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Limoges Reliquary Châsses for Bits of Becket

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Archbishop Saint Thomas Becket (1118 - 29/12/1170 (52)) and the Limoges Becket Reliquary Châsses

Extract from a BBC talk by Dr Alan Borg of the Victoria and Albert Museum (London)

".... The other V&A object relates to the most famous of all clerical martyrs, Thomas Becket. The object is a casket, intended to hold some of the saint's relics. It was made in Limoges around the year 1180, and is decorated in enamel with scenes of Becket's murder, burial and ascent into paradise - we see his soul carried aloft by angels. This casket was made only a few years after Becket's murder in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170, and it is the earliest and largest such reliquary to survive.

Many other such caskets were made during the next hundred years, all intended to hold a fragment of bone or cloth, testifying to the great fame and popularity of the martyred archbishop. There can hardly have been enough of Becket to go round, and some of these 'true' relics were no doubt the product of enterprise rather than faith. The really intriguing question, however, is what made the dead Saint Thomas Becket so popular, when the living archbishop had been an arrogant and controversial a figure, who inspired little real devotion.

Becket's story is well known, and the contemporary evidence is extensive, so that we can be sure of much of what happened. He was appointed first Chancellor, then Archbishop, of Canterbury by Henry II, who believed that he could rely on his old friend to support his policy of curbing the powers of the Church. But Becket turned out not to be a political yes-man, and defended the independence of the Church and the supremacy of the papacy.

link to the rest of the talk ..........

These two are in the Louvre (Paris, France) - the one above is the largest of the two - both show two knights on the front panel.

and these two are in the Cluny Museum (Paris) - as with the Louvre châsses the front panels each show two knights.

Dimensions:  15.5 x 21 x 9.3 cm.  Photo from "Making History" 2007 Exhibition Catalogue.

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The châsse bought by Sir Walter Hamilton (cuckolded husband of Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson's mistress) whilst he was the British Ambassador in Naples and given by him, over 200 years ago, to the Society of Antiquaries of London - this is a "four knight job".

Dimensions:  29.9 x 30.5 x 11.4 cm.  Photo from the small catalogue book "Medieval and Renaissance Treasures from the V & A".  The new V & A Medieval and Renaissance Galleries opened in December 2009 and this much more ambitious book has been published to celebrate the event.

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The châsse owned by the Victoria and Albert Museum in London (England) - three knights plus two clerics.

This sign is the nearest you will be able to get to the three knight Hereford Châsse.

Photo © Holly Hayes, Sacred Destinations

This three knight châsse can be found in the Schnütgen Museum at the Romanesque Church of St Cecilia in Cologne (Germany).

Another three knight châsse discovery by Holly Hayes of Sacred Destinations - a three knight job in the museum of the Cattedrale di San Martino, Lucca (Tuscany)

All three photos © Holly Hayes, Sacred Destinations

.......... continued from the top of the page

After many violent disputes and tearful reconciliations, Henry's patience finally snapped, and he is supposed to have cried out, 'Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?' - leading four knights to ride to Canterbury to slay Becket. This event became the centre of a story of Church against state, of a power struggle between an unyielding archbishop and a forceful king, and of two close friends who quarreled and become bitter enemies.

It was a personal drama played out on an international stage, resulting in an epic in which faith, friendship, treason and death all played their part. The outcome was a saint who was revered across all Christendom and, in the short term, a victory for the powers of the Church over the powers of the king.

Becket's road to sainthood was fast and assured. This staunch defender of the faith turned out to have been a hair-shirted ascetic, at whose tomb the penitent King prostrated himself. The tomb was also a place where miracles were reported to occur. Becket was canonized swiftly, in 1173, which was no bad thing for Canterbury, for the tombs of saints attracted crowds of pilgrims, bringing both alms and trade in their wake.

Moreover, relics of the saint could be given (or sold) to carry his sanctity across Christendom. Such relics, however tiny, needed to be properly housed in a reliquary and this is where the casket comes in. Interestingly, its first recorded history suggests that it may have been at Croyland Abbey in Lincolnshire before the Reformation, and so it might be the casket in which the Abbot of nearby Peterborough placed some of Becket's relics, for transporting to his church in 1177.

The casket is decorated with scenes of the martyrdom, set against a blue enamel background, with details picked out in gold, and the faces of the figures raised up in relief. This style marks it out as having been made in Limoges, in France. At that time the town of Limoges fell within the Angevin domain, so it is not surprising that craftsmen from there managed to corner the market for the production of Becket reliquaries.

More than 50 of Becket reliquary caskets survive, and they all follow the pattern of the one described here, shaped like a miniature house with a pitched roof. A hinged door at one end or the back gave access to the relics inside - although these have long since disappeared.

Relics and images of Becket spread rapidly. Within a decade of his death, Queen Margaret of Sicily (who died in 1183) had been given a miniature Becket reliquary to wear around her neck, while a full-length portrait of him was included in the mosaic decoration of the cathedral of Monreale (there were of course very close ties between Britain and Sicily at the time).

Soon after this manuscripts, wall paintings and stained glass were all embellished with scenes from the saint's life. A sort of Becket mania spread across Europe, and pictures of him were to be found from Iceland to Palestine. Churches were dedicated to him, and a military order of knights founded in his name.

All this was to end as the Middle Ages drew to a close, but the power of the Becket story survives. TS Eliot's play Murder in the Cathedral is one tribute to its enduring interest. So too is the fact that, when the casket was offered for sale in 1996, a campaign was mounted in the national press to stop this key piece of Britain's heritage from leaving the country. Thanks to the campaign, the casket has found its present resting-place in the V&A.

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