SAINTS’ RELICS IN MEDIEVAL ENGLISH LITERATURE DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements of the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Roberta Malo, M.A. ***** The Ohio State University 2007 Dissertation Committee: Professor Lisa J. Kiser, Advisor Approved by Professor Christopher A. Jones Professor Ethan Knapp ______________________________ Advisor English Graduate Program ABSTRACT My dissertation, “Saints’ Relics in Medieval English Literature,” examines how the occlusion, control of and access to saints’ relics became the source of significant tensions in late medieval culture and literature. I argue that in England, conflicting ideas about papal control, institutional power and the role of the laity directly influenced the literary presentation of relics and their cults. Because saints’ relics were thought to channel God’s healing power and to work miracles, clerics highly regulated access to these body parts and objects. Literary scholars have seldom recognized this highly politicized regulation of relics. Instead, the assumption has been that relics are, as medieval theology would have it, an uncontroversial bridge between heaven and earth. I show that in fact, when they discussed relics, medieval authors were frequently using relics to explore lay experiences of hierarchical power. Relics inspire interest and even repulsion in the contemporary scholar, but in the Middle Ages, they were a crucial focal point for lay devotion and, because of their miracle-working capabilities, institutional control. Situated as they were in the shrines and churches that became places of pilgrimage, relics inspired saints’ cults and pilgrim communities, but also enabled a parish’s or cathedral’s assertions of institutional dominance. By examining the cultural history of relics, I argue that these objects ii functioned to consolidate Church authority and hierarchy. In this historical context, control over relics tended to be material and tactile: pilgrims were often literally kept from seeing or touching relics. In literature, however, writers tended to explore relics’ management by presenting relics as rhetorically, as well as materially, occluded. This literary phenomenon is nevertheless based on the actual incorporation of the saint’s body into the Church (in the form of a relic) and draws from the historical exclusion of lay bodies from full participation in and access to the power that the relic was thought to mediate. I show that the strict regulation of relics directly influenced literary presentations of local churches as more powerful than secular authority, as well as presentations of conflict between pilgrims and shrine-keepers. To this end, I examine literature from widely diverse genres and time periods. Chapter 1 juxtaposes twelfth-century Latin liturgical and theological tracts on relics with fourteenth-century Lollard attacks on relic cults; Chapter 2 focuses on the Latin, Old English and Middle English renditions of the lives of Saints Erkenwald and Swithun; Chapter 3 features Thomas Cantilupe’s fourteenth-century Latin canonization proceedings and Malory’s fifteenth-century Morte d’arthur; and Chapter 4 engages with Chaucer’s fourteenth-century Canterbury Tales. In these works, writers use relics as tools either to uphold or to criticize institutional control over access to divine grace and healing. By investigating some of these historical conflicts, my work challenges the idea that relics were uncomplicated objects of devotion and the idea that relics’ appearance in literature was apolitical. In this way, my dissertation opens up new avenues for understanding lay and clerical roles in the religious culture of the English Middle Ages and the ways in which these roles impacted the vernacular literature of the period. iii Dedicated to my husband, Mike, and to my high school English teachers, Fraser Cameron and Tom St. Amand. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to thank my mentor, Alastair Minnis, for his enthusiasm, guidance and endless patience in reading and commenting on my work. Our conversations about the Pardoner’s “coillons” have been (and will continue to be, I trust) priceless. He has worked tirelessly with this novice scholar, and has never held back his thoughts, criticisms and praise. I am humbled to have worked with him so closely. I am grateful to my advisor, Lisa J. Kiser, for her constant support, commentary, and especially her occasional amusement at my ideas. She took on the role of advisor at a crucial moment, and her availability to talk through the various concepts in this project has been generous and immediate. I thank her heartily for so regularly making me laugh, even under (what seemed to me to be) the direst circumstances while I was revising. And most of all, I thank her for her constant scrutiny and guidance of this immense project. I also thank Drew Jones, who is largely responsible for my thinking on relics’ occlusion in their shrines. I am grateful for his readiness to talk through my ideas, however repetitive. His guidance and help in preparing the Latin translations of chapter two are largely responsible for any successes in my readings of the intellectual history of relic cults. v I am equally grateful to my conversations with Ethan Knapp, whose comments helped to form the methodological foundation for this project, and whose ability to rearticulate my marathon sentences (and verbal thoughts) is unprecedented. His support of my work made especially the final days of this project bearable, and even enjoyable. I also wish to thank members of the English department not on my dissertation committee. The other medievalists, Richard Firth Green, Leslie Lockett and Karen Winstead, all offered guidance, support and insight. This dissertation truly springs from a collective effort. My conversations with Amanpal Garcha helped to shape my thinking about the project as a whole. I especially thank Frank Coulson, a professor in the Classics department, who was ever-ready with support, help with Latin translations, and—my favorite—the lauds, “you go, girl!” He was so often, unbeknownst to him, what motivated me to stay in academics. I am also grateful for the funding and support I received from the National Endowment for the Humanities to attend the Insitute “Cathedral and Culture: Medieval York.” The conversations I had with many scholars there—Tim Ayers, Dee Dyas, Louise Hampson, Felicity Riddy and Paul E. Szarmach, to name only a few—were invaluable and energizing. I wish especially to thank my colleagues and friends, Joel Fredell, Shannon Gayk, Dan Hobbins, Rachel Koopmans and James Riddle, for their tireless dedication to the field, collegiality and support. John Crook, Christopher Norton and David Rollason all generously supported and discussed my ideas. I wish to acknowledge in particular John Crook, whose work has been so important to the methodological foundations of this project. Dr Crook selfelessly devoted his time and vi energy to discussing my project with me, encouraging my work and showing me every bit of material evidence for Swithun’s cult in Winchester. His support of this project is much appreciated. My friends and peers have also been overwhelmingly supportive. Thanks to my primary readers, Mike Johnston and Dana Oswald, whose criticisms were always leavened by their confidence in my work. Thanks also to Cat Gubernatis, sometime roommate and friend, for comments on an early version of chapter three. Thanks to Kelly Bradbury, office-mate and friend, who was always willing to listen, and to Jen Camden and Ivonne Garcia, who were always there to support and encourage when I needed it most. And a very special thanks to Kathleen Griffin, whose personal and professional support and friendship saw me through many a dark hour. Finally, I wish to thank my family for their constant support—for Dad’s spontaneous trip to Philadelphia and unflagging encouragement of my chosen career; for Liz’s bright mood and affirmation of my abilities; for Mom’s prayer, support and countless phone-calls; for John’s silent understanding of what it is like to do doctoral work; for Kit and Stephen’s frenetic enthusiasm and buoyant cheerleading; for the Johnstons’ patience, warm welcome and love; for Hapenny, without whose constant companionship (under my feet) I’m not sure I’d have finished; and for Mike, who was always there to rub my back, do the dishes, and remind me that sometimes, the dissertation can wait. vii VITA December 13, 1975…………………………....Born—Kitchener, Ontario, Canada 2002……………………………………………M.A. English, The University of Toronto 2000……………………………………………Honours B.A. English, The University of Toronto 2002-03, 2005-06……………………………....Distinguished University Fellow, The Ohio State University 2003-05, 2006-07................................................GTA, The Ohio State University PUBLICATIONS 1. Robyn Malo. Rev. of Reading Medieval Culture: Essays in Honor of Robert W. Hanning. Ed. Robert M. Stein and Sandra Pierson Prior, The Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature 61.1 (Spring 2007): 100-102 viii FIELDS OF STUDY Major field: English ix TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………....ii Dedication………………………………………………………………………………...iv Acknowledgments………………………………………………………………………...v Vita…………………………………………………………………………………...…viii Chapters: 1. Introduction: Access and Encounter........................................................................1 Relics and Macrohistory...................................…………………………………...1