Sensing the Miracle, Experiencing the Resurrection. Embodied Devotional Practices at the Shrine of St Lazarus, Autun

Most pilgrims travelled primarily to engage with the shrines and relics of saints, venerating them by walking around, gazing at, touching, kissing, and even tasting and licking them. In this respect, the twelfth-century display of Lazarus’ relics in the Cathedral of Autun, Burgundy, went a step further. It involved a unique, immersive, and highly emotional religious experience. The sacred remains were spectacularly presented inside a church-like sepulchre into which the faithful could physically enter, descending three steps on their knees. After traversing a semi-dark corridor, illuminated only by candlelight or by the natural light filtering through the doorways, they exited in the same way on the opposite side of the mausoleum. This paper seeks to unravel the sensorial and ritual narrative of this pilgrimage experience, contending that the tomb was designed to stimulate pilgrims’ senses in several ways. Visually, upon entering the mausoleum, the faithful would have encountered a tableau vivant of limestone sculptures staging the Resurrection of Lazarus. Beyond sight, the act of descending into the tomb and crawling through it invited pilgrims to experience the miracle of resurrection - both Lazarus’s in historical times and the anticipation of their own in the present - through embodied participation. In doing so, the rite engaged not only sight and touch but the full range of perceptions that a body moving in an unknown environment might be subject to.