Bones of Contention: The Justifications for Relic Thefts in the Middle Ages
By Gina Kathleen Burke
Masters Thesis, Miami University, 2004
Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to examine the popular religious phenomena of relic thefts during the Middle Ages. The hagiographic accounts, where monks and nuns record many of these thefts, reflect some ambivalence over these actions. Questions arise on how then the thefts were justified and moralized, and why certain members of society, especially clerics and royalty, were able to not only participate, but also to have their deeds labeled as sacred. Applying the sociological approach to this study of the thefts within hagiographic texts reveals that the divine authority of clerics and kings, which allowed them to participate in these acts, enabled these members of the medieval church to justify their involvement in theft because the sacredness of the theft, and the person committing it, trumped the situation’s ethical concern.
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