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GENERAL REMARKS ON SHRINES
The name of “Peter the Roman citizen” may still be read on the shrine he made for St. Edward the Confessor, but of all the artificers of such works the greater number of names perpetuated are of skilful Irishmen. Three smiths, “expert at shaping,” MacCrecht, Laebhan, and Fortchern, are mentioned as belonging to St. Patrick’s family, or monastic brethren ; and three skilful artificers, Aesbuite, Tairill, and Tassach. St. Bridget’s principal artist in gold, silver, and other metals was Bishop Conla. To properly understand a bishop being so employed, his peculiar position in a Celtic monastery must be considered. St. Dageus, who lived in the sixth century, was a prolific maker of shrines ;1 and of the hereditary mechanics of the monastery at Kells, Sitric MacAeda stands pre-eminent in the eleventh century.
The reputation of the saint influenced the position of the shrine, and in some cases controlled the plan of the church in which the shrine was erected. Various saints were held in different degrees of veneration by the faithful according to their local popularity, their lives , deaths, or the number of miracles attributed to them.
behind the high altar,
the beam above the altar, or a separate chapel, was appropriated to the
for the shrine by the devotion accorded to the saint.
Sts. Cuthbert and Swithun had small
enclosures to the east of the high altar to contain their shrines,
the king of
Kent, and on either
side are the books sent by St. Gregory the Great to St. Augustine,
which are two arm reliquaries ; on the north side is another small
chest. Above, on the beam, rest two relic
one of which contains those of St. Letard. This
drawing is most valuable as showing the arrangement
altar of a great church in England, and the position of the “beam,” of
antiquaries frequently speak, but fail to explain.
Behind the altar-screen are three chapels in which,
and between which, are many shrines and feretories.
Beginning at the left, or north side, are the
shrines of Sts. Lambert and Nothelm, archbishops ; St. Mildred, who
As we look at
this drawing it is
easy to understand the words of St. Dunstan when he said that every
took within the precincts of
occupied by the
feretory of Sts. Hilarius and Patroclus, when not being carried in
is seen in a representation of an altar which was formerly in the Lay
the Abbey of St. Denis, near
Plate IX Relic Chests,
--page not numbered--
In that cathedral, showing the arrangement of reliquaries for a festival, where they form the retinue of the Divine Martyr of Calvary, flanking a pendent pyx containing the Host. In this a head shrine occupies the prominent position.
One shrine attracted others to its vicinity : thus at Canterbury Cathedral the “corona” of St. Thomas the Martyr also received the shrines of St. Odo and St. Wilfrid, the one on the north and the other on the south. To receive sepulchre [to have your remains placed] near the tomb of a saint was considered on of the greatest honors that it was possible to bestow. It was thought to be helpful to the future life, and King John secured a potion between two shrines which, sadly enough, he evidently anticipated would make an unrivalled presentation at the heavenly court.
The beam over the altar frequently bore one or more reliquaries, and at Canterbury a beam in another position served the same purpose, for we find in a book of obits of Christchurch Cathedral, from 1414-72, the following entry :—
“In the year 1448, on the ninth of the calends of April, four brethren of this church took from the high altar the shrine with the bones of St. Fleogild (Feologeld), archbishop of Canterbury, and carried it after the Lord’s body to the shrine of St. Thomas and placed the shrine upon the beam spanning the arch leading into the chapel called the ‘corona,’ between the shrine of St. Thomas and the crown of St. Thomas.”
Another position, but slightly differing from some of the those mentioned, in which it actually formed the reredos [ornate wall or screen behind or near the altar], was adopted on the introduction of a different type of shrine—a glazed chest, or glass coffin, enclosing the body of the saint. This may be seen in the picture of Mont St. Claude, where the relics are enshrined behind the retable [a shelf or mantle behind the altar] of the altar, and in the silver chapel of St. Carlo
Plate X Relic Chest, made by Henry De
--page not numbered--
beneath the pavement of
Milan Cathedral. This custom never
appears to have found favor with the churchmen of
[Illustration: Glass Shrine]
Very few shrines remain which contain or contained the relics of English saints, although this country was formerly unsurpassed such riches. William of Malmesbury was convinced that “nowhere could be found the bodies of so many saints entire after death”— typifying, as he thought, the state of final incorruption—as in England.
“I myself know of five, but people tell of more. The five are Sts. Ethedreda and Werburga the virgins, King Edmund, Archbishop of Elphege, and the old father Cuthbert. All these,
perfect in skin and flesh, from their flexible joints and lively warmth, appear to be merely asleep. To the above I can add the body of St. Ivo, St. Edward the King and Confessor, St. Wulstan the Bishop, St. Guthlac the Hermit, and those English Saints who died in foreign lands, namely, St. Edilburg the Virgin ; St. Lullus, Archbishop of Mentz ; and St. Edmund, Archbishop of Canterbury.”3
Now we can only
the shrine of St. Edward the Confessor, the solitary survival of a
retaining the relics of the saint, in this country—a Marian restoration
visit the reliquary of St. Eanswith at Folkstone, the only one of the
England known to have been preserved undisturbed ; unless a journey is
across the seas to the shrine of St. Edmund at Pontiqny, or to some of
foreign places where relics of Celtic saints may yet be found. True,
The shrines of Great Britain which are now to be considered are principally of two kinds, which united made the complete shrine ; the fixed shrines of masonry and the portable feretra, with a few of the quadrangular reliquaries, traced through the writings of the chroniclers, from draw-
ings made by hands long since dissolved in mother earth, or from fragments recently recovered from obscurity.
Yet in searching for some knowledge of the great shines the more simple memorials of our saints must not be ignored. The humble tombstone of St. Brecan’s Head at Hartlepool, inscribed CI (capiti) BRECANI (sixth century) ; his grave at Kilbrecan, in which was a spherical black stone inscribed, in Irish, “Pray for Brecan the Pilgrim” ; or the rudely sculptured tombstone of St. Molio at Arran,
[Illustration: St. Brecan’s tombstone.]
and many other exalted to no honoured state, are in their way as truly shrines as were those of magnificent workmanship.
The humility of
the saint is
ofttimes seen in his choice of a place of burial. St.
Swithun desired a grave outside his
was discovered it was removed to a tomb at the north side of the high altar of Shaftesbury Abbey. Some of the stones subsided and the uppermost slab was displaced. It was said that St. Edward was wrath at so lowly a station, and by this upheaval demonstrated his displeasure. The report reached the ears of King Ethelred, for whose elevation to the throne the crime had been perpetrated, and he, stricken with remorse, decide that reparation should at last be made and his former rival duly honoured. The relics were lifted from the tomb—giving forth a fragrant odour—and placed in a feretory which was deposited in the “Holy of Holies” with the relics of other saints. The exact position of this “Holy of Holies” at Shaftersbury is not mentioned, it may have been on a beam above the high altar ; but from the attention it afterwards received, the rich offerings made, from Canute throughout the Middle Ages, and the indulgences granted to pilgrims to this shrine, it was probably one of the great shrines of the Canterbury type, built in a separate chapel behind the high altar.
The usual features of the great fixed shrines consisted of three distinct parts. The substructure of stone, or marble, built with recesses in the lower portion—in which pilgrims, seeking the healing virtues of the saint, might crouch as close as possible to the relics—was decorated with a wealth of sculpture or mosaic. This part, as we have seen in the shrine of St. Egwin, was appropriately called the throne. On this rested the feretrum, or chest, containing the body, covered with plates of gold, surrounded by golden statues, and which the offerings of generations of pilgrims enriched with precious cameos and jewels. To preserve these treasures the third portion—a wooden box-like cover—was made to work on pulleys and could thus be raised for exposition to the pilgrims, or lowered over the feretory and locked to secure it from
thieves, a very necessary precaution when the value of the offering is considered.
These offerings were not—as is too often assumed—taken by the priest in charge for his own advantage ; but were always allocated, and careful accounts were rendered, as is shown by the Valor Ecclesiasticus and the fragments of church accounts still preserved.
When St. Osmund was canonised the Papal Bull expressly disposed of them. The first object was to be the proper adornment of the shrine, then the debts due to those who had leant money for the purposes of the canonisation were to be paid, and the rest to be applied to the repair of the fabric of the cathedral.
All the choir
Cathedral was built from the offerings at St. William’s shrine ; while
alone, without the various jewels, offered a
In addition to this kind of robbery another danger had
to be guarded against—the thieving of relics. Many instance will be met with in the following pages of the ecclesiastics of one church robbing another of the relics of saints for the greater honour of their own establishment, the refined deceits they had recourse to for that purpose, and also the trickery resorted to by the possessors of such treasures to frustrate unholy covetousness.
The most famous
at times guilty of such nefarious deeds ;
Small wonder that custodians were appointed to specifically care for the shines, a post which was no sinecure at a popular place of pilgrimage. It was a charge of no mean responsibility, and the Custos Feretri or Feretarius in many cases had certain retainers to assist him, not only in cleaning and exhibiting, but in guarding it against those apparently pious folk who, scorning to steal a jewel, would not hesitate to avail themselves of an opportunity to gain possession of a fragment of the actual relics. By such robberies were the bones of St. Bede and St. Lewinna surreptitiously translated, while the will was not wanting through the means were not available to do the same with St. Alban and St. Dunstan.
In addition to
watchers appointed over these treasures, dogs were sometimes employed. During the winter months, at
Altars dedicated to a particular saint were frequently
built adjoining his shrine. The position of the altar of St. Edward the Confessor, restored at the time of the coronation of Edward VII, was clearly discernible at the west end of this shine by a slab of mosaic, which formed the reredos, and in which were holes at either side for the riddels, or curtain rods, to be fixed.
expedients were sometimes
resorted to—according to monastic chroniclers—to determine the
saints’ relics and the locality for the shrine, when a contention arose
rival churches for such an honour. After
the death of St. Patrick there was a keen contest between the
“In the town of down,
If the travels of sundry relics—and consequently of their feretories—were recorded, it would be a wondrous story of devotion, hardship, and terror, combined with legend, and not altogether free from superstition.
The peregrinations of St. Cuthbert’s shrine are well known, and the journeyings of St. Columba’s shrine were almost as extensive ; but whereas the first became settled in one place and the relics of the saint are yet with us, the latter have been utterly lost.
St. Columba was
buried in the
royal burying ground in the
In 878 it was
In regarding the formation of the shrines it must be remembered that the virtues of the saint are held to permeate the structure, and that by contact with the shrine those virtues are by faith transmitted to the pilgrim. The diseased limb was pressed into one of the niches provided around the basement for that purpose, into which sundry articles were placed to receive the benediction of the holy one, and in the illumination of St. Edward’s shrine
[Illustration: Plate XI The
--page not numbered--
(page 227) a pilgrim may be seen creeping through an opening. There was also a prevailing idea that a healing oil exuded from the tombs of certain saints as those of St. Andrew, St. Katherine, and St. Robert, the founder of the Robertines at Knarlesborough, which are said to have sweated a medicinal oil.
The sanctity of an oath was considered far more binding if taken upon the relics or shrine of a saint. For this reason was the Saxon Harold made to swear on a shrine as before mentioned (page 17). Through the continuance of this custom did the priest of Drumlane lose possession of the feretrum of St. Moedoc (page 80). For this purpose did many people resort to the shrine of St. Telio (page 96) ; and in the Romance de Parise la Duchesse the two combatants—Milio and Berengiers—swear to the righteousness of their cause on—
“. . . la
In medieval times it was customary, both at home and abroad, for the custodians of many of the shines to manufacture tokens of lead which were sold to pilgrims who pinned them to their hats or dress, whereby publishing to the world their pilgrim achievements, in the same manner as the Mahomedan, who has visited the tomb of his prophet at Mecca, wears a special badge. Many of these “pilgrims’ signs” have been found at different times ; those of St. Thomas of Canterbury by far exceeding in number and variety of design those of any other saint, whereby confirming the popularity of the Canterbury shrine. These emblems being so closely associated with the shrines, come few of them are represented in the articles on those shrines where the tokens were bestowed.
In a few
instances—as with St.
lutely necessary for a description of those shrines. A few details are given which bear a close relation to the actual relics. They serve to show the spirit which influened the erection and embellishment of such monuments, and to reveal the raison d’être of certain ceremonies observed in the translation of the relics from one shrine to another of greater beauty and more distinguished position.
Æt. SS Aug., iii, 659 n.
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