Thomas Aquinas's Relics as Focus for Conflict and Cult in the Late Middle Ages : : The Restless Corpse / / Marika Räsänen.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter AUP eBook Package 2016-2018
• VerfasserIn: Räsänen, Marika,
• Place / Publishing House: Amsterdam : : Amsterdam University Press, , [2017]; ©2017
• Year of Publication: 2017
• Language: English
• Series: Crossing Boundaries: Turku Medieval and Early Modern Studies
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (308 p.) :; 12 halfplates, 1 line drawing

This book offers a new way of looking at Saint Thomas Aquinas-not as a living man, but as a posthumous source of relics. Marika Räsänen delves deep into the strange relationship between Aquinas's physical remains and the devotional moments they enabled-in many cases in situations where the actual relics were not present, but were recreated verbally, pictorially, or allegorically. Both the actual relics and these extended manifestations of them, Räsänen shows, were equally real to the medieval spectator, though the question of the material presence of Aquinas's remains became increasingly important over time amid the political tumult of southern Italy.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Table of Contents -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction -- 1. The Death of Thomas, 7 March 1274 -- 2. The Miraculous Body in Fossanova -- 3. Thomas's Land-Praesentia among the Faithful -- 4. Written Remembrance of the Remains -- Conclusion: The Endless Story -- Appendix 1: DE SANCTO Thome de Aquino -- Abbreviations -- Bibliography -- Index