CORPI SANTI. — These are understood to be those bodies which were taken from ancient cemeteries and placed in veneration as the bodies of previously unknown martyrs. This practice already began in the 4th century, grew especially in the 9th century, and reached its greatest flourishing in the 17th and 18th centuries. It was encouraged by the incredible desire that the faithful had to possess relics of martyrs and nourished by the belief that the ancient Christian burial grounds, and especially the Roman catacombs, were essentially cemeteries of martyrs.
In the 4th and 5th centuries there is frequent mention of pious women, monks, or ecclesiastics who carried about and disseminated previously unknown relics of martyrs; and not a few discoveries of bodies of martyrs that occurred at that time, especially in Palestine, and of martyrs of the 1st century of Christianity, are not free from every suspicion and difficulty for the historian.
In the 9th century, through the activity of Charlemagne and the abbots of the principal monasteries of his Empire, an intense movement toward Rome arose in order to obtain there some bodies of the most famous Roman martyrs. But at times, instead of those, bodies of previously unknown martyrs departed from the City, or even the names were falsified in order to satisfy the desires of the interested parties. A deacon named Deusdona is known to have been certainly guilty of this sacrilegious traffic.
Toward the end of the 16th century the catacombs of Rome were rediscovered, and the first thing sought in them, during that fervor of the Counter-Reformation, was the bodies of martyrs which were believed to fill them. Some took possession indiscriminately of any corpse that presented itself; others sought some sign that they regarded as indicating martyrdom, such as the palm, the Constantinian monogram, ampulla (v.) believed to be full of blood, some phrase from the inscription, and so forth. In this way many licenses were obtained from the popes to extract from the catacombs, at one’s own discretion, bodies of previously unknown martyrs, or bodies loosely identified with the most famous Roman martyrs, and to distribute them among the various churches so that they might be venerated.
Following abuses and protests by many people, Pope Clement IX established a special Congregation to regulate this matter; by a decree of 10 April 1668, it determined that « palmam et vas illorum sanguine tinctum » found above the tombs of the deceased were to be regarded as sufficient signs of martyrdom. Immediately afterward the Pope established that henceforth the searching for and extraction of these bodies of martyrs, and their distribution, were to be carried out exclusively by the cardinal vicar and the papal sacristan.
In this way, for approximately two centuries, until the middle of the 19th century, countless sacred bodies were extracted from the catacombs of Rome and from other ancient burial grounds outside Rome (such as at Cagliari, Pompeii, and near Nancy), and placed in veneration as previously unknown martyrs, sometimes even anonymous ones but suitably rebaptized. The two aforementioned signs served principally as signs of martyrdom, but many others as well (such as the cross, the monogram, and so on), which had never been expressly rejected. Almost all the churches of Christendom possessed some, and certain churches, especially those belonging to princes or religious orders, had them in genuine abundance (cf. e.g., A. M. Zaccaria, Menologium sanctorum quorum reliquiae in Cremonensi PP. Societatis Iesu ecclesia adservantur, in the appendix to the Cremonensium episcoporum series, Milano 1749, pp. 190 ff., 239). At the beginning, in order to lend greater authority to such procedures, genuine forgeries were also created, especially inscriptions intended to authenticate the relics that were being circulated. A considerable number of these came from Abbot Giacomo Crescenzi of S. Equizio di Norcia.
Nevertheless, learned and prudent men were never lacking who condemned, or at least expressed reservations about, the manner in which the extractions and examinations of these sacred bodies were carried out. They included especially Papebroch, Mabillon, Di Costanzo, de Buck, Le Blant, and finally De Rossi. They succeeded in bringing that traffic to a practical end around the middle of the 19th century, when the Commissione di archeologia sacra was established to govern the catacombs, in which the voices of De Rossi and Fr. Marchi were always heard. Pius X had the sacred body of a woman named Fortissima, brought in the 18th century to the basilica of S. Marco, returned to the catacombs.
It may also be added that the same Sacred Congregation, even in past centuries, when historical studies had not yet made the progress they have achieved today, did not grant Office and Mass in honour of alleged saints not recorded in the Martyr. Romanum, whose identity and the authenticity of whose relics had not been established, even though it did not prohibit their veneration (cf. Decretum generale of 19 October 1691; for others: Decreta authentica Congregationis Sacrorum Rituum, I, Rome 1898, no. 1853).