Pilgrimage Reliquaries

Reliquaries in the shape of body parts were popular during the medieval period, especially the twelfth–thirteenth centuries. Marvelous reliquaries in the form of arms, legs, feet, and heads provided a fitting home for the relic of a saint. The reliquaries presented an object to commemorate the saint and give visitors a visual representation to focus prayers. These spectacular bejeweled showpieces were also an attraction for the pilgrims who visited the saint’s chapel.

Portrait busts reliquaries were a revival (of sorts) of the lost tradition of the roman portrait bust. “Romanesque portrait sculpture deliberately celebrated the "individual" as an ideal type rather than as a unique personality.”¹ The revival in portrait busts was “reflecting a renewed confidence in the capacity of corporeal vision as the means of access to the spiritual, and an emphasis on corporeal presence in the display of relics and in the Eucharistic performance.”² The reliquaries recreate a likeness, an exalted physical presence of the saint, so believers could better connect spiritually.

Saint Yrieix, also is known as Saint Aredius, was a sixth-century monk and founder of a monastery near Limoges, France now called, Saint-Yrieix. He was known for building churches and monasteries and the ability to work miracles, as such, Saint Yrieix’s relics became popular with pilgrims. Metropolitan Museum in New York City is the current home of a beautiful reliquary that once held the skull of Saint Yrieix.

The reliquary bust dates to the early 13th century and demonstrates the talents of a skilled goldsmith. Fashioned of silver and gold accents along with precious stones and jewels, it provided a fitting home for the skull of the saint. The silver bust originally fit over a carefully carved wooden core. Not intended to be visible, the wooden base provided support for the precious metal exterior skin. The method used to make this type of sculpture is an analogy for a religious concept shared at the time, the sealing metaphor. The process of creating the outer skin of the reliquary from the wooden core involved imprinting, like a seal. Sealing metaphors relate to the quality of brightness as a form of the impression of the divine. Meaning, the image of God is engraved; through imitation, believers are pressed against the engraved image and imprinted with his likeness. Seeing the bust and its wooden form together, “the imprinted likeness encompassed not only the form of the face, taken from the model within but also the radiant quality of the metal as virtue and reason.”³

One controversy related to this artifact is making the headlines. The small town of Saint-Yrieix is demanding that the Met return this object. It seems that around 1906 a parish priest replaced the original with a copy and sold the original to an antiques dealer. JP Morgan acquired the piece for 300,000 gold Francs and his heirs donated it to the Met. A Saint-Yrieix villager visited New York and was shocked to see that they had the original relic. The town does seem to have a solid case as it was decreed public property in 1789, protected as a historic monument in 1891, and a 1905 law forbids a protected object to leave France. It seems the whole transaction was very likely, not legal. Could it be possible that Saint Yrieix, who was known for his many pilgrimages in life, will have his reliquary make one last pilgrimage back its home in Limoges?

1. Dale, Thomas. “Romanesque Sculpted Portraits: Convention, Vision, and Real Presence.” Gesta, vol. 46, no. 2, 2007, pp. 101–119. JSTOR,
www.jstor.org/stable/20648948.

2. Dale. “Romanesque Sculpted Portraits”

3. iBid

Metmuseum.org, “Reliquary Bust of Saint Yrieix”
www.metmuseum.org/en/art/collection/search/464333.

OTHER SOURCES

Stokstad, Marilyn, “Medieval Art” Second Edition, Routledge, 2018, Print

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