Reliquary

This article is about containers for relics. For the Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child novel, see Reliquary (novel).
Reliquary Shrine, French, c. 1325–50, The Cloisters, New York
Inside the shrine of St. Boniface of Dokkum in the hermit-church of Warfhuizen in the Netherlands. The little folded paper on the left contains a bone fragment of Saint Benedict of Nursia, the folded paper on the right a piece of the habit of St. Bernard of Clairvaux. The large bone in the middle (about 5 cm in length) is the actual relic of St. Boniface.

A reliquary (also referred to as a shrine, by the French term châsse, and historically also referred to as a phylactery[1]) is a container for relics. A portable reliquary may be called a fereter, and a chapel in which it is housed a feretory or feretery.[2]

Relics may be the purported or actual physical remains of saints, and may comprise bones, pieces of clothing, or some object associated with saints or with other religious figures. The authenticity of any given relic is often a matter of debate; for that reason, some churches require documentation of a relic's provenance.

Relics have long been important to Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, and to followers of many other religions.[3][4][5] These cultures often display reliquaries in shrines, churches, or temples to which the faithful make pilgrimages to gain blessings.

The term is sometimes used loosely for containers for the body parts of non-religious figures; in particular, the kings of France often specified that their hearts and sometimes other organs be buried in a different location from their main burial.

  1. ^ Farmer, Sharon (2007). "17: Low Country Ascetics and Oriental Luxury: Jacques de Vitry, Marie of Oignies, and the Treasures of Oignies". In Rachel Fulton Brown; Bruce W. Holsinger (eds.). History in the Comic Mode: Medieval Communities and the Matter of Person. New York City: Columbia University Press. p. 209. ISBN 9780231508476. OCLC 8182124165.
  2. ^ "feretery". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
  3. ^ "Two Gandhāran Reliquaries". K. Walton Dobbins. East and West, 18 (1968), pp. 151–162.
  4. ^ The Stūpa and Vihāra of Kanishka I. K. Walton Dobbins. (1971). The Asiatic Society of Bengal Monograph Series, Vol. XVIII. Calcutta.
  5. ^ "Is the Kaniṣka Reliquary a work from Mathurā?" Mirella Levi d’Ancona. Art Bulletin, Vol. 31, No. 4 (Dec. 1949), pp. 321–323.