Everyone knows the importance of relics for early medieval Christianity. But a relic is only valuable if it's identifiable, otherwise it's just a fragment of bone, cloth or stone. In other words, every relic needs a relic label!

In this episode, Michaela Selway talks to Ana de Oliveira Dias about her new EME article on the remarkable early medieval relic labels from the convent at Chelles, and the nuns who carefully wrote them out in the late eighth century. What insights can the close study of these labels reveal?

Ana's article, "Relics, writing, and devotion in early medieval Chelles", is available open access at https://doi.org/10.1111/emed.70050

Access podcast recording here