Below is a growing list of additional secondary literature relating to relic lists, relics and reliquaries, early English relic veneration, the cults of saints and martyrs, and other relevant topics. Please be aware that this is a working section of the website. Citation management tools (Zotero) are used to speed up the process of HTML formatting, so entries may contain some formatting or other errors. The body of printed editions of the relic lists is not listed on this page at this time; please see the Relic List Catalogue for those sources.
Bartlett, Robert. Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things?: Saints and Worshippers from the Martyrs to the Reformation. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015.
Bethell, Denis. ‘The Making of a Twelfth-Century Relic Collection’. In Popular Belief and Practice: Papers Read at the Ninth Summer Meeting and Tenth Winter Meeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society, edited by G. J. Cuming and Derek Baker, 61–72. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972.
Blair, John. The Church in Anglo-Saxon Society. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2006.
Braun, Joseph. Die Reliquiare des christlichen Kultes und ihre Entwicklung. Unveränd. photomechan. Nachdr. [d. Ausg.] Freiburg i. Br., Herder, 1940. Osnabrück: Zeller, 1971.
Brown, Peter. The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity. London: SCM Pr, 1981.
Förster, Max. Zur Geschichte des Reliquienkultus in Altengland. Sitzungsberichte Der Bayerischen Akademie Der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-Historische Abteilung 8. Munich: Beck, 1943.
Geary, Patrick J. Furta Sacra: Thefts of Relics in the Central Middle Ages. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1978.
———. Living with the Dead in the Middle Ages. 1. publ., 2. print. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996.
Heinzelmann, Martin. Translationsberichte und andere Quellen des Reliquienkultes. Typologie Des Sources Du Moyen Âge Occidental 33. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 1979.
Jones, Christopher A. ‘Old English Words for Relics of the Saints’.
Florilegium 26, no. 1 (January 2009): 85–129.
https://doi.org/10.3138/flor.26.006.
Kötting, Bernhard. Der Frühchristliche Reliquienkult Und Die Bestattung Im Kirchengebäude. Vol. 123. Arbeitsgemeinschaft Für Forschung Des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen: Geistwissenschaften. Cologne: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1965.
Lapidge, Michael. ‘The Saintly Life in Anglo-Saxon England’. In The Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature, edited by Malcolm Godden and Michael Lapidge, 2nd ed. Cambridge Companions To. Cambridge, UK ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013.
Lucas, Pia. ‘Scattered Bones and Miracles – The Cult of Saints, the Resurrection of the Body and Eschatological Thought in the Works of Gregory of Tours’. In
Cultures of Eschatology, edited by Veronika Wieser, Vincent Eltschinger, and Johann Heiss, 479–508. De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2020.
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110597745-025.
Luxford, Julian. ‘Recording and Curating Relics at Westminster Abbey in the Late Middle Ages’.
Journal of Medieval History 45, no. 2 (15 March 2019): 204–30.
https://doi.org/10.1080/03044181.2019.1593626.
———. ‘The Knife of St Thomas Becket at Bath’. Proceedings of the Somerset Archaeological and Natural History Society 164 (2020): 300–304.
———. ‘The Nature and Purpose of Medieval Relic-Lists’. In Saints and Cults in Medieval England: Proceedings of the 2015 Harlaxton Symposium, edited by Susan Powell, XXVII:58–79. Harlaxton Medieval Studies. Donington: Shaun Tyas, 2017.
———. ‘The Relics of Thomas Becket in England’.
Journal of the British Archaeological Association 173, no. 1 (1 January 2020): 124–42.
https://doi.org/10.1080/00681288.2020.1787633.
Morris, Colin. ‘A Critique of Popular Religion: Guibert of Nogent on the Relics of the Saints’. In Popular Belief and Practice: Papers Read At the Ninth Summer Meeting And the Tenth Winter Meeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society, 55–60. Cambridge University Press, 1972.
Owen-Crocker, Gale R. Rites and Religions of the Anglo-Saxons. Newton Abbot, Devon : Totowa, N.J: David & Charles ; Barnes & Noble, 1981.
Rollason, D. W. ‘Lists of Saints’ Resting-Places in Anglo-Saxon England’.
Anglo-Saxon England 7 (December 1978): 61–93.
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0263675100002866.
———. ‘Relic-Cults as an Instrument of Royal Policy c. 900–c. 1050’.
Anglo-Saxon England 15 (December 1986): 91–103.
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0263675100003707.
———. Saints and Relics in Anglo-Saxon England. Oxford, UK ; Cambridge, Mass., USA: B. Blackwell, 1989.
Smith, Julia M. H. ‘Old Saints, New Cults: Roman Relics in Carolingian Francia’. In Early Medieval Rome and the Christian West: Essays in Honour of Donald A. Bullough, edited by Donald A. Bullough and Julia M. H. Smith, 317–39. The Medieval Mediterranean, v. 28. Leiden: Boston : Brill, 2000.
Thacker, Alan, and Richard Sharpe, eds. Local Saints and Local Churches in the Early Medieval West. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Thomas, Islwyn Geoffrey. ‘The Cult of Saints’ Relics in Medieval England’. PhD Dissertation, University of London, 1974.
