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Furta Sacra
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 909
EAN: 9780691008622
Edition: Rep Sub
ISBN: 0691008620
Label: Princeton University Press
Manufacturer: Princeton University Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 248
Publication Date: February 01, 1991
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Studio: Princeton University Press
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Editorial Review:
Saints are special kinds of heroes. They are of little interest as everyday people; their real significance lies in the way they exemplify universal values given by God. In Furta Sacra: Thefts of Relics in the Central Middle Ages, Patrick J. Geary devotes microscopic attention to the way medieval Christians and merchants raided tombs, plundered churches, and scoured the Roman catacombs in order to obtain sacred relics. Although Geary rejects the notion that cults of saints were "pure manifestations of religious devotions" devoid of cultural associations, he honors the religious impulses of some truly outrageous behavior. Geary's study is academic and a bit of a brain stretcher, but it's fairly short and worth close attention. In describing how hagiography mirrored the values of medieval society, he provides a helpful road map for alert readers interested in contemporary cults of saints. When Evangelicals honor C.S. Lewis, for instance, or South American Christians remember Eva Peron, or even when movie memorabilia collectors pay big bucks for Dorothy's ruby slippers, they relive a very old dream of bringing humanity's highest ideals down into earthly form. --Michael Joseph Gross
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Well written, but probably not for the uninitiated
I enjoyed this book in part because the stories of relic thefts, and the lives of the stolen Saints, sometimes seemed too improbable to be true, and yet one cannot deny the obvious impact those same stories had (whether true or not seems irrelevant to their legacy) on the communities that obtained them. I found is rather funny that monks would invent theft stories to imbue a Saints remains (obtained legally) with more pizazz, in the hopes of drawing more pilgrims and donors. I also laughed during ... Read More
Rating:  - Before You Buy St. Nicholas' Thigh-Bone, Read This Book
"Furta Sacra" is a scholarly, yet easy to read, well-written and documented book on the peculiarly medieval phenomenon of relic thefts.
Maintaining that in medieval hagiography a successful theft of a relic indicated that a stolen saint actually WANTED to be "translated" elsewhere, Dr. Geary, citing dozens of actual medieval theft cases, examines how and why relics were stolen. The reasons range from abbeys and cathedrals, and even cities and towns, attempting to one-up each other with ... Read More
Rating: - things you didn't know you didn't know
Furta Sacra is a well-researched, respectfully written "expose" of the relic trade as it was conducted during the Middle Ages. When, 9 or 10 years back, I came across the Brother Cadfael story about the theft of the bones of St. Winifred in Wales, I didn't realize how commonplace this sort of chicanery and piracy actually was. Patrick Geary presents a readable, informative account of hagiography, the engineering of miracles, cults of the saints, financial considerations, and most intriguing, ... Read More
Rating: - A luminous interpretation of an obscure phenomena
A martyr's body is stolen by an army of monks; the story of the search of Saint Mark's the Evangelist corpse all over Europe, comissioned by different kings and prelates; the undeniable prestige that Italian relics had all over the Continent; the flux of money that a dead saint brought to a shrine, and how the survival of monasteries depended on their relics; the trade of the relic monger, like Felix, the Frankish monk that sold the bodies of Saint Severus, Saint Bartholomew, Saint Cecilia, Saint ... Read More
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