Workshop of Hugo d’Oignies

Foot reliquary of Saint Blaise, c.1260, Oak base covered with silver, gilt, and a rock crystal plaque, 25 x 25 cm; Donated by the Sisters of Notre-Dame de Namur, coll. King Baudouin Foundation, entrusted to the Société archéologique de Namur and on view at the TreM.a – Musée des Arts anciens, Namur, Belgium, Photo: © Guy Focant

The Foot after Christ

Commentary by Michael Banner

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Some early reliquaries were simply quite practical means of housing relics being kept for personal use—relatively plain boxes, or small pendants. Later, however, reliquaries were developed for the display of relics to pilgrims or congregations, evoking the meaning of the objects they contained so to elicit devotion (Hahn 2012). In this process, as this reliquary shows, even the lowly foot could become freighted with meaning, and an object of beauty and inspiration.

The finely wrought artwork comprises a wooden core, the upper part of which is covered with sheets of silver. Gilded copper is used for the sole, for the plaque on the top which caps the foot at the ankle, and for the decorated frame of the small rock crystal window through which relics of St Blaise could be viewed. On the plaque, Blaise is depicted standing in the splendour of his episcopal robes, a canopy over his head. But the carved foot itself possesses its own dignity, with its fine modelling, gentle and graceful arch, and elegant toes.

St Blaise was bishop of Sebastea (present day Sivas in central Türkiye) and was martyred around 316 CE. He had reputedly been a physician prior to becoming a bishop, and continued a ministry of healing to humans and animals, right up to his death. Notwithstanding his relative obscurity, he gained considerable popularity in the later Middle Ages as someone whose help could still be sought for bodily ailments (Farmer 2011) and his relics were so prized as to be deemed worthy of costly casing in this and many other instances.

Whether this reliquary contained his whole foot, one or more of its bones, or even some other body part, is unclear. What is clear however (as well as noteworthy) is that a representation of a human foot—base body part that it is—could be conceived as worthy of reverence, rather than of disgust, and a fitting object of prayerful meditation. How does the foot become such an object?

At the close of the foot-washing scene in John, Jesus connects what he has done with the sending out of the apostles—‘he who receives any one whom I send receives me’ (John 13:20). The feet of those whom Jesus sends have been made beautiful. For ‘how beautiful are the feet’—even the feet—‘of those who preach the gospel of peace’ (Isaiah 52:7; Romans 10:15).

 

References

Farmer, D.H. 2011. The Oxford Dictionary of Saints (Oxford: Oxford University)

Hahn, Cynthia. 2012. Strange Beauty: Issues in the Marking and Meaning of Reliquaries, 400–circa 1204 (Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press)

See full exhibition for John 13:1–20

John 13:1–20

Revised Standard Version

13Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. 2And during supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him, 3Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, 4rose from supper, laid aside his garments, and girded himself with a towel. 5Then he poured water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which he was girded. 6He came to Simon Peter; and Peter said to him, “Lord, do you wash my feet?” 7Jesus answered him, “What I am doing you do not know now, but afterward you will understand.” 8Peter said to him, “You shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no part in me.” 9Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” 10Jesus said to him, “He who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but he is clean all over; and you are clean, but not every one of you.” 11For he knew who was to betray him; that was why he said, “You are not all clean.”

12 When he had washed their feet, and taken his garments, and resumed his place, he said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? 13You call me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for so I am. 14If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. 15For I have given you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. 16Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master; nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him. 17If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. 18I am not speaking of you all; I know whom I have chosen; it is that the scripture may be fulfilled, ‘He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me.’ 19I tell you this now, before it takes place, that when it does take place you may believe that I am he. 20Truly, truly, I say to you, he who receives any one whom I send receives me; and he who receives me receives him who sent me.”

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