Green Alternative: When Saint Patrick Wore Blue

31 Sunday Jan 2021

Posted by Reliquarian in Art History, Color

Tags

Armagh, Bell of Saint Patrick, Domhnach Airgid Shrine, Dublin, Hill of Tara, Ireland, Saint Macartan, Saint Patrick, Saint Patrick's Well, shamrock

Stained glass window depicting Saint Patrick, Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, Ireland. Photo by Reliquarian.

Saint Patrick’s Day

Saint Patrick’s Day is celebrated each year on 17 March, the traditional feast day of Saint Patrick. Today, Saint Patrick is widely recognized as a patron saint of Ireland and is commonly associated with the color green. Saint Patrick, however, was not always identified with green in art. Historically, Saint Patrick was more commonly shown wearing blue, a color that continues to be affiliated with the saint. How, then, did green come to be associated with Saint Patrick? And what is the origin of “Saint Patrick’s blue”?

Captivity and Conversion

According to Butler’s Lives of the Saints, Saint Patrick was born about 389 CE to a Romano-British family.[1] When he was about 16, he was kidnapped by raiders and taken as a slave to Ireland.[2] He spent nearly 6 years in captivity there, during which time he found solace in prayer.[3] In his Confessio, Saint Patrick wrote, “In a single day I said as many as a hundred prayers and at night nearly as many.”[4]

Choir of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, Ireland. Photo by Reliquarian.

Eventually, Saint Patrick escaped from his master. After hearing a voice in his sleep, he fled nearly 200 miles to the coast where a ship carried him back across the sea to his family.[5]

Upon returning home, however, Saint Patrick received fresh visions and again heard voices, this time beseeching him to “come and walk among us once more.”[6] He resolved to return to Ireland to convert the people to Christianity, but before setting out, he undertook extensive study and preparation for the mission. Some sources suggest he spent several years studying in France (on the island of Lerins, off Cannes), while others suggest he also journeyed to Rome.[7]

Stained glass window depicting Saint Patrick (detail), Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, Ireland. Photo by Reliquarian.

Banishment of Snakes

When Saint Patrick finally did return to Ireland, he traveled extensively, converting the people from paganism to Christianity. Several legends describe how he banished all snakes from Ireland and how he used a shamrock to explain the Trinity, though there is scant evidence to support these stories. Still, the popularity of these stories persists. At Trinity College Dublin, for example, the school’s famous Campanile features four figures, sculpted by Thomas Kirk, representing the faculties of Law, Medicine, Science, and Divinity. Medicine is represented by a figure bearing a simple staff rather than a caduceus—a staff entwined by two serpents, which is now a common symbol of the medical profession. The snakes are missing from Medicine’s staff, we were told by our student guide, because Saint Patrick banished snakes from Ireland in the fifth century![8]

Trinity College Campanile (detail) depicting Medicine, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland. Note the figure of Medicine his holding a bare staff rather than a caduceus — apparently because Saint Patrick banished all snakes from Ireland. Photo by Reliquarian.

Shamrocks and the Trinity

The legend of Saint Patrick’s use of the shamrock to convert the Irish also remains popular. According to the story, upon returning to Ireland in 433 CE, Saint Patrick first confronted the Druids on the Hill of Slane in what is now County Meath.[9] Saint Patrick had resolved to celebrate his first Easter back in Ireland by lighting the Paschal fire on Easter eve.[10] Unbeknownst to Patrick, Loigaire (or Lóegaire), the High King of Ireland, had decreed that no other fire should be lit while a festival fire burned at his own palace on the Hill of Tara nearly 10 miles away.[11] The story suggests Easter and the pagan festival of Beltane happened to coincide in 433 CE, though as J.B. Bury points out, the day of Beltane was celebrated on the first day of summer, not the vernal equinox as indicated in the story.[12] “The calendar is disregarded,” Bury concludes dryly.[13]

Spying the fire burning on the Hill of Slane, Loigaire and his court were surprised and alarmed. The king consulted his magicians, who replied, “O king, unless this fire which you see be quenched this same night, it will never be quenched; and the kindler of it will overcome us all and seduce all the folk of your realm.”[14] The king then traveled by chariot to the Hill of Slane with the queen, his two chief sorcerers, and several others to confront the man responsible for lighting the fire. After an altercation, the king ordered that Saint Patrick be seized. According to J.B. Bury’s account, Patrick then cried out, “Let God arise, and let his enemies be scattered.”[15] Then, “a great darkness fell and the earth quaked, and in the tumult the heathen fell upon each other, and the horses fled over the plain.”[16]

Saint Patrick’s Window (detail), Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin Ireland. This panel depicts Saint Patrick at Tara. Photo by Reliquarian.

Bury remains skeptical of the ancient account, though he admires the cleverness of the storytelling. “The framers of this legend had an instinct for scenic effect,” he notes.[17] Butler’s Lives of the Saints expresses a similar dubiousness while admitting the story might hold a kernel of truth. The Lives of the Saints states, “There is doubtless much that is purely mythical in the legend of the encounter of Patrick with the magicians or Druids, but it is clear that something momentous was decided on that occasion, and that the saint, either by force of character or by the miracles he wrought, gained a victory over his opponents which secured a certain amount of toleration for the preaching of Christianity.”[18]

Statue of Saint Patrick (detail), Hill of Tara, County Meath, Ireland. Saint Patrick is shown holding a shamrock in his right hand. According to legend, the saint used a shamrock to explain the Trinity to the people of Ireland. Photo by Reliquarian

Other legends, probably of more recent vintage, suggest Saint Patrick used the shamrock to explain the nature of the Trinity during his evangelization of Ireland. If he did, the shamrock likely would have made a convenient pedagogic device. The triskele or triskelion—a triple spiral symbol sometimes contained within a circle—was a common motif in Celtic art, and it continued to be used in Christian art of Ireland from at least the seventh century onward.[19] Roger Homan observes, “We can perhaps see St Patrick drawing upon the visual concept of the triskele when he uses the shamrock to explain the Trinity, being both one leaf and having three lobes.”[20]

Saint Patrick’s Window (detail), Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin Ireland. Note the shamrocks in Saint Patrick’s left hand. Photo by Reliquarian.

Blue Period

Today, green is the color most commonly associated with Saint Patrick, but this was not always the case. Kassia St. Clair indicates in her book The Secret Lives of Color, “Strangely, . . . the color he was most associated with until the middle of the eighteenth century was a shade of blue.”[21] St. Clair explains that in response to the perceived anti-Catholic bias of William of Orange and orange-wearing Protestants, Catholics craved their own symbolic color.[22]

Entrance Passage to Newgrange, County Meath, Ireland. Built around 3,200 BCE, the passage tomb at Newgrange is older than pyramids at Giza in Egypt. The large entrance stone in front of the passage features megalithic designs, including triskele-like spirals on the left side of the stone. Photo by Reliquarian.

Blue had long signified authority in Ireland. In the 13th century Armorial Wijnbergen, for example, Le Roi d’Irlande (King of Ireland) is identified with a blue shield bearing a gold harp.[23] Early depictions of Saint Patrick, including in various medieval manuscripts, also presented the saint in blue. Centuries later, in 1783, when King George III created the Order of Saint Patrick, a new order of chivalry for the Kingdom of Ireland, a shade of sky blue known as Saint Patrick’s blue was chosen to identify the order.[24] By then, however, Saint Patrick’s association with blue had begun to lose its allure. An article in Smithsonian Magazine explains, “From the late 18th to the 20th century, as the divide between the Irish population and the British crown deepened, the color green and St. Patrick’s shamrock became a symbol of identity and rebellion for the Irish.”[25]

Today, shades of blue continue to be used to identify Saint Patrick and Ireland in some contexts. The standard of the President of Ireland, for example, is a deep azure, while the robes of the choir of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin are a lighter shade of Saint Patrick’s blue. Still, green has undoubtedly replaced blue as Saint Patrick’s color in modern times.

Relics of Saint Patrick

Relics of Saint Patrick can be found throughout Ireland. One of the most important, the Bell of Saint Patrick, is currently on permanent display at the National Museum of Ireland in Dublin. According to the museum, the bell is a “powerful relic” which is “frequently mentioned in written sources as one of the principal relics of Ireland.”[26] The museum further notes that “[i]t was also used as a political tool, to legitimise Armagh as the most important Christian site in Ireland through its association with St. Patrick.”[27] Saint Patrick served as the first Bishop of Armagh.

Bell of Saint Patrick, National Museum of Ireland, Dublin, Ireland. Photo by Reliquarian.

A shrine that once contained the bell is also on display in the museum’s treasury. The shrine, which dates to approximately 1100 CE, is trapezoidal, matching the shape of the bell, and is formed from plates of bronze.[28] At one time, the shrine was once covered with thirty panels of decorative gold filigree.[29]

Shrine of the Bell of Saint Patrick, National Museum of Ireland, Dublin, Ireland. Photo by Reliquarian.

Another shrine that once belonged to Saint Patrick is also kept at the museum. The Domhnach Airgid Shrine, or “silver church” shrine, was given by Saint Patrick to Saint Macartan, the founder of a church in Clogher in County Tyrone. Part of an ancient manuscript of the Gospels was discovered inside the shrine when it was opened in the 19th century. Originally fashioned in the 8th century, the shrine was subsequently reworked in the mid-1300s. Today, a panel of the shrine (the one on the lower left) depicts Saint Patrick delivering the shrine to Saint Macartan.

Domhnach Airgid Shrine, National Museum of Ireland, Dublin, Ireland. Photo by Reliquarian.

In 1901, a stone slab decorated with a Celtic cross was recovered near Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin. A sign beneath the stone indicates it may once have covered Saint Patrick’s Well, the well at which Saint Patrick baptized his converts. Some believe the well itself can be found near Trinity College.[30] Nassau Street, which runs along the college, was once known as “Sráid Thobar Phádraig” or “Street of Saint Patrick’s Well.”[31]

Discovered in 1901, this stone slab bearing a Celtic cross is believed to have once covered Saint Patrick’s Well, the well used by Saint Patrick to baptize converts. Today it is on display at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin. Photo by Reliquarian.

Conclusion

Today, images and references to Saint Patrick can be found throughout Ireland and the world. Whether clad in green, blue, or some other color, his significance to the Irish people has been enduring.

Statue of Saint Patrick, Hill of Tara, County Meath, Ireland. Photo by Reliquarian.

[1] 1 Butler’s Lives of the Saints 612-13 (Herbert J. Thurston, S.J. & Donald Attwater eds., 2d ed. 1956.

[2] Id. at 613.

[3] Id.

[4] Id.

[5] Id. 613-14.

[6] Id. at 614.

[7] Id.

[8] We’ve noticed that some sources identify the figure with the staff as Science rather than Medicine and claim the figure with a book is Medicine instead. As noted, our tour guide specifically identified the figure with a staff as Medicine. We further note that the figure with the book is also holding a telescope and a compass, making her a more likely candidate to represent Science rather than Medicine.

[9] See J.B. Bury, The Life of Saint Patrick and His Place in History (1905).

[10] Id. at 104.

[11] Id.

[12] Id. at 107.

[13] Id.

[14] Id.

[15] Id. at 106.

[16] Id.

[17] Id.

[18] Butler, supra note 1, at 614.

[19] See Roger Homan, The Art of the Sublime (2017).

[20] Id.

[21] Kassia St. Clair, The Secret Lives of Color 223 (2016).

[22] Id.

[23] See Ewan Morris, Our Own Devices (2005).

[24] See Shaylyn Esposito, “Should We Be Wearing Blue on St. Patrick’s Day?,” Smithsonian Magazine (Mar. 17, 2015), https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/should-st-patricks-day-be-blue-180954572/.

[25] Id.

[26] “Bell of St Patrick and Its Shrine,” National Museum of Ireland, https://www.museum.ie/en-IE/Collections-Research/Collection/Resilience/Artefact/Test-5/8e122ba9-6464-4533-8f72-d036afde12a9.

[27] Id.

[28] Id.

[29] Id.

[30] “Trinity’s Little Secret: Saint Patrick’s Well (Sráid Thobar Phádraig),” Trinity College Dublin (Mar. 16, 2018), https://www.tcd.ie/news_events/articles/trinitys-little-secret-saint-patricks-well-sraid-thobar-phadraig/.

[31] Id.

Saint Corona and Saint Rosalia: Two Saints Invoked Against Pandemics

29 Sunday Mar 2020

Posted by Reliquarian in Art History, Metal Reliquary, Painting, Reliquary, Sculpture

≈ 1 Comment

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Aachen, coronavirus, Germany, Italy, martyr, Palermo, pandemic, plague, Saint Corona, Saint Edmund, Saint Roch, Saint Rosalia, Saint Victor, shrine

Anthony van Dyck, Saint Rosalie Interceding for the Plague-stricken of Palermo, oil on canvas (1624). Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Photo via the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The Great Plague, or Black Death, of the 14th century was one of the most lethal pandemics in human history. The plague was believed to have entered Europe from the Crimean port of Kaffa (modern-day Feodosia) in 1346.[1] From there, it spread to Constantinople, Sicily, Genoa, and Provence before infiltrating the rest of the continent. The Shorter Cambridge Medieval History describes its initial progress as “like the advance of a prairie fire, destroying and inescapable.”[2] Dispersed along well-worn trade routes, the Black Death killed nearly one-third of Europe’s population between 1347 and 1352—an estimated 25 million people.[3] In his book The Great Transition, Bruce Campbell observes that “[b]oth proportionately and absolutely it therefore probably ranks as the single greatest public health crisis in recorded European history.”[4]

The tragedy of the plague, however, did not conclude with this initial wave of fatalities. The plague endured for another three hundred years, returning approximately every ten years to ravage European society anew.[5] Dread of the plague manifested itself in a number of ways. In art, for example, the danse macabre became a popular motif. In these scenes personifications of death, frequently in the form of jaunty skeletons, escorted individuals from all stations in life to their graves. In religion, special saints were invoked for their protection against the Black Death. Chief among these were Saint Roch and Saint Edmund. Saint Roch was often shown pointing at a bubo (a wound caused by the bubonic plague) in his leg and accompanied by a dog carrying a piece of bread. Meanwhile, Saint Edmund, who was King of East Anglia, is frequently portrayed with a crown, an orb, a scepter, or arrows (his death involved a volley of arrows). Other saints, however, were also believed to protect against pandemics and the plague. The COVID-19 outbreak has renewed interest of some of these saints, two of whom are described below.

Christian Jorhan, Heilige Rochus (Saint Roch) (detail), polychromed limewood (1760/1770). Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremburg, Germany. In this detail, Saint Roch points at a wound caused by bubonic plague clearly evident in his leg. Photo by Reliquarian.

Saint Corona – Patron Saint of Lumberjacks . . . and Epidemics?

Saint Corona is believed to have been martyred in the second or third century in particularly gruesome fashion. Tied between two bent palm trees, she was torn apart when the two trees were released.[6] She later became a patron saint of lumberjacks.[7] In 997, King Otto III translated Saint Corona’s relics to Aachen Cathedral where the relics remained, buried beneath a slab of stone in the cathedral’s floor, until the early 20th century.[8] Around 1912, the relics were transferred to a reliquary shrine created by the famous Aachen goldsmith Bernhard Witte.[9]

Master of the Palazzo Venezia Madonna, Saint Corona, tempera and gold on panel (c. 1350). National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen, Denmark. Note the crown she holds in her left hand and the two palm leaves she holds in her right. Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Experts from the cathedral’s treasury had been working to restore Saint Corona’s reliquary in preparation for an exhibition on goldsmithery when the novel coronavirus emerged last year.[10] The pandemic has lent new relevance to Saint Corona, whom cathedral officials allege is also a protector against infectious diseases. Some scholars, however, question Saint Corona’s historical association with pandemics and infectious diseases.[11] Regardless, her name alone has earned her an inescapable connection with the COVID-19 outbreak. Notably, the names of the saint and the coronavirus share the same Latin root, corona, which means crown.

Coronaviruses derive their name from the protein spikes that protrude from their surfaces; when viewed under a microscope, these spikes give the appearance of a crown. Saint Corona’s name relates to a vision of crowns she had near the time of her death. According to legend, Saint Corona comforted a Roman soldier—the future Saint Victor—who was being tortured for his faith. The Roman Martyrology states, “As Corona . . . was proclaiming him happy for his fortitude in his sufferings, she saw two crowns falling from heaven, one for Victor, the other for herself. She related this to all present and was torn to pieces between two trees; Victor was beheaded.”[12] Saint Corona’s feast day is 14 May.

High Altar of Aachen Cathedral, Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle), Germany. The relics of Saint Corona were interred beneath a black stone slab to the left of the high altar in 997. The relics were later transferred to a golden reliquary designed by Bernhard Witte in the early 20th century. Photo by Reliquarian.

Saint Rosalia – Protector Against the Plague

Another saint associated with pandemics has also been in the news lately. On the eve of an exhibition celebrating its 150th anniversary, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has been forced to close its doors to the public due to the coronavirus pandemic. A centerpiece of its anniversary exhibition, “Making the Met: 1870-2020,” was to be a painting by Anthony van Dyck titled “Saint Rosalie Interceding for the Plague-stricken of Palermo.”[13]

The painting, one of the first acquired by the museum after its founding, depicts Saint Rosalia ascending to heaven accompanied by a tumbled passel of cherubim.[14] An article by Jason Farago in the New York Times notes that at first glance, the work could easily be confused for an Assumption of the Virgin due to the lack of visual clues clearly identifying its central figure as Rosalia rather than the Virgin Mary.[15] Farago writes, “Unlike Peter with his keys or Catherine with her wheel, this little-known saint did not have a set of standard attributes until the plague struck.”[16] The plague referenced was an outbreak of bubonic plague that beset Palermo in 1624.

Upon closer inspection, van Dyck’s painting does offer some clues to the saint’s identity. Farago suggests van Dyck had to invent an iconography to identify Saint Rosalia, who was credited with ending the 1624 flare-up.[17] One cherub, for example, bears a wreath of pink and white roses which it is preparing to place on Saint Rosalia’s head. The roses are a reference to the saint’s name “Rosalia.” Another cherub holds a more macabre emblem of the saint: an umber brown cranium which the cherub grasps casually in its left hand. The skull is Saint Rosalia’s, a reference to the saint’s relics, which were unearthed near Palermo during the outbreak of plague in the city.[18]

Anthony van Dyck, Saint Rosalie Interceding for the Plague-stricken of Palermo (detail), oil on canvas (1624). Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Photo via the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

According to legend, a local Palmeritan woman was healed of the plague after praying fervently to Saint Rosalia.[19] Later, the saint revealed the location of her bones to the woman in a dream.[20] The bones were subsequently discovered in a cave on Mount Pellegrino near Palermo.[21] Hagiographies of the saint suggest that Rosalia fled to Mount Pellegrino to avoid a marriage arranged for her by her father and that she changed caverns frequently, guided by an angel, to avoid discovery.[22] In van Dyck’s painting, Mount Pellegrino is clearly visible in the background, as is the harbor of Palermo.

Today, the Festino di Santa Rosalia, which takes place in July, is one of the largest festivals in Italy.[23] At present, however, it is still unclear whether the festival will proceed as planned as many Italians remain in quarantine. Meanwhile, “Saint Rosalie Interceding for the Plague-stricken of Palermo” also remains in quarantine amidst the coronavirus outbreak. The Metropolitan Museum does not plan to reopen until July at the earliest.[24]

[1] 2 C.W. Previté-Orton, The Shorter Cambridge Medieval History 847 (1952).

[2] Id.

[3] Id.; Bruce M. S. Campbell, The Great Transition 307 (2016).

[4] Id.

[5] Id., Previté-Orton, supra note 1, at 847.

[6] “German Cathedral Dusts Off Relics of St Corona, Patron of Epidemics,” Reuters (Mar. 25, 2020), https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-germany-saint-idUSKBN21C2PM.

[7] Id.

[8] Id.

[9] Naomi Rea, “A German Cathedral Plans to Display Its Shrine to Saint Corona, Who It Says Is the Patron Saint of Epidemics,” Artnet (Mar. 27, 2020), https://news.artnet.com/art-world/aachen-cathedral-saint-corona-1817631.

[10] Id.

[11] E.g., id.

[12] Catholic Church, The Roman Martyrology 139-40 (revised ed., reprint 1916).

[13] Jason Farago, “The Saint Who Stopped an Epidemic Is on Lockdown at the Met,” N.Y. Times (Mar. 26, 2020), https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/26/arts/design/van-dyck-metropolitan-museum-virus.html.

[14] Id.

[15] Id.

[16] Id.

[17] Id.

[18] Id.

[19] Rosa Giorgi, Saints in Art 323 (Thomas Michael Hartmann trans., Stefano Zuffi ed., 2002).

[20] Id.

[21] Id.

[22] Id.

[23] Farago, supra note 13.

[24] Id.

The Catacomb Saints: Bedazzled Skeletons of the Counter-Reformation

07 Sunday Aug 2016

Posted by Reliquarian in Reliquary, Textile

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Tags

Austria, catacomb saints, catacombs, Germany, Hall in Tirol, Munich, Saint Munditia, skeleton

Skeleton of Saint Catherine, Pfarrkirche Sankt Nikolaus, Hall in Tirol, Austria. Photo by Reliquarian.

The Work of the Dead

In the third century BCE, Diogenes the Cynic famously insisted that a corpse was mere matter, fundamentally profane and profoundly irrelevant. To emphasize his point, Diogenes ordered that upon his death his own body should be tossed over the wall of the city and be left unburied. His friends were stunned. “What!” they replied. “To the birds and beasts?” “By no means,” he answered. “Place my staff near me, that I may drive them away.” “How can you do that, for you will not perceive them,” they responded. “How am I then injured by being torn by those animals, if I have no sensation?” he rejoined.[1]

Josse Lieferinxe, Saint Sebastian Interceding for the Plague Stricken (1497-99), Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, Maryland

Josse Lieferinxe, Saint Sebastian Interceding for the Plague Stricken (detail) (1497-99). The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, Maryland. Photo by Reliquarian.

In The Work of the Dead: A Cultural History of Mortal Remains, historian Thomas W. Laqueur explores an intriguing question: Why do human beings care for the dead?[2] Laqueur observes that Diogenes, with his “seemingly commonsense rejection of all that decency and custom prescribe,” made the case “against the pretensions of the dead body more uncompromisingly” than anyone else in the Western tradition.[3] Laqueur further contends that “[i]f Diogenes had not existed, we would have had to invent him,” because “[w]e need someone to insist that the dead do not matter so that we can respond with reasons for why they do.”[4] As Laqueur explains, “[t]he history of the work of the dead is a history of how they dwell in us—individually and communally. It is a history of how we imagine them to be, how they give meaning to our lives, how they structure public spaces, politics, and time. It is a history of the imagination, a history of how we invest the dead . . . with meaning.”[5] In short, Laqueur writes, the dead “are a powerful category of the imagination,” and then as now, “the corpse is their token.”[6]

The Roman Catacombs

On 31 May 1578, laborers along the Via Salaria in Rome uncovered something mysterious in a nearby vineyard: a dark, forbidding hole that disappeared deep into the earth.[7] Further investigation revealed the hole to be the entrance to an ancient, subterranean cemetery known as the Coemeterium Jordanorum, or Jordanian Cemetery.[8] The discovery of other ancient cemeteries soon followed. Begun in the 1st century, these burial places were initially known as hypogaeum (a subterranean place) and later as coemeterium (a sleeping place).[9] We, however, have come to know these Roman cemeteries by a different name: the Roman Catacombs.

View of the Roman Forum. Photo by Reliquarian.

The cemeteries of the Roman Catacombs are linked by a multitude of galleries that cross and recross each other to form a vast labyrinth beneath the city. As J. Spencer Northcote and W. R. Brownlow explain in Roma Sotterranea, “The galleries are from two to four feet in width, and vary in height according to the nature of the rock in which they are dug. The walls on both sides are pierced with horizontal niches, like shelves in a bookcase or berths in a steamer, and every niche once contained one or more dead bodies.”[10] Note that the Roma Sotterranea, published in 1869, states the niches “once contained one or more bodies.”[11] In 1578, the bodies were still there.

Skeleton of Abbot Konrad II (center) with the Bodies of Four Catacomb Saints, Collegiate Church of Saint Michael, Mondsee, Austria. Photo by Reliquarian.

The Protestant Reformation

Holy relics were anathema to proponents of the Protestant Reformation. In his Treatise on Relics, for example, John Calvin railed against the use of relics as objects of worship.[12] Early Christians, he wrote, obeyed “the universal sentence, that all flesh is dust, and to dust it must return.”[13] In contrast, later Christians disinterred the bodies of the faithful “in opposition to the command of God . . . in order to be glorified, when they ought to have remained in their places of repose awaiting the last judgment.”[14]

Protestant disdain for relics, however, was not limited to verbal expressions of disapprobation. Throughout Protestant Europe, countless relics were also physically damaged or destroyed.[15] Paul Koudounaris observes, “Not even the esteemed church fathers such as St Irenaeus were safe.”[16] The saint’s “nearly 1,400-year-old remains in Lyons were burned and cast to the wind by Huguenots in 1562.”[17]

Relics of Catacomb Saints, Church of Saint Nikolaus, Hall in Tirol, Austria.

Relics of Catacomb Saints, North Wall, Pfarrkirche Sankt Nikolaus, Hall in Tirol, Austria. Photo by Reliquarian.

The Counter-Reformation

The Council of Trent, which met between 1545 and 1563, sought to address issues raised by Protestant reformers, including the preservation and veneration of holy relics. Ultimately, the Council reaffirmed the significance of relics, declaring that “they who affirm that veneration and honour are not due to the relics of saints; or, that these, and other sacred monuments are uselessly honoured by the faithful . . . are wholly to be condemned.”[18] However, acknowledging that relics had been the subject of much abuse in the past, the Council also introduced strict rules governing their visitation and authentication.[19] For example, the Council declared that in the veneration of relics, “every superstition shall be removed [and] all filthy lucre be abolished.”[20] The Council also required all new relics to be officially recognized before they could be offered for veneration.[21]

While the Council’s decision provided a doctrinal resolution to the relic debate, many churches now faced a more practical problem: the Protestant Reformation had created a shortage of holy relics, particularly in areas close to Protestant regions.[22] Given this scarcity, how would Rome meet the renewed demand for sacred relics? Where would churches find new relics for devotional display?

The discovery of the Roman Catacombs seemed to provide a providential answer.

Jean-Léon Gérôme, The Christian Martyrs' Last Prayer, oil on canvas (1863-883). The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, Maryland.

Jean-Léon Gérôme, The Christian Martyrs’ Last Prayer (detail), oil on canvas (1863-883). The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, Maryland. Photo by Reliquarian.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers

In his arresting book Heavenly Bodies: Cult Treasures & Spectacular Saints from the Catacombs, Paul Koudounaris notes that after their discovery in 1578, the dusky passageways of the catacombs became the focus of a “public obsession.”[23] Koudounaris writes, “While no one was quite sure in the early years whose bones were down there, the consensus was that they must certainly be sacred because they dated from the blood-soaked days of state-sponsored persecutions.”[24] In other words, it was believed the bones were those of early Christian martyrs.[25]

Soon, bones began to trickle northward as churches sought to replace relics lost during the Protestant Reformation with the bones of Katakombenheiligen or “catacomb saints.”[26] These relics were officially authenticated, as required by the Council of Trent, although identification of could be tricky. As Koudounaris explains, relic hunters first looked for funerary plaques identifying martyrs, but “[i]f the word ‘martyr’ was absent, a capital ‘M’ was considered sufficient as shorthand—although ‘M’ was also used in Roman times as an abbreviation for the name Marcus, memoria (memory), mensis (month) or manis (dead).”[27] Similarly, the abbreviation sang, or simply sa, were believed to mean sanguis (blood).[28] In the absence of written clues, symbols were used to decipher the graves of martyrs. For example, the presence of a palm frond, long understood to be a symbol of martyrdom, could denote a martyr’s tomb.[29] Alternatively, the presence of a phial or ampule was understood to mark the grave of a martyr because, it was believed, a sample of a martyr’s blood was commonly interred with the martyr’s body.[30]

Meanwhile martyrs lacking identifiable names were given new names in a process known as battezzati or “baptism.”[31] Some were named after popular saints, such as Saint Boniface. Others were named in Latin after virtues, such as Constantius for constancy, Clemens for clemency, or Innocens for innocent.

Relics of Saint Honoratus, Peterskirche, Munich Germany. The inscription on the reliquary reads, “Corpus S. Honorati, Martyris.” A second inscription on the side of the reliquary reads, “Hl. Honoratus aus den Katakomben.” Photo by Reliquarian.

Recalled to Life

Churches treasured the relics they received from the catacombs, and they carefully prepared them for display in a manner befitting their stature. Full skeletons were especially prized, although reconstructing them correctly could be difficult. Koudounaris explains, “For extensive reconstruction, the bones would usually have to be sent to experts, most often to nuns who specialized in working with relics.”[32] In addition to possessing the appropriate religious temperament to work with relics, these nuns also exhibited tremendous skill with textiles and the decorative arts.[33]

Once fully reconstructed, catacomb saints were lavishly decorated with gold, jewels, and sumptuous fabrics. According to Smithsonian Magazine, the bones were frequently wrapped in a fine gauze to prevent dust from settling on the relics and to use as “a medium for attaching decorations.”[34] Additionally, “[l]ocal nobles often donated personal garments, which the nuns would lovingly slip onto the corpse and then cut out peepholes so people could see the bones beneath.”[35] In some cases, a nun would add her own ring to a skeleton’s finger as a personal touch.[36]

Saint Munditia, Peterskirche, Munich, Germany. Photo by Reliquarian.

The resulting displays were majestic, resplendent, regal—though a modern observer might describe them as creepy. Some catacomb saints wear wax masks over their brittle skulls. Others feature glass eyes or eye sockets beset with jewels. Many gesture as if still animate, suspended for a moment in time.

The men and women whom the catacomb saints were meant to inspire, however, responded positively to these displays. They credited the skeletons with protecting their communities and working miracles on their behalf. Some named their children after them.[37] And when they died, many wished to be buried near them.

Waldauf Chapel, Pfarrkirche Sankt Nikolaus, Hall in Tirol, Austria. These skulls formed part of the collection of Florian Waldauf. Waldauf donated his collection to the church in 1501. Photo by Reliquarian.

Ultimately, caring for the catacomb saints—the “special dead” as Laqueur calls them—was “a sign of piety, of love, of affection, and of religious devotion.”[38] It was “a mark of civility and decency: exactly what Diogenes rejected.”[39] Saint Augustine had said, “The bodies of the dead, and especially of the just and faithful, are not to be despised or cast aside. The soul has used them as organs and vessels for all good work in a holy manner.”[40] Buried for centuries before their discovery, the catacomb saints are proof that Diogenes was wrong, that dead bodies are not irrelevant, that the dead do matter. The catacomb saints were triumphs of the imagination invested with extraordinary meaning. And they were recalled to life just when the Church needed them most.

Relics of Saint Catherine, Pfarrkirche Sankt Nikolaus, Hall in Tirol, Austria. Photo by Reliquarian.

[1] Marcus Tullius Cicero, Tusculan Disputations (C.D. Yonge, trans, 1890), at 55-56.

[2] Thomas W. Laqueur, The Work of the Dead: A Cultural History of Mortal Remains (2015).

[3] Id. at 35.

[4] Id.

[5] Id. at 17.

[6] Id. at 79.

[7] Thomas W. Laqueur, The Work of the Dead: A Cultural History of Mortal Remains (2015).

[8] Id.

[9] J. Spencer Northcote and W. R. Brownlow, Roma Sotterranea (1869), at 29. As the authors explain in their preface, the book was based largely on Giovanni De Rossi’s two-volume Roma Sotterranea (1864, 1867), various articles from the Bullettino di Archeologia Cristiana, and other scholarly works and papers.

[10] Id. at 26-27.

[11] Id. (emphasis added).

[12] John Calvin, Treatise on Relics (Valerian Krasinski, trans., 2008), at 55.

[13] Id. (emphasis omitted).

[14] Id.

[15] See Koudounaris, supra note 7, at 30. Koudounaris observes that Clavin’s followers “proved particularly destructive. They sacked churches and ruined relics in large numbers, variously broken, discarded or set aflame.” Id.

[16] Id.

[17] Id.

[18] The Council of Trent: The Twenty-fifth Session (J. Waterworth, ed. and trans., 1848), at 234.

[19] Id. at 235-36.

[20] Id. at 235. The Council also prohibited the visitation of relics “by any perverted into revellings and drunkenness.” Id.

[21] Id.

[22] See Koudounaris, supra note 7, at 31.

[23] Id. at 33.

[24] Id.

[25] See, id. Koudounaris states, “The relic hunters who descended into the catacombs . . . were specifically seeking the graves of martyrs.” Id.

[26] Id. Koudounaris cites a 1907 study of catacombs saints in Switzerland to provide a sense of the scale of the exhumations. According to the study, Swiss churches alone possessed over 150 full skeletons and approximately 1,000 fragmentary collections of relics from the catacombs. Id.

[27] Id. at 39.

[28] Id.

[29] Id.

[30] Id. at 45.

[31] Id.

[32] Id. at 63.

[33] Id.

[34] Rachel Nuwer, “Meet the Fantastically Bejeweled Skeletons of Catholicism’s Forgotten Martyrs,” Smithsonian Magazine, 1 October 2013, available at http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/meet-the-fantastically-bejeweled-skeletons-of-catholicisms-forgotten-martyrs-284882/.

[35] Id.

[36] Id.

[37] Nuwer, supra note 34. Indeed in some cases, nearly half the children born in a town after the arrival of a catacomb saint would be named after the saint. Id.

[38] Laqueur, supra note 2, at 41.

[39] Id.

[40] Id. (quoting Saint Augustine, De Cura Mortuum Gerenda, in Treatises on Marriage and Other Subjects (Roy J. Deferrari, ed., 1955) at 353).