Illustrated Dictionary of British Churches - Reliquary Definition

• Aisle
• Altar
• Ambulatory
• Angel Roof
• Apophyge
• Apse
• Arcade
• Arch
• Archivolt
• Base
• Battlement
• Bay
• Belfry
• Bell Tower
• Bellcote
• Bench End
• Board Bell Turret
• Body
• Boss
• Box pew
• Bracket
• Broach Spire
• Buttress
• Canopy
• Capital
• Cartouche
• Chancel
• Chancel Arch
• Chancel Screen
• Chantry
• Chapel
• Chapter House
• Choir
• Clerestory
• Cloister
• Communion Rail
• Compound Column
• Consecration Cross
• Corbel Head
• Crossing
• Crypt
• Early English
• Easter Sepulchre
• Effigy
• Fan Vaulting
• Font
• Font cover
• Funerary Helm
• Gallery
• Gargoyle
• Gothic
• Green Man
• Grotesque
• Hatchment
• Herringbone
• Hogback Tomb
• Holy Water Stoup
• Hunky Punk
• Jesse Window
• Kempe Window
• Lady Chapel
• Lancet
• Lectern
• Lierne
• Lych Gate
• Misericord
• Monumental Brass
• Mullion
• Nave
• Ogee
• Organ
• Parclose Screen
• Parish Chest
• Pendant
• Perpendicular Gothic
• Pew
• Pinnacle
• Piscina
• Poor Box
• Poppy Head
• Porch
• Priest's Door
• Pulpit
• Purbeck Marble
• Quire
• Rebus
• Reliquary
• Reredos
• Retable
• Romanesque
• Rood
• Rood Loft
• Rood screen
• Rood Stair
• Rose Window
• Round Tower
• Sanctuary
• Sanctuary Knocker
• Saxon Period
• Scratch Dial
• Sedilia
• Spire
• Statue Niche
• Stoup
• Tomb Recess
• Tracery
• Transept
• Triforium
• Tympanum
• Undercroft
• Vaulting
• Victorian Gothic
• Wall Monument
• Wall Painting
• Wheel Window

A container used to hold holy relics, usually of a saint. Generally only large churches, cathedrals, and monasteries would have such relics, and they would usually become popular pilgrimage destinations for people coming to pray to the saint in question. A reliquary could be practically any type of container, but were frequently ornately decorated chests of boxes, like the one on disply at St David's Cathedral in Wales. Many reliquaries were destroyed during the Reformation, and few that survived are on public display because they are so valuable.