Reliquaries for the Skulls of Female Saints in the Cloisters, Oct. 2006

The cult of relics is rooted in the first centuries of Christianity and came to be a defining feature of that emerging religion. Fragments of martyrs came to be honored as objects of power and as a way of knowing the divine. By the High Middle Ages, the treasuries of churches and cathedrals were filled with precious reliquaries, objects of devotion so powerful that pilgrims walked hundreds of miles to venerate them. Fragmented body-part reliquaries form the largest class of containers for the remains of holy persons. Among these were head reliquaries, some containing the skull or a fragment of the saint represented (Reliquary Bust of Saint Yrieix, 17.190.352). These devotional objects were understood to direct the prayers of the faithful to that saint in heaven for their intercession. These heads and busts therefore carried an intrinsic power but deserve today to be seen also as great sculpture of their time, and not only as curiosities of devotion.


Text from: www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/face/hd_face.htm