Reliquaries

I have been researching reliquaries at the moment – well, the current endpoint of the research is reliquaries, which are delightful! Serendipity may still take me elsewhere…
The trail led from a procedural question over the ordination of a deacon – which Wimer became, before becoming a priest – to a realisation that he would have loved the deaconate, because of its association with the Gospels, and the Deacon’s role in reading the Gospels to the people. He would also have hated the requirement to sing part of the sermon, so would have wanted to become a priest as soon as possible!
Then I moved on to his ordination as a priest, and discovered as part of the reading around that, the requirement for every Catholic altar to have within it a relic from a saint – preferably a martyr. This holds to this day, which I am amazed by.
Relics led on to reliquaries – and what lovely things some of them were! The first one I fell in love with was this beauty, made at exactly the right time. I loved its colours and vivacity first, then realised that it was made to hold relics from Thomas a’Beckett – whom Wimer could not stand. Being excommunicated twice by someone does that to you…

So of course the casket, and its relics, had to fall into his hands; and then he had to swap it somehow for a set of relics from someone he’d be comfortable with. I found this nice shape:
http://www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre-notices/reliquary-casket
And then discovered the right saint. Meet St Walstan, the Saxon-born patron saint of crops, healer of animals.

This is beginning to come together… I’ve now stopped trawling the web for images of reliquaries, and am off to write the scene when he discovers the right reliquary for his Priory-to-be!

—————————————————————————————————————–

I hope you enjoy my books as much as I loved writing them! Here’s my Amazon page.

If you’d like to know more about my writing, you can sign up for my newsletter.