Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index

Pilgrims themselves provided much of the reliquary’s luxury materials as gifts to the saint in exchange for miracles. Sainte Foy was an especially active saint who often channeled her activity through her reliquary. She performed the standard miracles and healings associated with sainthood, yet she also played practical jokes, demanded offerings, and even meted out punishment to skeptics and detractors. For example, the saint demanded that a pilgrim with a ruptured scrotum smash his injury with a hammer in order to be healed and even went so far as to kill several unlucky naysayers. Bernard of Angers began recording Foy’s actions in the eleventh century, and several anonymous authors continued to document the saint’s deeds in Conques and the surrounding area. Kathleen Ashley and Pamela Sheingorn have observed that the reliquary’s actions correspond to the statue’s role as an extension of the desires and aspirations of people, both lay and monastic, who interacted with it. Monks from Conques took the statue on processions in order to assert their authority and order within the town, or to lay claim to disputed property. Townspeople and peasants, however, relied on extra-monastic miracles during procession to enhance their own prestige and reputations without clerical validation. Not only does the reliquary of Sainte Foy provide an example of the height of medieval artistic grandeur, but also of the agency of relics and reliquaries in medieval society.