In religion, a relic is an object or article of religious significance from the past. It usually consists of the physical remains or personal effects of a saint or other person preserved for the purpose of veneration as a tangible memorial. Relics are an important aspect of some forms of Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, shamanism, and many other religions. Relic derives from the Latin reliquiae, meaning "remains", and a form of the Latin verb relinquere, to "leave behind, or abandon". A reliquary is a shrine that houses one or more religious relics.
A reliquary is a container for relics. A portable reliquary may be called a fereter, and a chapel in which it is housed a feretory.
A cumdach or book shrine is an elaborate ornamented metal reliquary box or case used to hold Early Medieval Irish manuscripts or relics. They are typically later than the book they contain, often by several centuries. In most surviving examples the book comes from the peak age of Irish monasticism before 800, and the extant cumdachs date from after 1000, although it is clear the form dates from considerably earlier. The majority are of Irish origin, with most surviving examples now in the National Museum of Ireland (NMI).
The Basilica of Saint Servatius is a Roman Catholic church dedicated to Saint Servatius, in the city of Maastricht, the Netherlands. The architecturally hybrid but mainly Romanesque church is situated next to the Gothic church of Saint John, backing onto the town's main square, Vrijthof.
The Holy Thorn Reliquary was probably created in the 1390s in Paris for John, Duke of Berry, to house a relic of the Crown of Thorns. The reliquary was bequeathed to the British Museum in 1898 by Ferdinand de Rothschild as part of the Waddesdon Bequest. It is one of a small number of major goldsmiths' works or joyaux that survive from the extravagant world of the courts of the Valois royal family around 1400. It is made of gold, lavishly decorated with jewels and pearls, and uses the technique of enamelling en ronde bosse, or "in the round", which had been recently developed when the reliquary was made, to create a total of 28 three-dimensional figures, mostly in white enamel.
The Basilica of Our Lady is a Romanesque church in the historic center of Maastricht, Netherlands. The church is dedicated to Our Lady of the Assumption and is a Roman Catholic parish church in the Diocese of Roermond. The church is often referred to as the Star of the Sea, after the church's main devotion, Our Lady, Star of the Sea.
A chasse, châsse or box reliquary is a shape commonly used in medieval metalwork for reliquaries and other containers. To the modern eye the form resembles a house, though a tomb or church was more the intention, with an oblong base, straight sides and two sloping top faces meeting at a central ridge, often marked by a raised strip and decoration. From the sides there are therefore triangular "gable" areas.
The Treasury of the Basilica of Saint Servatius is a museum of religious art and artifacts inside the Basilica of Saint Servatius in Maastricht, Netherlands.
The National Museum of Ireland – Archaeology is a branch of the National Museum of Ireland located on Kildare Street in Dublin, Ireland, that specialises in Irish and other antiquities dating from the Stone Age to the Late Middle Ages.
In 1898 Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild bequeathed to the British Museum as the Waddesdon Bequest the contents from his New Smoking Room at Waddesdon Manor. This consisted of a wide-ranging collection of almost 300 objets d'art et de vertu, which included exquisite examples of jewellery, plate, enamel, carvings, glass and maiolica. One of the earlier objects is the outstanding Holy Thorn Reliquary, probably created in the 1390s in Paris for John, Duke of Berry. The collection is in the tradition of a schatzkammer, or treasure house, such as those formed by the Renaissance princes of Europe; indeed, the majority of the objects are from late Renaissance Europe, although there are several important medieval pieces, and outliers from classical antiquity and medieval Syria.
The Kells crozier or British Museum Crozier is an early medieval Irish Insular crozier. It is often known as the "Kells Crozier", indicating an associating with the Abbey of Kells, although no evidence of this exists, and most historians accept that it is of uncertain providence. The crozier is fully intact, although some of the ornamentation is in poor condition.
The Bell Shrine of St. Cuileáin is an early mediaeval Irish bell shrine found near Borrisoleigh in County Tipperary, Ireland. The bell is capped by arched openwork mounds, decorated with silver, gold and copper, and has two facing human heads at either side. The main panel would have been its most decorated but is lost, apart from various animal heads on both sides of its upper wings.
The Trier Cathedral Treasury is a museum of Christian art and medieval art in Trier, Germany. The museum is owned by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Trier and is located inside the Cathedral of Trier. It contains some of the church's most valuable relics, reliquaries, liturgical vessels, ivories, manuscripts and other artistic objects. The history of the Trier church treasure goes back at least 800 years. In spite of heavy losses during the period of the Coalition Wars, it is one of the richest cathedral treasuries in Germany. With the cathedral it forms part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The Pilgrimage of the Relics or Maastricht Septennial Pilgrimage is a seven-yearly Catholic event in the Dutch city of Maastricht. Originating in the Middle Ages, it developed from a pilgrimage to the grave of Saint Servatius into the present-day religious, historical, cultural and commercial enterprise. Highlights in the programme are the displaying or unveiling of the relics in the main churches and secondly, the processions with the town's main relics. The next pilgrimage will take place in 2025.
The Treasury of Saint-Denis, kept at the Basilica of Saint-Denis in Paris until the French Revolution, was the main repository of the regalia of the Kingdom of France, including the ancien régime portion of what are now known as the French Crown Jewels. Its surviving items are presently scattered between the Louvre, the Cabinet des Médailles of the French National Library, and other museums.
House-shaped shrine are early medieval portable metal reliquary formed in the shape of the roof of a rectangular building. They originate from both Ireland and Scotland and mostly date from the 8th or 9th centuries. Typical example consist of a wooden core covered with silver and copper alloy plates, and were built to hold relics of saints or martyrs from the early Church era; a number held corporeal remains when found in the modern period, presumably they were parts of the saint's body. Others, including the Breac Maodhóg, held manuscripts associated with the commemorated saint. Like many Insular shrines, they were heavily reworked and embellished in the centuries following their initial construction, often with metal adornments or figures influenced by Romanesque sculpture.
The Moylough Belt-Shrine is a highly decorated 8th-century Irish reliquary shaped in the form of a belt. It consists of four hinged bronze segments, each forming cavities that hold strips of plain leather assumed to have once been a girdle belonging to a saint and thus the intended relic. It remains the only known relic container created as a belt-shrine, although such objects are mentioned in some lives of Irish saints, where they are attributed with "remarkable cures", and there are surviving reliquary buckles in continental Europe. The belt may have been influenced by 7th-century Frankish and Burgundian types.
The Corp Naomh is an Irish bell shrine made in the 9th or 10th century to enclose a now-lost hand-bell, which probably dated to c. 600 to 900 AD and belonged to an early Irish saint. The shrine was rediscovered sometime before 1682 at Tristernagh Abbey, near Templecross, County Westmeath. The shrine is 23 cm (9.1 in) high and 12 cm (4.7 in) wide. It was heavily refurbished and added to during a second phase of embellishment in the 15th century, and now consists of cast and sheet bronze plates mounted on a wooden core decorated with silver, niello and rock crystal. It is severely damaged with extensive losses and wear across almost all of its parts, and when discovered a block of wood had been substituted for the bell itself. The remaining elements are considered of high historical and artistic value by archeologists and art historians.
The Shrine of St. Patrick's Bell is a bell shrine reliquary completed c. 1094–1105 in County Armagh, Ireland, to contain a c. 500 iron hand-bell traditionally associated with the Irish patron saint Saint Patrick. Inscriptions on the back of the shrine record that it was commissioned after 1091 by the Uí Néill High King Domnall Ua Lochlainn and completed c. 1105 by the metalworker Cú Dúilig, about whom nothing is known. Both objects are historically significant, with the bell being one of the few Irish very-early medieval artifacts with a continuous provenance lasting from around the 8th century to the present, and the shrine being a highpoint of Irish metalwork from the late Insular and early Romanesque periods.
Bell shrines are metal objects built to hold early medieval hand-bells, particularly those associated with early Irish saints. Although the enshrinement of bells lasted from the 9th to the 16th centuries, the more well-known examples date from the 11th century. Nineteen such Irish or British bell shrines survive, along with several fragments, although many more would have been produced. Of those extant, fifteen are Irish, three are Scottish and one is English. Most follow the general shape of a hand-bell capped with a crest above a semicircular cap that matches the shape of a bell handle.
