Episode 12- Stealing Relics in the Early Modern Mediterranean

Historias: The Spanish History Podcast

In this episode, guest A. Katie Harris delves into the elite but also secretive world of relic collecting in the in the early modern Mediterranean. She describes the at-times nefarious practices of relic dealers and thieves and grave robbers, and considers to what extent relics can be viewed as commodities in a market even though the Church prohibited their sale. We then turn to the bizarre story of the theft of the remains of San Juan de Mata in 1655 by Trinitarian monks and discuss what the complicated saga of these bones reveals about the changing way in which sacred material objects were understood in the early modern world.