23. “Miracula s. Agili.” AASS Aug. VI, 587–92. “Miracula s. Amandi corpore per Franciam deportato.” AASS Feb. I, 895–98. “Miracula s. Amandi in itinere bragbantino.” AASS Feb. I, 900–901. “Miracula s. Audoeni.” AASS Aug. IV, 836. “Miracula s. Audomari.” AASS Sept. III, 406–17. “Miracula s. Basoli.” CCH Paris, III, 213–20. Paris: Picard, 1893. “Miracula s. Bavonis.” MGH SS XV.2, edited by Oswald Holder-Egger, 598–99. “Miracula s. Berlindis.” AASS Feb. I, 381–84. “Miracula s. Donatiani.” AASS Oct. VI, 503–4. “Miracula s. Evermari.” AASS May I, 134–37. “Miracula s. Gengulf.” AASS May II, 645–55. “Miracula s. Genovefae ardentium.” AASS Jan. I, 151–52. “Miracula s. Gregorii et s. Sebastiani.” AASS Mar. II, 749–51. “Miracula s. Hilarii.” CCH Paris, II:105–21. Paris: Picard, 1890. “Miracula s. Hucbert (Liber secundus).” AASS Nov. I, 823–29. “Miracula s. Leonardi Liber I.” AASS Nov. III, 155–59. “Miracula s. Lupi.” CCH Paris, II:311–12. Paris: Picard, 1890. “Miracula s. Marculf Peronae facta.” AASS May VII, 533–79. “Miracula s. Martialis.” AASS Jun. V, 559–61. “Miracula s. Rictrudis.” Edited by Albert Poncelet. Analecta Bollandiana 20 (1901): 455s.

190 Bibliography “Miracula s. Theodorici.” AASS Jul. I, 70–80. “Miracula s. Ursmari.” AASS Apr. II, 563–73. “Miracula s. Ursmari in circumlatione per Flandriam.” AASS Apr. II, 573–78. “Miracula s. Ursmari in itinere per Flandriam facta.” MGH SS XV.2, edited by Oswald Holder-Egger, 837–42. “Miracula s. Vitoni.” In Le bienheureux Richard abbé de Saint-Vanne, edited by Hubert Dauphin, 370–78. Louvain; Paris: Bibliothèque de l’Université; Desclée, 1946. “Miracula s. Wandregisili.” MGH SS XV.1, edited by Oswald Holder-Egger, 406–9. “Miracula ss. Waldeberti et Eustasii.” MGH SS XV.2, edited by Oswald HolderEgger, 1171–6. “Miracula s. Walarici.” AASS Apr. I, 29–30. “Miracula s. Winnoci.” AASS Nov. III, 275–84. “Passio et translatio s. Romanae anno 1069.” AASS Oct. II, 137–40. “Passio, translationes, miracula s. Prudentii.” AASS Oct. III, 348–78. Peter of Celles. “Epistola XVI.” PL 202, 417. “Petitio seu coniuratio sancti Amandi de corpore suo.” MGH SS rer. Merov. V, edited by Bruno Krusch, 483–85. “Relatio corporis (Berthae, abbatissae Blangiacensis) Blangiacum et miracula.” AASSOSB 3.1, edited by Jean Mabillon, 433–36. Simeon of Durham. Symeonis Dunelmensis Opera et collectanea. Durham: Andrews and Co., 1868. Stephen of Saint-Trond. “Miracula s. Trudonis.” MGH SS XV.2, edited by Oswald Holder-Egger, 821–30, 1320. Theodemar. “Theodemari epistula ad Theodoricum.” In Initia consuetudinis Benedictinae : consuetudines saeculi octavi et noni, edited by Kassius Hallinger, 130 sq. Corpus consuetudinum monasticarum 1. Siegburg: F. Schmitt, 1963. “Tomelli Historia Monasterii Hasnoniensis.” MGH SS XIV, edited by Oswald Holder-Egger, 147–58. “Translatio capitis s. Valentini Gemmeticum et miracula.” AASS Feb. II, 758–62. “Translatio s. Geremari anno 1132 (Narratio qualiter reliquias beati patris nostri accepimus).” AASS Sept. VI, 704–7. “Translatio s. Lewinnae.” AASS Jul. V, 623–27. “Translatio s. Sigeberti anno 1063 et miracula.” AASS Feb. I, 236–38. “Translatio s. Vedasti.” AASS Feb. I, 809–12. “Translatio secunda s. Bavoni.” Edited by Maurice Coens. Analecta Bollandiana 86 (1968): 55–60. Ulrich of Zell. “Consuetudines antiquiores cluniacenses.” PL 149, 643–779. Ursio of Hautmont. “Miracula s. Marcelli.” MGH SS XV.2, edited by Oswald Holder-Egger, 799–802. Vercauteren, Fernand, ed. Actes des comtes de Flandre, 1071–1128. Brussels: Palais des Académies, 1938. “Vita Amandi.” MGH SS rer. Merov. V, edited by Bruno Krusch, 428–49. “Vita et miracula s. Gisleni.” Edited by Albert Poncelet. Analecta Bollandiana 5 (1886): 286. “Vita et miracula s. Marii (Liber II).” AASS Jun. II, 122–26. “Vita s. Hiltrudis.” AASS Sept. VII, 492–99. “Vita s. Landerici.” AASS Apr. II, 491. “Vita Lietberti episcopi Cameracensis auctore Rodolfo monacho s. Sepulchri Cameracensis.” MGH SS XXX.2, edited by Adolf Hofmeister, 838–66.

Bibliography 191 “Vita s. Macarii secunda, miracula, elevatio anno 1067.” AASS Apr. I, 878–92. “Vita s. Madelgisili (Supplementum).” AASS May VII, 268–69. “Vita s. Urbani Episcopi Lingonensis.” AASS Jan. II, 492–94. “Vita secunda s. Winnoci.” AASS Nov. III, 267–74. “Vita, translatio, et miracula s. Veroli.” AASS Jun. III, 384–87. William of Hirsau. Willehelmi Abbatis Constitutiones Hirsaugienses. Edited by Candida Elvert and Pius Engelbert. 2 vols. Corpus consuetudinum monasticarum 15. Siegburg: F. Schmitt, 2010. Secondary sources Abou-El-Haj, Barbara F. The Medieval Cult of Saints: Formations and Transformations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Aird, Bill. “The Boundaries of Medieval Misogyny: Gendered Urban Space in Medieval Durham.” In Frontiers and Identities: Cities in Regions and Nations, edited by Lud’a Klusáková and Laure Teulières, 49–73. Pisa: Edizioni Plus; Pisa University Press, 2008. Althoff, Gerd. Family, Friends and Followers: Political and Social Bonds in Medieval Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Arnold, Ellen F. Negotiating the Landscape: Environment and Monastic Identity in the Medieval Ardennes. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013. Arnoud-Jan A. Bijsterveld. Do Ut Des: Gift Giving, “Memoria”, and Confict Management in the Medieval Low Countries. Hilversum: Verloren, 2007. Ashley, Kathleen, and Pamela Sheingorn. “Sainte Foy on the Loose, or, The Possibilities of Procession.” In Moving Subjects: Processional Performance in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, edited by Kathleen Ashley and Wim Hüsken, 53–67. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2001. Bachrach, Bernard S., trans. Deeds of the Bishops of Cambrai, Translation and Commentary. London: Routledge, 2017. Badone, Ellen. “Crossing Boundaries: Exploring the Borderlands of Ethnography, Tourism, and Pilgrimage.” In Intersecting Journeys: The Anthropology of Pilgrimage and Tourism, edited by Ellen Badone and Sharon R. Roseman, 180–89. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2004. Badone, Ellen, and Sharon R. Roseman. “Approaches to the Anthropology of Pilgrimage and Tourism.” In Intersecting Journeys: The Anthropology of Pilgrimage and Tourism, edited by Ellen Badone and Sharon R. Roseman, 1–23. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2004. Bagnoli, Martina. “The Stuff of Heaven: Materials and Craftsmanship in Medieval Reliquaries.” In Treasures of Heaven: Saints, Relics, and Devotion in Medieval Europe, edited by Martina Bagnoli, Holger A. Klein, C. Griffth Mann, and James Robinson, 137–47. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010. Bailey, Anne E. “Modern and Medieval Approaches to Pilgrimage, Gender and Sacred Space.” History and Anthropology 24, no. 4 (December 1, 2013): 493–512. Baker, Malcolm. “Medieval Illustrations of Bede’s Life of St. Cuthbert.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 41 (January 1, 1978): 16–49. Bartal, Renana. “Relics of Place: Stone Fragments of the Holy Sepulchre in EleventhCentury France.” Journal of Medieval History 44, no. 4 (August 8, 2018): 406–21. Barthélemy, Dominique. “La société de l’an mil dans le royaume capétien: essai historiographique.” Revue historique 681, no. 1 (2017): 93–140.

192

Bibliography

Bartlett, Robert. Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things?: Saints and Worshippers from the Martyrs to the Reformation. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013. Bloch, Marc. La société féodale; la formation des liens de dépendance. Paris: A. Michel, 1939. Blurton, Heather F. “Guibert of Nogent and the Subject of History.” Exemplaria 15, no. 1 (January 2003): 111–31. Boynton, Susan. Shaping a Monastic Identity: Liturgy and History at the Imperial Abbey of Farfa, 1000–1125. Conjunctions of Religion and Power in the Medieval Past. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006. Boynton, Susan, and Isabelle Cochelin, eds. From Dead of Night to End of Day: The Medieval Customs of Cluny. Disciplina Monastica 3. Turnhout: Brepols, 2005. Bozóky, Edina. La politique des reliques de Constantin à saint Louis: protection collective et légitimation du pouvoir. Bibliothèque historique et littéraire. Paris: Beauchesne, 2007. ———. “La politique des reliques des premiers comtes de Flandre (fn du IXe - fn du XIe siècle).” In Les reliques. Objets, cultes, symboles: Actes du colloque international de l’Université du Littoral-Côte d’Opale (Boulogne-sur-Mer) 4– 6 septembre 1997, edited by Edina Bozóky and Anne-Marie Helvétius, 271–92. Hagiologia. Turnhout: Brepols, 1999. ———. “Voyage de reliques et démonstration du pouvoir aux temps féodaux.” In Voyages et voyageurs au moyen âge, 267–80. Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 1996. Bradbury, Carlee A. “Dehumanizing the Jew at the Funeral of the Virgin Mary in the Thirteenth Century (c. 1170–c. 1350).” In Christians and Jews in Angevin England: The York Massacre of 1190, Narratives and Contexts, edited by Sarah Rees Jones and Sethina Watson. Rochester: Boydell & Brewer, 2013. Brown, Andrew. Civic Ceremony and Religion in Medieval Bruges c.1300–1520. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Brown, Peter. The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity. The Haskell Lectures on History of Religions; New Series 2. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981. Brown, Warren. Unjust Seizure: Confict, Interest, and Authority in an Early Medieval Society. Conjunctions of Religion & Power in the Medieval Past. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001. Bruce, Scott G. Cluny and the Muslims of La Garde-Freinet: Hagiography and the Problem of Islam in Medieval Europe. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2016. ———. “Monastic Sign Language in the Cluniac Customaries.” In From Dead of Night to End of Day: The Medieval Customs of Cluny, edited by Susan Boynton and Isabelle Cochelin, 273–86. Disciplina Monastica 3. Turnhout: Brepols, 2005. ———. “The Relics of Cluny.” In A Companion to the Abbey of Cluny in the Middle Ages, edited by Scott G. Bruce and Steven Vanderputten. Leiden: Brill, 2021. Bryant, Lawrence M., and Jacqueline Falquevert. “La cérémonie de l’entrée a Paris au Moyen Age.” Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales 41, no. 3 (May 1, 1986): 513–42. Bynum, Caroline Walker. Christian Materiality: An Essay on Religion in Late Medieval Europe. New York: Zone Books, 2011. Callahan, Daniel. “The Peace of God and the Cult of the Saints in Aquitaine in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries.” In The Peace of God: Social Violence and Religious Response, edited by Thomas Head and Richard Landes, 165–83. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992.

Bibliography 193 Campbell, Mary B. The Witness and the Other World: Exotic European Travel Writing, 400–1600. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988. Caron, Roger. Corbie en Picardie: de la fondation de l’abbaye (662) à l’instauration de la commune (1124) et à l’adoption de la réforme de Cluny (1142). Amiens: Editions Corps Puce, 1994. Cartron, Isabelle. Les pérégrinations de Saint-Philibert: genèse d’un réseau monastique dans la société carolingienne. Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2009. Chaganti, Seeta. The Medieval Poetics of the Reliquary: Enshrinement, Inscription, Performance. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. Cheyette, Fredric L. “Suum Cuique Tribuere.” French Historical Studies 6, no. 3 (Spring 1970): 287–99. Clark, Gillian. “Translating Relics: Victricius of Rouen and Fourth-Century Debate.” Early Medieval Europe 10, no. 2 (2003): 161–76. Cochelin, Isabelle. “Customaries as Inspirational Sources.” In Consuetudines et Regulae: Sources for Monastic Life in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period, edited by Carolyn Malone and Clark Maines, 27–72. Disciplina Monastica 10. Turnhout: Brepols, 2014. ———. “Évolution des coutumiers monastiques dessinée à partir de l’étude de Bernard.” In From Dead of Night to End of Day: The Medieval Customs of Cluny, edited by Susan Boynton and Isabelle Cochelin, 29–66. Disciplina monastica 3. Turnhout: Brepols, 2005. Coens, Maurice, “Translations et miracles de saint Bavon au XIe siècle.” Analecta Bollandiana 86 (1968). Colgrave, Bertram. “The Post-Bedan Miracles and Translations of St. Cuthbert.” In The Early Cultures of North-West Europe (H. M. Chadwick Memorial Studies), edited by Cyril Fox and Bruce Dickins, 305–32. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1950. Collomb, Pascal. “Les processions dans les livres liturgiques du diocèse de Lyon dans la seconde moitié du Moyen Âge (XIIe-XVIe siècle). Recherches préliminaires pour une histoire des rituels ambulatoires médiévaux.” Université LumièreLyon II, 1997. Constable, Giles. “Cluniac Tithes and the Controversy between Gigny and Le Miroir.” In The Abbey of Cluny: A Collection of Essays to Mark the ElevenHundredth Anniversary of Its Foundation, 437–67. Vita regularis. Ordnungen und Deutungen religiosen Lebens im Mittelalter 43. Berlin: Lit, 2010. ———. “Monachisme et pèlerinage au Moyen Age.” Revue historique 258, no. 1:523 (1977): 3–27. Constable, Olivia Remie. Housing the Stranger in the Mediterranean World: Lodging, Trade, and Travel in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Corvisier, Élizabeth. “L’exode et l’implantation des reliques des saints de l’Ouest de la France en Ile-de-France aux IXe et Xe siècles.” Paris et Ile-de-France Mémoires 32 (1981): 289–98. Craig, Kate M. “Fighting for Sacred Space: Relic Mobility and Confict in Tenth-Eleventh-Century France.” Viator 48, no. 1 (2017): 17–37. ———. “Medieval Tourism,” In The Oxford Handbook of Travel and Tourism History, edited by Kevin James and Eric Zuelow. Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming.

194

Bibliography

———. “The Saint at the Gate: Giving Relics a ‘Royal Entry’ in Eleventh- to Twelfth-Century France.” In Authority and Spectacle in Medieval and Early Modern Europe: Essays in Honor of Teoflo F. Ruiz, edited by Yuen-Gen Liang and Jarbel Rodriguez, 121–33. New York: Routledge, 2017. Crook, John. The Architectural Setting of the Cult of Saints in the Early Christian West c.300-c.1200. New York: Clarendon Press, 2000. Crumplin, Sally. “Modernizing St Cuthbert: Reginald of Durham’s Miracle Collection.” Studies in Church History 41 (2005): 179–91. Cugnier, Gilles. Histoire du monastère de Luxeuil à travers ses abbés, 590–1790. Langres: D. Guéniot, 2003. Desjardins, Gustave. Cartulaire de l’abbaye de Conques en Rouergue. Documents historiques publiés par la Société de l’École des chartes. Paris: A. Picard, 1879. Defries, David. “The Making of a Minor Saint in Drogo of Saint-Winnoc’s Historia Translationis s. Lewinnae.” Early Medieval Europe 16, no. 4 (2008): 423–44. DeSelm, Daniel C. “Unwilling Pilgrimage: Vikings, Relics, and the Politics of Exile during the Carolingian Era (c. 830–940).” University of Michigan, History, 2009. Diehl, Jay, and Steven Vanderputten. “Cluniac Customs Beyond Cluny: Patterns of Use in the Southern Low Countries.” Journal of Religious History 41, no. 1 (2017): 22–41. Durand, Georges. Monographie de l’église Notre-Dame, cathédrale d’Amiens. Vol. I. Paris: Picard et fls, 1901. Evans, Joan. Cluniac Art of the Romanesque Period. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1950. Farmer, Sharon A. Communities of Saint Martin: Legend and Ritual in Medieval Tours. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991. Fernández-Armesto, Felipe. Before Columbus: Exploration and Colonization from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, 1229–1492. Middle Ages Series. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1987. Fouracre, Paul. “The Origins of the Carolingian Attempt to Regulate the Cult of Saints.” In The Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages: Essays on the Contribution of Peter Brown, 143–65. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. de Gaiffer, Baudouin. “Les revendications de biens dans quelques documents hagiographiques du XIe siècle.” Analecta Bollandiana 50 (1932): 123–38. Gaposchkin, M. Cecilia. “Portals, Processions, Pilgrimage, and Piety: Saints Firmin and Honoré at Amiens.” In Art and Architecture of Late Medieval Pilgrimage in Northern Europe and the British Isles, edited by Sarah Blick and Rita Tekippe, 217–42. Leiden: Brill, 2005. Gayk, Shannon, and Robyn Malo. “The Sacred Object.” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 44, no. 3 (October 1, 2014): 457–67. Geary, Patrick. Furta Sacra: Thefts of Relics in the Central Middle Ages. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978. ———. “L’humiliation des saints.” Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales 34, no. 1 (1979): 27–42. Gillmor, Carroll. “Aimoin’s Miracula Sancti Germani and the Viking Raids on St. Denis and St. Germain-Des-Prés.” In The Normans and Their Adversaries at War: Essays in Memory of C. Warren Hollister, edited by Richard P. Abels and Bernard S. Bachrach, 103–28. Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2001. Greenblatt, Stephen, “A Mobility Studies Manifesto.” In Cultural Mobility: A Manifesto, edited by Stephen Greenblatt. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.

Bibliography 195 Guerreau, Alain. “Espace social, espace symbolique: à Cluny au XIe siécle.” In L’ogre historien: autour de Jacques Le Goff, edited by Jacques Revel and JeanClaude Schmitt, 167–92. Paris: Gallimard, 1998. Hahn, Cynthia. “Peregrinatio et Natio: The Illustrated Life of Edmund, King and Martyr.” Gesta 30, no. 2 (January 1, 1991): 119–39. ———. “Seeing and Believing: The Construction of Sanctity in Early-Medieval Saints’ Shrines.” Speculum 72, no. 4 (1997): 1079–1106. ———. Strange Beauty: Issues in the Making and Meaning of Reliquaries, 400- circa 1204. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2012. ———. The Reliquary Effect: Enshrining the Sacred Object. London: Reaktion Books, 2017. ———. “What Do Reliquaries Do for Relics?” Numen 57, no. 3/4 (January 1, 2010): 284–316. Head, Thomas. Hagiography and the Cult of Saints: The Diocese of Orléans, 800– 1200. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. ———. “Letaldus of Micy and the Hagiographic Traditions of the Abbey of Nouaille: The Context of the Delatio Corporis S. Juniani.” Analecta Bollandiana 115 (1997): 253–67. Heath, Anne. “Secular Power, Sacred Authority, and Urban Topography in the Palm Sunday Procession in Late Medieval Auxerre, France.” Viator 41, no. 1 (2010): 199–230. Heinzelmann, Martin. Translationsberichte und andere Quellen des Reliquienkultes. Turnhout: Brepols, 1979. Héliot, Pierre. “Les anciennes cathédrales d’Arras.” Bulletin de la Commission royale des Monuments et des Sites 4 (1953): 9–109. Héliot, Pierre, and Marie-Laure Chastang. “Quêtes et voyages de reliques au proft des églises françaises du moyen âge.” Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique 59 (1964): 789–822. ———. “Quêtes et voyages de reliques au proft des églises françaises du Moyen Âge.” Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique 60 (1965): 5–32. Helvétius, Anne-Marie. Abbayes, évêques et laïques: une politique du pouvoir en Hainaut au Moyen Age (VIIe-XIe siècle). Collection Historie in-8o, no 92. Brussels: Crédit communal, 1994. Herrmann-Mascard, Nicole. Les reliques des saints: formation coutumière d’un droit. Collection d’histoire institutionnelle et sociale. Paris: Klincksieck, 1975. Hill, Joyce. “The Litaniae Maiores and Minores in Rome, Francia and Anglo-Saxon England: Terminology, Texts and Traditions.” Early Medieval Europe 9, no. 2 (July 1, 2000): 211–46. Holbert, Kelly. “Picturing the World in the Thirteenth Century.” In The Book of Kings: Art, War, and the Morgan Library’s Medieval Picture Bible, edited by William Noel and Daniel Weiss, 60–67. London, Baltimore: Third Millennium Publishing; Walters Art Museum, 2002. Holweck, Frederick G. A Biographical Dictionary of the Saints. Detroit: Gale Research Co., 1969. Hunter, David G. “Vigilantius of Calagurris and Victricius of Rouen: Ascetics, Relics, and Clerics in Late Roman Gaul.” Journal of Early Christian Studies 7, no. 3 (September 1, 1999): 401–30. Huyghebaert, Nicholas. “Les Miracula sancti Theoderici et leurs auteurs.” In Saint-Thierry: une abbaye du VIe au XXe siècle: Actes du colloque international

196 Bibliography d’histoire monastique, edited by Michel Bur, 245–57. Saint-Thierry: Association des Amis de l’Abbaye de Saint-Thierry, 1979. ———. “Un moine hagiographe: Drogon de Bergues” Sacris Erudiri 20 (1971): 191–256. Iogna-Prat, Dominique. “La geste des origines dans l’historiographie clunisienne des XIe-XIIe siècles.” Revue bénédictine 102, no. 1–2 (January 1, 1992): 135–91. Jones, Lindsay. “The Fate of Earthly Things: Aztec Gods and God-Bodies.” Material Religion 13, no. 1 (January 2, 2017): 114–15. Kaiser, Reinhold. “Quêtes itinérantes avec reliques pour fnancer la construction des églises (XIe-XIIe siècles).” Le Moyen Âge 101, no. 2 (1995): 205–25. Kantorowicz, Ernst. “Ivories and Litanies.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 5 (January 1, 1942): 56–81. ———. Laudes Regiae: A Study in Liturgical Acclamations and Mediaeval Ruler Worship. University of California Publications in History, v. 33. Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1946. ———. “The ‘King’s Advent’: And the Enigmatic Panels in the Doors of Santa Sabina.” The Art Bulletin 26, no. 4 (December 1, 1944): 207–31. Klein, Holger A. “Eastern Objects and Western Desires: Relics and Reliquaries between Byzantium and the West.” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 58 (2004): 283–314. Koopmans, Rachel. Wonderful to Relate: Miracle Stories and Miracle Collecting in High Medieval England. The Middle Ages Series. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011. Koziol, Geoffrey. Begging Pardon and Favor: Ritual and Political Order in Early Medieval France. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992. ———. “Monks, Feuds and the Making of Peace in Eleventh-Century Flanders.” In The Peace of God: Social Violence and Religious Response, edited by Thomas Head and Richard Landes, 239–59. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992. Koziol, Geoffrey, trans. “The Miracles of St. Ursmer on His Journey through Flanders.” In Medieval Hagiography: An Anthology, 345–58. Garland Reference Library of the Humanities, vol. 1942. New York: Garland Pub, 2000. Kroos, Renate. “Vom Umgang mit Reliquien.” In Ornamenta ecclesiae: Kunst und Künstler der Romanik: Katalog zur Ausstellung des Schnütgen-Museums in der Josef-Haubrich-Kunsthalle, edited by Anton Legner, 25–49. Cologne: Stadt Köln, 1985. Landes, Richard Allen. “Popular Participation in the Limousin Peace of God.” In The Peace of God: Social Violence and Religious Response, edited by Thomas Head and Richard Landes, 184–218. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992. ———. Relics, Apocalypse, and the Deceits of History: Ademar of Chabannes, 989– 1034. Harvard Historical Studies 117. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995. Laquer, Erika. “Ritual, Literacy and Documentary Evidence: Archbishop Eudes Rigaud and the Relics of St. Eloi.” Francia 13 (1985): 625–37. Lawrence-Mathers, Anne. Manuscripts in Northumbria in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries. Woodbridge; Rochester: D.S. Brewer, 2003. Leary, Jim. “Past mobility: an introduction.” In Past Mobilities: Archaeological Approaches to Movement and Mobility, edited by Jim Leary, 1–19. Farnham: Ashgate, 2014. Ledru, Thomas. “Hariulf de Saint-Riquier: un moine historien de la fn du XIe siècle.” Questes. Revue pluridisciplinaire d’études médiévales, no. 36 (June 20, 2017): 19–41.

Bibliography 197 Legassie, Shayne. The Medieval Invention of Travel. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2017. Lester, Anne E. “Translation and Appropriation: Greek Relics in the Latin West in the Aftermath of the Fourth Crusade.” Studies in Church History 53 (June 2017): 88–117. Lifshitz, Felice. “The Exodus of Holy Bodies Reconsidered: The Translation of the Relics of St. Gildard of Rouen to Soissons.” Analecta Bollandiana 110 (1992): 329–40. ———. “The Migration of Neustrian Relics in the Viking Age: The Myth of Voluntary Exodus, the Reality of Coercion and Theft.” Early Medieval Europe 4, no. 2 (September 1, 1995): 175–92. Lin, Wei-Ping. “Conceptualizing Gods through Statues: A Study of Personifcation and Localization in Taiwan.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 50, no. 02 (April 2008): 454–77. Little, Lester K. Benedictine Maledictions: Liturgical Cursing in Romanesque France. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993. Luckhardt, Courtney. “Gender and Connectivity: Facilitating Religious Travel in the Sixth and Seventh Centuries.” Comitatus: A Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 44 (2013): 29–53. ———. The Charisma of Distant Places: Travel and Religion in the Early Middle Ages. New York: Routledge, 2019. ———. “The Testament of St. Amandus: Self-Fashioning a Sacred Place in the Early Middle Ages.” In Walking with Saints: Protection, Devotion, and Civic Identity. The Role of the Landscape. Proceedings of the International Conference on Intangible Heritage, 24–26 May 2018, Ronse, Belgium, edited by Eric Devos, Anne-Sophie Meurice, and Anne-Françoise Morel, 113–23. Ronse: GOKRTICHARTI, 2020. Luxford, Julian. “Recording and Curating Relics at Westminster Abbey in the Late Middle Ages.” Journal of Medieval History 45, no. 2 (March 15, 2019): 204–30. Maier, Christoph. “Saints, Tradition and Monastic Identity: The Ghent Relics, 850– 1100.” Revue Belge de Philologie et d’histoire 85, no. 2 (2007): 223–77. Malegam, Jehangir Y. “No Peace for the Wicked: Conficting Visions of Peacemaking in an Eleventh-Century Monastic Narrative.” Viator 39, no. 1 (January 1, 2008): 23–49. Malo, Robyn. Relics and Writing in Late Medieval England. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013. ———. “The Pardoner’s Relics (and Why They Matter the Most).” The Chaucer Review 43, no. 1 (July 16, 2008): 82–102. Malone, Caroline Marino. “Interprétation des pratiques liturgiques à Saint-Bénigne de Dijon d’après ses coutumiers d’inspiration clunisienne.” In From dead of night to end of day: the medieval customs of Cluny, edited by Susan Boynton and Isabelle Cochelin, 221–50. Disciplina monastica 3. Turnhout: Brepols, 2005. Martimort, Aimé Georges. Les “Ordines”, les ordinaires et les cérémoniaux. Typologie des sources du Moyen Age occidental, fasc. 56. Turnhout: Brepols, 1991. Martín-Vide, Javier, and Mariano Barriendos Vallvé. “The Use of Rogation Ceremony Records in Climatic Reconstruction: A Case Study from Catalonia (Spain).” Climatic Change 30, no. 2 (1995): 201–21. Maskarinec, Maya. City of Saints: Rebuilding Rome in the Early Middle Ages. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018.

198

Bibliography

Meijns, Brigitte. “The Policy on Relic Translations of Baldwin II of Flanders (879– 918), Edward of Wessex (899–924) and Æthelfaed of Mercia (d. 924): A Key to Anglo-Flemish Relations?” In England and the Continent in the Tenth Century: Studies in Honour of Wilhelm Levison (1876–1947), edited by David Rollason, Conrad Leyser, and Hannah Williams, 473–92. Studies in the Early Middle Ages 37. Turnhout: Brepols, 2010. Melville, Gert. “Action, Text, and Validity: On Re-Examining Cluny’s Consuetudines and Statutes.” In From Dead of Night to End of Day: The Medieval Customs of Cluny, edited by Susan Boynton and Isabelle Cochelin. Disciplina Monastica 3. Turnhout: Brepols, 2005. Miller, Maureen C. Clothing the Clergy: Virtue and Power in Medieval Europe, c. 800–1200. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2014. ———. “The Florentine Bishop’s Ritual Entry and the Origins of the Medieval Episcopal Adventus.” Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique 98, no. 1 (June 1, 2003): 5–28. Mohrmann, Christine. “A propos de deux mots controversés de la Latinité chrétienne: tropaeum—nomen.” Vigiliae Christianae 8 (1954): 154–73. Moreau, Eduoard. Saint Amand: apôtre de la Belgique et du nord de la France. Louvain: Editions du Museum Lessianum, 1927. Murray, James M. “The Liturgy of the Count’s Advent in Bruges, from Galbert to Van Eyck.” In City and Spectacle in Medieval Europe, edited by Barbara Hanawalt and Kathryn Reyerson, 137–52. Medieval Studies at Minnesota 6. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994. Murray, Stephen. A Gothic Sermon: Making a Contract with the Mother of God, Saint Mary of Amiens. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. Nathan, Geoffrey. “The Rogation Ceremonies of Late Antique Gaul. Creation, Transmission and the Role of the Bishop.” Classica et Mediaevalia: Revue danoise de philologie et d’histoire 49 (1998): 275–303. Nelson, Janet L. “England and the Continent in the Ninth Century: II, The Vikings and Others.” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 13 (2003): 1–28. O’Doherty, Marianne, and Felicitas Schmieder. “Introduction: Travels and Mobilities in the Middle Ages: From the Atlantic to the Black Sea.” In Travels and Mobilities in the Middle Ages: From the Atlantic to the Black Sea, edited by Marianne O’Doherty and Felicitas Schmieder, ix–xliii. International Medieval Research 21. Turnhout: Brepols, 2015. O’Hara, Alexander, and Faye Taylor. “Aristocratic and Monastic Confict in Tenth-Century Italy: The Case of Bobbio and the Miracula Sancti Columbani.” Viator 44, no. 3 (2013): 43–61. Ott, John S. Bishops, Authority and Community in Northwestern Europe, c.1050– 1150. Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought, Fourth Series 102. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. ———. “Educating the Bishop: Models of Episcopal Authority and Conduct in the Hagiography of Early Twelfth-Century Soissons.” In Teaching and Learning in Northern Europe, 1000–1200, edited by Jay Rubenstein and Sally Vaughn, 211–53. Studies in the Early Middle Ages 8. Turnhout: Brepols, 2006. Ott, John S., and Anna Trumbore Jones. “Introduction: The Bishop Reformed.” In The Bishop Reformed: Studies of Episcopal Power and Culture in the Central Middle Ages, edited by John S. Ott and Anna Trumbore Jones, 137–60. Church, Faith and Culture in the Medieval West. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007.

Bibliography 199 Overbey, Karen Eileen. Sacral Geographies: Saints, Shrines and Territory in Medieval Ireland. Studies in the Visual Cultures of the Middle Ages 2. Turnhout: Brepols, 2012. Palazzo, Eric. A History of Liturgical Books from the Beginning to the Thirteenth Century. Translated by Madeleine Beaumont. Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1998. ———. L’espace rituel et le sacré dans le Christianisme: la liturgie de l’autel portatif dans l’Antiquité et au Moyen Âge. Turnhout: Brepols, 2008. Pépin, Eugène. “Saint Philibert et ses reliques.” Centre international d’études romanes: Revue trimestriel 4 (1975): 7–14. Platelle, Henri. “Guibert de Nogent et le De pignoribus sanctorum. Richesses et limites d’une critique médiévale des reliques.” In Les reliques. Objets, cultes, symboles: Actes du colloque international de l’Université du Littoral-Côte d’Opale (Boulogne-sur-Mer) 4– 6 septembre 1997., edited by Edina Bozóky and AnneMarie Helvétius, 109–21. Hagiologia. Turnhout: Brepols, 1999. du Plessis, Toussaints. Histoire de l’église de Meaux. Vol. II. Paris: Gandouin, Giffart, 1731. Polanichka, Dana M. “Transforming Space, (Per)Forming Community: Church Consecration in Carolingian Europe.” Viator 43, no. 1 (January 1, 2012): 79–98. Poly, Jean-Pierre. “Le capétien thaumaturge: genèse d’un miracle royal.” In La France de l’an Mil, 282–308. Collections Points, série histoire, 130. Paris: Seuil, 1990. Riches, T.M. “Bishop Gerard I of Cambrai-Arras, the Three Orders, and the Problem of Human Weakness.” In The Bishop Reformed: Studies of Episcopal Power and Culture in the Central Middle Ages, edited by John S. Ott and Anna Trumbore Jones, 122–36. Church, Faith, and Culture in the Medieval West. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007. Rider, Jeff. “Vice, Tyranny, Violence, and the Usurpation of Flanders (1071) in Flemish Historiography from 1093 to 1294.” In Violence and the Writing of History in the Medieval Francophone World, edited by Noah D. Guynn and Zrinka Stahuljak, 55–70. Gallica 29. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2013. Robinson, James. “From Altar to Amulet: Relics, Portability, and Devotion.” In Treasures of Heaven: Saints, Relics, and Devotion in Medieval Europe, edited by Martina Bagnoli, Holger A. Klein, C. Griffth Mann, and James Robinson, 111– 116. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010. Röckelein, Hedwig. Reliquientranslationen nach Sachsen im 9. Jahrhundert: über Kommunikation, Mobilität und Öffentlichkeit im Frühmittelalter. Beihefte der Francia. Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, 2001. Rosenwein, Barbara H. To Be the Neighbor of Saint Peter: The Social Meaning of Cluny’s Property, 909–1049. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989. Rosenwein, Barbara H., Thomas Head, and Sharon Farmer. “Monks and Their Enemies: A Comparative Approach.” Speculum 66, no. 4 (1991): 764–96. Rubenstein, Jay. Guibert of Nogent: Portrait of a Medieval Mind. New York: Routledge, 2002. Ruiz, Teoflo F. A King Travels: Festive Traditions in Late Medieval and Early Modern Spain. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012. Saint-Denis, Alain. “Hermannus Monachus. Qui était vraiment l’auteur du livre des Miracles de Notre-Dame de Laon?” Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres: Comptes-rendus des séances 3 (2006): 1611–47.

200

Bibliography

———. ed. Les Miracles de sainte Marie de Laon. Sources d’histoire médiévale 36. Paris: CNRS Editions, 2008. Sansterre, Jean-Marie. “Attitudes à l’égard de l’errance monastique en Occident du VIe au XIe siècle.” In Voyages et voyageurs à Byzance et en Occident du VI au XIe siècle, edited by Alain Dierkens and Jean-Marie Sansterre, 215–34. Bibliothèque de la faculté de philosophie et lettres de l’Université de Liège 278. Geneva: Droz, 2000. ———. “Les justifcations du culte des reliques dans le haut Moyen Age.” In Les reliques. Objets, cultes, symboles: Actes du colloque international de l’Université du Littoral-Côte d’Opale (Boulogne-sur-Mer) 4– 6 septembre 1997, edited by Edina Bozóky and Anne-Marie Helvétius, 81–93. Hagiologia. Turnhout: Brepols, 1999. Saurette, Marc. “Excavating and Renovating Ancient Texts: Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Editions of Bernard of Cluny’s Consuetudines and EarlyModern Monastic Scholarship.” In From Dead of Night to End of Day: The Medieval Customs of Cluny, edited by Susan Boynton and Isabelle Cochelin, 85–107. Disciplina Monastica 3. Turnhout: Brepols, 2005. Schulenburg, Jane Tibbetts. “Gender, Celibacy, and Proscriptions of Sacred Space.” In Women’s Space: Patronage, Place and Gender in the Medieval Church, edited by Virginia Chieffo Raguin and Sarah Stanbury, 185–205. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005. Shortell, Ellen M. “Dismembering Saint Quentin: Gothic Architecture and the Display of Relics.” Gesta 36, no. 1 (1997): 32–47. Sigal, Pierre-André. “Le déroulement des translations de reliques principalement dans les régions entre Loire et Rhin aux XIe et XIIe siècles.” In Les reliques. Objets, cultes, symboles: Actes du colloque international de l’Université du LittoralCôte d’Opale (Boulogne-sur-Mer) 4– 6 septembre 1997, edited by Edina Bozóky and Anne-Marie Helvétius, 213–27. Hagiologia. Turnhout: Brepols, 1999. ———. “Les voyages de reliques aux onzième et douzième siècles.” In Voyage, quête, pèlerinage dans la littérature et la civilisation médiévales, 75–104. Aix-en-Provence; Paris: Presses universitaires de Provence; Champion, 1976. ———. L’homme et le miracle dans la France médiévale (XIe-XIIe siècle). Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 1985. Signori, Gabriela. Maria zwischen Kathedrale, Kloster und Welt: Hagiographische und historiographische Annäherungen an eine hochmittelalterliche Wunderpredigt. Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, 1995. Skemer, Don C. Binding Words: Textual Amulets in the Middle Ages. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006. Smith, Julia M. H. “Eleventh-Century Relic Collections and the Holy Land.” In Natural Materials of the Holy Land and the Visual Translation of Place, 500–1500, edited by Renana Bartal, Neta Bodner, and Bianca Kuhnel, 19–35. London: Routledge, 2017. ———. “L’accès des femmes aux saintes reliques durant le haut Moyen Âge.” Translated by Stéphane Lebecq and Dominique Iogna-Prat. Médiévales, no. 40 (2001): 83–100. ———. “Old Saints, New Cults: Roman Relics in Carolingian Francia.” In Early Medieval Rome and the Christian West: Essays in Honour of Donald A. Bullough, edited by Julia Smith, 317–39. The Medieval Mediterranean 8. Leiden: Brill, 2000. ———. “One Site, Many More Meanings: The Community of Saint-Maurice d’Agaune and Its Relic Collection.” In Emotions, Communities, and Difference in

Bibliography 201 Medieval Europe: Essays in Honor of Barbara H. Rosenwein, edited by Maureen C. Miller and Edward Wheatley, 59–76. London: Routledge, 2017. ———. “Oral and Written: Saints, Miracles, and Relics in Brittany, c.850–1250.” Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies 65, no. 2 (1990): 309–43. ———. “Portable Christianity: Relics in the Medieval West (c.700-c.1200).” Proceedings of the British Academy Volume 181, 2010–2011 Lectures, October 1, 2012, 143–67. Oxford: British Academy, 2012. ———. “Rulers and Relics c.750-c.950: Treasure on Earth, Treasure in Heaven.” Past & Present 206, no. suppl 5 (January 1, 2010): 73–96. Tada, Satoshi. “The Creation of a Religious Centre: Christianisation in the Diocese of Liège in the Carolingian Period.” The Journal of Ecclesiastical History 54, no. 2 (April 2003): 209–27. Tekippe, Rita. “Pilgrimage and Procession: Correlations of Meaning, Practice, and Effects.” In Art and Architecture of Late Medieval Pilgrimage in Northern Europe and the British Isles, edited by Sarah Blick and Rita Tekippe, 693–752. Studies in Medieval and Reformation Traditions. Leiden: Brill, 2005. Thacker, Alan. “Loca Sanctorum: The Signifcance of Place in the Study of the Saints.” In Local Saints and Local Churches in the Early Medieval West, edited by Alan Thacker and Richard Sharpe, 1–43. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. Thénard-Duvivier, Franck. “Construction et fonctions d’un récit hagiographique sculpté: le portail méridional de Saint-Ouen de Rouen (XIVe siècle).” In L’image médiévale: fonctions dans l’espace sacré et structuration de l’espace culturel, edited by Cécile Voyer and Éric Sparhubert, 239–98. Culture et société médiévales 22. Turnhout: Brepols, 2012. Tilley, Christopher Y. A Phenomenology of Landscape: Places, Paths, and Monuments. Explorations in Anthropology. Oxford; Providence: Berg, 1994. Töpfer, Bernhard. “The Cult of Relics and Pilgrimage in Burgundy and Aquitaine at the Time of the Monastic Reform.” In The Peace of God: Social Violence and Religious Response, edited by Richard Landes and Thomas Head, 41–57. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992. Tudor, Victoria. “The Misogyny of St Cuthbert.” Archaeologia Aeliana, 5, no. 12 (1984): 157–67. Tutsch, Burkhardt. Studien zur Rezeptionsgeschichte der “Consuetudines” Ulrichs von Cluny. Vita regularis 6. Münich: Lit, 1998. ———. “Zur Rezeptionsgeschichte der Consuetudines Bernhards und Ulrichs von Cluny.” In Schriftlichkeit und Lebenspraxis im Mittelalter: Erfassen, Bewahren, Verändern, edited by Hagen Keller, Christel Meier, and Thomas Scharff, 79–94. Münsterche Mittelalter-Schriften 76. Münich: W. Fink, 1999. Ugé, Karine. Creating the Monastic Past in Medieval Flanders. Woodbridge: York Medieval Press, 2005. Vanderputten, Steven. “Itinerant Lordship. Relic Translations and Social Change in Eleventh- and Twelfth-Century Flanders.” French History 25, no. 2 (June 1, 2011): 143–63. ———. Monastic Reform as Process: Realities and Representations in Medieval Flanders, 900–1100. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2013. Van Meter, David C. “The Peace of Amiens-Corbie and Gerard of Cambrai’s Oration on the Three Functional Orders: The Date, the Context, the Rhetoric.” Revue Belge de Philologie et d’histoire 74, no. 3–4 (1996): 633–57.

202 Bibliography Verlinden, Charles. Robert 1er, le Frison, comte de Flandre: étude d’histoire politique. Antwerp: De Sikkel, 1935. Warichez, Joseph. Les origines de l’église de Tournai. Louvain: Typographie Charles Peeters, 1902. Weber, Elka. Traveling through Text: Message and Method in Late Medieval Pilgrimage Accounts. Studies in Medieval History and Culture. New York: Routledge, 2005. Wickstrom, J. B. “Cluny, Cîteaux, and Blessed Maurus of Glanfeuil.” Revue Bénédictine 113, no. 1 (2003): 124–34. Wiśniewski, Robert. The Beginnings of the Cult of Relics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. Wolfram, Herwig. Conrad II, 990–1039: Emperor of Three Kingdoms. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006. Wright, Craig. “The Palm Sunday Procession in Medieval Chartres.” In The Divine Office in the Latin Middle Ages, edited by Ruth Steiner, Margot Elsbeth Fassler, and Rebecca A. Baltzer. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Yarrow, Simon. Saints and Their Communities: Miracle Stories in Twelfth Century England. Oxford Historical Monographs. Oxford; New York: Clarendon Press; Oxford University Press, 2006.

Index

Note: Bold page numbers refer to tables; italic page numbers refer to fgures. Adelard, saint 90–92, 121–22, 125 Adèle (of France), countess of Flanders 90–91 Adèle (of Flanders), countess of Flanders 169 Adso of Montier-en-Der 87, 166, 170–71 adventus see entry procession Agilus, saint 93 Aimoin of St-Germain 29, 34–38 altars: deposition of relics in 5, 27, 53; placement of relics on 36, 52, 57–58, 66, 68, 86, 125–27, 142; portable 127; see also sepulchrum Amandus, saint 1–3, 2, 6–7, 12, 12, 14–16, 44–45, 93, 120–21, 143–48, 161–62; testament of 1–2; funeral of 83, 84, 146 Ambrose, bishop of Milan 3 Amiens 83, 85, 121–22, 175–76, 183 Andage (St-Hubert-en-Ardennes), monastery 40–41, 89 Andreas, prior of Corbeny 10–11, 14, 97–100 animals 14, 87, 164 Ansbert, saint 41–42 Ark of the Covenant 59, 83, 85, 85–86, 91, 93–95, 147 Arras 89, 97, 120 Ascension Day 39, 55, 57, 67–68, 68, 175 assemblies of relics 114–16; and lists of participating relics 118–20; see also Peace of God; church dedications; councils Balderic, saint 89, 115–16 Baldwin VI, count of Flanders 118–19 Baldwin VII, count of Flanders 93

Basolus, saint 147, 152–53 Bavo, saint 44, 93–94, 173–74 Bayeux Tapestry 86 Beauvais 40, 42–43, 149 Bec, monastery 66–67 bells 52, 57, 62, 62–65, 67, 68, 69, 75, 91, 122, 126–27, 144 Benedict, saint 39–40, 59–60, 85, 92–93, 146; illatio of relics 39–40, 44 Berchar, saint 164–65 Berlinda, saint 88, 96 Bernard of Angers 166–68 Bernard of Cluny 56, 66; see also Bernard’s customary Bernard’s customary 56–57, 61, 63–66 Bertha, saint 41–42 Bèze 147, 150 bier 31–34, 59, 67–68, 68, 75, 83–85, 88, 147, 163, 183; as a secondary relic 32–34; see also porters of relics bishops: assembling relics 116–17, 119; asserting authority over monasteries 42–43, 117–18, 122; election campaigns 141; entry processions for 61–62; performing translations 43–44, 90 Blangy, monastery 41–42 boats 97; used to transport relics 30, 36, 39 Bobbio, monastery 9, 165 Boso, canon of Laon 96–98, 100–101 Bruges 113–14 Canterbury 67, 68, 69 Cambrai 42, 117, 119–20 Carmen de incendio sancti Amandi Elnonensis 14, 44–45, 161

204 Index carnivalesque 143 Carolingian dynasty 3, 27–31 carts 83–85, 87, 94 Celle (St-Ghislain), monastery 99 Centule (St-Riquier), monastery 139–42, 173 charters 93, 169, 171 churches: custodians of 36, 125–26; dedications as occasions for relic assembly 4, 9, 115, 117–20; installation of relics in 32–33, 85; as stopping places during relic circulation 2, 125, 174; see also altars; portal sculptures circumambulatio 68, 163, 168 Cluny, monastery 15, 52–53; customary traditions of 54–56; celebration of Rogations 57–58; celebration of Palm Sunday 58–61, 59; relic circulation for property dispute 65; see also Bernard’s customary; Consuetudines antiquiores; Liber tramitis; Ulrich’s customary Columbanus, saint 165 companions of relics 82, 95–100; critiques of 99–100, 138; lists of members 96; people joining en route 148–49; spiritual value of experience 100–102; see also porters of relics Conques, monastery 4, 9, 144, 166–68 Consuetudines antiquiores (of Cluny) 55, 60 Consuetudines Hirsaugiensis 67, 69 Corbeny, priory 10, 12, 12, 14, 16, 97, 99–100 Corbie, monastery 34, 90–91, 121–22, 128, 175–76 Cornelius, saint 87, 168 councils 4, 39, 94, 115, 118, 126, 150, 165, 184; see also assemblies of relics Crispin and Crispinian, saints 117–18 cross: constructed to mark site 18, 36, 162, 163–65 Cross of the Indict 176 customaries: complications as sources 53–55, 69; see also names of individual customaries Cuthbert, saint 83, 84, 85–86, 94–95, 146 Dado, bishop of Verdun 116 Déas (St-Philibert-en-Grandlieu) 30–34 delatio see relic circulation Deusdona 27 Donatian, saint 113–14, 122–23 dedications see churches

dreams 35–36, 113, 124, 144; see also visions Drogo of St-Winnoc 13, 147, 172 Drongen, monastery 126, 172 Eadwine Psalter 85, 85 Edmund, saint 83–84 Einhard 27–28, 123 elevation of relics 11, 88–89, 115, 146; see also ostension, translation of relics Eligius, saint 120 Elinand, bishop of Laon 90 Elnone (St-Amand-les-Eaux), monastery 1–2, 2, 6–8, 12, 12, 14, 16, 44–45, 84, 146, 162, 183 entry processions 52–53; crowd assembled for 35, 52, 142, 144–45; for persons 52, 61–62, 61–62; for relics 36, 52–53, 62–67, 143–45, 150; see also processions Ermentarius of Noirmoutier 29–34, 38 Eusebia, saint 88, 151 Eustasius, saint 87 Evermar, saint 81–82, 92 exile: as metaphor for relic travel 17, 33–34, 36–40, 43–44 Faith, saint 4, 9, 88, 144–45, 166–68 Falco of Tournus 38–39 famuli 37, 62–63, 65, 96, 149 feretrum see bier Firmin, saint 121, 183 Fleury, monastery 39–40, 67, 85, 93, 98, 146 Flodoard of Reims 115 forced translation of relics 8–9, 28–30, 34–36, 39–40; as literary motif 39, 41–44, 140; see also exile; Vikings Fruttuaria, monastery 67–69, 68 fundraising 6–8, 10, 88–89, 96–100, 139–42, 183 Gallebert, monk of Fleury 98–99 Gaugericus (Géry), saint 117 Gentian, saint 121, 175 George, saint 42 Gerard, bishop of Cambrai 117, 120 Geremar (Germer), saint 43–44 Germanus, saint 29, 34–38 Gerulph, saint 126, 172 Gervin II, abbot of Centule 141 Gesta episcoporum of Cambrai 42 Gigny, priory 12, 12, 15–16, 52, 124

Index Gislebert of Elnone 14, 44–45, 120, 145, 161–62 Gregory, saint 59–60, 59, 117–18 Guibert of Nogent 15, 98–99, 101 Hariulf of Centule (St-Riquier) 139–41, 143 Hasnon, monastery 9, 118–20 Hautmont, monastery 10, 118, 121, 137–38 Hautvilliers, monastery 172 “heretics” 120, 139 Hermann of Tournai 15, 96–97, 100–102, 127, 148 Hilary, saint 122–24 Hiltrude, saint 144 Hirsau, monastery 56, 67, 69 Hubert, saint 40–41, 89, 168 immobility of reliquary 81–82, 86, 93, 116, 164, 173–75 Jacques de Vitry 138 Jerome, church father 5, 98 Jocelin (Joscelin, Gauzlin), bishop of Soissons 43–44, 117–18 Jouarre, monastery 93 Junian, saint 115, 164 kissing of reliquary 32, 66–67, 94, 146–47, 150 Landeric, saint 92, 169 landscape and spatial experience 162 Lanfranc of Canterbury 67 Laon 2, 10, 12–13, 12, 15–16, 89–90, 94, 96, 98, 100–102, 125–27, 147–48 laypeople: access to relics 145–49; as allies of traveling relics 125–27; concerns about relic movement 41, 139–43; diffculties of sources regarding 137–39, 153; as porters of relics 94–95, 147; questioning of saints 149–53; refusal to venerate saint 151–52; threatening saints 142, 148 Letaldus of Micy 115 Leuconay (St-Valéry-sur-Somme), monastery 141–43 Lewinna, saint 12, 12–13, 15–16, 147, 150 Liber tramitis 55, 58–67, 59, 69 Lietbert, saint 119 Lille 90–91, 93, 144

205

limina sancti 6, 31, 34 litaniae maiores/minores 57; see also Ascension Day; Rogations Livinus, saint 172–73 Lobbes, monastery 12–14, 12, 16, 145, 148, 169 logistics of relic circulation: distances traveled 82; diffculties involved 100–102; housing 81–82, 125–27; modes of relic transportation 83–85; organizers 97–98; see also boats; carts; companions of relics; porters of relics; tents Luxeuil, monastery 9, 87, 170–72 Mâcon 52–53, 148, 151 Madelgisus, saint 173 magic 100, 125 Maiolus, saint 60 Marcellinus and Peter, saints (martyrs) 27–28, 123 Marcellus, saint 10, 59, 59–60, 62, 64, 118, 120–21, 137, 146 Marchiennes, monastery 88, 115, 151, 161, 183 Marculf, saint 10, 12, 12, 14–16, 88, 97, 99–100, 143–45, 148–49, 164 Marian relics see Virgin Mary, saint Marius, saint 9, 87, 152, 174–75 Martial, saint 40, 117, 128 Maur, saint 59, 59–60 Mauriac, monastery 10, 87, 174 merchants 10, 96–97, 101–102, 126–27 miracles: contested attribution 113–14, 116, 122–25; performed collaboratively 42, 116, 123–24; of punishment 31, 151, 166; reversal of 124–25, 144–45; see also immobility of reliquary; saints missionary activity 1, 44–45, 169–70 Mont-d’Or, monastery 89, 168–69 Monte Cassino, monastery 39–40, 54 Montfaucon, collegiate church 89, 116 Montier-en-Der, monastery 165 mountains: as destinations for relic movement 174–75 Noirmoutier (Hero), monastery 29–34, 38–39 occursus see entry procession Omer, saint 126 Orderic Vitalis 28, 41

206 Index ordinaries 53, 55 Ordines romani 53 ostension of relics 43; see also translation of relics Otto I, emperor 126 Ouen (Audoen), saint 175, 183 Palm Sunday 55, 58–61, 59, 67, 68, 116 Paris 29, 34, 36–37, 40, 92 Peace of God 4, 9–10, 14, 17, 114–15, 144, 164, 175; see also peacemaking peacemaking 13, 94, 113, 128, 145, 147 Pentecost 126–27, 172 Peter, saint (apostle) 91, 121–24, 150, 170–71, 175; image of 59, 59–60, 63–65 Philibert, saint 29–34, 38–39, 163 phylacteries 56–58, 67, 97 pilgrimage 1, 3–4, 16, 125, 148, 153, 172; as metaphor for relic circulation 36, 44–45, 100–103 Poitiers 122, 124 portal sculptures 83, 85, 89, 183 porters of relics 37, 59, 59, 67, 75, 81–82, 85, 92–95, 126, 147, 174–75, 183–84; concerns for purity of 58, 92–93; healing of 37; see also companions of relics praesentia 5, 28, 34–37, 39, 41, 89, 91, 113, 162 preaching 1, 8, 98–99, 113, 138 procession 67, 120–21, 152, 173, 184; around monastery 68; ordering of relics in 59, 116; of Tournai 184; see also Ascension Day; entry processions; Palm Sunday; Rogations; translation of relics Prudentius, saint 120, 147, 150 quêtes itinérantes see fundraising Quirinus, Nicasius, and Scubiculus, saints 163–64 Ratleig 27 Reims 14, 40, 97, 147 relic circulation: and creation of secondary sacred sites 163–66; for epidemics/weather 64, 94, 116, 163, 166, 174–76; images of 83–86; liturgies for 62–65; moral critiques of 7–8; for property disputes and management 7, 40, 65, 90, 141, 161, 165–71, 173–74, 183; terminology 10; see also companions of relics; entry processions; logistics of

relic circulation; porters of relics; translation of relics relics: 3–6, 82–83; competing claims to 43–4; complications of texts about 11; fragmentation 32–32, 44; as liturgical objects 56–58; materiality of 82, 87; placed on temporary constructions 148; sacred space surrounding 83, 113–14, 123–24; secondary 32–3, 163; theft of 11, 13, 27, 43; see also names of individual saints; assemblies of relics; companions of relics; porters of relics; reliquary/reliquaries; translation of relics reliquary/reliquaries: arm–shaped 59, 147, 150; cloth coverings 32, 85–86; empty 88–89, 91; identifcation of 89–90, 150; portability of 3, 16, 30, 38, 69; relationship to relics 88–92; violence against 86–87; see also Ark of the Covenant; kissing of reliquary; immobility of reliquary; phylacteries Richard, abbot of Corbie 121 Richarius, saint 44, 139–41, 148 Rictrude, saint 115 Robert I (the Frisian), count of Flanders 90, 125 Robert II, count of Flanders 113, 169 Rodulfus Tortarius 98 Rodulph (Raoul) of St-Sepulchre 119 Rogations 57–58, 67, 175 Romana, saint 150 Rule of St. Benedict 53 saints: geographical stability of 1–3, 5–6, 40–45; hierarchies/rankings of 117–20; personal connections between 120–22, 169; personal connections to landscape 169–171; presence see praesentia; reputations of 16, 138, 140; see also names of individual saints; miracles; relics; visions of saints sepulchrum 31 servants see famuli Sigibert, saint 149 Simeon of Durham 95 Sindulph, saint 172 Soissons 117 St-Bavo, monastery 93, 172–74 St-Benigne, monastery 65, 165 St-Donatian, collegiate church 113, 122–23 St-Fare, monastery 96 St-Fursey, collegiate church 14, 100, 145, 149

Index St-Germain-des-Prés, monastery 34–38 St-Germer-de-Flay, monastery 43–44 St-Martin of Tournai, monastery 96 St-Omer, collegiate church 126, 148 St-Ouen, monastery 175, 183 St-Peter (Blandinense), monastery 90, 93, 174 St-Peter, cathedral (Poitiers) 122–24 St-Quentin, monastery 10–11, 97, 149–50 St-Vaast, monastery 42 St-Winnoc, monastery 12, 12–13, 16, 172 Stephen, saint: translation of 86, 86 Taurinus, saint 12, 12, 15–16, 52–53, 124, 143, 148, 151, 163–64 tents 30, 82, 125–26, 147, 150 Theoderic of Fleury 39–40, 44 Theoderic, saint 89, 168–69 Tournus 38–39 translation of relics 3, 5, 10–11, 13, 27–8, 31–32, 40, 43, 45, 83, 144–46, 149, 163–64; images of 85–86, 86; into new reliquaries 88–89, 137–38; “inverse” translation 171–74; see also elevation; forced translation of relics; relic circulation travel literature 11, 82, 102–103, 184–85 Trinity: and procession 64 Trudo, saint 163 Ulrich of Zell 56, 58, 66–67; see also Ulrich’s customary Ulrich’s customary 56, 58, 66–67, 69

207

Urban of Langres, saint 165 Ursio of Hautmont 121, 137–38, 146 Ursmar, saint 12, 12–15, 144–45, 147–48, 150, 163, 169 Valenciennes 184 Valentine, saint 88 Vedast (Vaast), saint 42, 44, 117 Victricius of Rouen, bishop 5, 37 Vigilantus, bishop 5 Vikings 28–31, 39, 43–45, 120, 172; miraculously punished by saints 33–36; see also exile; forced translations of relics Vincent Madelgaire, saint 121, 169 Virgin Mary, saint 12, 94, 96–97, 100–102, 125–27, 148 visions 163; of saints 34–36, 39–40, 42, 88, 165, 174 Vitonus, saint 94 Vivianus, saint 152 Walaricus (Valéry), saint 90, 141–42, 148 Waldebert, saint 87, 170–72 Wandregisil, saint 41–42 welcome of relics see entry processions Wigbert, saint 146 William of Hirsau 56, 67 William of Volpiano 67 Winnoc, saint 13, 89, 172 women: access to relics 31, 146–47; depicted negatively 124–25, 137–38; ignoring social norms 143; joining companies 148–49; see also laypeople