One of the most intriguing objects on display among the ‘sacred silver and stained glass’ at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London is a fifteenth-century object from northern Italy, believed to be a Jewish spice-box (Fig. I.1). Originally used, as we suppose, during the Havdalah ceremony that marks the end of the Sabbath, the spices within the container were blessed and the box was passed around for all to smell. This olfactory ritual marked the start of the new week. The V&A holds several examples of these distinctive tower-shaped containers but this one is unique in that it is topped with a cross and includes a remnant of red wax; the two unusual adaptations suggest that the container was later repurposed as a Christian reliquary. This radically transformed object with its elusive life history is redolent of the complexity of religious materialities in the early modern world.

Powerful currents of change swept across religious practices and beliefs in Europe and around the globe during the period 1400–1800. That these changes had material manifestations is a familiar idea. It is a commonplace that the Reformation prompted the destruction of religious images in northern Europe, while the Golden Temple at Amritsar was a product of the rise of Sikhism. The ‘material turn’ in historical studies has led us to question and even invert the model of causation that such narratives imply. Material objects – whether small and portable or the size of a temple or cathedral – have been accorded a more central and active role in accounts of religious change. The goal of this volume is to show how placing objects at the centre of our analysis changes our understanding of early modern religious history.

Bynum and the Study of Religious Materiality

Caroline Walker Bynum's 2011 monograph Christian Materiality– the inspiration and the starting point for this volume – suggests a three-point programme for studying religious material culture.

Firstly, materiality must be understood historically. Bynum insists on the importance of returning to ‘matter as medieval people confronted it’.2 This means excavating contemporary categories.