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Saints' relics in medieval English literature

Malo, Roberta
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1186329116

Abstract Details

2007, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, English.
This dissertation, “Saints’ Relics in Medieval English Literature,” examines how the occlusion, control of and access to saints’ relics became the source of significant tensions in late medieval culture and literature. I argue that in England, conflicting ideas about papal control, institutional power and the role of the laity directly influenced the literary presentation of relics and their cults. Because saints’ relics were thought to channel God’s healing power and to work miracles, clerics highly regulated access to these body parts and objects. Literary scholars have seldom recognized this highly politicized regulation of relics. Instead, the assumption has been that relics are, as medieval theology would have it, an uncontroversial bridge between heaven and earth. I show that in fact, when they discussed relics, medieval authors were frequently using relics to explore lay experiences of hierarchical power. Relics inspire interest and even repulsion in the contemporary scholar, but in the Middle Ages, they were a crucial focal point for lay devotion and, because of their miracle-working capabilities, institutional control. Situated as they were in the shrines and churches that became places of pilgrimage, relics inspired saints’ cults and pilgrim communities, but also enabled a parish’s or cathedral’s assertions of institutional dominance. By examining the cultural history of relics, I argue that these objects functioned to consolidate Church authority and hierarchy. In this historical context, control over relics tended to be material and tactile: pilgrims were often literally kept from seeing or touching relics. In literature, however, writers tended to explore relics’ management by presenting relics as rhetorically, as well as materially, occluded. This literary phenomenon is nevertheless based on the actual incorporation of the saint’s body into the Church (in the form of a relic) and draws from the historical exclusion of lay bodies from full participation in and access to the power that the relic was thought to mediate. I show that the strict regulation of relics directly influenced literary presentations of local churches as more powerful than secular authority, as well as presentations of conflict between pilgrims and shrine-keepers.
Lisa Kiser (Advisor)
272 p.
Literature, Medieval
medieval pilgrimage and relics; pilgrimage; relics; relic custodians; Cathedral shrines and architecture; medieval religion; medieval religious culture; medieval religious literature; religion in medieval literature; Malory; Chaucer; Swithun; Erkenwald

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Malo, R. (2007). Saints' relics in medieval English literature [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1186329116

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Malo, Roberta. Saints' relics in medieval English literature. 2007. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1186329116.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Malo, Roberta. "Saints' relics in medieval English literature." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2007. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1186329116

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1186329116
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© 2007, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.