This path was created by Emily Lindbloom. The last update was by Anne Heath.
Chapter 4: The Shrine and Reliquary-Armoire of the Holy Tear
Chapter four focuses on the Holy Tear shrine. I argue that the shrine functioned as Lazarus’s tomb on the feast day of Lazarus. I interpret the dramatic high point of the liturgy as a reenactment of Jesus’s forgiveness of Lazarus’s—and humanity’s—sinfulness. The shrine is no longer extant, but archival and published sources allow scholars to reconstruct the shrine and its installation in the abbey church. I compare the shrine to other major stone monuments, including a stone shrine for Lazarus located at the cathedral of Saint-Lazare in Autun. I propose a reading of the Holy Tear shrine that transported the monks to the Lazarus story and Christ’s shredding of a tear as Lazarus was raised from the dead. Such an interpretation is based on the collection chants for Lazarus’s feast day found in one of the abbey’s sixteenth-century musical manuscripts. By analyzing the text and music of the office, I demonstrate that the monks adapted the pre-existing office of Lazarus that was also performed at other locations in France associated with Lazarus to form a performance context for the Holy Tear.