This week, Sister Rose and I spent some time at Saint-Sernin, a 900 year old Romanesque basilica, which is the largest in France. We even went down into the crypt. Which was cool mostly for the architecture. It feels really really old. Because it is. It's where they keep the relicts, although they've moved all the smaller stuff upstairs and the crypt just has the big caskets (in the sense of boxes) with bones in them. I guess. I don't really 'get' relicts. It kind of grosses me out to see two teeth from a saint, or a single vertebra displayed in a richly decorated box with glass sides. But.... à chacun son gout, I guess.
In the first picture notice that the casket is in the shape of the building, Saint-Sernin. It might be that those are the relicts of Saint-Sernin, himself. He was an early bishop named Saturnin (Sernin for short, I guess) who came to a bad end. I'll spare you the details.
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