Books: Holy Bones, Holy Dust
Exclusive interview with author Charles Freeman and a review of his new book about how relics shaped the history of Medieval Europe
Rating: 4 Stars
By Gabrielle Pantera
I had become very interested in the fourth and fifth centuries AD and the fall of the Roman empire,” says Holy Bones Holy Dust author Charles Freeman. “It was just then that the relic cults began. What I found fascinating was the way these cults spread throughout the Mediterranean and then northwards into Britain and Germany as Christianity spread.”
Freeman delves deep into the subject of religious relics using original sources. Freeman’s book mixes history with elements of theology and anthropology. Most of the relics Freeman discusses are from the Middle Ages.
Holy Bones Holy Dust delves into practices across Europe, covering various religions. He also includes details about the Crusades, the Byzantine Empire, the confusing Italian city-states, and Protestantism. His narration is lively and you can tell he loves his subject.
“When I started this book I thought it would be easy to write,” says Freeman. “There was just so much material that it was a matter of sorting it out in order and telling the story. Yet when I actually got down to it, it was very difficult to sort it all out. I had an enormous time span…from the 380s to 1600, as I wanted to bring in the Reformation. I wanted to include the eastern Mediterranean, notably the great city of Constantinople, which was crammed full of relics until it was sacked by the crusaders in 1204…as well France, Spain, Germany and Britain.”
Over the years Freeman had visited many shrines around Europe. “In Italy in particular they are still very lively places of worship,” says Freeman. “My wife and I visited many more for this book, notably wonderful buildings such as the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, built by Louis IX to house the Crown of Thorns which he had actually bought from some Venetian bankers. Then there was Chartres cathedral, one of the finest Gothic buildings in the world, where they had the shift of the Virgin Mary. In Prato in Tuscany, they have the girdle that the Virgin Mary threw down to St. Thomas as she was assumed into heaven.”
Freeman grew up in rural Suffolk in the east of England and still lives there. “It is an area rich in medieval churches,” says Freeman. “There must be three or four hundred within thirty miles of where I write. Many are very beautiful and it is fun sorting out their history from the different architectural styles that developed between 1100 and 1500 when most of them were built. In their heyday they would have been full of statues, images and relics of saints.”
“One of the problems writing this book is that there are an enormous number of stories about the relics and the miracles surrounding them,” says Freeman. “Many of the original documents have been translated. There was only one I had to read through the original Latin. That was The Travels of William Wey to Jerusalem, although the first English translation has now appeared.”
One of my Freeman’s best selling books in the U.S. is Egypt, Greece and Rome, Civilizations of the Ancient Mediterranean. Freeman is currently writing the third edition for Oxford University Press. He’s also working on The Reopening of the Western Mind, that would be a companion to his book The Closing of the Western Mind. When not writing, Freeman says he’s busy organizing his autumn tours to Italy.
Freeman grew up in rural Suffolk in the east of England and still lives there. He doesn’t have a website.
Holy Bones, Holy Dust: How Relics Shaped the History of Medieval Europe by Charles Freeman. Hardcover, 306 pages, Publisher: Yale University Press (May 24, 2011). Language: English ISBN-13: 978-0300125719
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