Saints are ‘beatified’ people. Generally, the church will ‘beatify’ exceptional people who have achieved or experienced something truly amazing and divine in origin - a miracle - in their lifetime. Most people are only beatified after their death. Medieval Scottish saints include Saint Margaret, who had been a Scottish Queen and patron of the church during her lifetime.
A relic is an object that holds great significance for the faithful, perhaps endowing those who touch it with some of the divinity it holds. Relics are usually associated with saints, and are sometimes the actual body parts of a saint like a finger bone or tooth. Relics are frequently kept in a reliquary, a precious shrine designed to protect and display the relics.
In medieval and Renaissance times, relics and saints were enormously important both as proof and as inspiration for the largely illiterate populace. There was also a lively trade in fake religious relics from vials of the Virgin Mary’s tears to more than one head of John the Baptist. Scotland’s holiest relic was the Black Rood, a piece of the True Cross that had belonged to Queen Margaret.
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