In the late thirteenth and early fourteenth-century sources, there circulated several contradictory versions of the events which took place after the funeral at Fossanova. Their diversity reflects the different interests of various people and groups towards Thomas and his remains. In this chapter I shall focus on the questions of memory and practice in which Thomas's corpse, entombed in Fossanova, had a central role. The chapter covers approximately the years 1274-1350, when the corpse and tomb were at the Monastery. Within these years Thomas's body was relocated several times and it was also divided into pieces. Through these practices the monks promoted Thomas's position in the choir of monastic saints on the one hand, while enabling access to the tomb for laypeople on the other. Thomas's presence at Fossanova also enabled the use of the Saint's authority in internal matters as well as problems relating to foreign policy. My main purpose is to show how Thomas's body and individual bones were conserved, exposed, and handled, and how the situations in which they were used were remembered and interpreted by the monks themselves to be a part of Thomas's cult at Fossanova. At the same time, I examine the possibilities for other people, mainly laity and Dominican friars, to interact with Thomas's remains, and ask how they perceived the relic cult of Thomas while it was controlled by the Cistercians.

Hidden corpse, revealed sainthood

In the canonization hearings of Naples, when the interrogation shifted from Thomas's death to his posthumous life, the Cistercian eye-witnesses rediscovered their enthusiasm for describing the events at Fossanova. Nicolaus, the Abbot, as well as the monks Nicolaus de Fresolino and Octavianus de Babuco describe the relocation of Thomas's body as having occurred immediately after the funeral. Octavianus dates the transfer precisely describing how Thomas was entombed in front of the high altar of the church of the Monastery. According to him, the corpse lay there only one day. The next night, it was removed by some monks and entombed in the Chapel of Saint Stephen in the same Monastery. In other words, Thomas's corpse had hardly been laid to rest in the first tomb when it was again laid out in the open and transferred from the choir of the church to another place.