Material Culture and Religion: Towards a Mediatic Approach to Relics
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5433/2176-6665.2024v29n3e49738Keywords:
Relics , Catholicism, Cult of the Saints, Communication , Material CultureAbstract
In the Middle Ages, relics were not merely objects of worship and veneration; they were the medium through which the sacred manifested itself in a privileged way and around which social life was built. The purpose of this article is to present a communicative interpretation of relics, which implies understanding them as res sacrae, as a medium of the sacred. To accomplish this, the article unfolds into five complementary reflective axes: the role of relics in the emergence of the cult of saints; the question concerning the materiality of relics; the capacity of relics to evoke the mobility of the sacred; the question of the social life of relics; and finally, a discussion on the controversies and decline of relics. The elements that emerge from this reflection suggest that the relic, as a medium, is not merely a neutral instance used as a tool of power by religious elites, but rather a mediating element whose materiality was crucial in shaping the religious imagination of the time.
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