Las falsas reliquias en la literatura española del Siglo de Oro: a propósito de la polémica erasmista

Resumen

Even before the cult of relics began, there were already a good number of forgeries, which, together with the authentic remains, established the important corpus of sacred relics venerated for centuries in the Christian western world. The Medieval literature already included this issue in the comedy of manners; however, the mid 16th-Century literature echoed a more theoretical discussion on this controversial issue. In this paper, the author establishes a typology of the false or allegedly false relics criticised in pre-Trentine literature on the one hand, and, on theother hand, analyses how the supporters of Erasmus and the traditionalists viewed the three established types and corresponding thematic spheres. Undoubtedly these issues were debated during the discussions that preceded the Council of Trent (idolatry, superstitions and naivety of the religious cult, commerce and collection of spiritual things or pilgrimages). The decisions reached during the Council of Trent eliminate this critical perspective of literature, which, from that momentonwards and until Romanticism, deals with this theme in a similar way to medieval literature.