Droplets of Heaven: Tears Relics in the High and Later Middle Ages

Abstract

Precious liquids associated with Christ, a saint, or holy sites were collected and treasured by pilgrims throughout the Middle Ages. By the high medieval period, flocks of pilgrims visited holy sites and saints’ tombs where liquids associated with a holy body could be collected. La Sainte Larme, the holy tear of Christ, boomed in popularity, leaving a trail of associated ampullae across Europe. Nor was it just the Sainte Larme that was revered. Saints’ lives from the twelfth to fourteenth centuries confirm the importance of heavenly droplets shed by would-be saints. At this time, lachrymose piety became a salient feature of sanctity for religious men and women. Using the vitae of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century holy women and a wide range of sources relating to the Saint Larme, this essay puts together a picture of these little-known, yet highly revered, relics. Applying an interdisciplinary and integrated approach that examines the material, visual, and written sources for tears relics, it provides a textured analysis of the methods of collection, preservation, use, and veneration of tears. The article explores how tears relics were particularly fertile bearers of meaning and how Christians lived their religion through interaction with the material. The use and veneration of tears was multisensory and emotive, and it will be shown how tears relics were an apposite medium for stimulating emotional responses. In sum, it argues that tears relics, unknown before the eleventh century, were the product of the particular spiritual climate of the high Middle Ages when a tide of lachrymal piety swept across Western Europe and an emotional and multisensory experience of relics was at the heart of pilgrims’ devotion.