Archival Theory:

Warning: Long Read Ahead

Reliquaries require a slightly different approach than documents, as objects are not the standard archival source. Archives predominantly concern themselves with the written word. They conjure mental images of bookshelves laden with endless tomes, like the towering rotunda of the NRS, which commands the observer to crane their necks and drop their jaws. Those less optimistic might envision plain boxes organized in drawers, or, as Arlette Farce so dourly describes, a “sepulchral” space where “traces of the past lie at rest”¹. We often speak of history in mortal terms, debating whether the archive and stories contained within are ‘dead’ or ‘alive’. Someone bored with arguing semantics might contend that the more productive path is to do something with what information the archive harbors. This, then, is a benefit of objects. The mortality (or immortality) of the written word is inherently tied to the nature of its author. A document is composed at a moment in time, a brief snapshot. Even later revision provides insight to a later instant. A document completed is set aside, perhaps for reference soon after, perhaps only seen again in a hundred years. Whether it is read or not, it is no longer being written. No historian claims their own page at the end of an old journal, nor takes their pen to a genealogy to represent the current generation. Document creation, at some point, ceases to be iterative. It may be created and never altered again. Thus, there is a way in which documents are static, reflecting the time of their creation.

Objects are meant for use. Object histories demonstrate not stillness, but patterns and processes. What they do not say directly they communicate through repeated instances of utilization. Material culture can reveal facets of history left unconsidered in the written record. An item can be scaled up to its type or down to a single material. Take the instance of a knife. A single knife may have been used by various rulers and dignitaries, gifted across borders and passed down through generations. It reflects needs—cutting food or flesh—or demonstrates the importance of ceremonial items. It reflects social class, region, time period, and personal tastes. Scaling down to the gold in its hilt, it becomes the symbol of trade relations. Scaling up to type, it exemplifies a global phenomenon. The ulu, jambiya, messer, and obsidian knife represent different regions, design models, and time periods, but epitomize thousands of years of continuity in the human use of bladed tools. It is in the repeated use of a single object, or in the repeated creation of an object’s type that we gain historical insight. Even the modern advent of single-use disposable objects tells us something about current trends of convenience and consumer culture. But if the key to understanding the past through objects resides in their use, do they ‘die’ the moment they stop being used? Do museums kill objects by suffocating them behind glass cases? Are museums object mausoleums the same way Farge argues archives entomb their documents? Perhaps there is a better way to view objects. Bernard Perley, in arguing for new metaphors through which to describe languages, proposed substituting “sleeping” and “awakening” for terms like “dead” and “extinct”². I advocate for a similar stance to be taken on objects. Many items held by museums could continue to be functional. They are less buried in their collections than they are asleep, carrying a potential to be woken. Certainly, many reliquaries kept in the MET and the Louvre hold the possibility to be recirculated into the religious sphere. Take the MET’s possession of a reliquary of Mary Magdalene, which still harbors a tooth inside. A future exists where it is given to a church, and, with its relic still intact, again venerated. Objects teach us history through the phenomenon that is their existence, patterns of use, re-use, and even recycling into something new.

To consider the museum as an archive does not feel that far a leap. Much in the same way an archive acts as a document repository, a museum acts as a repository of items. As much as B.M. Watson might lament the cross-use of the term, similarities must be admitted. Watson stresses the importance of the archivist in cataloging materials and making them available to the researcher³. Yet, does a museum curator not do the same? Are exhibits, maps, and online resources not created to aid in the locating of objects? Museums and archives are typically both state-sponsered institutions that evaluate which materials to acquire and keep, and thus shape which histories are preserved and which are not. They command a certain power over what the public, researchers included, can access. They shape what bodies of knowledge exist. The museum is commonly more open to the public and caters closer to their accessibility needs in terms of item descriptions and displays. Interacting with objects isn’t always possible, unlike in archives, where documents are often available in their boxes. Museums tend to have longer hours, but items can be difficult to observe and photograph behind glass. Both institutions can be overwhelmed with the “brutal” silence Farge describes, but the museum tends to see more movement as visitors drift between displays⁴. Yet both provide an opportunity for the historian to interrogate the past through what they work to preserve, whether linguistic or material. Personally, the comparison of museums to archives is not to say one thing is another, but rather how we can conceptually frame institutions in familiar terms while acknowledging points of divergence.

How, then, can we conceptualize religious spaces as archival? Many of Christendom’s most famous reliquaries are still in use today, sitting in altars and paraded through the streets on a saint’s feast day. Churches are still important sites of knowledge for researchers, but they are also active sites of worship. Not every item is available to the public, with some relics making an appearance only once a year. Yet there is a curatorial aspect; what is and isn’t displayed, where objects are stored, how the church keeps track of its holdings. Every object is arranged in a purposeful manner to project its awe and majesty to visitors. Even the nature of noise has its similarities between church and archive. Visitors to cathedrals tend to maintain a respectful silence on account of the acoustic nature of many religious buildings⁵. Every sound echoes through the halls, designed to let sermons resonate and choirs fill the space with hymns. Yet, unless being used for that purpose, cathedrals are realms of soft murmuring and quiet footsteps as people attempt to preserve the peace of these cavernous buildings. Silence and respect thus appear synonymous in religious and secular spaces alike, at least in a EuroAmerican context. Respect, when working in spaces and with objects still in use, does not stop at general behavior. It must extend into the scholarship we carry out. The churches I utilize often continue to hold services, they still touch the lives of believers, and their social importance cannot be ignored. They remain cultural institutions that must be treated with the same dignity we would afford the people who use them. It is easy to extract the information we need for study without considering what is meant to be public, and by virtue of who gets access to academic scholarship, leave associated groups out of the conversation. Particularly in the digital age, they may never know they are being studied at all. We must also acknowledge that working with relics means we are benefitting off human remains that are often left unidentified. As beautiful as reliquaries are, at the end of the day, it is important to remember that relics are parts of people, even if we will never know who they are. For these reasons of sensitivity, I’ve chosen to share the images of relics as they appear on their church’s website, marking what the church would officially like to share. The sole exception is the head of Catherine of Sienna, whose reliquary is not visible in the provided image, though she is on public display in the church itself.

The digital age vastly changes the landscape of research and accessibility. Scholars like Dusinberre warn against seduction by the apparent ease of digital research, that much remains analogue and is thus easy to erase from our work⁶. This much is true—in looking for reliquaries still held by churches, I sometimes found the amount of information provided about the objects to be significantly lacking. I also recognize that I am an undergraduate student with a bank balance of $0 and a duty to remain on-campus for my other classes. International travel and language training are not in the cards. Of course, this prohibits me from working with physical objects in physical space. However, the internet makes a wide array of items available for study, and I can even recreate Medieval soundscapes through ambient music sites and YouTube channels. I can also make my research available to the very institutions whose objects I’ve studied. It opens my work to a much broader array of people than might regularly have access to academia.

References:

Farge, Arlette, The Allure of the Archives (Yale University Press, 2013), 115, ProQuest Ebook Central.
Perley, Bernard, “Zombie Linguistics: Experts, Endangered Languages and The Curse of Undead Voices,” Anthropological Forum 22, no. 2, (July 2012): 146.
Watson, B.M., “Please Stop Calling Things Archives – AHA,” Accessed May 13, 2026, https://www.historians.org/perspectives-article/please-stop-calling-things-archives-an-archivists-plea-january-2021/.
Farge, Arlette, The Allure of the Archives, 50.
Veronica Della Dora, “Listening to the Archive: Historical Geographies of Sound,” Geography Compass 15, no. 11 (2021): e12599, https://doi.org/10.1111/gec3.12599.
Martin Dusinberre, Mooring the Global Archive: A Japanese Ship and Its Migrant Histories, 1st ed. (Cambridge University Press, 2023), 31, https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009346535.