Augest 18th 2012
While traveling on our Alps excursion, it dawned on me that the trip marked the half way point of my Study Aboard program. I have seen countless wonderful things in my time here, but I began to realize that I might not have time to see everything I wanted to see while in Vienna. That's why I decided to spend the free weekend I had after coming back from the Alps to explore some of the areas of Vienna mentioned in our class syllabubs that we would not visit as a group. I decided that seeing the saints relics scattered around Vienna was my highest priority, as such relics have often have a great deal of historical importance. I found out that St. Charles Church, the place where our class saw a performance of Mozart's requiem, had a collection of relics, so I decided to revisit the church and explore the collection in detail. I also intended to visit the relic collection as St. Peter's church, but I already knew the way to St. Charles, so I decided to start there.
Much to my surprise, St. Charles's church had an entire museum tucked into it's upper levels. I saw absolutely no sign of such a complex on my first visit, so I was instantly excited and intrigued to find out what could be hiding there. I eagerly climbed the flight of stairs to the muesli and was surprised to find a number of Baroque ear paintings and displays. There were paintings that were taken down and put in storage, and a replica palm donkey statue, referring to a 10 th century ritual where peasants would ride a donkey into town on palm Sunday, however I did not see anything that I thought looked like a relic, or more specifically, a holy object tied to a saint or holy person or place. I knew from previous history classes that relics were highly important during the medieval era, so I was expecting something in a Gothic style, but the museum only had Baroque looking pieces. I only found the relics after investigating for a bit. Two of the Church's relics were on display in a little self in the museum. One was a preserved section of a saint's intestinal tissue, and the other was a piece of the true cross, or the cross upon which Christ died. I didn't recognize this relics at first because they were housed in grandiose Baroque displays, which were so flashy that obscured the relic they were meant to display. The relic that held the gut of a certain saint was display in a bejeweled golden eagle statue which resembled to two headed eagle of the Habsburg's coat of arms. The piece of the true cross was likewise held in a very decorated gold cross, with a tiny bit of wood visible in a glass display in the center. The relic's displays were so fancy, I thought they were pieces of art with no additional value other than their artistic quality. It was only after careful examination that I realized these objects had religious importance.
St. Charles had one more set of relics on display in its museum, namely the robe and vestments of the Church's patron saint, Charles Borromeo. The audio guide for the museum explained that St. Charles in known as a plague saint, meaning that he is regarded as having divine power to aid with, or prevent an outbreak of plague. It was because of this that Charles the 6th (the Habsburg emperor) constructed St. Charles church in hopes of easing outbreaks of plague during the early 18th century. The vestments of Charles Barromeo were entrusted to Emperor Charles the 6th when he constructed the church, so that the saints relics could be displayed there. I found the fact that the church was build out of a state effort to deal with an outbreak of plague to be interesting, especially since it was 300 years after the renaissance, but what really surprised me were the dates regarding Charles Borromeo. He died in the late 16th century, and was canonized in the early 17th century. In other words, his life, canonization, and veneration started well into the early modern period, far after what I thought was the high point of relic worship in Europe had ended.
My visit to St. Peter's church also affirmed that relics were not simply a part of the medieval era. Indeed, the two bodies of martyrs at St. Peter's church shows that the veneration of relics was not only alive and well during the Baroque era, but the Baroque era might very well have seen a boom in the veneration of relics. When I walked into St. Peter's, it appeared to be a rather unassuming church. It was being visited by religious locals as part of there everyday services, in fact, the church had a sign out front that told visitors to be mindful, as the building is a place of worship, not a museum. Indeed, St. Peter's remains the headquarters of Opus Dei, a very conservative religious order in the catholic church. But as unassuming as this church appeared at first glance, it happened to have two human skeletons resting in glass coffins below to of the side alters in the church. These skeletons were dressed in very strange clothes, that looked like roman style outfits made out of extravagant silk with gold and sliver thread, and then covered in precious jewels. I read the information packet that I was handed at the door in order to learn more about these immaculately dressed skeletons, and discovered that they were roman christens who were martyred for their faith. However, these people died in roman times, there were somehow discovered in the catacombs of Vienna during 18th century , and recognized as roman martyrs. The displays and their clothing were then made in the Baroque era so the bodies could be displayed and venerated. Despite doing my best to inquire at the time, I was unable to find any information to explain how anyone in the 18th century could have possibly known that these two bodies came from Christian martyrs who must have died more than 1400 years before anyone realized they were important.
My personal believe and explication for this is simply that the story behind the bodies was made up during the Baroque period. I believe the people at St. Peter's church needed relics, so they simply pulled up two bodies and decided they were Christians who died for their faith. Honestly, they were in the catacombs, they graves were not likely marked, so I do not know how anyone could possibly know anything about them. I then interpret this, along with the display of relics at St. Charles to indicate that the Baroque period had a large demand for holy relics, and other such objects that could make the Catholic faith real to people. The Baroque period was defined by the Catholic counter reformation against the protestants, meaning that the Catholics were facing a challenge to prove the legitimacy of many aspects of their faith that were not spelled out in the bible, such as faith, and the order of the church. I believe this caused the role of relics to change in the Baroque period to some sort of physical proof that the Catholic faith was true, and the Protestant claims were false. This would explain why relics were important enough to be given to Kings for the completion of church or important enough to sudden "discover" in the catacombs after centuries.
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