What does this tell us about the Crusades?
This sculpture of a priest holding a reliquary teaches us two important things about the Crusades: it shows the importance of relics as proof of successful trips to the eastern Mediterranean, and it stands as a reminder that the history of early Christianity is more diverse than some might imagine.
The cult of relics dates back to early Christianity. Through relics, believers could connect to the inspirational figures they had lost and preserve their holiness through veneration. This core of the practice never changed. Though the definition of who left relics, what constituted a relic (primary, secondary, tertiary), and how exactly they were displayed changed over time, the core ideal of veneration of saints through their earthly remains lives on.
During the Crusades, relics were more mobile than ever before, with a flood of them making their way into western Europe. There, they were either preserved in their valued original reliquaries or, if they were brought back loose, lovingly made new reliquaries of the finest materials. Some relics and their reliquaries also functioned as status symbol for the elite. Some were stolen and sold. However, this does not devalue their use as important and meaningful tools of celebration of the Christian faith.
Christianity, of course, is not limited to Europe; it originated in the Middle East and had important early centers in North Africa. The mummy portraits of Roman Egypt as well as Byzantine icons help us to imagine the faces of people who were a part of this history. Saint Macarius was from Shabsheer, a village not far northwest of modern-day Cairo. He is considered one of the fathers of monasticism, and his monastery still stands to this day, populated by monks. He is a saint in the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Oriental Orthodox Churches, with icons of him still around today. While he may not be at the forefront of current Catholic education, he was important enough to one medieval individual to bring a sliver of his fabric-wrapped arm bone back to France to be venerated. At the same time, medieval documents show that many crusaders slaughtered whoever they saw as "other," including non-white Christians. Creating a beautiful reliquary to display the relic of a North African saint, while killing other Christians who came from North Africa, suggests that there was a kind of cognitive dissonance occurring for some medieval western Europeans. This reliquary reminds us of the diverse history of Christianity across multiple continents, including North Africa.
