This discussion of “relics” vs. “fakes” has danced around the fact that, just as in “forged” medieval documents, the objects in question may occupy intermediate positions. 

 

This paradox becomes clearer if we shift our attention from the debated medieval relics discussed on this thread and look instead at some of those connected with U.S. civic religion.  “Old Ironsides” ought to be genuine, a well-documented ship of the line for centuries, but if you were to run C14 dates on it you would probably find that 9/10s of the wood is not original, having been (ir)reverently replaced over the years.  Or what could be more genuine and permanent than Plymouth Rock?  Yet that big rock on the beach, with 1619 conveniently carved into it in huge Arabic numerals, may or may not have actually felt the “pilgrims’ tread”—it is certainly broadly related to the site of the landfall, but the precision of the location could be debated.  

 

Are such items better understood as “fake”?  Or as genuine?  Or as a society’s best attempts at finding material expressions of its foundational elements?  One advantage of Latin is that “invenire” spans the gamut from discovery to invention, so that in such instances it is non-judgmental.

 

When I began research on St. Dominic of Sora back in the 1980s, there was a hermit cave at Villelago, fronted by a chapel dedicated to Dominic, and in that cave was the wooden frame of a bed said to have been used by Dominic.  In the late 1980s that bed was gone, replaced by a scrawled irate notice which informed pilgrims that here, formerly, had stood the bed of Dominic, which had been burnt up by a fire left by a careless camper.  By the end of the 1990s, however, in a miracle somehow overlooked by the Roman Church, the bed had returned.  

 

So what do we do with Dominic’s bed?  I suspect that its current incarnation would not pass C14 analysis.  Would its identical earlier version have done so?  ???  I am still somewhat skeptical.  But might the community that had identified Dominic as a saint during his lifetime and had cherished his hermitage sites have also cherished a bed used by him as a noted keepsake?  That is not illogical—in fact one might argue that it is almost probable.  So was there a “genuine” bed somewhere at the beginning of the chain?  Could the existing artifact reflect some sort of ancient historical data?  Even in this case where the current artifact is probably “bogus” in the literal sense, I do not know if we can absolutely rule out the possibility that it embodies some sort of transmitted historical data.   

 

And might not George Washington have actually snatched a few Zs in some of those “George Washington slept here” bedrooms?

 

Historians should probably approach such dilemmas with the caution of the original Bollandists.  They sought to document possible chains of transmission of knowledge and earliest manifestations of cult, and when such documentation existed, they were willing to allow, with multiple caveats, the possibility of objective historical reality.  [As an aside, it might be noted that some  Bollandists were skeptical about the shroud of Turin just because its tradition was difficult to document further back than the thirteenth century.]

 

                                    --John Howe, Texas Tech

 

 

Then there's always Chaucer's Pardoner. In my field at least (Middle English literature), there's a growing recognition that the _reception_ of medieval topics is part and parcel of the process of evaluating the historical claims made about the literature and culture. As a pedagogical concern, I find ample and compelling parallels between medieval discussions of the relative truth or fabrication of historical claims about relics and a number of contemporary discussions important to contemporary religious culture.

 

I know we've had this discussion before, with strong opinions expressed all around, and the question is never fully resolved, as it should not be.

 

Which makes me wonder (and you can address me offline, if you wish), is there a critical mass of folks interested in a 'medievalism' listserv, where post-medieval transformations of medieval ideas would be the heart of the discussion?

 

Best from Anchorage,

 

Dan

 

 

medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture On 25/03/2008, V. Kerry Inman <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

It seems to me that this is not the issue and would be an unproductive direction for discussion. Henk asserted that all relics are fakes and unworthy of scientific study except as a religio-cultural phenomenon. Many relics are certainly fakes (necessarily at least all except one when there are multiple heads of a single saint, etc., etc. -- medieval commentators already made many such critiques). It seems, however, on the evidence, that some relics are not fakes, even some quite ancient ones.

I cannot agree with Karl Brunner that the "truth" or authenticity of a relic is not a historical question, even though the cult of relics, whether they were true or false, is no doubt the more interesting area of study. If the results of the Padova study are accepted, for example, we may have additional, interdisciplinary evidence for a very early beginning to the Christian cult of relics, predating the earliest literary evidence by two or three generations (if I'm not mistaken; I'm thinking of the Martyrdom of Polycarp, ca. 167). This is surely not an insignificant historical finding. The new results may also provide criteria for a re-evaluation of other data. For example, the late tradition about Luke's burial place in Thebes was not previously accorded any particular weight as far as I know, like similar traditions about the other apostles, which are generally regarded with skepticism. If the Luke tradition is now supported by dated archaeological evidence, it must be estimated differently. Will that make a difference to the weight we give to other non-incredible data in the legend, and so on? Isn't this just the normal historical procedure of weighing the available evidence, and not dismissing any of it in an a priori fashion?

Not all medieval people were totally credulous. At least some of them were concerned that the relics presented for their veneration should not be fraudulent. Bernardino of Siena, just to mention one, preached caustically against fake, implausible and impossible relics (and the credulity associated with them), but he was not at all opposed to relics or perhaps even to credulity in other matters. So as a historical question, the issue of authenticity has a history even in the Middle Ages. Insofar as the cult of relics is still living today, authenticity remains a historical issue. Many devout people today would certainly not wish to venerate fraudulent relics, any more than they would wish, say, to visit their mother's grave or Napoleon's tomb or the battlefield of Ypres and find that they had been deceived and that it was really somewhere else. In this case, authentication is a historical service.





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