Tracing the Trend from Public Piety to Private Devotion in Western European Reliquaries of the Middle Ages
Graduation Date
Spring 2009
Document Type
Master's Thesis
Document Form
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Program Name
Humanities
First Reader
Leslie Ross, PhD
Second Reader
Philip Novak, PhD
Abstract
This thesis examines the design development of Western European medieval reliquaries - containers of sacred remains - as reflective of the trend from public piety to private devotion. Reliquaries in the form of the head, bust, and whole body merit particular emphasis as they elicit greater personal response on the part of the devotee. Therefore, extant ninth and tenth century examples of these are important signs that suggest that an individual, private devotional experience was available and perhaps even common long before personal prayer books first became popular with the laity in the late eleventh and twelfth centuries. The emergence of the individual as seen in the transition from public, social, mediated religious practice to private, individual experience may be traced, not only in books, but in the stylistic development of reliquaries throughout the medieval period. The form and design of reliquaries reflects the larger cultural and religious trends, as well as changes in how the individual perceived self in the context of earthly society and beyond.