Thefts of Relics in Italy
From Late Antiquity to the Central Middle Ages, 300–1150
9789463723879
pages
Amsterdam University Press
Overview
With the birth of the cult of the saints, their relics became valuables whose possession would guarantee prestige, protection, and spiritual benefits to a town, church, or monastery. For this reason—at first with the aim of preserving the bodies of newly-executed martyrs from destruction and later of increasing the power of a particular faction or community—, the relics began to be stolen, with numerous cases documented throughout Europe. At the same time, a rich hagiographic literature flourished to describe the contexts in which the thefts occurred and to demonstrate their authenticity. Justifications, legitimations, ordeals, and supernatural interventions are dotted throughout the stories of hagiographers over the centuries. This book seeks to reconstruct the cultural history of the theft of relics in the specific context of Italy, from Late Antiquity to the Central Middle Ages, availing itself of an interdisciplinary perspective.
Author Bio
Marco Papasidero is Assistant Professor in History of Christianity and Churches at the University of Palermo, Italy. From 2019 to 2023, he was a Post-doctoral Fellow at the University of Turin, as part of the ERC StG project NeMoSanctI. He has also been Research Fellow at the Edward Worth Library in Dublin and at the Irish Cultural Centre in Paris, and Visiting Professor at the University of Southern Denmark in Odense.
