Prologue: the making of a martyr
How the Christian relic emerged
The incorruptible flesh of the martyrs
Creating a Christian landscape
The battle for acceptance
The view from Byzantium
Bishops, magic and relics in the post-Roman world
'A barbarous, fierce and unbelieving nation'
The great consolidator
Hope and desperation in a disordered world
Cults and the rise of anti-semitism
Fervent Christian pilgrims
'The eyes are fed with gold-bedecked reliquaries'
Looting the East
Louis IX and the Sainte-Chapelle
Sacred flesh between death and resurrection
'Christ's recruits ... fight back'
Protectors of il Popolo
The Virgin Mary and the penitent whore
The wondrous blood of Christ
Rescuers and devils
'Of far-off saints, hallowed in sundry lands'
'dead images that ... may not ... help any man of any disease'
Protestantism and the new iconoclasm
Intimations of reality
Reasserting the miraculous
Within the community of the supernatural.