Blog: Remarkable reliquary in cathedral in Cologne

July 13, 2018 | Sarah Costello

(Editor’s note: This is the second in a series of blog posts submitted by University of Houston-Clear Lake’s Associate Professor of Art History Sarah Costello, who is currently on a Rhine River cruise in Germany where she’s photographing cathedrals and other historic sites. She is en route to Cyprus, where she will finalize her ongoing work excavating and seriating Neolithic pottery at a unique site in the Dhiarizos Valley.)

COLOGNE, Germany,  July 11, 2018 — The cult of relics in Europe in the Middle Ages provided people with physical, holy objects on which to focus their prayer. Sacred items or remains were brought to Europe, often by Crusaders returning from the Holy Land. These items – a fragment of the True Cross, the bones of a saint, etc. – would be wrapped up and placed in a specially-built jeweled box, called a reliquary. Religious pilgrims could travel from church to church in Europe, visiting and praying at the various reliquaries.

One of the most remarkable examples can be found in Cologne, Germany. The massive, towering cathedral of Cologne was purpose-built to house a reliquary said to contain the remains of the three kings from the Nativity story. The reliquary itself is the largest reliquary in Europe, a gilded sarcophagus encrusted with over 1,000 gems.

When the relics were acquired by Cologne in 1164, it was decided that the current church at the time, a Romanesque-style basilica, was no longer special enough to serve as their home. The Gothic style had recently developed in France, with Amiens’ soaring cathedral as the tallest example.

The people of Cologne set out to create the tallest church in Europe, just surpassing the height of Amiens, in this exciting new Gothic style. It took over 600 years to complete the church, its soaring towers still visible over the modern city. So Cologne’s famous Gothic cathedral exists because of the medieval desire for a physical connection to the divine, the cult of the relics.

For more information about UHCL’s art history minor, visit www.uhcl.edu/academics/degrees/art-history-minor.

Previously:

• UHCL art history prof blogs on Rhine en route to Cypriot archaeological dig