ABSTRACT
The power of relics was as important in the fourteenth century as in the earliest days of Christianity. All religious orders, including the mendicants, looked after the remains of their saints and paid particular attention to those of their founder or founders. This proved arduous for the Augustinian Hermits. They were obliged from the fourteenth century to share custody of the body of their alleged founder, Augustine of Hippo, with the Augustinian Canons, a distinct and older religious order that also claimed him as a founder. This situation was unlike that of other mendicants, as the circumstances of Augustine’s entombment were very different from those of Sts Francis or dominic. Moreover the fourteenth-century arca conceived for Augustine was not to contain the saint’s remains until the twentieth century. This was not for lack of effort: despite repeated attempts, the Augustinian Hermits were unable to translate bones believed to be those of their founder from the crypt of San Pietro in Ciel d'Oro into their new effigy tomb.
