{"id":10480,"date":"2016-07-11T18:52:52","date_gmt":"2016-07-11T22:52:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/?p=10480"},"modified":"2016-07-11T18:52:52","modified_gmt":"2016-07-11T22:52:52","slug":"the-relics-of-richard-iii-an-older-but-provocative-post-on-medieval-bones-and-modern-worship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/2016\/07\/the-relics-of-richard-iii-an-older-but-provocative-post-on-medieval-bones-and-modern-worship.html","title":{"rendered":"The Relics of Richard III: An older but provocative post on medieval bones and modern worship"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

by Eleanor Parker aka A Clerk of Oxford. The rest of this post is quite peaceable and non-polemical but I fastened my fangs on the very David Foster Wallace\/\u201deverybody worships\u201d bit:<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no doubt that many people today are fascinated by the relics of kings, even as they look down on the medieval age for caring about the relics of saints. We\u2019re quite accustomed to the idea of a royal shrine as a place of historical pilgrimage \u2013 or else Westminster Abbey wouldn\u2019t be able to charge such steep admission fees! Richard III isn\u2019t the only king, of course, whose body draws in the tourists. For a medievalist, it\u2019s always interesting to visit English cathedrals \u2013 most of which began life as a communities centred around a saint\u2019s shrine, and which in the Middle Ages defined their identity by the saints whose bodies lay within \u2013 and find them now focusing almost exclusively on their royal burials. I was especially struck by this at Worcester Cathedral, where King John\u2019s tomb, right in front of the high altar, is one of the cathedral\u2019s most prominent attractions, and every tourist is directed to it. John was buried at Worcester because he wanted to be near the shrine of St Wulfstan<\/a> \u2013 but Wulfstan\u2019s tomb is gone, and John\u2019s survives. John has a pretty bad reputation as kings go (rivalled only by Richard III, perhaps) but it\u2019s accepted and expected that tourists will want to see his tomb; but wanting to see the site of St Wulfstan\u2019s <\/i>tomb is a bit weird, a bit too \u2018medieval\u2019. At Canterbury Cathedral, where the various royal tombs are all labelled and pointed out to tourists, one of the big attractions is the tattered accoutrements of the Black Prince \u2013 second-class relics hung up on display, before which every tourist is encouraged to pause and marvel \u2013 while the medieval pilgrims who marvelled at Becket\u2019s shrine are presented as something distinctly \u2018other\u2019, a historical oddity which has to be explained. Personally I find the fascination with royal relics puzzling, and interest in saints\u2019 relics much less so; at least medieval pilgrims believed that the people whose bodies they were so eager to encounter were holy, the remains of men and women of extraordinary virtue whose devout, self-denying lives infused their relics with power after death. Even the most dedicated defender of Richard III or King John doesn\u2019t quite claim that!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

more<\/a>, including excellent details of medieval relic-reburials. Historiography, personal spirituality, drunk monks, and more!<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Eleanor Parker aka A Clerk of Oxford. The rest of this post is quite peaceable and non-polemical but I fastened my fangs on the very David Foster Wallace\/\u201deverybody worships\u201d bit: There\u2019s no doubt that many people today are fascinated by the relics of kings, even as they look down on the medieval age for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1071,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[25,72,30,46,19,69],"class_list":["post-10480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mackerel-snapping","tag-england-your-england","tag-in-the-flesh","tag-mackerel-snapping-2","tag-our-enemy-the-state","tag-suspicion-of-traditions-so-new-wave","tag-weird-saints"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Relics of Richard III: An older but provocative post on medieval bones and modern worship<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"by Eleanor Parker aka A Clerk of Oxford. 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