Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 The Death of Thomas, 7 March 1274
- 2 The Miraculous Body in Fossanova
- 3 Thomas’s Land—Praesentia among the Faithful
- 4 Written Remembrance of the Remains
- Conclusion: The Endless Story
- Appendix 1 De Sancto Thome de Aquino
- Abbreviations
- Bibliography
- Index
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 The Death of Thomas, 7 March 1274
- 2 The Miraculous Body in Fossanova
- 3 Thomas’s Land—Praesentia among the Faithful
- 4 Written Remembrance of the Remains
- Conclusion: The Endless Story
- Appendix 1 De Sancto Thome de Aquino
- Abbreviations
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The material and allegorical presence of the Saint's remains
But now we beseech you, out of our gratitude and devout affection towards the memory of so great a cleric, so great a father, so great a master, in your generosity to grant us the bones of him now dead whom we could not recover alive; for it were surely in the highest degree improper and unworthy that any town or place other than Paris, than this the noblest of all university cities, should guard the bones of him whose youth was nourished, fostered, and educated here at Paris, which then received from him in return the inexpressible benefit of his teaching. Does not the Church rightly honour the bones and relics of her saints? Then is this not a desire both reasonable and pious that we should wish to give lasting honour to the body of such a master? Thus he whose fame is kept green amongst us by his writings, may also, by the remembered presence of his tomb in our city, live on forever in the hearts of our posterity.
This book is about the dust of one of the most famous medieval philosophers, Thomas Aquinas (1224/5-1274). It is remarkable that, shortly after his death, Thomas's dust was not simply perceived as the physical remains of a philosopher, but as a holy relic. Today, however, Thomas's saintly status is largely forgotten. For Thomas's contemporaries, both the body and the theology seem to have been indistinguishable, as the above letter attests. It was written at the University of Paris in May 1274. Despite this petition, the corpse remained at Fossanova, a Cistercian Monastery in Southern Italy and the place of Thomas death on 7 March. There the remains became the focus of veneration, desires, and disputes between the Cistercians of Thomas's death place and the Dominican friars, not to mention kings, popes, Thomas's own family, and other laypeople, from Thomas's death in 1274 until the removal of the most important parts of his remains to France in 1368.
The study seeks to understand how Thomas's remains were perceived during the period when the corpse was guarded in Southern Italy (1274-1368).
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- Thomas Aquinas's Relics as Focus for Conflict and Cult in the Late Middle AgesThe Restless Corpse, pp. 9 - 26Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2017