The combination of glass and textile drew me immediately into this well-made book with awfully, great photos. The Introduction pages of this remarkable book explain where the adorned skeletons came from and were used for, over time redressed to cover the decline of the bones by veils, silk gauzes or embroidered tulles, webs of netting, wigs of silver or gold wire and papier-mâché masks and new costumes and adorned from head to toe with real or glass gemstones, beads and pearls, mirrors, glass ampoules and flasks filled with blood, set in intricate designs in golden filigree wire, the skeleton’s appearance was so ornate that the local priest compared it “to the greatest treasures from the bosom of the earth.”
The chapter Holy Bodies points out that the adorned skeletons were an answer to the vandalized relics by Protestant Reformers in the sixteenth century who disapproved the early Christian practice of collecting and trade venerating remains of saints and martyrs as holy items to be worshipped. Churches in the German-speaking part of Europe were laid out with shrines and showcase, rebuilt or special built to store after the looting during the German Peasants’ War in 1524–26 and the Schmalkaldic War in 1546–47. “Calvin’s followers proved particularly destructive. They sacked churches and ruined relics in large numbers, variously broken, discarded or set aflame. Not even esteemed church fathers such as St Irenaeus were safe, and his nearly 1,400-year-old remains in Lyons were burned and cast to the wind by Huguenots in 1562.”
Estimates of the number of martyrs grew to ridiculous proportions. In the 1560s an Augustinian monk had studied what was then one of the few known burial galleries and concluded that perhaps three legitimate martyrs could be identified but by the early seventeenth century it was claimed there might be up to 174,000 in a single catacomb. Supposed sacred remains were already filtering north in the late sixteenth century. The biggest waves came after the Thirty Years’ War (1618–48).
Large numbers of churches had been ransacked, ensuring that high volumes of new sacred bones were needed, especially in southern Germany. The export reached its crescendo in the latter third of the seventeenth century, when huge numbers of Katakombenheiligen were sent as replacements for lost relics. The sacred bones went not only to churches, but also to wealthy and noble houses, which acquired them as statements of familial piety and prestige.
The chapter The Church Triumphant: constructing the catacomb saints, describes how the relics taken from the Roman Catacombs were transported north for over more than two centuries and how nuns prepared the skeletons or skeleton parts as many convents were renowned for their skill in the necessary decorative and textile arts, by monks – because of their craft skills – and secular artisans if a specialized skill was needed – for instance, if it was desired that the skeleton be presented in a suit of armor, such as that worn by St Pancratius in the church of St Nicholas in Wil, Switzerland. “Pancratius was originally robed by nuns in 1671, but the church decided to celebrate the relic’s centennial in the 1770s by encasing the bones in magnificent armor (see page 93).”
After the explanation on the choice of the pose, the choice of clothes, the exhibiting of the skeletons are described: "Thus reconstructed, robed and posed, the Katakombenheiligen were then installed in conspicuous displays created for them within the church. They were commonly placed in the predellas of altars, in new forms of reliquary enclosures that were spacious enough to fit a full skeleton. Aside from a crucifix, which might be set before the martyr to equate his or her sacrifice with that of Christ, pains were usually taken to ensure that the body could be seen without obstruction. Rarely was the small-paned glass that was typical of the period used; instead, large sheets of clear glass were developed at great effort and expense to ensure optimal visibility.”
Chapter 4 The Mighty Will Fall: the end of the reign of the catacomb saints, describes frightful objects: the jeweled skeletons under attack: “The spectacularly jeweled skeletons taken from the Roman Catacombs were still venerated through the latter part of eighteenth century, and in some areas through much of the nineteenth.” But the habit came under discussion. “As the Church began turning its back on the skeletons it had once glorified, these formerly blessed bones ended up as little more than detritus amid successive waves of monastic secularization. This started in the east, in the areas under the control of the Habsburg emperor, Joseph II, in 1782. Catholic but also firmly dedicated to the principles of the Enlightenment, he suppressed over 700 monasteries that were not involved in active obligations such as education or nursing. He also ordered the destruction of relics that could not be adequately documented as authentic, and this brought about the demise of numerous catacomb saints.”
In Communal Property: jeweled skeletons and civic identity, the social roles are sketched around the catacomb saints protecting cloth makers, female textile workers, and spinsters. “As patrons and guardians, they were believed to bring divine providence, ensure prosperity and shield the community from temporal and spiritual enemies. They also helped to create social unity, since their worship and festivities cut across class lines. A popular relic was thus a vital part of civic identity, often becoming synonymous with the city itself.”
The twentieth century was no less cruel to the holy bodies. Predations by bureaucratic burglars were replaced by those of more petty criminals, who would commonly break into churches to steal whatever precious items they could strip from the decorated bones. Such vandalism has continued even to the present day. The book ends: “Enthroned anew, the re-gilded Baroque shrines of Primus and Felicianus reveal more than just the skeletons of two supposed martyrs. To look up at these glorious relics on the high altar at Rottenbuch is to peer through a window into a largely forgotten past, opened through a measure of the devotion that was once accorded to countless other Heavenly Bodies, and that in one community refused to be extinguished.”
Through the book you will find all names of churches and towns with the described relics and a list of sites in which the name of the church is given only where the relic is on public display; otherwise only the city is listed and it closes with an index.
I am sure I will visit them to see these amazing witnesses of the past and bring tribute to the astonishing and lost craft of adornment.
Warmly recommended!
Angela van der Burght
