In a series of publications stretching now over three decades, Cynthia Hahn has taught us to look at reliquaries as more than just art objects, to see how reliquaries give meaning and endow value to relics, mediate between the viewer and the saintly subject, and structure the experience of the sacred and its matter. In her most recent book, she focuses these interests on the particular category of relics of the Passion and their reliquaries. This is a slim, and beautifully produced book, the product of two lectures given as part of the Murphy Lecture Series sponsored by the Department of Art History at the University of Kansas in 2014. Coming in at under 120 pages of text, lavishly and attractively executed with abundant and gorgeous color plates, it can be read cover to cover in a couple of hours. It comprises two chapters: the first on the True Cross, and the second on the Passion relics as a group, which seek to explore “how they come to take up residence in the medieval imagination as testimony to the Passion as well as a provocation to prayer” (ix). To those who have read Hahn’s earlier works, many of the ideas and interpretive maneuvers will be familiar. The material in the first chapter, on the True Cross, takes up material she has treated before. The second chapter, on Passion relics, is newer. She aims to explore how relics, through their reliquaries, function as a “social phenomenon” (5). For its focus, crispness, and clarity, it would be a good choice for the undergraduate classroom, and I will assign in next year in a course on Saints and Relics.
A preface and an introduction open in which Hahn traces out her methodological and theoretical framework for new readers. The first chapter, “The Lure of the Passion Relics, the Power of the Cross,” introduces readers to the history of devotion to the cross and the dissemination of the cult of the Cross in the early centuries of Christianity, particularly after the Constantinian peace and sudden revolution in cross devotion. She reprises a discussion from Strange Beauty (2012) of the particular semiotic challenge of cross relics as both “things” (a piece of the original cross on which Christ was crucified) and “signs” (signifying not only Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross, but the broader project of human salvation). [1] Historically, devotion to the cross fueled the circulation of relics and their dispersal. Cross relics in particular became associated with rulers, and thus coveted objects of exchange and dispersal within diplomatic relations and military conquests. The form of the reliquary in which these relics are encased often conveys or proclaims particular meaning. The double-crossed (or “patriarchal”) reliquary shape, for instance, associated with Eastern facture, proclaims provenance and thus authenticity. Jerusalem crosses (reliquary crosses actually confected in the Latin East during the crusader period) might include, rather than gems, regular stones taken from the Holy Land, making the entire reliquary a transportable slice of the Holy Land. The chapter ends with an extended discussion of a Limoges box reliquary made for a cross relic given to Saint Sernin of Toulouse around the time of the Third Crusade (1189-1192), bringing to light the importance of the Crusades in fueling attention to cross relics in the West. The exterior of the reliquary shows images of Helen’s discovery of the cross, the donation of the cross relic to an envoy in the East, its return to Toulouse and installation at the cathedral of Saint Sernin, as well as images of the Three Marys at the tomb and Christ in majesty. Hahn interprets the reliquary’s imagery not only in the light of the story of its reception that the images authenticated, but also the liturgical context of the Quem Queritis in which the relic, representing Christ, may have played a part. Hahn’s point is that the meaning of the relic itself was conditioned to its viewers through its reliquary, itself enmeshed in a complex of cultural, poetic, liturgical, artistic, and performative frames which both drew meaning and gave meaning to its relics at Toulouse.
The second, longer, chapter is entitled “Passion Relics: Strength in Unity,” and examines the role of a larger range of relics associated with the Passion and suffering of Christ both devotionally and politically. Although their stories had biblical and early Christian authority, it was only in the eleventh century that material relics such as the holy lance, the holy sponge, the holy nails, and others came decisively into view as both objects and concepts of devotion. Although at times venerated individually, Passion relics were often collected together, usually by political figures who could afford to build collections and their proper display and containment, often as part of broader programs of political authority and legitimization. The model here was the collection in the Pharos chapel of the Byzantine Emperors, who underscored their unique political authority and link to Christ by their possession of the Passion relics. Hahn thus moves elegantly forward in time, by discussing first King Louis IX’s acquisition of the greater part of that collection in Paris in 1239-1242, for which he built the Sainte-Chapelle, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV of Bohemia’s collection of Passion (and other) relics and his building of Karlstein Castle outside Prague around 1365 (the year it was consecrated), and Duke Louis of Savoy acquisition of the Shroud of Turin and the building of the Chapel of the Holy Shroud by Guarino Guarini in 1668-1694. (Notably here, the Shroud as the single focus of this collection somewhat cuts against Hahn’s underlying argument about “strength in unity”). In all three instances, as remarkable as the relic collections are, the extraordinary architectural and reliquary productions (Grandes Châsses) that the King, Emperor, and Duke commissioned to honor and display them often dwarfed the outlay to acquire the relic in the first place. The political context and thus importance of all three projects is undeniable. But Hahn also elucidates their role in devotional history, as reflecting and probably at times also fostering the development of affective pieties and the emphasis on suffering with Christ through meditation and emphatic prayer.
Hahn’s slim study, undergirded by wide reading of both secondary and primary sources in multiple languages and packed with interesting and provocative ideas is both stimulating and a pleasure to read. The argument moves elegantly from the first century through the seventeenth century, with nods sometimes even to the present. Occasionally the writing can be a bit slippery. So, for instance, at page 63 Hahn connects the Passion relics of the lance, nail, and cross depicted on the famous West Façade of the Second Coming Sainte-Foy of Conques to the relics held in the church’s own relic collection. But, following up in the footnote, one learns that Sainte-Foy owned a cross fragment and the foreskin of Christ, but not the lance or a nail. The arguments made on pages 43-44 about the use of the True Cross reliquary in the Quem queritis dramas at Saint Sernin is extremely interesting, but as far as I can tell speculative. And I spotted a few errors, or at least phrases that could be interpreted as erroneous. For instance, on 84-85, Baldwin II didn’t “write” to Louis IX for help for funds, but rather traveled from Constantinople to Paris, spending part of his almost three years in the West at the Capetian court. Likewise, when she suggests at page 85 that “although preparing for another crusade departure, it was Louis himself who saw the possibilities” of acquiring the Crown of Thorns, she gets the timing off, since Louis acquired the Crown Relics in 1239, but took the cross only 1244, and prepared for his first (not another) crusade departure after that. (Clearly, the building of the Sainte Chapelle coincided with his Crusade preparations, probably fueling much of the imagery of the chapel, on which one can read Alyce Jordan’s fantastic book on the glass cycle. [2]) But as with many review criticisms, these are minor and hardly serve to undermine the intellectual value of the main thrust of Hahn’s contribution here. This is a book I will return to, will cite often, will assign to students, and that I recommend to scholars. Rooted in a public lecture series, it has that wonderful quality of both being accessible to interested “beginners” in the field both lay and scholarly, but also offering much to those who know the issues already.
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Notes
1. Cynthia J. Hahn, Strange Beauty: Issues in the Making and Meanign of Reliquaries, 400-circa 1204 (University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2012). See also Cynthia J. Hahn, The Reliquary Effect: Enshrining the Sacred Object (London: Reaktion Books, 2017).
2. Alyce Jordan, Visualizing Kingship in the Windows of the Sainte-Chapelle, International Center of Medieval Art Monograph Series (Turnhout: Brepols, 2002).