Conclusions:

Ultimately, gender presentation in reliquaries speaks to several expectations and standards of the time. Gender roles are a complex cultural system that at times might seem to contradict themselves, but they are always multifaceted and require a nuanced view. The portrayal of women in reliquaries is no different. Particularly as time progressed, the depiction of women became patterned to reinforce several ideas surrounding the Catholic woman.

Broadly, women are depicted as symbols of youth and vitality. Perhaps most present in the busts, their rosy cheeks and golden hair give them a lifelike quality, and they are carved to evoke the image of them as young, virginal martyrs. Many female saints were renowned for their refusal to marry ‘pagan’ kings, princes, or lords in the name of their faith. Thus their portrayal as being in the spring of their life became almost standard. Women are also symbols of devotional contemplation, gaze lifted to the heavens. Even the statue of Saint Foy, repurposed from the head of a Roman man¹, maintains that upward stare. Otherwise they look down in deference, like Mary on the architectural reliquary or Queen Margaret on her pendant. Unlike their male counterparts, they do not meet the onlooker’s eye, nor are they shown in their suffering or martyrdom. The violence committed against them is erased; where Christ bleeds from his wounds, no blood touches either Mary. Saint Catherine holds the instruments of her execution with a smile while Saint Candidus is pictured in his beheading. While recognized as martyrs, all physical signs of strain and torment are removed in favor of serenity. As Hahn points out, such depictions were not meant as faithful portrayals of what these women looked like. Instead, they were intended to exemplify the qualities attributed to the saints². The female saint became iconized according to the standards both assigned to many of them, as well as those anachronistically imposed. Of course, as objects meant to inspire faith, this symbol of the young, peaceful, devoted woman served as encouragement for more women to join convents, or at least donate to them. Wealthy families were likely the targets for much of this propagandizing; the creation of such beautiful objects required funding.

Materially, difference appears to be more a function of time, place, and price than gender. While precious metals and gems, even faux gems made of glass, were preferred, some cases necessarily had to favor practicality. For example, when interring a theoretical 11,000 martyrs, such as the case of Saint Ursula and her companions, there may be less silver to go around than wood. On the other end of things, such as the monstrances, materials may have been more determined by donor or church wealth than anything else. Functionally, it did not serve the church to diminish the value of any given saint by denying them the same ornamentation as any other. Just as reliquaries are meant to awe, they are meant to convert. Creating a distinct, visible divide between genders in terms of the respect and dignity shown to them alienates half of your potential believers. Within Catholic theology itself, this would pose a huge issue; perhaps their most famous saint is Mother Mary. Instead of lessening women altogether, then, the iconography of reliquaries could focus on what qualities were deemed good for the Catholic woman. As all people had the opportunity to reach heaven, both sexes held the potential for meaningful religious contribution and veneration. Reliquaries reinforced the concepts of peace, contemplation, and vitality as the markers by which women could contribute to the faith.

Reliquaries simultaneously promote desirable, if limited, attributes and associate women with themes of life, particularly the Christian emphasis on everlasting life. This may be unsurprising, given a woman’s potential to create new life. Life-giving as a theme might seem paradoxical in a context where many of the venerated martyr-saints were believed to be virgins, but in the wider context of Christian theology, pregnancy and virginity are not incompatible. Lifelike figures and a lack of violent imagery also contribute to the relationship between womanhood and life. Symbolically, this can be seen as a more positive interpretation of reliquaries’ portrayal of women—in some ways, the lack of violence is erasure, but the more conscious effort of the craftsman might have been to place female saints in tension with death. By nature of the title, any given saint is dead. The audience of a reliquary knows this, presumably looking at the container of the saint’s bones, or at least their old clothes. Contrasting this knowledge of death with a saint’s portrayal as alive and young creates ambiguity as to whether the saint is being shown in earthly or heavenly life, marking death as an ephemeral step between stages of existence. Even reliquaries in which a skull is the focal point can have masks that cover the deathly evidence in favor of the lifelike image.

References:

“The Reliquary of Sainte Foy,” The Pilgrim’s Guide, accessed May 10, 2026, https://thepilgrimsguide.com/projects/the-reliquary-of-sainte-foy/.
Hahn, Cynthia, Strange beauty : issues in the making and meaning of reliquaries, 400-circa 1204 (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2012), 132, Internet Archive.