''Furta sacra'' (Latin, "holy theft") refers to the

medieval Christian Christianity in the Middle Ages covers the history of Christianity from the fall of the Western Roman Empire (). The end of the period is variously defined. Depending on the context, events such as the conquest of Constantinople by the Ottoman ...

practice of stealing

saint In religious belief, a saint is a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of Q-D-Š, holiness, likeness, or closeness to God. However, the use of the term ''saint'' depends on the context and Christian denomination, denominat ...

s' relics and moving them to a new shrine. Trade in and thefts of relics led to the creation of a new genre of

hagiography A hagiography (; ) is a biography of a saint or an ecclesiastical leader, as well as, by extension, an adulatory and idealized biography of a founder, saint, monk, nun or icon in any of the world's religions. Early Christian hagiographies migh ...

that aimed to legitimize the actions that brought relics to their new homes; in these writings, the translation of the relics is often portrayed as morally necessary, or even requested directly by God. Sometimes, hagiographers would try to downplay the theft, but in general it was believed that a relic could not be stolen without the permission of the saint; a successful theft thus indicated saintly approval of the action.

Saints Marcellinus and Peter Saints Marcellinus and Peter (sometimes called ''Petrus Exorcista'' - Peter the Exorcist;Alban Butler, Kathleen Jones, Paul Burns, ''Butler's Lives of the Saints'' (Continuum International Publishing Group, 1997), 14. it, Marcellino e Pietro) ar ...

are a famous example. Saint Faith is another. A monk from

Conques Conques (; Languedocien dialect, Languedocien: ''Concas'') is a former Communes of France, commune in the Aveyron Departments of France, department in Southern France, in the Occitania (administrative region), Occitania Regions of France, region. ...

brought her relics to the

Abbey Church of Sainte-Foy The Abbey Church of Sainte-Foy in Conques, France, was a popular stop for pilgrims traveling the Way of St. James to Santiago de Compostela, in what is now Spain. The main draw for medieval pilgrims at Conques were the remains of Sainte-Foy, ...

after spending ten years undercover as a secular priest in Agen, where her relics had previously been housed.

References

Further reading