The Promotion and Demotion of Whole Relics

Abstract

There are indications that some whole relics of saints in England, who had never been canonized officially, were subjected to a change in status during the Middle Ages, being demoted and sometimes promoted again. Some of these demotions follow the fourth Lateran Council of 1215 when it was decreed that relics newly found could not be venerated without papal permission. In this article a few of these cases are examined, in particular those of St William of Norwich, St Amphibalus and his companions at St Albans, and the Venerable Bede at Durham; and in the light of these, the movements of the relics of St Swithun and St Birinus at Winchester are also examined. The site of the last resting place of St William of Norwich is discussed in an Appendix.