Relic Knowledge

An authentica is the certificate that travels with a relic. It is a testimonial letter from an ecclesiastical authority stating that a named fragment was drawn from a credible source, placed in a sealed vessel, and — where granted — permitted for veneration. Most examples you will meet are small, printed on a single leaf, with the particulars written in by hand.

Nearly every authentica, whether fully handwritten in the 1700s or a printed form filled out in the 1800s, is built from the same seven parts. Once you can name them, you can read almost any example, in any hand.

Read the highlighted line (C) first: it names the saint — often abbreviated, with a letter for their standing, such as M. for martyr or V. for virgin — and the relic formula that tells you what the fragment is. Then check that the seal at the foot (G) answers to the seal closing the theca. When those two agree and the threads are unbroken, document and object still belong together.

Ex ossibus is Latin for “from the bones.” It is the most common of a small family of formulae — usually written on the paper label (the cedula) inside a theca, or on the authentica itself — that names what part the relic is. The grammar is simple: ex means “from,” and the word that follows names the substance or object.

These formulae matter because they place the relic in its class at a glance. Anything drawn from the saint's body is a first-class relic; anything drawn from what they wore or used is second-class. The two groups are colour-coded below.

Reading the whole line

A label rarely stops at the formula. A fuller line pairs the relic type with the saint's name and standing, for example Ex ossibus S. Clementis M. — “from the bones of Saint Clement, Martyr.” Instruments of the Passion have their own phrases, such as Ex ligno Crucis (“from the wood of the Cross”). When the writing is faded or heavily abbreviated, work outward from the words you can read: the ex tells you a relic follows, and the capital S. or B. marks the beginning of the saint's name.

A theca (plural thecae) is the small vessel that actually holds a relic — most often a shallow round or oval case of brass, gilt metal, or silver, closed at the front by a pane of glass or crystal. It is the working heart of a reliquary: the reliquary is the frame or monstrance you display, while the theca is the sealed capsule inside it.

What makes a theca more than a locket is the way it is closed. The fragment is held by fine silk threads that cross over it and pass through the wall of the case; at the back, those threads are gathered under a disc of wax bearing the issuing authority's seal. That seal is the whole point — break it, and the vessel can no longer testify that its contents are the ones the document names.

When you handle a theca, three things are worth noting and worth stating in any honest description: whether the glass is original and intact, whether the reverse seal is whole or broken, and whether the threads still hold. We record each of these plainly — including when a theca has been opened — because condition is part of the history, not something to hide.

Relics are traditionally sorted into three classes. The system is a devotional shorthand rather than a strict legal code, but it is used everywhere and it maps neatly onto the formulae from Chapter II.

Where confusion creeps in

Two points trip up newcomers. First, a fragment of cloth can be either second or third class, and only the wording tells them apart: cloth the saint actually wore is second class (ex indumentis), while cloth merely touched to a relic is third class. Second, the older tradition also distinguished notable relics — a whole limb or the head — from small particles; you will sometimes meet the word insignis for these. It is a size distinction, not a fourth class.

Our own catalogue centres on second-class relics and the thecas that house them, alongside ecclesiastical documents and antiques. We describe each piece by its class and by the wording of whatever accompanies it — and we don't reach for a higher class than the evidence supports.

A seal is the link that binds a document to an object. The issuing authority — a bishop, a cardinal vicar, a postulator, or a designated custodian of relics — closes the theca with wax pressed from their own signet, and impresses the same device on the authentica. The two impressions are meant to match. That matching is what lets a certificate and a capsule, once separated on a dealer's table, be recognised as belonging together.

Traditionally the wax is red — the “Spanish wax” of old correspondence — laid over the silk cords at the back of the theca so the cords cannot be drawn out without breaking it. The device is a coat of arms or an emblem of office, not a signature: a signet stamps the same image every time, which is exactly why it can be compared.

A short verification check

None of these points proves authenticity on its own, but together they tell you whether the chain of custody is intact — and any honest description should say where it isn't.

• The seal on the document and the seal on the theca carry the same device.
• The wax is whole, and the silk cords beneath it are unbroken.
• The relic and its label match what the document describes — the right saint, the right formula.
• The theca's shape and metal match the description (round, oval, silver, and so on).
• Where a seal is broken, absent, or unreadable, that is noted rather than glossed over.

Authentics changed slowly across a hundred years, as printing, paper-making, and sealing all shifted. None of the differences below is a hard rule — the two centuries overlap, and workshops kept their own habits — but taken together they help you place a document, and they tell you what to look at.

Put practically: if you are holding a wholly handwritten leaf on textured rag paper closed with red wax, an 18th-century date is plausible; if you are holding a neat printed form with a crisp embossed seal on smoother paper, the 19th century is the more natural home. But treat each as a clue to be weighed with provenance and the object itself — never as proof on its own.