Saint-Étienne, Mosan. Courtesy of The
Cloisters Collection, Metropolitan
Museum of Art, New York.
of relics was extended when Charlemagne decreed that all oaths had to be sworn on or
over them.
During the Gallo-Roman period and throughout the Merovingian period, when entire
bodies of French saints were intact they were placed in rectangular stone sar-cophagi,
following Roman burial tradition. Such sarcophagi were used for the lay population as
well as for saints. A 6th-century example is the sarcophagus of St. Clarus, bishop of Euze
(d. ca. 510). Many more are extant from the 7th and 8th centuries, including the
sarcophagus of St. Raimundus (7th c.) at Moissac, the sarcophagus of St. Drausius,
bishop of Soissons (7th c.), now in the Louvre, and the extraordinary group at the abbey
of Jouarre (St. Theodechilde, late 7th-early 8th c.; St. Agilbert, 7th c., with scenes of the
Last Judgment; St. Agilberta, 7th c.). By the 12th century, many stone sarcophagi of
saints were replaced by those made of precious metals and gems.
Medieval france: an encyclopedia 1492