 |
 |
medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture Do you mean all relics in Scandinavia purporting to belong to saints living before the 7th century or all relics older than the 7th c.? _Some_ ancient relics are very well authenticated. No historical artifact of any sort has had a more complete scientific evaluation than the Shroud of Turin and the evidence for its authenticity is overwhelming (particularly pollen evidence, datable coins localized to Palestine, and the way the image is located in the cloth, giving evidence of some kind of oxidation of individual fibers at a microscopic level--ruling out any sort of painting process or any human technique known to a pre-microscope era--and I've not even begun to summarize the evidence. See www.shroud.com.) As more and more evidence comes to light about related relics e.g., the Oviedo cloth and now the titutlus board in Rome, each undergoing further scrutiny, we find them corroborating each other in uncanny ways. This in turn sheds new light on ancient claims, e.g., for the relics of the True Cross. See, for example, Carsten Thiede and Matthew d'Ancona, _The Quest for the True Cross_ (St. Martin's). Since the enlightenment, ready dismissal in sweeping terms has been commonplace. I think it's time to begin to be more circumspect. In some relic cases, the claims are clearly false, in others clearly authentic. In many instances, we just don't and cannot know. But that indeterminacy rules out generalizations either for or against. That's why I say "some" are very reliably authenticated. They happen to be some of the most important ones. I think we need to revise our assumptions about the ability of early Christians to preserve authentically material artifiacts pertaining to their religion. Dennis Martin >>> [log in to unmask] 03/03/02 01:15AM >>> medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture For obvious reasons is the authenticity of everything older than the 7th century dubious. What counts to a medievalist is what the people believed it was. ********************************************************************** To join the list, send the message: join medieval-religion YOUR NAME to: [log in to unmask] To send a message to the list, address it to: [log in to unmask] To leave the list, send the message: leave medieval-religion to: [log in to unmask] In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to: [log in to unmask] For further information, visit our web site: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html