Today Dr. Nathan Clough discusses how holy relics were used in late medieval arms and armor, and shows off an example of an Arms and Armor Black Prince Sword mounted with a relic of Saint Galgano and oil touched to a piece of the true cross. The sword pictured in the banner above is Lobera, the sword of St. Ferdinand III, King of Castille and Leon in the early 13th century. It is in the Cathedral in Seville, Spain.
A representation of St Galgano and the Archangel Michael
Relics in medieval Europe were bought and sold on a very large scale and were believed to provide protection, both physical and spiritual, to the bearer of the relic. The relics used are not certified relics, which have to be verified by the Congregation of Saints in Rome, and third class relics such as these are, since 2017, no longer classified as relics by the church. Nevertheless, these are exactly the types of purported relics that circulated in medieval Europe and were used for this type of purpose. No disrespect is meant to believers, but this post is mostly for a historical perspective.
Here is a nifty blog post by some folks (who I don’t know) on visiting the shrine of St. Galgano.
Nathan Clough, Ph.D. is President of Arms and Armor and a member of the governing board of The Oakeshott Institute. He is a historical martial artist and a former university professor of cultural geography. He has given presentations on historical arms at many HEMA events including Longpoint, SoCal Swordfight, and WMAW, and presented scholarly papers at, among others, The International Congress on Medieval Studies.
Craig Johnson is the Production Manager of Arms and Armor and Secretary of The Oakeshott Institute. He has taught and published on the history of arms, armor and western martial arts for over 30 years. He has lectured at several schools and Universities, WMAW, HEMAC, 4W, and ICMS at Kalamazoo. His experiences include iron smelting, jousting, theatrical combat instruction and choreography, historical research, European martial arts and crafting weapons and armor since 1985
