ABSTRACT

An eleventh-century manuscript now in Oxford includes a Latin list of the relics belonging to the Church of Saint Mary and Saint Peter in Exeter. After itemizing 146 relics, it concludes with a note that there were also many others whose identities were unknown because their names were not written down. This chapter explores the ways in which the act of writing down the name of every particle in a relic collection provided its components with durable identities so that religious ritual and splendid settings could complete the task of endowing these paltry objects with massive and enduring significance. In contrast to narrative delineations of the Holy Land in pilgrim itineraries, the relic lists presented here do not constitute geographically coherent accounts. Natural materials, the written word, and ecclesiastical ceremonial fused to relocate the earthly and heavenly Jerusalem into Europe's churches and, indeed, to elide them.