From the eleventh century onward, this enigmatic object drew pilgrims from across Europe, who passed through Conques as they traversed the famed pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela in northern Spain.
The reliquary and its display
A millennium later, Conques still draws crowds of tourists each year, many of whom come for the same reasons as their medieval predecessors: to admire the reliquary of Sainte Foy. Today, however, visitors find the reliquary not in the church's apse, but rather in the adjacent treasury museum.
These radically different displays of the reliquary of Sainte Foy have significant implications for how viewers experience the object. Medieval viewers perceived the reliquary as an animate object in which Foy herself was literally present. Modern viewers, however, approach the object from a more analytical perspective, seeing it as an interesting but inert embodiment of long-past forms of spirituality.
Yet, while the day-to-day experience of the reliquary has changed significantly
