Reliquary Casket

The medieval empires of the West and the Byzantium shared a common history that can be traced back to Rome. They were hubs for the growth of culture and Christianity. It is through the practice of Christianity that the Reliquary Casket was made to house relics in 13th century France. The recipe box sized Reliquary was made from copper, enamel, and wood (Reliquary Label). The Censer with Military Saints was also created during the 13th century to hold incense, which also aids Christian worship. The large oval shaped Censer was made from copper enamel (Censer Label). The Reliquary Casket’s function and Censer with Military Saints’s inscriptions express the shared Christian history of both the Greek Byzantine Empire and Western Europe while the depictions of saints show the gap between the Eastern and the Western religious and military doctrine.
The reverence of relics link the Western and Byzantine empires through Christianity. The Reliquary Casket, as an object, was used to house relics. Relics are pieces of bones, clothes, hair, or
The Censer with Military Saints has writing inscribed above each saints’ head which states their names (Censer Label). The writing signifies that the clergy in Byzantium were educated enough to read and write. This level of education was also shared in the Western empires. Clergy in the West were educated so they could keep track of taxes and other records (Lecture, October 19, 2014). Clergy being educated also helped grow the power of the Church. As a result, both the West and Byzantium sought to claim divine legitimacy through the Church. In the West, the emperor was endorsed or blessed by the pope or religious leader (Lecture October 19, 2014). In Byzantium, the ruler claimed to have two natures, human and divine (Levack 243). The divine nature, like the blessing the Western leaders claimed from the Church, was used to explain his legitimacy to rule (Levack