Braulio, bishop of Zaragoza (Iberian Peninsula), explains that he cannot offer any relics of the *Apostles (S00084) to the priest Iactatus, because detached labels make their identification impossible. Letter 1 (=9 Riesco Terrero), written in Latin in 631/632.
E00579
Literary - Letters
Braulio of Saragossa, Letters
Letter 1 = Letter 9 Riesco Terrero
Domno meo Iactato presbitero, Braulio ... De reliquiis uero reuerendorum apostolorum, quas a nobis flagitastis uobis debere mitti, fideliter narro | nullius martirum me ita habere, ut quae cuius sint possim scire. Praecessorum et domnorum meorum sententia fuit ut, quia passim aut furtim aut etiam inuito ipsi coacti multorum caritate ex his quae habebant aut dare aut carere cogebantur, cunctorum notitiae, ne ullius pateret indicium tituli, tollerentur et sub uno conclaui mitterentur. Reseruatae sunt tamen admodum septuaginta, quae in usu habentur, inter quas eas quas quaeritis minime repperiuntur. Ad summam autem constat te oppido salutare et intentissima mente iterum iterum que precare ut pro nobis iubeas orare. Citatim, ut occurrit, dictaui; uacet neclegentia, si aliquid praeteriui.
'Braulio to my lord Iactatus, the priest... As for the relics of the most revered apostles, which you have asked me to send, I truthfully reply that I have not a single martyr's relic so preserved that I can know whose they are. My lords and predecessors were of the opinion that the labels should be removed from all of them to make them indistinguishable, and that they should all be put in a single room, since, in many ways, either by theft or against their wills or by the coercion of the piety of many, they were being forced either to give away or to lose what they had. Some seventy were set apart, however, and are in common use, but among them are to be found none of those which you requested.'
Text: Miguel Franco and Martin Iglesias 2018, p. 33; Translation: Barlow, 1969, pp. 27-28.
[revised by M. Szada to reflect the newer edition on 22 August 2024].
Cult building - dependent (chapel, baptistery, etc.)
RelicsUnspecified relic
Collections of multiple relics
Other activities with relics
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesEcclesiastics - bishops
Ecclesiastics - lesser clergy
Source
Braulio came from a clerical family in the Iberian Peninsula. He was a monk, a pupil of Isidore of Seville, an then an archdeacon in Zaragoza where he finally became a bishop, succeeding his brother. For this letter see M. Szada, Presbyters in the Late Antique West, ER41, http://presbytersproject.ihuw.pl/index.php?id=6&SourceID=41.Discussion
Braulio's letter brings testimony to a practice of attaching labels to relics (See Smith, 2020). This pratciceis well attested by material evidence, see relic labels from Saint-Maurice d'Agaune (E08075, E08076, &E08077, E08078, &E08079), Sens (E08315) and Solignac (E08316), but hardly mentioned in textual evidence.Bibliography
EditionRiesco Terrero, L., ed. Epistolario de san Braulio. Annales de la Universidad Hispalense. Serie Filosofía y Letras, v. 31 (Seville: Universidad de la Sevilla, 1975).
Miguel Franco, R. and J. C. Martín-Iglesias, eds., Braulio of Zaragoza, Isidore of Seville, Epistulae, Confessio uel professio Iudaeorum ciuitatis Toletanae, Corpus Christianorum Series Latina 114a, (Turnhout: Brepols), 2018.
Translation
Barlow, C. W., Iberian Fathers, v. 2, Braulio of Saragossa, Fructuosus of Braga (Washington D.C.: Catholic University Press, 1969).
Further reading
Smith, J.H.M., "The remains of the saints: the evidence of early medieval relic collections", Earky Medieval Europe 28 (2020), 388-424.
Robert Wiśniewski
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00084 | Apostles, unnamed or name lost | reverendi Apostoli | Certain |
|---|
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Robert Wiśniewski, Cult of Saints, E00579 - http://csla.history.ox.ac.uk/record.php?recid=E00579