06 — The Miracles and the Shrine
The medieval and later miracle-cult of Genevieve, centred on her reliquary shrine (châsse): the most famous of her posthumous wonders, the halting of the mal des ardents — the “burning sickness,” an ergotism epidemic — in Paris in 1129–1130, ascribed to a procession of her relics; and the long series of solemn processions of the châsse through the streets of Paris in times of flood, plague, drought, siege, and war, by which the city appealed to its patroness.
Tradition: Western (pre-Schism, Gallo-Roman Gaul)
This section treats not the life but the afterlife — the working cult that made Genevieve a living presence in Paris for a thousand years after her death. Its centre is her shrine on the hill and the relics it held, and its characteristic act is the procession: the carrying of the châsse down into the city in crisis. The best-documented single event is the mal des ardents of 1129–1130, when the relics were brought to the cathedral and the burning sickness was said to have ceased — a miracle so celebrated that Rome instituted a feast for it. The second file sets that event within the long tradition of the great processions of the shrine. Both apply §3.5 to the medieval miracle-reports.
Files in This Section
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| the-mal-des-ardents.md | The 1129–1130 halting of the “burning sickness” (mal des ardents, ergotism) in Paris, ascribed to a procession of Genevieve’s relics to the cathedral; the disease, the event, the feast instituted by Pope Innocent II, and the medieval cult; §3.5. |
| the-processions-of-the-chasse.md | The great processions of her reliquary shrine (châsse) through the centuries in times of crisis — flood, plague, drought, siege — and the ritual of appeal to the city’s patroness. |
See Also
- The Church of the Holy Apostles — the shrine and abbey from which the processions issued
- Mother of the City — the patronage the processions enacted
- The Relics and the Revolution — the destruction of the medieval relics in 1793
References
- Sluhovsky, Patroness of Paris: Rituals of Devotion in Early Modern France (Brill, 1998).
- On the mal des ardents: the medieval accounts of the 1129–1130 miracle and the feast of 26 November.