At first glance, the theft of the bones of St. John of Matha from the semi-abandoned church of San Tommaso in Formis on March 18th, 1655, might seem an obscure event for the basis of a monograph. The bones were taken by two friars from the Order of the Most Holy Trinity and of the Captives, or Trinitarians, a religious order that few would argue is particularly well known in scholarly circles today either. When reading this monograph, however, it becomes apparent that A. Katie Harris has produced a nuanced, well-researched, and expertly written account of the theft and its aftermath, using the event to bring a new perspective to concepts of sainthood, the identification and validation of relics, the impact of the Council of Trent on popular devotion, processes of historical investigation, and understanding of forgery in the seventeenth century, among others.
At its heart, the book explores the impact of the reforms of the Council of Trent on relics and sainthood, as well as on popular devotion and worship, a process which marked “a culmination in expanding papal authority over the holy” (p. 37). In the 1620s and 1630s, new papal directives aimed at suppressing the cults of uncanonized holy people, unless their followers could prove they had been venerated for a minimum of a century, posed enormous problems for the trinitarians. Despite claiming their founder as a saint, John of Matha was not particularly important to early chronicles and accounts of the order, who claimed the Holy Trinity as their founder through the agency of Innocent III (this would only change as late as the sixteenth century). Nor, indeed, was there much evidence that he had been officially canonized. The first two chapters of the book, after a prologue recounting the theft itself, explore this situation in more detail, discussing the importance of relics to Catholicism more generally and the history of the Trinitarians.
What was to be done, then, by the trinitarians when their history had left their founder on the margins, and the post-Trent Congregation of Sacred Rites required an increasing level of legalistic and written evidence that the “paucity of sources” (p. 60) within the Trinitarian tradition could not satisfy? As the third chapter of the study reveals, the answer was often to turn to forgery and scholarly misdirection. The first case study focuses on the Calced Trinitarian chronicler Juan Figueras Carpi, who began writing a manuscript history of the order in 1633. Harris notes that the friar had “a penchant for imaginative storytelling,” even styling himself as “Provincial and Vicar General for England, Scotland, and Ireland” by claiming the honorific title had been given to him during a mission into Protestant England (pp. 66–67). Figueras’ account transformed Matha from a marginal figure into a complex, multifaceted mystic, ascetic, and missionary, repositioning the founder as central to the Trinitarian Order. Harris’ painstaking research here reveals just how many sources the chronicler fabricated, especially in his use of “histories and bibliographies of the British Isles in search of obscure authors and titles that could stand as cover for his historical inventions” (p. 69). The account even goes as far as insisting that Matha had been canonized by Urban IV, layering thick quotations from non-existent sources to mask such a deception. Another history was commissioned from “historian-for-hire” Antonio Lupián Zapata, who went as far as physically forging material evidence to back up his historical claims. Such works, among others making similar claims for a long tradition of veneration of Matha, did the trick: in 1666 the cult, and by extension the position of Matha as a saint, was approved by the Congregation of Sacred Rites. In effect, Harris notes, “the declaration of immemorial cult confirmed for the friars what they already knew: that their founders were truly saints” (p. 105).
While the issue of Matha’s status was concluded, a much longer debate began after the theft in 1655: the legitimacy of the bones themselves as the identified remains of the founder. Questions were raised about the legitimacy of the bones: when they were stolen and removed to Spain, how could the friars prove they had not been swapped or replaced? Could the testimony of criminal friars be trusted? What documentary proof could be produced to qualify any statements made? These were all questions that the Congregation of Sacred Rites asked the Trinitarians as the Order repeatedly struggled to have the bones verified as those of their founder. Chapter 4 of the study explores the cases put forward by the Trinitarians to the Congregation, noting that the increasing emphasis on historical documents and legalist evidence reflected the fact that “the making of holy people and holy knowledge was bureaucratized and routinized over the course of the seventeenth century” (pp. 111–112). Despite drawing on well-established scholarly precedents, the appeal to have the bones verified failed at first.
The final chapter explores the eventual successful application to the Congregation in 1721, during which the bones were not verified, but rather permission was simply given to expose them for public veneration. For the Trinitarians however, this was viewed as a confirmation, and this interpretation became embedded in future accounts of the Order. Tying the decision to wider contexts of methods of historical scholarship created by groups such as the Bollandists and the Maurists, Harris also notes the importance of the Catholic Enlightenment, the War of Spanish Succession, and the support of the Bourbon dynasty, as equally important factors to the eventual success.
This is a deeply researched and thoughtful account of a little studied religious order, impressively situated within wider contexts of the Catholic Reformation, popular religious devotion, and changes to the study of history in the early modern period. The work features an epilogue bringing the journey of the bones up to the present day. Well referenced throughout, it features a substantial bibliography and full index. The work will undoubtedly be of interest to both scholars and students.
