Holiness on the Move: Relic Translations and the Affirmation of Authority on the Italian Edge of the Carolingian World

Abstract

Between the eighth and ninth centuries many kings, dukes and counts in Carolingian Europe promoted the collection of relics in cathedrals and/or urban foundations both to centralize their power and to increase their prestige. Their ventures were part of a wider framework in which the mobility of the saints’ bodies, which was strictly defined by the Carolingian authorities, put various political and social agents in a relationship, often competitive, with each other. This paper considers two cases of the translation of saints’ bodies at the peripheries of the Carolingian Empire: the furta sacra of St Mark (from Alexandria, Egypt to Venice, 828) and St Bartholomew (from the island of Lipari to Benevento, 838-839). Both the hagiographical traditions narrate the theft and transport of the relics from the Islamic world to the Italian peninsula by boat. These two cases are also both related to a conscious and ambitious plan to strengthen local public authorities. The paper examines the underlying political strategies that led to the mobility of two of the most important relics in the Mediterranean context and the circulation of cultural models from the Carolingian worlds, which relocated the saints’ bodies in order to redefine the political balance.