On moving relics and monastic reform

Abstract

In Ravenna’s hagiographic traditions, including the Liber pontificalis of its bishops, the translations of relics within the city and its suburbs, as well as narratives of relics that departed, were important components not only for local cults, but as reflections of the city’s status and history, and witnessed renewal of its ecclesiastical and monastic institutions. In seeking to understand the relationship between translations and reform, this article first presents the history of relics translations in Ravenna from the sixth to the tenth century as contexts for the Vita Probi, a narrative commemorating the discovery and translation of the relics of Probus, one of the city’s early bishops. This text, written in the 960s as a celebration of the final translation of his relics into the city, incorporated narrative material about the saint’s life into a longer description about his relics and the misadventures and return to proper conduct of local religious communities, at a moment when new norms of reform were on the horizon.