Embedded Files
The Bibliography below addresses multiple aspects of reliquaries and relics including: the bejewelled containers themselves, how they construct meaning for relics, particularly noteworthy relics, relics and reliquaries in Medieval literature, other aspects of contemporary history, constructions of the sacred, the use of relics and reliquaries by churches and cathedrals, and numerous other angles of the topic. One particularly interesting aspect of the topic is how the surviving relics and reliquaries relate to contemporary literature, most notably the Pardoner from Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales", but other figures and texts as well. While the intersection of literature and art does occur often enough, it is rather rare to have both antiquities and literature that directly intersect surviving from cultures before the Renaissance. When we can, studying the literature is particularly helpful, because the texts help to illuminate the meaning and use of antiquities in their original context and without centuries intervening between object and interpretation.
A well-presented website that accompanies a recent published exhibition of reliquaries: http://www.learn.columbia.edu/treasuresofheaven/ (Unsuitable as a source. See Bagnoli 2010 below)
You may find a good introduction to the topic if you are unsure whether it will interest you or not. The accompanying monograph is listed below in the bibliography under: Bagnoli, Martina. 2010.
* Indicates a particularly important (or recent) study
Bibliography in American Journal of Archaeology format for the most part with AJA journal abbreviations
Key to the American Journal of Archaeology’s bibliographic format:
Journal Articles: Author. Date. “Title.” Journal title Vol.: Pages. [or] Vol. (no. ): Pages
Books: Author. Date. Title. City: Publisher.
Chapters in books: Author. Date. “Chapter title.” In Book title, edited by Authors, pages. City: Publisher.
Reliquaries
2011. "Holy Jewels" (Review of Treasures of Heaven: Saints, Relics and Devotion in Medieval Europe). Economist 399 (8739): 97-8. (Not suitable for Review of Scholarship assignment)
Albersmeier, S. 2005. Bedazzled: 5000 years of Jewelery. Baltimore. (Contains a section on reliquaries) (Unsuitable for Review of Scholarship)
*Bagnoli, Martina. 2010. Treasures of heaven: saints, relics, and devotion in medieval Europe. Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art. (Essential monograph, should provide a suitable chapter)
*Bergman, R., Ed. 1998. Vatican Treasures: Early Christian, Renaissance, and Baroque Art from the Papal Collections. Exhibition Catalogue, Cleveland Museum of Art. (Unsuitable for Review of Scholarship)
Blindheim, M. 1984. "A House-shaped Irish-Scots reliquary in Bologna and its place among the other reliquaries." Acta Archaeologica 55: 1-53 (Unsuitable for Review of Scholarship)
Boehm, B.D. 1997. "Body-part reliquaries: the State of Research." Gesta 36 (1) 8-19. (JSTOR Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/767275)
Buckton, D. 1994. Byzantium: Treasures of Byzantine Art and Culture from the British Collections. London. (Unsuitable for Review of Scholarship)
Bühl, G., Ed. 2008. Dumbarton Oaks: The Collections. Washington, D.C. (Unsuitable for Review of Scholarship)
Bynum, C.W. and P. Gerson. 1997. "Body part reliquaries and body parts in the Middle Ages." Gesta 36 (1) 3-7. (JSTOR Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/767274)
(Unsuitable for Review of Scholarship)
Calcagnini, D. 1988. "Nota iconografica: la stella e il vaticinio del Vecchio Testamento nell'iconografia funeraria del III e IV secolo." RACr 64: 65-87.
*Chaganti, S. 2008. The Medieval poetics of the reliquary: enshrinement, inscription, performance. The New Middle Ages Series. (Should provide a suitable chapter)
Cherry, J. 2010. The Holy Thorn Reliquary. London. (Unsuitable for Review of Scholarship)
Cornelison, S.J. 2004. "Art Imitates Architecture: The Saint Philip Reliquary in Renaissance Florence." Art Bulletin 86 (4) 642-58. (JSTOR Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4134457)
Cutler, A. 1995. "From Loot to Scholarship: Changing Moods in the Italian Response to Byzantine Artefacts, ca. 1200-1750." DOP 49: 237-67. (Unsuitable for Review of Scholarship)
Dalton, O.M. 1926. "An Enamelled Gold Reliquary of the Twelfth Century." The British Museum Quarterly 1: 33-35 (Unsuitable for Review of Scholarship)
---. 1927. The Waddesdon Bequest: Jewels, Plate and Other Works of Art Bequeathed by Baron Ferdinand Rothschild. London. (Unsuitable for Review of Scholarship)
De Winter, P.M. 1985. "The Sacral Treasure of the Guelphs." CMA Bulletin 72 (1): 2-160. (Unsuitable for Review of Scholarship)
Diebold, W.J. 2000. Word and Image: An Introduction to Early Medieval Art. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. (Should provide a suitable chapter)
Fliegel, S.N. 2009. Resplendent faith: liturgical treasures of the Middle Ages. Kent State University Press. (Should provide a suitable chapter)
Hahn, C. 1997a. "The Voices of the Saints: Speaking Reliquaries." Gesta 36 (1) 20-31. (JSTOR Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/767276)
*---. 2010. "What do reliquaries do for relics?" Numen 57 (3-4) 284-316. (Available through Academic Search Complete)
Holliday, J.A. 1997. "Relics, Reliquaries, and Religious Women: Visualizing the Holy Virgins of Cologne." In Emmerson, R. and P. Sheingorn, Eds. Studies in Iconography Vol. 18. Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan. (Available through Wilson Web) (Unsuitable for Review of Scholarship)
Holum, K. and G. Vikan. 1979. "The Trier Ivory, Adventus, Ceremonial and the Relics of St. Stephen" Dumbarton Oaks Papers 33. (JSTOR Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1291435) (May be more closely tied with discussion of relics) (Unsuitable for Review of Scholarship)
Kouymjian, D. 2005. "The Right Hand of St. Gregory and Other Armenian Arm Relics 1." (http://armenianstudies.csufresno.edu/faculty/kouymjian/articles/2005_TheRightHandofStGregory.pdf)
Lucas, A. T. 1986. "The Social Role of Relics and Reliquaries in Ancient Ireland." Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 116: 5-37. (JSTOR Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25508904)
Michelli, P.E. 1996. "The Inscriptions on pre-Norman Irish reliquaries." Proceedings of the Royal British Academy Section C: Archaeology, Celtic studies, History, Linguistics, Literature 96c (1) 1-31, 33-48. (JSTOR Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25516156) (Unsuitable for Review of Scholarship)
Remensnyder, A.G. 1996. "Legendary Treasure at Conques: Reliquaries and Imaginative Memory." Speculum 71 (4) 884-906. (JSTOR Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2865723) (Unsuitable for Review of Scholarship)
Robinson, J. 2011a. "Divine Contributions." History Today 61, no. 7: 33-37. (Unsuitable for Review of Scholarship)
---. 2011b. Finer than Gold: saints and their relics in the Middle Ages. London: British Museum Press. (Should provide a suitable chapter)
Sam Fogg Gallery. 2007. Art of the Middle Ages. London: Paul Holberton Publishing. (Unsuitable for Review of Scholarship)
Solt, C.W. 1987. "Romanesque French Reliquaries." Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History. (Unsuitable for Review of Scholarship)
Wixom, W.D., Ed. 1967. Treasures from Medieval France. Exhibition Catalogue, Cleveland Museum of Art. (Should provide a suitable chapter)
Related Minor Arts
Boskovits, M. and D.A. Brown, Eds. 2003. Italian Paintings of the Fifteenth Century. Systematic Catalogue of the National Gallery of Art. Washington: National Gallery of Art; New York : Distributed by Oxford University Press. (Available at )
Caudron, S. 1977. "Connoisseurs of Champlevé Limoges Enamels in Eighteenth-Century England." British Museum Yearbook 2: 9-33. (Available at )
Little, C.T., ed. 1993. The Art of Medieval Spain, 500-1200. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Harry N. Abrams. (Available at )
---, ed. 2006. Set in Stone: The Face in Medieval Sculpture. New York and New Haven: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Yale University Press. (Available at NOVA, GMU)
Vasilake, M. 2005. Images of the Mother of God: perceptions of the Theotokos in Byzantium. Aldershot, etc.: Ashgate Pub. (Available at )
Ward, R., and P.J. Fiddler. 1993. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection. New York: Hudson Hills Press. (Available at )
Wieck, R. 1988. Time Sanctified: the book of hours in Medieval art and life. New York : G. Braziller in association with the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore. (Available at )
Williamson, B. 2003. "Liturgical image or Devotional Image? The London Madonna of the Firescreen." In C. Hourihane, Ed. Objects, Images, and the Word: Art in Service of the Liturgy, 298-318. Princeton, NJ: University Press. (Available at )
Dissertations on reliquaries
Ciresi, L. 2003. Manifestations of the holy as instruments of propaganda: The Cologne Dreikonigenschrein and the Aachen Karlsschrein and Marienschrein in late medieval ritual. Ph.D. Dissertation, Rutgers The State University of New Jersey - New Brunswick.
Fujikawa, M. 2009. Pilgrimage and Italian Renaissance Art: The Artistic Influence of the Cult of the Holy Girdle in Prato. Ph.D. Dissertation, Washington University in St. Louis.
Munk, Ana. 2003. Pallid corpses in golden coffins: Relics, reliquaries, and the art of relic cults in the Adriatic rim. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Washington.
Overbey, K. 2003. The Space of the Holy Body: Relics and Reliquaries in Medieval Ireland. Ph.D. Dissertation, New York University. (Abstract)
Relics
Bertrand, P. 2006. "Authentiques de reliques: authentiques ou reliques?" Le Moyen Age 112: 363-74. (On written authentication and its ambiguities in general) (
Borgeaud, P. and V. Youri, Eds. 2005. Les Objets de la mémoire: Pour une approche comparatiste des reliques et de leur culte. Bern et al.: Peter Lang. (Unavailable locally)
Brown, P. 1981. The Cult of Saints: its rise and function in Latin Christianity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Haskell Lectures on History of Religions, new series, no. 2. (Unavailable locally, but available on Kindle for only a few dollars)
Bynum, C.W. 2007. Wonderful Blood: Theology and Practice in Late Medieval Northern Germany and Beyond. Philadelphia: PUBLISHER. (Available at GMU BR115.B57 B96 2007)
Geary, P. 1986. "Sacred Commodities: The Circulation of Medieval Relics." In A. Appadurai, Ed. The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective. Cambridge: PUBLISHER. (Available at GMU GN450.S63 1986)
Head, T. 1999. "The Cult of Saints and their Relics" The ORB: On-line Reference Book for Medieval Studies. (From a peer-reviewed website of articles written by scholars in Medieval studies. URL: http://www.the-orb.net/encyclop/religion/hagiography/cult.htm)
Head, T., Ed. and Trans. 2000. "On Saints and their Relics." In Medieval Hagiography: An Anthology, 399-427. New York: Garland Pub. (Available at GMU BR1710.M39 2000)
Herrmann-Mascard, N. 1975. Les Reliques des Saints: formation coutumière d'un droit. Paris: PUBLISHER. (Available at LoC, UVA)
McCulloh, J. 1976. "The Cult of Relics in the Letters and Dialogues of Pope Gregory the Great: A Lexicographical Study" Traditio 32: 145-84. (JSTOR Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27831005)
Miller, P.C. 2005. "Relics, Rhetoric and Mental Spectacles in Late Ancient Christianity." In G. de Nie, et al., Eds. Seeing the Invisible in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, 25-52. Turnhout. (On relics and access to them) (Available at GMU N7850.S44 2005)
Spurrell, M. 2000. "The Promotion and Demotion of Whole Relics" The Antiquaries Journal 80: 67-85. (Available through GMU)
Thuno, E. 2002. Image and Relic: mediating the sacred in early Medieval Rome. Roma : Erma di Bretschneider. (Available at LoC, UVA)
Van Os, H. 2000. The Way to Heaven: Relic Veneration in the Middle Ages. Baarn: PUBLISHER. (Available at NGA lib., UVA)
Vincent, N. 2001. The Holy Blood: King Henry III and the Westminster Blood Relic, 137-85. Cambridge: PUBLISHER. (Available at GMU BT465.V56 2001)
Cathedrals, Shrines and Relic Keepers
Abou-el-Haj, B. 1983. "Bury St. Edmunds Abbey between 1070 and 1124: A History of Property, Privilege, and Monastic Art Production." Art History 6: 1-29. (Available at GMU)
Cook, J. 2000. The Architectural Setting of the Cult of Saints in the Early Christian West c. 300-1200. Oxford: Clarendon Press. (Available at GMU NA5433.C76 2000)
Dickinson, J.C. 1956. The Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham. Cambridge: PUBLISHER. (Available at UVA, LoC)
Hahn, C. 1997b. "Seeing and Believing: The Construction of Sanctity in Early-Medieval Saints' Shrines." Speculum 72: 1079-1106. (JSTOR Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2865959)
Harris, A. 2005. "Pilgrimage, Performance, and Stained Glass at Canterbury Cathedral." In S. Blick and R. Tekippe, Eds. Art and Architecture of Late Medieval Pilgrimage in Northern Europe and the British Isles, 243-81. Boston: Brill. (Available at GMU N7942.A77 2005)
Hewitt, J. 1876. "The 'Keeper of Saint Chad's Head' in Litchfield Cathedral, and Other Matters Concerning that Minster in the Fifteenth Century" Archaeological Journal 33: 72-82. (Not suitable for Review of Scholarship, but interesting background reading on the context of relics, i.e. those who controlled access to them: http://www.archive.org/stream/archaeologicaljo33brit/archaeologicaljo33brit_djvu.txt)
Husband, T. and J. Chaupuis. 2001. The Treasury of Basel Cathedral. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. (Available at GMU NK7215.H87 2001)
Malo, R. 2010. "Relic Keepers" In Taylor, L., et al. The Encyclopedia of Medieval Pilgrimage. Leiden and Boston: Brill. (Available at GMU)
Nilson, B. 1998. Cathedral Shrines of Medieval England. Woodbridge.
---. 1999. "The Medieval Experience at the Shrine." In Stopford, J., Ed. Pilgrimage Explored, 95-122. Woodbridge: York Medieval Press. (Available as an e-text through NOVA library)
Pentcheva, B.V. 2007. "Containers of Power: Eunuchs and Reliquaries in Byzantium." Res. Journal of Anthropology and Aesthetics 51: 109-20 (Available at GMU?)
Safran, L. 1998. Heaven on Earth: Art and the Church in Byzantium. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press. (Available at GMU N7852.5.H43 1998)
Shortell, E. 1997. "Dismembering Saint Quentin: Gothic Architecture and the Display of Relics" Gesta 36: 32-47. (JSTOR Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/767277)
Soderberg, J. 1993. "A Lost Cultural Exchange: Reconsidering the Bologna Shrine's Origin and Use" Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium 13: 156-165. (JSTOR Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20557263)
Wall, J. Charles. 1905. Shrines of British Saints. London.
Weiss, D.H. 1995. "Architectural Symbolism and the Decoration of Ste.-Chapelle." Art Bulletin 77 (2) 308-320. (JSTOR Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3046103)
Scholarship on contemporary Literary Sources dealing with reliquaries
Burger, G. 1992. "Kissing the Pardoner." PMLA 107 (5): 1148-1156. (JSTOR Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/462870)
Egan, R. 2008. "Bulles, Coillons, and Relics in the Pardoner's Tale" ANQ 21 92): 7-11. (Not suitable for Review of Scholarship or as a source, but is useful for additional information on Chaucer's Pardoner) (URL: http://araminta.fortunecity.com/chauceregan.html)
Kamowski, W. 1991. "'Coillons,' Relics, Skepticism and Faith on Chaucer's Road to Canterbury: An Observation on the Pardoner's and the Host's Confrontation" English Language Notes 28: 1-8 (Not suitable for Review of Scholarship)
Knapp, D. 1972. "The Relyk of a Seint: A Gloss on Chaucer's Pilgrimage" English Literary History 39: 1-26. (JSTOR Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2872288)
Malo, R. 2007. Saints' Relics in Medieval English Literature. D. Phil., Dissertation, Ohio State University. (Release delayed until 2012 when the author should publish her monograph: http://etd.ohiolink.edu/view.cgi?acc_num=osu1186329116)
*Malo, R. 2008. "The Pardoner's Relics (and why they matter the most)" The Chaucer Review 43 (1) 82-102. (An excellent article available through Project Muse after you have logged in. Let me know if you have difficulty accessing the article. http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/cr/summary/v043/43.1.malo.html)
Minnis, A. 2003. "Reclaiming the Pardoners" Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 33: 311-34. (Available online)
*---. 2006a. "The Construction of Chaucer's Pardoner." In R.N. Swanson, Ed. Promissory Notes on the Treasury of Merits: Indulgences in Late Medieval Europe, 169-95. Leiden and Boston: Brill. (Available at )
---.2006b. "Purchasing Pardon: Material and Spiritual Economies on the Canterbury Pilgrimage." In L. Besserman. Sacred and Secular in Medieval and Early Modern Cultures: New Essays. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. (Available at GMU CB353.S155 2006)
*---. 2009. "Once more into the Breech: The Pardoner's Price 'Relyk'" in Galloway, A. and R.F. Yeager, Eds. Through a Classical Eye: transcultural and transhistorical visions in medieval English, Italian, and Latin literature in honour of Winthrop Wetherbee, PAGES. Toronto and Buffalo, NY: University of Toronto Press. (Available at GMU PN681.T47 2009)
*Razzall, L. 2010. "'A good booke is the pretious life-blood of a master spirit': Recollecting Relics in Post-Reformation English Writing." Journal of the Northern Renaissance 2.1: 93-110 (An excellent recent article with good up-to-date bibliography: http://northernrenaissance.org/documents/uploaded/file/Razzall(1).pdf)
Rubenstein, J. 2002. Guibert of Nogent: Portrait of a Medieval Mind, 124-172. New York: Routledge. (Available at )
Storm, M. 1982. "The Pardoner's Invitation: Quaestor's Bag or Becket's Shrine?" PMLA 97: 810-18. (Not suitable for Review of Scholarship) (JSTOR Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/462172)
Thomas, I. G. 1974. The Cult of Saints' Relics in Medieval England, D. Phil. Diss., University of London. (Particularly p. 15-18)
Vance, E. 1989. "Chaucer's Pardoner: Relics, Discourse, and Frames of Propriety." New Literary History 20: 723-45. (JSTOR Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/469364)
Vincent, N. 2002. "Some Pardoner's Tales: The Earliest English Indulgences" Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 12: 23-58. (JSTOR Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3679340)
Wenzel, S. 1989. "Chaucer's Pardoner and his Relics" Studies in the Age of Chaucer 11: 37-41. (Not suitable for Review of Scholarship)
Zacher, C. 1976. Curiosity and Pilgrimage: The Literature of Discovery in Fourteenth-Century England. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. (Available at)
Contemporary History of pilgrimage, shrines, the church, etc.
Belting, H. 1990. The Image and its Public in the Middle Ages. New Rochelle, N.Y. : A.D. Caratzas. (Available at )
Blick, S. and B. Spencer. 2007. Beyond pilgrim souvenirs and secular badges: essays in honour of Brian Spencer. Oxford: Oxbow Books. (Available at )
Pincus, D. 1992. "Venice and the Two Romes: Byzantium and Rome as a Double Heritage in Venetian Cultural Politics." Artibus et Historiae 13 (26) 101-114. (JSTOR Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1483433)
Rawcliffe, C. 2002. "Curing Bodies and Healing Souls: Pilgrimage and the Sick in Medieval East Anglia." In C. Morris and P. Roberts, Eds. Pilgrimage: The English Experience from Becket to Bunyan. Cambridge. (Available at )
Wallace-Hadrill, J.M. 1988. Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Oxford: Clarendon Press. (Available at )
Webb, D. 2000. Pilgrimage in Medieval England. London: PRESS. (Available at )
Google Sites
Report abuse