Study Abroad Week 6: Aix-en-Provence and Sainte Roseline's body

So-called Atlanteans supporting the balcony of a house with a beautiful façade

Well.  I remember reading about incorruptible saints, and how common relics of saints were in Europe during the middle and dark ages.  The e-mail for this particular CEA excursion just said that we would be going to Aix-en-Provence, then to a vineyard and seeing the Chapelle Sainte-Roseline next to it, where Saint Roseline's bones were kept as relics.  It wasn't until we were leaving Aix to head to the vineyard that the program coordinator, Kristin, told us that we would be seeing her body, and that the reliquary held her eyes.

As French a meal as you can ask for, except for ordering a croque monsieur/madame

I've read a lot about the history of the Catholic church, so I tried to recall this saint as they gave her story. I could not until they mentioned that a miracle where bread held in her apron turned into rose, then I remembered her from my bulky encyclopedia of saints.  I remember thinking her body had been found preserved from the heavy organic material in the soil, but then thought I was mixing her up with Saint Bernadette or someone else, until Kristin mentioned that her body had been exhumed and found preserved some centuries after her death.  But then she mentioned the eyes.  When Rosaline was exhumed, her eyes were wide open and glassy, almost lifelike.  I do not know how much of that to believe, as whenever I read about incorruptible saints, it always says that their bodies are perfectly preserved and do not decay, looking almost asleep, leading you to envision a body as though freshly dead. But when I was older and had access to the internet I googled these incorruptible saints and they all look like Rosaline- merely mummified, much like the Iceman, bog bodies, or Ginger.  Their bodies are all quite well preserved, but always they are never "as though sleeping."  The most beautiful examples of incorruptible saints- Bernadette and Silvan- are all covered in wax to appear as though asleep, or their body parts are made of wax.  This is, again, much like preserved bodies in museums- they are either treated to remain in appearance the way they were with found, or represented in a way meant to show them as they appeared when alive.  Some books I read as a child do mention that the bodies are only very well-mummified, as the book I had on Saint Bernadette contained a lengthy section on how her body was found a mummy, and the lengthy process of keeping it routinely preserved and making the wax mask that covers her face and creates her hands.  It was fascinating, and a souvenir my aunt had brought me back from the site at Lourdes.  As far as I know, "incorruptibility" is just not used anymore, and Roseline wasn't on any list of so-called incorruptible saints, although she was on lists of preserved and/or naturally mummified saints (as were any "incorruptible" saints).

From left to right: Sainte Roseline's body, a plaque honouring Sainte Roseline's miracle of the flowers, and the eyes of St. Roseline within the mask in the reliquary 

For Rosaline, a doctor, wanting to keep her body preserved while it was on display, embalmed her body and coated her in a thin layer of beeswax- very thin, so her body could appear is it had when in the earth, nothing as extreme as the much later Saint Bernadette's. He removed her famous eyes and placed them in a reliquary, which, although I did peer into it, I could not bring myself to look at it for longer than a glance, and it was poorly lit, so I do not know how well-preserved her eyes actually are.  I'm going to assume they're something like the Gebelein man's ("Ginger," as linked above) "perfectly preserved" skin- dessicated but clearly retaining their owner's living appearance.  For Sainte Roseline, there is a prayer bench for the faithful, so you can pray while gazing into her long-dead eyes.  Nothing like gazing into mummified eyes to inspire spirituality, right?

From left to right: Barrels of wine, a figure swimming in the rain, and bottles of the Château Sainte-Roseline

After that we went back into the winery next to the chapel and walked around for a bit, had a lovely little wine tasting session (a follow-up of sorts to the CEA "Introduction to Wine Tasting" session we'd had previously), and I bought my parents a rosé wine as a souvenir, in the vineyard's characteristic lampe de méduse bottle. There's just something Provençal wines, particularly the rosés.

Au revoir!