Communicating Ideas and Emotions in the Long Sixteenth Century: The Spectacle of the Saints, their Relics and Souvenirs in the Northern Low Countries

Abstract

In the long sixteenth century, knowledge about the saints was disseminated not only through hagiographical texts, be they in Latin or the vernacular, but also through visual images, both in churches and in (urban) secular public spaces, through souvenirs such as pilgrims' badges, ephemeral printed texts in the vernacular, and printed images. Examples from the northern Low Countries of the various media that played a role in the veneration of the saints, more particularly those that were to be encountered by pilgrims at the feasts of these holy men and women, are presented, and, whenever possible, descriptions by contemporaries will be used. This allows the links between hagiography, via sermons and miracles, with the festive occasions on which saints and believers met, to be established.