Furta sacra explained

Furta sacra (Latin, "holy theft") refers to the medieval Christian practice of stealing saints' relics and moving them to a new shrine.^[1] Trade in and thefts of relics led to the creation of a new genre of hagiography that aimed to legitimize the actions that brought relics to their new homes; in these writings, the translation of the relics is often portrayed as morally necessary, or even requested directly by God.^[2] Sometimes, hagiographers would try to downplay the theft, but in general it was believed that a relic could not be stolen without the permission of the saint; a successful theft thus indicated saintly approval of the action.^[3] Saints Marcellinus and Peter are a famous example. Saint Faith is another. A monk from Conques brought her relics to the Abbey Church of Sainte-Foy after spending ten years undercover as a secular priest in Agen, where her relics had previously been housed.^[4]

Further reading

• Book: Robson, James . Bernard . Faure . A Tang dynasty Chan mummy [roushen] and a modern case of furta sacra?: investigating the contested bones of Shitou Xiqian . https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780203987810-9/tang-dynasty-chan-mummy-roushen-modern-case-furta-sacra-investigating-contested-bones-shitou-xiqian-james-robson . Chan Buddhism in Ritual Context . 2005 . 10.4324/9780203987810 . 9781134431175 .
• Book: Stirling-Harris, A. Katie . The quest for certainty in early modern Europe from inquisition to inquiry, 1550-1700 . 2020 . Barbara Fuchs, Mercedes García-Arenal . 978-1-4875-3550-6 . Toronto . 159–197 . Stolen Saint: Relic Theft and Relic Identification in Seventeenth-Century Rome . 1123215752.

Notes and References

1. Book: Geary, Patrick J. . Furta Sacra: Thefts of Relics in the Central Middle Ages - Revised Edition . 2011 . Princeton University Press . 978-1-4008-2020-7 . en . Patrick J. Geary.
2. Book: Galdi, Amalia . Relics, Shrines and Pilgrimages: Sanctity in Europe from Late Antiquity . 2020 . Routledge . 978-0-429-19890-8 . Pazos . Antón M. . 1 . 146-163 at 147 . en . Furta sacra in southern Italy in the Middle Ages . 10.4324/9780429198908-11. 216219413 .
3. Weakland . John E. . 1994 . Furta Sacra . History of European Ideas . en . 18 . 1 . 107–109 . 10.1016/0191-6599(94)90155-4 . 0191-6599.
4. Ashley . Kathleen . Sheingorn . Pamela . 1992 . An Unsentimental View of Ritual in the Middle Ages Or, Sainte Foy was no Snow White . Journal of Ritual Studies . 6 . 1 . 44398527 . pp. 63–85, at p. 69 . 0890-1112.