The Morthouse

Reliquary Box with Scenes from the Life of John the Baptist. Byzantine, 14th century.

Source: The Cleveland Museum of Art, via Treasures of Heaven:

The Christian cult of John the Baptist emerged early as a result of his prominence in the account of the Gospels, which credit him as the first to recognize Christ as the promised Savior. After his execution at the fortress of Machaerus, his remains were allegedly moved to Sebaste. Despite reports that John’s coffin “was opened, his bones burned, and his ashes scattered” during the reign of Julian the Apostate (Theodoret, Ecclesiastical History 3.3), Christian pilgrims such as Egeria in the 380s continued to visit his tomb. His head, however, was taken to the capital, where it was solemnly deposited on 18 February 391 in a church, richly endowed by Emperor Theodosius I. Over the centuries, at least thirty-six churches were dedicated to St. John the Baptist in Constantinople alone, attesting to his exceptional status among the saints and martyrs venerated in the Byzantine Empire.

The painted wood box likely served as a container for one of the saint’s relics. Several such relics—two fragments of his skull, his right arm, and locks of his blood-clotted hair—were kept and venerated in churches and monasteries at Constantinople into the late Byzantine period.

The Shrine of St. Amandus; The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. Flemish, early 13th century with significant later additions. From Kathryn B. Gerry’s article on the Treasures of Heaven exhibit:

Amandus was the bishop of Maastricht and the founder and abbot of the Monastery of Elnon, near Tournai, where he was buried after his death (ca. 679). Before the end of the seventh century, he was considered a saint, and a pilgrimage cult developed at Elnon, eventually requiring that his bones be housed in a reliquary that could be shown to the faithful. In addition to being visited by pilgrims and carried in procession on feast days, the relics of St. Amandus were taken on a tour of the region around Elnon at least twice: once in 1066 to raise funds to rebuild the monastery after it was destroyed by fire, and again in 1107 to remind ambitious nobles of the monastery’s power and privileges. At least one earlier reliquary for St. Amandus must have existed, but it was destroyed or lost prior to the thirteenth century, perhaps in the fire of 1066. The figure at one of the gable-shaped ends is presumably Amandus; the other end, now empty, probably originally contained a figure of Christ. Although many such reliquaries were destroyed or sold to collectors during periods of religious reformation and political revolution, some continued to be used into the modern period: a reliquary similar to that of St. Amandus is still owned by the religious brotherhood of St. Symphorian in Belgium, and carried in public procession on several occasions during the year. Over the centuries, reliquaries such as this were likely to suffer some wear. Extensive scientific testing has shown that this reliquary was made in the early thirteenth century, but that it has been repaired and modified throughout the centuries as it continued to be used in the service of the cult of St. Amandus. The most recent modifications, however, were made by a late nineteenth- or early twentieth-century art dealer hoping to “improve” the piece and make it more marketable.

I’m an Amanda, so this appeals to me greatly. However, if I were a saint, I would have preferred the tour of Flanders before dying.

Reliquary of the Tooth of Mary Magdalene. Tuscan, 14th century (goldsmith’s work: 15th century). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. 

Source: Treasures of Heaven online exhibit.

Ostensorium with “Paten of St. Bernward.” German (Lower Saxony [Hildesheim?]), ca. 1180-90 (paten); ca. 1350-1400 (monstrance). The Cleveland Museum of Art.

From the Treasures of Heaven exhibit:

This unusual ostensorium (from the Latin ostendere: to show) was made to facilitate the display and veneration of ten relics, most prominent among them an elaborate liturgical paten—a shallow plate for the elevation of the Eucharist during Mass—associated with St. Bernward of Hildesheim (d. 1022), and a relic of the True Cross.

On the back, eight more relics are visible:

They’re wrapped in silk and are identified—by an inscription on parchment accompanying the piece—as the remains of Saints Godehard, Nicholas, Auctor, Silvester, Servatius, John Chrysostom, Alexis, and Lawrence.

I was just scrolling through my dashboard, and I realized that Morbid Curiosity posted about the patron saint of genital disease, too! From the BBC article:

It is unclear exactly how his head may have ended up in Ireland.

Auctioneer Damien Matthews, who is selling the macabre item on Sunday, said that the family think an ancestor brought it back from the grand tour of Europe in the 18th century.

The grand tour was an educational rite of passage for wealthy Europeans from the 17th until the 19th century, intended to provide insight into the great cultural symbols of Europe.

The head sat for many years in the family hall in County Louth, but was recently uncovered in an outhouse.

Mr Matthews said that although he couldn’t be certain it was the head of a saint: “It’s certainly ancient, and it’s certainly the head of somebody.”

xmorbidcuriosityx:

For sale: one severed head of patron saint of genital disease…

The severed head of a man said to be the patron saint of genital disease will go on auction in County Meath on Sunday.

The skull is allegedly that of St Vitalis of Assisi, an Italian Benedictine monk from the 14th century.

Portable altar of Countess Gertrude (Germany, ca. 1045) and its contents. From Holger A. Klein’s article in the Treasures of Heaven online exhibit:

According to the prescriptions of the Seventh Ecumenical Council of Nicaea of 787, every consecrated altar was to contain sacred relics. The portable altar of Countess Gertrude was no exception. Of the various relics listed in the inventory of 1482, those of Sts. Hermes, Bartholomew, Vincent, Adelheid, Gertrude, Marcian, and others are still preserved today. They were wrapped in textiles, stuffed into a richly decorated silk pouch and inserted into the altar through a trap door on the altar’s underside. This oblong reliquary pouch was sewn together with a few irregular stitches from a single piece of light-green silk. Its woven figural decoration, which consists of pairs of opposing lions arranged in several narrow registers, is reminiscent of Near Eastern designs and Islamic textiles produced by Mudejar artists in thirteenth-century Spain. An accompanying cedula, or parchment strip with an identifying inscription, suggests that the bag used to contain relics of the arm of one of the Twelve Apostles, namely that of St. Bartholomew. Together with other precious relics, some of which were likewise wrapped in silk and linen textiles, the apostle’s remains (multiple fragments of soft tissue rather than bone) were found inside the portable altar of Countess Gertrude of Braunschweig in 1985, when the trap door on the reliquary’s underside was opened for the first time since the late nineteenth century. According to early Christian tradition, St. Bartholomew was flayed alive and beheaded, which may explain the presence of soft tissue (rather than bone) and its identification as the “arm” (brachium) of the apostle.

I wish I could find more information about each of the pieces in this picture, and what they might be, but no dice.

Source: The Cleveland Museum of Art.

Alleged skull of Saint Valentine in the Basilica of Santa Maria in Cosmedin, Rome. (Source: Br Lawrence Lew, O.P., on Flickr.)