House-shaped shrine

House-shaped shrine (or church or tomb-shaped shrines)^[1] are early medieval portable metal reliquary formed in the shape of the roof of a rectangular building. They originate from both Ireland and Scotland and mostly date from the 8th or 9th centuries. Typical example consist of a wooden core covered with silver and copper alloy plates, and were built to hold relics of saints or martyrs from the early Church era;^[2] a number held corporeal remains when found in the modern period, presumably they were parts of the saint's body.^[3] Others, including the Breac Maodhóg, held manuscripts associated with the commemorated saint.^[4] Like many Insular shrines, they were heavily reworked and embellished in the centuries following their initial construction, often with metal adornments or figures influenced by Romanesque sculpture.^[5]

The format appears to have originated in Ireland, and was adapted in Scotland and Anglo-Saxon England, particularly Northumbria which had close artistic ties with Ireland.^[6] The format draws from Ancient Roman and contemporary continental influences, including for later examples, French Romanesque architecture.^[7] The type spread to Scandinavia during the 10th and 11th centuries during cultural exchanges following the —disastrous for Ireland— Viking invasion of Ireland.^[8][9] According to Fintan O'Toole "there [was not a] single moment of conversion, and there was probably a considerable overlap between those [vikings] who had gone native and those who kept to the old religion. Conversion, as the historian Donnchadh Ó Corráin put it, "must have come gradually, as an effect of assimilation."^[7]

Surviving Irish examples include the Emly shrine (found in County Limerick, dated to the late 7th–early 8th century, often considered the exemplary of the series),^[10][3] the two Lough Erne Shrines (9th century), Bologna Shrine (9th century), the Breac Maodhóg (11th century) and Saint Manchan's Shrine (12th century).^[11] Three fully intact examples have been found in Norway (the 'Copenhagen' or 'Ranvaik's Casket'),^[12] Melhus and Setnes shrines),^[13] one is in Scotland (the Monymusk Reliquary), one is in Wales (the shrine of St. Gwenfrewi at Gwytherin),^[14] and two are in Italy.^[10][15]