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The cult of the saints was one of the most distinctive features of medieval Christianity, and it shaped the religious, the social, and the cultural life of the High Middle Ages in profound ways. The saints were believed to be the friends of God, who had lived exemplary lives on earth and who now enjoyed the beatific vision in heaven. The saints were believed to intercede with God on behalf of the living, and their relics — the physical remains of their bodies, the objects associated with their lives, and the fragments of their clothing and possessions — were venerated as sources of miraculous power. The pilgrimage to the shrines of the saints was one of the most popular forms of medieval devotion, and the great pilgrimage sites — Jerusalem, Rome, Santiago de Compostela, and Canterbury — attracted hundreds of thousands of pilgrims each year.
This cluster explores the cult of the saints, the veneration of relics, and the practice of pilgrimage in the High Middle Ages. The articles in the related long-tail pages provide deeper examinations of specific saints, relics, and pilgrimages.
André Vauchez, “Saints, prophètes et visionnaires” (1999), is the most important recent treatment in French; the older but still useful English-language treatment is Peter Brown, “The Cult of the Saints” (1981), on the late-antique antecedent. The page below uses both, and treats the canonisation process as the institutional lens for the cult: the formal investigation, the gathering of miracles, the papal judgement. The Liber miraculorum of each great shrine is the primary material.
The Cult of the Saints
The cult of the saints was based on the belief that the saints in heaven were active participants in the life of the Church on earth, and that they could intercede with God on behalf of the faithful. The belief was rooted in the early Christian practice of venerating the martyrs of the persecutions, and it was gradually extended to include the confessors of the faith (those who had confessed their belief in Christ without suffering martyrdom) and the virgins (those who had dedicated their lives to Christ in chastity).
The cult of the saints was a major feature of the medieval Church, and it was expressed in a variety of forms. The feast days of the saints were celebrated with special liturgy, and the anniversaries of the deaths of the saints (their birthdays into eternal life) were major feast days. The churches dedicated to the saints were major centers of devotion, and the relics of the saints were venerated in shrines and reliquaries.
The cult of the saints was also a major social institution. The saints were the patrons of cities, regions, guilds, and professions, and the feast days of the saints were holidays for the guilds and the communities. The saints were also the healers of the sick, the protectors of the weak, and the intercessors for the souls of the dead. The cult of the saints was a major source of comfort and hope in a world that was dangerous and uncertain.
The canonization of a saint was a formal process by which the Church recognized that a person was a saint and that the cult of the saint was legitimate. In the early Middle Ages, the canonization of saints was largely a local matter, with the bishops of the dioceses where the cult was venerated making the formal decision. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the popes gradually took control of the canonization process, and the formal procedure of canonization was established. The procedure required the verification of the candidate’s heroic virtues (or martyrdom), the verification of miracles attributed to the candidate’s intercession, and the formal approval of the pope.
The Veneration of Relics
The veneration of relics was a major feature of the cult of the saints, and it was based on the belief that the physical remains of the saints and the objects associated with their lives were channels of divine power. The relics were venerated in shrines and reliquaries, and they were carried in processions and displayed on feast days. The relics were believed to perform miracles — to heal the sick, to protect the city, to defeat the enemies of the faith — and they were a major source of revenue for the churches and monasteries that possessed them.
The relics of the saints were of various kinds. The first-class relics were the physical remains of the saints — bones, hair, blood, and other parts of the body. The second-class relics were the objects that the saints had used or worn — clothing, jewelry, books, and instruments of martyrdom. The third-class relics were the objects that had touched the first-class or second-class relics — cloths, medals, and ampullae of oil or water that had been blessed by contact with a relic.
The acquisition of relics was a major enterprise in the medieval Church. The popes, the kings, the bishops, and the great lords competed for the possession of the most prestigious relics, and they sent emissaries to distant lands to obtain them. The translation of relics — the formal movement of relics from one place to another — was a major ceremonial event, marked by solemn processions and celebrations. The Translation of the relics of St. Thomas Becket from Canterbury Cathedral in 1220, for example, was a major event in the history of medieval England.
The relics of the True Cross were among the most prestigious of all relics. The True Cross — the cross on which Christ was crucified — was believed to have been discovered by St. Helena, the mother of Emperor Constantine, in the fourth century. Fragments of the True Cross were distributed across Christendom, and they were venerated in churches and monasteries from Jerusalem to Canterbury. The relics of the Crown of Thorns, the Holy Lance, the Holy Sponge, and the other instruments of the Passion were venerated in Jerusalem, Constantinople, and Paris (in the Sainte-Chapelle, built by King Louis IX to house the relics of the Crown of Thorns).
The Practice of Pilgrimage
The pilgrimage to the shrines of the saints was one of the most popular forms of medieval devotion. The pilgrimage was a physical and spiritual journey, undertaken in penance for sins, in search of healing, or in fulfillment of a vow. The pilgrimage was a rite of transition, a way of marking the passage from one state of life to another, and a way of gaining indulgences and remission of sins.
The major pilgrimage sites of the medieval Church were Jerusalem, Rome, Santiago de Compostela, and Canterbury. Jerusalem was the most prestigious of all pilgrimage sites, the scene of the Passion and Resurrection of Christ, and the goal of the Crusades. Rome was the city of St. Peter and St. Paul, the seat of the papacy, and the home of the major basilicas of the early Church. Santiago de Compostela was the shrine of St. James the Great, the apostle who was believed to have preached the Gospel in Spain and whose body was believed to have been transported to Galicia after his martyrdom. Canterbury was the shrine of St. Thomas Becket, the archbishop of Canterbury who was murdered in 1170 by the knights of King Henry II.
The pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela was particularly important in the High Middle Ages. The shrine of St. James was discovered (or re-discovered) in the ninth century, and the pilgrimage to Santiago became one of the major Christian pilgrimages of the medieval world. The pilgrimage route to Santiago — known as the Camino de Santiago — was a network of roads that crossed France and northern Spain, and it was lined with monasteries, hospitals, and churches that catered to the needs of the pilgrims. The pilgrimage was particularly popular in the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries, and it was a major factor in the cultural exchange between Christian Europe and Muslim Spain.
The pilgrimage to Canterbury was particularly important in England. The shrine of St. Thomas Becket was one of the most prestigious in Christendom, and the pilgrimage to Canterbury was a major feature of medieval English religious life. The pilgrimage is immortalized in the Canterbury Tales of Geoffrey Chaucer, which describes a group of pilgrims traveling from London to Canterbury and tells the stories they tell along the way. The Canterbury Tales is one of the masterpieces of medieval English literature, and it is one of the major sources for the history of medieval pilgrimage.
The Literature of Pilgrimage
The literature of pilgrimage is a major genre of medieval literature, and it includes the guidebooks, the travel accounts, the saints’ lives, and the miracle stories that were produced by and for pilgrims. The guidebooks — such as the Pilgrim’s Guide to Santiago (the Codex Calixtinus, compiled in the twelfth century) — provided practical information for the pilgrims, describing the route, the sites, the relics, and the dangers of the journey. The travel accounts — such as the account of the Pilgrimage of Egeria (a fourth-century pilgrim to the Holy Land), the account of Bernard the Wise (a ninth-century pilgrim to Jerusalem), and the account of Felix Fabri (a fifteenth-century pilgrim to Jerusalem) — provide first-hand descriptions of the pilgrimage experience.
The saints’ lives — the vitae of the saints — were a major genre of medieval literature, and they were often composed in connection with the pilgrimage cults. The vita of St. Thomas Becket by William FitzStephen, the vita of St. Martin of Tours by Sulpicius Severus, the vita of St. Francis of Assisi by Thomas of Celano and Bonaventure, and the vitae of the Desert Fathers by Palladius and the Historia Monachorum were all major works of medieval literature and major sources for the cult of the saints.
The miracle stories — the collections of miracles attributed to the saints — were another major genre of medieval literature. The miracula of St. Thomas Becket, the miracula of St. James of Compostela, the miracula of St. Foy of Conques, and the miracula of the Virgin Mary were all major works of medieval literature, and they are major sources for the social and cultural history of the period. The miracle stories describe the healings, the rescues, the punishments, and the other miraculous interventions attributed to the saints, and they provide a unique window into the religious and social life of the medieval world.
Sources
Principal sources used in this article:
- André Vauchez, Saints, prophètes et visionnaires (Albin Michel, 1999).
Further reading:
- Peter Brown, The Cult of the Saints (Chicago, 1981) — for the late-antique antecedent.
For a recent single-volume synthesis with full scholarly apparatus, see the relevant chapter of Barbara H. Rosenwein, A Short History of the Middle Ages (University of Toronto Press, 2014).