Thefts of Relics in Italy: From Late Antiquity to the Central Middle Ages, 300-1150

With the birth of the cult of the saints, their relics became valuables whose possession would guarantee prestige, protection, and spiritual benefits to a town, church, or monastery. For this reason—at first with the aim of preserving the bodies of newly-executed martyrs from destruction and later of increasing the power of a particular faction or community—, the relics began to be stolen, with numerous cases documented throughout Europe. At the same time, a rich hagiographic literature flo...