In the meantime, however, the relic cult had changed the face of Europe.

But any attempt to make a science of the relic cult is in vain.

Relic cults are a clear sign that the God of Christianity must not be loving, but angry and irrational.

The relic cult, as Freeman describes it, was a gradual evolution, begun in the darkest days of the persecution of Christians by the Roman Empire.

Kings carried them into battle: the power and excitement of the relic cult, and its direct influence on military success, was one reason why the barbarian leaders were prepared to embrace Christianity.

What are pilgrimage sites like Graceland in Memphis, with its Elvis memorabilia, or object-oriented devotional events like the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis auction at Sotheby's if not contemporary examples of a relic cult in action?

Churches or abbeys commonly made themselves the centre of some relic cult, writing vitae or lives listing the wonders of the saint and his or her bits, alive and dead, as brochures to impress the pilgrims so that more would come again next year.

The same is true of his treatment of the histories of the Crusades, the rise of the Byzantine Empire, the Italian city-states, the challenge of Protestantism that called for new emphasis on Christianity's "body of sacred texts" and not "the glamour of relic cults."